The Reaper's Curse #1 - Complete

Mercy with the Reaper

Watching the steam curl from her cup, Alicia is alone once again, her ghosts pressing against her shoulder-blades, trying to garner her attention. She refuses to give in, not on this day.

Today she leaves it all behind. Today she travels to the Costa mill to bury the last pieces of her past and forget her war against the grand duke. As a noble woman, the duke was untouchable. It took her pa dying to make her realise that. But as an exile, there's not even a sliver of hope.

She's done sacrificing.

"Is the tea not to your liking?"

Alicia starts at the voice and twists around in her chair to see Oliver leaning against the door-frame leading into the dining room. He slings a fine, deep blue blazer over his shoulder, inspecting her.

Alicia's fingers tighten around the porcelain cup. "It's fine. Thank you." Lowering her gaze, Alicia turns away from him, not wanting to draw more of his attention.

What they endured together in those tunnels shouldn't be talked about. But beyond that, she doesn't know this man and he doesn't know her. She doesn't know what happened to him after the grand duke forced him into his service, and he doesn't know what she endured in the war to make her family's name mean something.

It's better if they stay strangers.

"Nervous?" he questions, moving further into the room to grab an apple from the basket on the kitchen counter.

"Should I be?"

"Going back out there is no simple thing."

"I was out there for two months." She traces her fingers along the dust on the table, creating patterns as she tries not to think about who was with her for those two months, who she'll never see again.

"Are you prepared to do what's necessary?" he asks.

Glancing at him, Alicia feels his words more than she wants to as she recalls their conversation from the night before. It was her inability to survive out here that got Kathryn killed, her unwillingness to do every terrible thing she once did.

She can't. Not anymore.

"Is this your home?" she questions, knowing if she tries to answer him she'll have to lie.

"It is."

"I can leave, find other arrangements."

"You're fine here."

Alicia nods, not putting up much more of an argument. It's quiet here, and she doesn't mind the smell of dust. "And this is your coat?" she continues, touching the thick wool around her shoulders.

He gives a curt nod.

"Would you like it back?"

Oliver approaches the door, shrugging into his blazer. "Keep it," is all he says before his retreating footsteps take him out the front door.

Alone again, Alicia decides it's time she gets ready for her journey beyond the walls into the aptly named Dead Lands.

She still remembers the days when she and her family would take a cart beyond the capital to Kathryn's farm where their horses lived. The upkeep of those horses is what kept them in the slums, but her pa always promised their fortunes could be found in such animals. He wasn't wrong, but it turns out there were a lot more steps involved in order to gain those riches and Alicia is the one who took them.

Every mistake she made led to her being here, and dwelling on it isn't going to change the fact that she left everything behind. That she chose to leave everything behind.