Soul Reaper Read online

  Soul Reaper

  Everwood Trilogy 2

  Kate Keir

  Copyright © 2018 Kate Keir

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any other information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This book is a work of fiction, all names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  X M X

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Thank You

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Lyall

  “Have you given any more thought to what we should do?” Lyall had grown used to these conversations with Pen over the last six weeks, and he didn’t really expect her to have reached any sort of decision.

  It had been an incredibly tough time for both the Soul Keeper and her Dion since Finlay had betrayed them to Sluag.

  After two weeks, Lyall had been delighted when Flora had finally decided to leave her room one morning. But his happiness was short-lived when she simply went straight to the library, where she would then sit every day for hours, studying the copied manuscripts Pen had brought up from Edinburgh over the last few years.

  Flora still refused to speak to anyone, and so it was impossible to know exactly what she was looking for in the library. Lyall had been driven to the point of madness by trying to just coax one single word from her, but it had proven useless so far.

  Artair was broken by Mara’s death, refusing to eat, sleep, or even shower. Freya had spent every moment she could by his side, trying to find a way to bring him out of his grief and persuade him to take care of himself. It had been a pointless exercise up until now, but Freya had shown surprising compassion and determination for the task.

  Pen and Lyall had been relieved to let the task of caring for Artair fall to Freya, while they had desperately tried to find some way to fix the damage that had been done to their group.

  Pen sighed heavily as she traced her fingers over the familiar grain of the wooden table in the great hall of Castle Dion.

  “In truth, it’s all I think about, Lyall. If you’re asking me whether or not I have decided on a mission to rescue Finlay, then no, I struggle to know what the right course of action should be.”

  Lyall leaned his shoulder against the stone wall and crossed his tautly muscled arms over his chest, frowning. “You know what my thoughts on the matter are, Pen.”

  “I do. But you must remember that I lived many years of my life with that boy posing as my son, Lyall. I cannot simply switch off my feelings and neither can Flora. His death will cause greater pain to us all.”

  “Not to me,” he growled. “I’d kill him myself given the chance, Pen. He would have let Sluag do exactly that to Flora after she placed her complete trust in him. It’s nothing he doesn’t deserve, and I’m sure Artair would agree with me.”

  Pen shook her head sadly at the mention of Artair’s name. “Of course, Artair would agree with you. He’s heartbroken and angry. But we are all angry, Lyall. Flora is angry, even though she is also equal parts devastated.”

  “He’s destroyed her,” Lyall argued.

  “He has not. She is better than that and stronger than that. Even though she won’t speak to anyone, her daily trips to the library tell me that she has a purpose. She is looking for something and that means she intends to carry on living. She will come around in time.”

  Lyall paused to give Pen’s words proper consideration. It made him smile to realise she was right, Flora wouldn’t be looking for information unless she intended to use it.

  “Do you have any idea what she might be looking for?” Lyall crossed over the room and sat down at the table.

  “If I had to guess, it would be that she is looking for a way to permanently erase Sluag from the world.”

  He smiled grimly. “If she finds it, then I wouldn’t wanna be Sluag.”

  “If she finds it, then she will probably throw herself headlong into danger on her quest for revenge. She’ll be even less likely to listen to reason if Sluag kills Finlay.” Pen spoke seriously.

  Lyall clenched his fists. “And we’re back to this again. You do think we should break Finlay out of the Endwood, don’t you?”

  “If I thought for even a second, that I could do it without losing any more of our Dion, then yes, I would say we should, Lyall.” Pen set her jaw determinedly.

  “But?” Lyall spoke softly.

  “But the truth is, we are down to four Dion—one of whom is so broken he really cannot count. Honestly, I don’t see a way of saving Finlay from his fate,” she finished sadly.

  Lyall reached out and gently placed his large hand over Pen’s slender fingers. “I’m sorry, Pen.”

  She shot him a grateful look. “I still believe that Sluag may intend to use Finlay’s blood for some ulterior purpose that will only end horribly for all of us.”

  “I suppose that’s something we will have to deal with if it happens.” Lyall was grim. “Although, if it happens, we will still have to find a way to prevent Flora from hearing about Finlay’s death until after his soul has lost its memories.”

  “I’ve given this some thought too. Sluag won’t allow himself to miss an opportunity like that. He will probably summon Flora to watch Finlay’s execution. That way she will not be in physical form and won’t be able to intervene.”

  “That’ll send her over the edge, Pen. Have you gotten any closer to preventing the summonings?”

