15

Rude Awakening

LILLI

Thunk!

The steel pole beside my seat quivered when I rapped my forehead against its cool surface.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

My stomach groaned, dragging down my shoulders and pushing a pained grimace out my throat.

I was going to starve if I didn’t eat soon. But I couldn’t afford the train’s services any more. When was this blasted ride going to end? It’d been hours since we left the last station!

Thunk!

I surely looked like a madwoman, hitting my head on a pole in the middle of the compartment, but I needed a distraction from my hollow stomach.

The train echoed through the tunnels of the station, and I clutched the glittering amulet dangling from my neck, sighing. I turned to the window across from me and saw my solemn face staring back. Powdered strands of grey hair curled out my cloak’s hood, my onyx eyes bloodshot as the small black bird was perched on my shoulder, resting.

What was worse, that marked the second town, yet still no luck.

After Timberail, I’d traveled to the city of Mimeir and was now headed to Adrial toward the west. Xavier had to be here in Everland somewhere. The Neverland continent had already been searched by many others, so he couldn’t have been there. I would turn this continent inside-out, if I had to.

I glanced around the rest of the compartment. I was running so low on money that I couldn’t afford a first-class ticket, let alone food. I was the only noble in here. It felt odd to travel in a lower-class compartment. With my fine clothing and jewelry, I felt incredibly out of place. Perhaps I should have invested in something less conspicuous?

Looking at Jewel on my shoulder, I raised a finger to the small black bird and stroked her feathers to help comfort myself—then I stiffened when my sleeve dropped down to show my wrist.

The back of my hand was shedding and, horrified, I quickly pulled the sleeve back over it so I didn’t have to look. I’d gone without my cloak for half an hour yesterday and discovered something the Landish shifters called a ‘sunburn’.

Bloody sun! Who knew it was such a menace? It was much too glaring and just looking up at the sky would have my eyes watering. And now I find out that it burns your skin if exposed too long? Horrible! Just horrible.

“Is that her?” A whispering woman caught my attention. She sat a few seats down from me in the same row, murmuring to a man beside her. I assumed they were married, since wedding-vines dangled from the woman’s hair. It connected at her forehead with two white jewels, and a third diamond droplet hung from their connecting links.

“It has to be,” the man agreed. To match the woman’s wedding-vines, this man wore a gold ring around his left, fourth finger and had a small diamond earring pierced to his left ear—which meant he was, indeed, this woman’s husband. I only flicked my eyes at them briefly before glancing the other way, hoping they didn’t catch me staring back.

“We don’t have cloaks like that up here,” the husband said. “Such a long hood, and a dreary dress… And look at her hair. It’s grey.”

“Is there a problem with my hair color?” I snapped, my fox ears sprouting. “It’s rude to whisper things about someone sitting right in front of you.”

“Oh!—er, sorry, Howless!” The husband bowed his head, his face red. “We meant no disrespect, we were just surprised…! Landish shifters don’t have grey hair unless they’re old.”

He cringed when I shot him a deadly glare, annoyance flooding. Why was everyone calling me old?

“But-but you look really young!” the woman amended hastily, bowing also. “And we heard about the Fera attack earlier this afternoon in Mimeir. They said a young Grim girl killed them all by herself. It was on the news.”

“And you assumed this was me?” Death. If I was talked about already, word may spread to Grim that I was here. I couldn’t have that.

The man hesitated. “Well, you are a Grimlette, aren’t you?”

“Clearly,” I muttered.

“And you have a Death mark there.” He gestured to the white Death mark below my right collarbone. “So, if anyone could have killed them, I’d put my Mel on you.”

I felt as though he’d given me a bit too much credit. “If anyone has the right weapon, they’ll have just as good a chance,” I said.

“Against twenty of them?”

I remembered the attack: the Fera had appeared as I was coming out of the library. I thought it was unusual to see such a large pack, especially during daylight. Demons were usually nocturnal. I will admit, they gave me more trouble than my first tussle, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. “There were twenty-two,” I corrected.

