Reaper Academy: Book One

Chapter Nineteen: PLEASE REVIEW

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Thump

Where am I?

Thump

What is that noise?

Thump

An image flashed before Articus. It was the ceiling of a large structure. Perfectly shaped white squared stone shot forward toward the heavens, forming a slow arc. It was pretty.

Why does this look so familiar?

A frantic looking black haired woman with startling blue eyes looked down at him. He was lying on his back. Now that he thought about it, he could feel hands all around him. Articus couldn’t place the name of the woman but she looked familiar. And pretty, and he said so aloud. She smiled, but the worry was still there. Her lips moved but nothing came out.

Thump

Articus was looking up at a different ceiling now and this time a black robed man was in his view. Shadows kept Articus from seeing the man’s face and a green glow surrounded him like a mystic armor. It terrified the s*** out of Articus.

“Are you the Soul Taker?” Articus whispered.

“No my son. Not today. Rest.”

Thump.

Thump.

Somehow his head had been tilted to the side. He saw a redheaded woman in a robe as white as snow, kneeling beside his bed, her head bowed in prayer.

Is she crying?

“Don’t cry,” Articus murmured. When the beautiful woman looked up, blurry eyes as green as emeralds, he felt himself drift back into blackness.

Thump

Thump

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” A woman said stubbornly.

“Like hell you are,” said a stronger, deeper voice. Obviously male.

“It’s fine, General Briar. We can talk to Articus later,” another woman said.

Thump

Articus opened his eyes to see Mia feeding him some type of rice cake. Mia, that’s her name. Wait, of course that’s her name.

He chewed slowly and she forced him to take a drink of water. “Rest now Master. You still aren’t strong enough. I will watch over you.”

Articus was just getting to his senses when he dozed off again.

Thump

“How is he?” Nina. It was faint and hushed. From the ceiling, Articus could tell it was close to sunset. Or sunrise.

“I don’t understand it myself, but he is almost fully healed. Another day and he should be ready for your sparring.” Celia said from somewhere near the door, probably in the sitting room.

“He is strong,” Mia said. Articus could almost see her smiling. “And stubborn.”

“Yes he is,” Nina agreed, also a hint of a smile to her voice.

“You call me stubborn?” Articus croaked incredulously, his voice gone hoarse sometime since his last awakening.

Has it been three days, or four?

A rustle of feet and a rush of air hit his face as three shadows arched over him. Articus couldn’t turn his head to look at them. A wave of tiredness hit him and he gave out a low curse as blackness took over him.

Thump

Thump

Articus opened his eyes to see sunlight seeping into his room.

Morning.

He felt more awake this time and, after flexing his leg muscles and arms, he felt he could get up. And then the wan turned into a need when he realized he hated being a sickbed.

The moment he tried to move, however, he stopped. Someone’s head was nestled inside his shoulder and, when he looked down, he saw red hair fanned out over his triceps. Mia was curled up into him, her face toward his. She had a dreamy smile. Asleep.

As Articus peeled the covers back, he hurriedly pulled them back up to his chin. Bloody hell. Why can’t the woman at least sleep in her small clothes?

Articus’s heart started beating a little faster as he debated on moving from his position. Mia, thank the Gods, decided it for him as she rolled away, murmuring something inaudible--even to his ears--and pulled the covers away from him. Blessedly, she kept herself covered.

“Crazy woman,” Articus muttered as he rolled out of bed.

He walked to his full size mirror and looked at himself. Articus looked as if he had a weeks worth of rest--which he might just have. Inspecting himself in the mirror, Articus was surprised to find that there wasn’t any trace of where he’d been stabbed. No scar, no soreness, nothing. What really boggled Articus’s mind was some of his older scars were fading away.

Extending his hearing out, Articus tested his limits. Before he left on the mission, he could hear anyone entering the common room and, as he tested that limit, he found he could hear wood striking wood and the rustle of feet on grass. It was well beyond the Ring he knew.

Holy s***. Another Awakening. Must have happened while I slept.

Looking at the mirror, he glared at the haggard looking man. “Who the hell are you?”

And then he felt it. Like something that had been out of his reach before--something he had never known was out of reach until now. Is that… Is that my spirit?

Excitement filled him. He tried to calm his breathing but he couldn’t. The feeling was like an… awareness or sorts, something new and alien. He reached out for it but fumbled. Crestfallen, Articus reached for it again but it slipped through his metaphoric fingers. He felt like he was trying to move his ears without his fingers, or an unused muscle somewhere inside his chest.

Trying again, he found his fingers grip something. Like the ledge of a wall, he could just get his finger tips on it before he fell. Looking at himself in the mirror, he cursed.

“Come on Articus.”

