The Reaper's Curse #1 - Complete

Soft and Weak

She's going to vomit. No matter how many times she swallows or sucks in a deep breath of the stifling air in the ballroom, she can't seem to banish the feeling that she's going to vomit.

Watching the people around her, Alicia makes certain her distress doesn't show on her face. She stands like the stone statues that litter her ma's sprawling gardens at her mansion, features unshifting, blinking slow, measured blinks, wary of any sort of glint of panic that could shine within her eyes.

She knows her tells. She makes certain her teeth don't gnaw at the inside of her cheek. She keeps one hand folded over the other before her so she doesn't pick at the long since healed calluses on her palms.

All she has to do is pretend to be unaffected. It was easier when her life wasn't unraveling like a ball of yarn tumbling down a staircase.

"What do you see, Alicia?"

Nearly choking on the fear that claws its way up her throat, it takes all of her willpower not to tense and scamper away from the grand duke who towers beside her, having approached her without her realising as she focuses too heavily on herself. "Many beautiful dresses," she replies, her tone measured, her voice as smooth as honey.

The duke looks down at her, his gaze making her skin prickle. "You have the eyes of a hawk, don't insult me by pretending otherwise."

Forcing a chuckle to spill from her lips, Alicia smiles up at the grand duke even though it feels like a serrated blade has been slipped between her ribs and is slowly being dragged out, catching on flesh and bone as it does, nearly taking her breath with it.

All she can think about while looking at him is the queen's last words to her and the black veins that inched along her skin.

"I wish it were so, but no, I was merely lost in my thoughts."

Everyone in this room likes to feel superior, likes to feel as though they're the smartest amongst the crowd. Alicia hasn't met many people that are truly intelligent, just manipulative. But she knows the grand duke isn't an ordinary vulture.

Sergey Volkov isn't someone Alicia wants looking too closely at her lest he see through the cracks in her mask. They get wider each day she's here.

"Where's the queen?"

"I believe she retired for the night with a headache," Alicia replies without missing a beat. Hesitation will kill her, or worse; leave her an exile.

They both know she's lying through her teeth, but in front of all these people he can't do anything about it. The grand duke may be the second most powerful man in Muovea, but even he must tread carefully lest he ignite a powder keg already waiting to blow.

He knows she knows what he did, but he also knows she has no way to prove it. She's not a threat to him. At least, not in the way he thinks she could be.

"I hope she gets well." The smugness in his deep voice nearly sends Alicia reeling back.

She meets his forest green eyes and doesn't cower beneath his stare. He doesn't know she was in the tunnel that day. He doesn't know she knows about the Ghuls that are in those tunnels or his deals with the Ronavics. He doesn't know that she's very aware of the type of monster he is.

He also doesn't know the things she's done, the monster that she is.

"I assure you, Grand Duke, the Queen of Muovea will survive."

A twitch in his lip reassures her that he knows exactly what she's referring to. Alicia may have raged against her betrothal to Sebastian, dreaded it, but the crown will fall into her lap, whether she wants it or not, whether the duke wants it to or not.