The Reaper's Curse #1 - Complete

Breaking

Blood drips from her lips, staining the loose, white shirt she wears. She spits before she lifts her head, meeting the cold gaze of the soldier before her. He has awful facial hair, patchy over his blemished skin.

"I have far better things I could be doing," the duke sighs, leaning against the barrels of wine with his arms crossed over his chest. The cellar is damp and cold, water a constant drip on her bare shoulder where her shirt has slipped.

"Don't we all?" Alicia mutters, her tongue heavy in her mouth. She must have bitten it when the man before her hit her last.

The duke rubs at the bridge of his nose, his shoulders tense. "All you need to do is tell us where the other exiles are, Alicia, and then you can go."

Alicia laughs again and shakes her head even though the movement makes her sight sway and her fingers tingle. "As I've said, there's no one else but me in the capital, nor do I believe you have any intention of letting me live after this whole ordeal. You're the type of man that doesn't like loose ends, and I've always been one. Isn't that why you tried to have me buried?"

"I believe we've known each other long enough to not lie to one another's face." He moves towards her, the soldier stepping out of his way, washing his bloody fists in a bucket of water. Alicia watches the duke as he kneels before the chair she's tied to, green eyes eerie in the low light of the cellar.

Her mother's cellar.

She'd nearly vomited then they stopped outside of her mother's hilltop mansion, just the proof that Nathalia has indeed betrayed her made her knees weak. After everything she had done for the woman, Alicia had never expected this.

"You have no idea what you're dealing with. Let me save Muovea before you destroy it."

"Does always pretending to be the hero get exhausting?" Alicia leans forward. "Or am I mistaken that it was you who unleashed the Reaper's Curse upon us all?"

The smile he gives her is cruel and cold. "You have it all worked out, don't you? I don't suppose you have any evidence to back up your claims against me?"

Alicia keeps her bloodied lips shut.

"Tell me where Sam is and maybe I can undo what you've done. I know you've taken the Ghuls."

"Then you know there's no stopping us."

The duke stands with a sigh, glancing at the bearded man. "Bring her in."

Alicia can do nothing but sit and twist at the ropes around her wrists, the skin red and raw, her ankles no different.

Alicia isn't even surprised when her ma walks into the cellar, clearly having waited her turn to interrogate the prisoner. Alicia stares at her, trying to understand why she did what she did. Now and before.

"Alicia, the duke is trying to save Muovea. Tell him what he needs to know."

"I don't know anything," Alicia says, her voice hollow even to her own ears.

"Just tell us." Nathalia moves towards her, the various layers of her silks sliding along the cold stone floor. They brush against Alicia's bare feet as she stands close enough that Alicia can smell the expensive perfume on her skin. "All of this will be over if you just tell us the truth so we can help."

Alicia leans forward to bring their faces closer, looking into the black eyes that none of them inherited. "Help? You mean like you helped me in the slums when I bled and killed for you?" The slap echoes in the cold room, Alicia's face whipping to the side, her cheek burning.

"I was the one who stitched you up, who bribed people's silence. I saved your life, and this is how you repay me?" The venom in her tone should affect Alicia, should take her back to freezing nights in the slums when all she had was her mother's scorn to keep her warm. But it doesn't do that. Instead Alicia faces her mother, faces her betrayal and judgement, with a steady gaze and a raging heart.

"You repaid my sacrifices by trying to have me executed four months ago."

Nathalia straightens, stepping back, her glare flaying Alicia alive. "You destroyed this family, Alicia. You killed your father, divided your brothers, and now you've taken our futures. Everything I've done, I've done trying to fix what you wrought."

Those words are a punch to the gut, sending her straight back to the moments she's tried desperately to forget, to run from. "I didn't mean for any of that to happen," Alicia whispers, her voice beginning to tremble. Bile rises in Alicia's stomach as she remembers every horrid detail. The blood, the pain, the carnage she left behind when she exiled herself. Her mother had to pick up the pieces.

"Well, now you'll never get to see your father again." Nathalia grabs Alicia's face, her fingers digging into her bloody cheeks, drawing her gaze to her own. "Because your father is in the Light and you will never be worthy of going there." She shoves Alicia's face away, straightening with all the dignity she can muster before facing the grand duke.

Alicia's heart shreds into ribbons, her world becoming bleak tones all around her. "Ma."

She can't break. She won't break.

She's breaking.

All she wanted was her family back. She never truly anticipated losing them forever.

"I've had enough of her. Do with her as you please." Nathalia leaves the cellar with those parting words.

The duke inclines his head as he watches her go. "Seems you've made quite a mess of things, Alicia," he muses before he pulls out a pocket-watch and lets out a breath. "But your silence matters little. We're interrogating another as we speak." Closing the watch, Sergey looks at her with a knowing glint in his gaze. "Unlike you, Oliver Narovich does have a family loyal to him. He'll break when I put them under the knife."

"No," Alicia gasps as the duke turns away. Dread pools in her stomach like a rising tide.

Oliver's family is the reason he let himself die, the reason he went into the grand duke's service. Alicia can't be the one to take them from him. She can't destroy his family like he's already destroyed her own.

"Wait, please," she begs, yanking against her restraints.

The duke turns to her, a brow raised. "Yes?"

"Let him go." Her features twist as she imagines the torture Oliver is enduring. He shouldn't have revealed himself. He shouldn't have come for her. "Please, don't hurt him or his family."

"Tell me what I want to know and I'll ask the Ronavics to stay their hand."

The tide of dread begins to drown her. The Ronavics. Gods, the Ronavics. She's ran into them enough times to know that they like to keep their cellar's bloody and their blades wicked.

"Sam. Sam and the others, that's what you want to know?"

"Yes."

She chokes on her breath, on the words that bubble in her mouth. Her entire body trembles and revolts against giving them up, but Oliver...

As she squeezes her eyes shut, she sees the pictures of his that she took from the Commons, the happy smiles he shared with his siblings. Alicia knows what it's like to lose all of that. She can't give him that same pain.

Alicia watches the duke with an overwhelming sense of desperation sinking into her bones.

People do horrid things when they're desperate.

In the end, Alicia isn't a hero, isn't a rebel, or a saviour, or a queen. She's still just a girl born in the slums trying to save those she loves.

She tells him everything.