Fortifying his will, he closed his eyes and tried once again. This time, he threw everything he had into grabbing whatever was there and was instantly rewarded. Joy filled him as he was filled with… with life. It was the only word he could describe it as. Opening his eyes, he looked over his shoulder at Mia still sleeping soundly. He debated on waking her up but thought better of it. Turning back to the mirror, he wondered what he should do with it. And then he blinked.

What the…

There was no one in the mirror. His reflection was gone. Articus started to rub his eyes but stopped. Looking at his hands, he found they were blacker then the cloudiest, moonless night he had ever witnessed.

Articus did what any respectable guy would do. He screamed.

That was when he was forcibly pushed against the mirror and all hell broke loose. The mirror cracked under his weight and, from the splintered reflections, Articus saw himself reappear with a thin blade--a Darkling’s thin blade, he realized in horror--pressed up against his throat. There wasn’t a hand attached to its handle.

s***!

He could have laughed if he had been in the mood for it. After so many days of recuperating from his attack against the Darklings, he was going to die naked, three paces from his bed.

“What are you doing?” Mia hissed. Articus’s eyes crawled up to the corner of the mirror where there were still a few shards left. She was sitting up in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. Articus knew she couldn’t see that attacker and that they were both as good as dead. So he decided to go out with a sarcastic laugh.

“I’m committing suicide. What the hell does it look like?”

Articus felt his stomach give out as he realized she hadn’t been speaking to him.

Oh no. Not her. Oh Gods, not her.

The look Articus gave her said as much, and she gave an involuntary step back.

“Weryn, release him.”

His attacker hesitated. “I can’t do that. He is one of us.” The voice was deep and calm. It came from behind him, just where Articus would have thought his attacker’s head would be.

“One of us?” Both Mia and Articus asked as one.

“Shut up!” Weryn said, pushing Articus harder into the mirror and the blade sliced into the side of his neck, enough to draw a little blood. Articus tested he attacker’s hold on him. He soon found that his hands were immobilized. Weryn knew what he was doing. “He is a Hunter.”

“He…He is?” Mia asked, blinking. She was uncertain what to do.

Articus couldn’t say anything that would change his fate. Technically all the Darkling had to do was cut his throat and walk away. Invisibility had that flexibility. And Mia… well Mia could play innocent.

“You must be mistaken,” Mia exasperated, denial clearly in her voice.

“Listen, I know you like him and while I don’t know how in the seven hells he got in league with them, we can’t let him fall into their hands. We can’t.”

“Will someone tell me what is--” Articus stopped in mid sentence when Nina waltzed in. She had gotten good at her own personal sound ward, a trick that hides a Reaper’s heartbeat and footsteps from another Reaper’s hearing. She’d been trying to catch him off guard the day she had learned the ploy from Vinna.

Nina stopped in her tracks and look from Articus to Mia.

“Maybe I should leave…” Nina said slowly as she started to turn.

“It’s okay Nina,” Articus said before his brain screamed otherwise. He gasped as the blade dug deeper into his neck, causing a trickle of blood to flow down his chest. The knife had been on the other side of Nina and it was only when the blood started rolling that she noticed it.

Nina instantly had her blade out and her hand was raised toward Articus, uncertain.

“Stop,” Mia said coolly. Articus looked into the mirror again but this time he didn’t see a slave. Mia was… different. It was a combination of subtle things, the straightening of her posture, the air of confidence, the predatory glance. Clearly she wasn’t the same woman as the meek Mia he knew. The woman that stood before him was dangerous and, worse, she knew it.

Nina saw all of this as well and cautiously included Mia in her defensive stance, her confidence faltering.

“Weryn, release him. That is an order.”

The man who held him hesitated for only a second before releasing him. Articus stayed perfectly still until he was sure the man wasn’t going to surprise him again. Although Articus couldn’t see him with his physical eyes, he was starting to make out the man’s form through his other eyes.

Looking him right where Articus would have guess to be his eyes, he said, “Show your self.”

The man turned to Mia and Mia nodded. The air around him rippled and a Caprian man appeared. Nina gasped.

Catching Mia’s eye, an unsaid truce was made.

“Nina, close the door and ward us from any unwanted ears.”

“But-“

“Do it.”

She looked uncertainly from him, to Weryn, and then to Mia. The later could have boiled water. Nina was pissed. Disappearing for only a second, she went to the door and shut it. Articus felt a tightly controlled wall of energy form all around Articus’s bedroom as she came back from the waiting room.

“You have my attention.” Articus said coldly as he wiped the blood from his chest with an old shirt. The cut on his neck was already healed. Bloody fourth Awakening.

Weryn gave Mia a warning look but she ignored him. Instead, she kept her unsettling green eyes on Articus, pointedly ignoring Nina completely.

“There is no such thing as Darklings.”

It was a simple enough sentence but Articus couldn’t grasp the meaning. He mentally felt sluggish.

