Soul of the Crow: An Epic Dark Fantasy (Reapers of Veltuur Book 1)

the room, I press against the wall farthest from the busy plaza, trying to blend in with the few shadows in the room. I walk past the hand-carved stone statue of a dancer draped in coins, paying little to no attention to her cultural attire since I’ve seen it many times before, but I do stop at the statue of an archer. Though fake, the tip of his arrow still looks sharp enough to kill, and I wonder what he might’ve been aiming for, if not to take a life, which most living mortals avoid at all costs.
After passing a few more ornate carvings, I finally make my way to a door that leads me into a long hallway with multiple turns at each end.
Instead of wandering aimlessly, I focus instead on the call of the soul I’ve been sent to claim. It’s not an actual voice telling me where to go, but I feel it like a tug at my chest, a small thread meant to guide me to where I need to go.
This thread is faint though, like it’s barely even there, like it is farther away than Veltuur itself.
I peer over at Crow on my shoulder, tempted to ask it if it even tried to put us near this time, but instead I just roll my eyes and resume our search. The palace can’t be that big, and I’m sure the longer we explore, the stronger the pull will grow.
I have never been more wrong.
The palace stretches on, room after room, twisting and turning into a knot of lavishly adorned corridors and chambers and wings and courtyards. There are people in every one of them, populating every inch of the palace. Some are so busy—like the ones I find in the kitchen—that they don’t even notice me, at least not until their colleagues do. Then it’s the same wide-eyed looks of terror that I get wherever I go.
I back out of the kitchen before anyone can scream and turn down the opposite hallway. I recognize the columns, the trees. I see the room with the arching, open windows across the way that I arrived in, and realize that I have managed to walk myself nearly in a circle because I am in the very courtyard that I was trying to avoid.
With a growl, I march under the covered path, keeping the courtyard at a distance, but I still encounter more servants no matter what I do. Some of them knock each other over just to get as far away from me as possible, and my impatience starts to reverberate through my every step. This is taking too long. No matter how far I go, no matter which direction I turn, the call still seems just as faint as it did when we arrived.
I’m not sure what to think of it. This has never happened to me before. Reapers are bound to their mortals. We are supposed to be able to find them no matter where we go. So, it’s troubling, to say the least, that I’m walking in circles unable to find the last soul I’m meant to claim as a Reaper.
But when I throw myself through the first doorway, leaving the courtyard behind me, just before I’m about to ask Crow to faze us again and hope that this time it gets us closer, there’s a tug.
I follow it through another passage that leads to yet another large room decorated in curtains and gold. A tapestry hangs from every wall but one, each embroidered piece of fabric depicting one of the eight Divine Altúyur. The deeper I go into the room, the more I fall under each of their gazes. I feel their eyes pressing in on me like hot iron, and I am quick to bolt out the nearest exit.
A single guard stands across from me, an unsharpened spear at his side.
The pull in my chest grows stronger still, but I know I have not been sent for him, but for a girl instead. I take the last few steps forward, noticing the glass door behind him.
I stare up at the guard, his dark eyes not giving much away about him, but he does stare back, unwavering, and that is a first for any of the mortals I’ve dealt with.
“Have you come for me?” he asks. There is no fear in his deep voice, just a simple question, a desire to know the truth before he meets what he expects to be his demise.
It’s not every day someone asks me that question. Typically, if someone knows they’re about to die, they run or plea for their life. They don’t meet me head-on. But he is not my intended target, so perhaps he just senses that he has nothing to fear. But then, why ask? What has he done that makes him think a Reaper has been sent for him?
The call tugs at me again, reminding me that I need to go through the glass doors behind him.
“No, not today,” I answer. “You’d know if it was your time. They always know.”
I move forward, intending to push past him, but to my surprise, he plants himself farther into my path. Though he’s covered in armor that I’m sure would protect him, it’s so rare that a mortal willingly puts themselves in front of me that it actually stops me in my tracks.
“I’m not allowed to let you enter.”
My teeth grind. “You do not tell me where I can and cannot go. I am a Reaper. I take my orders from Veltuur, not the likes of you.”
He nods slowly, glancing down the hallways like he agrees with me, but remaining where he stands. His beard almost completely conceals his frown. “And I take my orders from my king. The garden is forbidden. No one—not even a Reaper—will enter on my watch.”
Crow pokes its beak out with a squawk, but the man does not flinch.
My scowl deepens, my teeth grinding against one another. “It is a Reaper’s duty