The woman’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know Reapers could be so young.”

“I’m actually an apprentice.” I suppose there was no point in denying it.

“Apprentice?” She echoed. “Shouldn’t you have a master, then?”

“I do. He’s back in Grim. I’m simply away for a short time.”

“All by yourself?”

“I am fully capable of taking care of myself, thank you.”

She gave a light laugh, trying to diffuse the tension. “I don’t doubt that, I’m just impressed. What’s your name?”

I considered if there was harm in telling them. Either way, it was best to offer as little information as possible. “It’s… er, Lilli.”

“What a lovely name.” The man leaned forward, smiling. “So, what brings you to Everland, Howless Lilli?”

“I’m searching for a Grim man. He’s a wolf shifter with heterochromia, two different eye colors. Have you seen him, by chance?”

The man scratched his neck. “That sounds vaguely familiar. How old is he?”

“I suppose he’ll be twenty on the first of Spiridel.”

“Oh, I see what’s going on.” The woman grinned. “A lost love, is he?”

I blushed.

She chuckled. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s common for girls your age to hunt for men.”

“That’s right,” the man agreed in a laugh. “You look almost of age to wed, aren’t you? Nearing twenty, I’m guessing, like your missing someone?”

“I-I’ll be nineteen in another month… but that’s not why—”

“Ah, still have another year until womanhood, then.” The wife nodded in understanding. “Well, best luck in finding your man. Make sure he gives you your vines like a proper gentleman should.” There was a wink in her eye with that last comment.

“Er, yes…” I mumbled. “Thank you…”

“Ah! Wait.” The husband glanced up in thought. “I remember now. You said this Grimling of yours had different eye colors?”

My head perked up. “Yes! One is blue and the other doesn’t have any color. Have you seen him?”

“He’s a Reaper also, isn’t he?” His expression soured and he gave a low hum. “Sounds like that man we saw on the news about the Nulani massacre.”

“He’s in Nulani?” I barely had the breath to speak. “In High Everland?”

“Yes, but that report said he was, er…” His head ducked and he spoke in a quieter voice so the other passengers couldn’t hear him. “He’s Lucas Devouh’s son.”

I suppressed a groan, swiftly tiring of this realm’s shared paranoia toward the Devouhs. “And?”

The couple gawked at me. His wife was the first to speak, her lion ears growing in fright. “You’re intentionally looking for the Devouh’s son?”

“Yes. I’ve been tasked with finding him as soon as possible. It’s been six years since he disappeared, but I swore to find him and return him home.”

“Six years?” The man’s own lion ears sprouted. “Why in Shel’s name would you…” His mouth closed. “Oh. Wait. You mean you’re looking for their other son?”

“Oh.” The woman glanced at him in surprise. “You mean the brother?”

My arms folded expectantly. “Yes. I’m looking for High Howllord Xavier.”

The man scratched his head. “I see… I don’t know what you’ve heard, but that son died a long time ago. It was all over the news when the family came back to Low Everland.”

“He’s alive,” I assured. “You said yourself he was in Nulani.”

“That was the brother. The one who came back with the family.”

This had my brow knitting. “Alexander wouldn’t be on the surface. It had to be Xavier.”

“The report said it was the other one,” the woman disagreed. “But I guess… they could have been wrong?”

“Yes.” Annoyance bubbled again. “They were wrong. If Alexander had surfaced here, I would have known about it long before I left.”

The man pursed his lips. “You’re not still going to look for him, are you?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

He peered around the compartment, making sure no one was listening. “You’re from Low Neverland, aren’t you?”

His tone made me squirm. How had he known that?

He didn’t wait for my response and kept his voice low. “Listen to me. The Devouhs are dangerous. Trust me when I say you don’t want to cross paths with any of them. You’ll likely lose your head over it.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. “You must be joking?”