“Explain.”

Making sure Nina hadn’t moved, Mia sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I believe Celia had told you about the plague that tried to wipe out Reapers?” When Articus nodded she said, “That was actually the mages’ work. Reapers weren’t made because of Darklings but because mages get weak after using their power, even the strongest of them. We were their guardians and companions but were growing in numbers far greater than theirs. Reapers back then could pass on their powers to the offspring, unlike mages. In their eyes, we were a herd of deer that needed to be thinned. They poisoned our waters in a selected few cities that would maximize their attack.” Her voice took on the same sadness as Celia’s had. “No one knew they were poisoned until after hundreds of newborn babies came out stillborn. Putting two and two together… When we found out about it, we went to war.”

“The Darkling war,” Nina gasped.

“Yes,” Mia said with a sigh. “We went to war and we were winning even with our numbers thinned. Then the mages made Hunters. Stronger in spirit, they could bend the light around them, hiding themselves completely. They also had an anti-energy shield infused into their body. When a Reaper lashed out against us, the energy would fall away.”

“And you can sense how strong someone is,” Articus whispered.

Mia looked at Articus with a frown and then at Weryn who nodded. “Yes. We can’t manipulate the energy forces around us but we can manipulate our spirit. Since you can double your spirit by manipulating the same amount around you, we were made stronger in spirit than them. Of course, when the Reapers started dying mysteriously, they sought shelter.”

Shaking her head, Mia said, “But they had no chance. After a whole year of serving under the mages, the Hunters wanted their own lives as the Reapers had. The Reapers were in hiding, close to extinction, and the mages had clearly won. That was when the tide turned. The mages tried to do the same thing they had done to the Reapers with the Hunters. The Hunters had become too powerful for their taste. But the Hunters had learned the mage’s greatest vice: Betrayal. That was when the Hunters and Reapers teamed up.”

Articus whistled. If the story was true, there shouldn’t have been any mages left. When he said as much, she shook her head. “Massive war broke out across all the lands just before we could launch our main assault against them.”

“The War of Thrones,” Nina commented.

“Yes. And that was when a temporary allegiance was made. Most of the Reapers who had been poisoned went back to the mages, in hopes of getting a cure from them. The majority of us went back into hiding in attempt to start a new life. It wasn’t but seven hundred years ago that the mage’s got the new generation of Reaper’s to poach us ‘rebels’. Over time they let it slip that there had been a Darkling war, changing history before our eyes.”

“If you live that long enough, you could change history,” Articus thought aloud. Thinking back at the conversation with the four Darklings he had killed, Articus said, “Lets assume I believe your story. Why are you here?”

This time it was Weryn who spoke. “We were assigned to watch over the Head Mistress. She is one of the key people who knows of us and are pushing for our extension. Recently, about a year ago, we received some intelligence that there was a massive strike against us that was being set into motion.”

“We? How many of you are here?”

Again, Weryn looked at Mia for permission and she nodded. “Four of us total.”

“Then that was your work on the recent attacks against the Fourth Triangle?”

Mia blinked. “How did you know…”

Nina, too, looked at Articus. Waving his hand he said, “No matter. What do you know right now?”

“Mia…” Weryn warned.

“What?” Mia demanded.

“He killed at least three of our men, and that’s the number we know of. You trust this guy? Cause I don’t. In fact, I don’t see why we don’t kill him right here.”

Nina made a warning sound and Articus shot her a glare before things got out of hand.

“I trust him completely,” Mia said coolly. “And if you don’t like my decision… Your fealty to me is meaningless.”

Articus caught Nina’s eye, she was as surprised as he was.

Fealty? That’s a word Lords and Kings use. Hells bells. My slave is a bloody Lady.

“I apologize,” he said stiffly. “I just--it’s not right.”

“No, it isn’t all right,” Mia agreed. “But that’s what we are here to fix.” Turning to Articus she said, “All we know of is a major attack that is happening soon. Days not weeks. The Fourth Triangle is in the middle of it all. We know of at least twenty Reapers that are in the Triangle. We think it might have something to do with Lady Tyrn. The only other thing we know is that someone high up is feeding the Triangle insider information from a political standpoint.”

Articus closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

If what she is saying is true… As if offering a solution, Nina said, “Remember that old Reaper we thought was drunk at the Pier?”

“’All lies’,” Articus immediately quoted. It was the deciding factor for him. He would trust Mia. Nina nodded to the unsaid question.

That’s a hell of a lot better then being half Darkling, eh?

Ahh, my old friend is back.

You know you are talking to your self, right?

Articus smartly stopped talking to himself.

“You have our support,” Articus said to the two Darklings, rebels, Hunters, whatever-the-hell-you-call-them.

And then it clicked.

“s***.”

All three pairs of eyes turned to him.

“They are hitting the Summit.”