“You’re not taught about them in Neverland, are you?” the woman asked. “I guess it makes sense, if you don’t live right above them on this continent… but we don’t want you to throw yourself into the wolves’ cave, Howless. Nothing good can come from running into the Devouhs. It’s best to stay clear.”

“Er,” I began, their wary gazes discomforting. “Thank you for your concern, but I think I’m familiar enough with the Devouhs to know my neck is safe from being severed.”

The man’s eyes turned grave. “If you’re sure, then… we’ll pray for you. Just please take care. Remember what we told you.”

I cleared my throat and gave a slow nod, turning away to glance at Jewel in puzzlement. What is wrong with this realm? Everyone’s scared Deathless of my quarry.

An announcement fizzled from the speakers of the train, the conductor informing us the ride was to take two more hours before arrival. Wonderful. Two more hours of starving…

I could think of nothing better to do than rest to keep my mind off of food. It had been some time since I slept anyway. Between searching up and down the streets of High Mimeir for Xavier and the Necrofera attack, I was exhausted. And hungry. How was I already running so low on money? I suppose I’d left Grim on such short notice, I could only bring what I had with me at the time… If I wanted to get to Nulani—where Xavier was supposedly spotted—I had to save what little beads I had left. This trip was turning out to be harder than anticipated.

I closed my eyes with a quiet sigh and after a few moments, the sounds around me faded away while sleep dragged me into submission.

I sat along the ground, my back leaned against a black-barked tree. The air was cold against my skin and I could barely see my breath fog in the darkness. The only source of light came from a lantern on the grass beside me. I stared ahead, a thicket of willow trees rustling in the misted night.

I picked up the lantern and rose, tip-toeing into the forest I recognized as the Weeping Woods, in Grim.

A figure strode past. I only caught a glimpse of the shadow- grey hair disappearing through a row of dreary branches.

Xavier?

In a daze, I followed, catching another glimpse of him turning elsewhere. I trailed behind through the veiling trees, their leaves weaving in the gentle wind as they sent a roar of whispers throughout the forest. I hurried to catch him, but with every turn I made, he would make another.

Ash began to fall.

The light flakes swirled in the mist, and the melodic twinkling of wind chimes clued me in to what we approached. The Relic was close, the Requiem’s tune echoing in the distance. I caught a flurry of ash in my extended hand, examining it with questioning eyes.

How could this be?

Xavier’s ever illusive figure made another turn before vanishing behind the final row of branches, leading into the hidden cavern where the Relic awaited.

But he shouldn’t know of this place. The Relics were sacred. Forgotten… Forbidden to speak of.

How had he known where to find it?

—SCREEEeeeeeCRASH!

My eyes flew open at the sound of shattering glass.

Jewel hollered before me and I jumped to my feet, still not fully awake while stumbling blearily over the floor. The passengers screamed, ducking under their seats to avoid the flying glass shards.

From the jagged, open windows came the darkened figures of Necrofera, which swarmed into the train’s compartment.

Oh, for Death’s sake!

I let out an aggravated growl and pulled the black ornament from my hair, gripping my scythe after it stretched into my hands with a golden shimmer. Is there no end to this madness?

My head snapped to a Fera crawling on the ceiling. It dropped to the floor and I hopped away, thrashing my scythe across its chest to cut its NecroSeam.

Many wary gasps followed the trail of my blade, the passengers huddled at the other end of the compartment and shying away from the weapon.

I pulled back, worried of hitting someone by accident—then a row of sharp teeth sank into my boot and pierced my leg, making me yelp. I cut down the beast responsible, but stepped back with my hurt leg and tumbled to the floor, boot seeping fresh blood, the punctures pulsing hotly.

I shook to my feet, favoring one leg, and limped down the aisle while trying to tear through as many demons as I could. Avoiding the metal poles and cramped, cushioned seats was a challenge, and with each rotten Fera killed, it seemed three more would take its place.

How many are there? My blade hooked a metal pole and I swung round to avoid a predator.

“Death!” I slashed at the beast, but tripped over a corpse, my scythe clattering to the ground and sliding away. The thing jumped for me.

Kshat—Kshat! Spliksh!

The Fera was shot with something from within the crowd of passengers, and as the glass pellets shattered onto the demon, a cracking bolt of lightning spread across its tar-like skin. I ducked when the demon flew past my head and thudded onto the far wall, its muscles stunned by the static volts.

Kshat—Kshat!

More shots fired at the remaining Fera, each paralyzed with bolts of lightning as I staggered to my feet.

The shots had come from two armored Footrunners who’d come onboard from a different compartment. They wielded golden Shotri, combat devices with gears and whirring springs, used to blast pellets of elemental magic at high velocities from a thin, cylindrical barrel. These two Runners must have been on security duty here, thank Bloods.

“Grab your scythe, miss Reaper!” one of the Runners urged, shattering another electric orb onto a recovering demon.

I limped to my scythe and took hold of it once more as I killed the stiffened demons with a few, final strikes.

After the last Fera’s sloshing skin evaporated, the Runners lowered their Shotri. My shaking legs collapsed, lungs wheezing while the train came to a stop. We’d arrived at the station in High Adrial and the doors slid open. Nira be blessed! I thought in a pant. It’s finally over.

But why did it all stop so suddenly? Was that really all of them, or had the rest fled?

“Medic!” a Runner called at the screen of light coming from his communicator. “We need a Medic! Adrial Station, Eastern District—there’s been a Necrofera attack!”

“Bring a Healer, too,” the other added, crouching beside me. He removed his helm and slid his breast plate over his head, taking off his brown tunic next and tearing it.

He told me to remove my boot, where I’d been bitten. I did as ordered, and he took the torn strip of his tunic to tie around my soaking wound, knotting it tight to slow the bleeding.

“That’ll do before the Medics get here,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” I sighed. “Thank you. Truly. I might have met my end, had you not been onboard.”

“It’s part of our job.” The Runner gave a relieved grin and rocked back on his heels. He had a rubbery, pig-like face, with a particular softness touching his smile. It was a kind face. He wiped sweat off his wrinkled forehead. “We might not be knights or anything, but we try to help however we can.”

“And what help you’ve been.” I clasped his hand in thanks. “Had you been a Grimish Runner, you would have been honored well.”

The compartment emptied soon after the doors opened, and perhaps twenty minutes passed when three women dressed in brown tunics came hurrying into the station and crouched over me. The Medics.

Shocked at my wound, they set their boxes of medical supplies on the floor and untied the strip of cloth the Runner had tied for me earlier. My leg was sticky with blood and the Medics were quick to treat the bite wound.

Once everything was cleaned, a Healer dressed in an ivory coat hurriedly crouched next to me and held his hand over my leg.

A golden Land mark glowed from his wrist as a thin layer of my skin regenerated over the punctures, making me wince while feeling the tissue stretch painfully. The sting eased as the holes were sealed from the man’s remedy Hallows, and after he was finished, he leaned back and let out a sigh.

“That should do it, miss Reaper.” He gave a gentle smile. “Just take it easy on that leg, I can only do this much. It will take some time to heal completely, and it may still be a bit tender when you apply pressure. Just drink this for a day or two, and you should be fine.”

He handed me a glass bottle with strange, bluish liquid inside. Ah, a healing tonic. I’ve drunk these before. I grimaced while taking the bottle, remembering the awful taste, but appreciated the prescription all the same. I pushed the bottle into my Storagesphere, which was tied by a silver chain around my waist, and watched it shrink and descend down to the bottom with the rest of my luggage. I rose, using my scythe as a crutch and replaced the wet boot back over my foot.

“Thank you.” My breath was still heavy, and I reached into my Storagesphere again to pull out my pouch of Mel beads. “How much do I owe you for your help?”

His smile widened and he chuckled, placing a hand over mine to stop me from plucking out the beads. “I should be asking you that. You were the only patient I needed to see here. Everyone else is in your debt. From what I’ve been hearing on the news, these Fera have been going on a killing spree in the other towns as well.”

Seeing that he wasn’t going to take my Mel—for which I was thankful, since I was running short—I replaced the money pouch back in my Storagesphere and had my scythe shrink to its smaller, hair-stick form, slipping the ornament into my tangled hair.

I shuffled out of the train alongside the Healer. “Do these attacks happen often in Everland?” I asked.

The Healer shook his head. “We hardly get any reports on them at all. And it’s usually just a few, it’s never been this many.”

“So, they waited for me to visit before coming out of hiding…”

“Hey!” a loud, demanding voice reverberated from the other side of the platform. A group of armored Rockraiders were trotting toward us. “Was it another attack?” the Raiders hollered.

I sighed and glanced at the Healer beside me, muttering, “And here comes another round of ordering grown men how to deal with basic Fera protocol. What joy.”

After several hours of leading the charge in processing the attack and having the Fera corpses carted off to the morgue, I finally left the station, rubbing at a migraine, Jewel chirping wearily from my shoulder.

“Honestly, these Everlanders are as clueless as feral crabs caught between metal tongs,” I muttered to Jewel. “Shouldn’t they know their own Bloody laws? How such things are handled? They’re the ones who banned our Reapers from their cities, you’d think they’d have a handle on how to deal with Fera without us. Yet they’re relying on a foreigner to remind them of their own policies—!”

A feather fluttered down, long and black, glinting with a greenish sheen from the streetlamp above me. I caught the feather and lifted my gaze to the sky, confused.

This feather is too long to be Jewel’s—

I stiffened. Perched on a roof nearby was a hooded figure, watching me. His dark wings were folded down as he stared at me from under his hood. Jewel began to twitter up at him, her chirps shrill.

I examined the long, black feather curiously, my gaze shifting from it to the winged man. Ah, it must be his, I concluded. Isn’t he the Reaper I’d seen in Timberail? And I could swear I saw those wings in Adrial earlier today. Has he been helping me kill the Fera all this time?

“You’re that same Reaper from before, aren’t you?” I called, hesitant at his constant stare.

He said nothing, and my lips pursed. “What is your name?”

He turned away before looking back at me, his face shadowed deeply in his draping Reaper’s cowl. “Janson.”

“Are you following me, Sir Janson?”

“If that’s what you want to think,” he rumbled. “Whatever excuse I can use to legally leave the capital is a good one.”

My head tilted, and I was growing annoyed at Jewel’s constant chirping. “Why have you left, then? Is it because of the attacks? You want to help the people in the other towns without the Raiders knowing?”

“If I’m found, I’ll be imprisoned. But I’ll stay out as long as the Fera are behaving like this.”

“Do you mean you wish to travel together?”

His head shook. “You’ve attracted too much attention already, Howless. And it’s actually legal for you to be in other cities. You’re not Landish.”

“You don’t look Landish yourself, Sir Janson.” I pinched the feather’s spine and raised it up for him to see, twirling it. “Your feathers are black.”

He gave an agreeing tilt of his head. “I’m a transfer from Grim. I’ve been a Landish citizen for a few years now. I still have to abide by the laws here.”

“If you don’t wish to travel together, then what do you plan to do? Follow me in the shadows until I return home?”

He glanced away in thought. “Maybe. That’s something to consider, at least. I’ll keep an eye on you if the Fera show up again. I’ll come to help if you need it.”

I drew in a breath to reply, but his wings flexed and he took to the sky, flying behind the buildings of Adrial’s cityscape.

Jewel had finally stopped her twittering and I gave a sigh, not sure I was comfortable knowing a knighted Reaper would be watching me during my stay here. I opened my hand to look at the feather again… but it was gone. My hand was empty.