  “Only close enough to make me believe that Flora will need to break that particular pattern by herself. I don’t think I can do it for her, Lyall.” Pen shook her head sadly.

  Dropping his head into his hands, Lyall growled in frustration. “Is there anything that we are in control of at the moment, Pen? It feels as though we are just players in Sluag’s twisted game.”

  Pen looked stricken. “I am trying my best here, Lyall.”

  “I’m sorry. I keep making demands of you, as though you can wave a magic wand and fix it all. I guess we’re all too used to looking up to you and following your lead.”

  “I don’t really mind it, Lyall. I expect you all to look to me for guidance. I am significantly older than you are. I just wish I had made more progress toward helping our Soul Keeper.”

  “Talking of which, I think it’s about time for me to go and make my daily attempt at conversation with our girl.” Lyall smiled humourlessly and stood to take his leave.

  Pen nodded but offered a parting word of
advice to him, before he left. “Be patient, Lyall and no matter how you feel about Finlay, try not to show Flora your hatred. She won’t respect you for it.”

  “I know. I won’t.”

  He left the great hall and started toward the library, knowing that was where he would almost certainly find Flora. As he walked, he imagined their conversation in his head.

  He would ask her how she was doing today and if she had found anything useful in her studies.

  She would lift her head and smile at him and then tell him all of the valuable information she had discovered over the last few weeks.

  Except he knew that wasn’t really how it would go. He would sit opposite her on one of the plush library chairs, in just the same way he had done what felt like a million times before. He would gently speak her name and ask her some questions about how she was doing.

  Flora’s contribution would be silence, utter silence. She wouldn’t even lift her head to acknowledge that he was sitting in front of her. After about an hour, he would leave her to her studies and go to take his frustration out on the castle’s gym equipment.

  As he pushed open one of the polished wooden doors, Lyall was both confused and surprised to sense he was completely alone in the library. He walked up and down each aisle twice, just to make sure he absolutely hadn’t missed Flora on his first check. Although he was certain he hadn’t as she usually sat at the lighted reading desk in the centre of the library floor. All of those chairs were conspicuously empty.

  He was starting to worry. Every day for the last month, Flora’s routine had been to get up and get dressed before making her way to the library to sit and scour the manuscripts. She could always be found here between around nine and four. It was eleven thirty now. He was starting to think something must have happened to her.

  With a slow-building fear rising in his stomach, Lyall ran from the library and pelted along the castle hallways until he reached her room. He didn’t waste time knocking; instead, he flew straight through the door and into the obviously empty bedroom.

  “Jesus, Flora. Where are you?” he murmured as he slammed the door behind him and made for the stairs.

  As he reached the castle gardens, Lyall stopped and thought for a moment. It had been weeks since Flora had been to the Everwood, which was a place that literally called to her soul. It made perfect sense she would feel the need to visit after all of this time.

  It only took a couple of seconds to focus on the ancient, lush trees of the other world. As soon as he imagined the beautiful blue flowers trailing across the trees, Lyall found himself standing among them.

  His first thought was that he should have brought a coat. He hadn’t realised it would still be snowy and cold here.

  His second thought was that he was grateful for the continued snowfall as he could clearly make out a single set of footprints in the snow that started out of nowhere just next to where he stood. The footprints trailed off into the trees. Knowing they belonged to Flora, he smiled in relief and started to follow them.

  It only took a few moments of weaving through the snow-speckled trees before he spotted the fire of her hair through the woods and found her walking just ahead of him.

  He was about to call her name when something made him pause and keep quiet for a moment while he tried to work out what she was doing here.

  She seemed to be following a tiny glowing orb that bobbed through the trees before her. It flashed angrily, bolts of rapid lightning bouncing around inside the tiny sphere. A rogue.

  As he watched, Flora lifted her hand, almost casually, and extended her arm out fully in the direction of the tiny light. She slowly clenched her fist at the same time as she muttered something under her breath.

  Once her fist clenched fully, the rogue soul spasmed in the air before falling heavily to the ground, as though it were made of lead. Flora didn’t hesitate; she just carried on walking at the same pace until she was past the crumpled rogue, before she disappeared into the trees.

  Chapter One

  Flora

  I had been surprised by how easily the rogue soul had crumpled. I had followed the instructions I’d found within the manuscripts to the letter, and it seemed it had been worth paying attention to my solitary studies. I knew I didn’t have to crush the soul to make it do my bidding once I rejected it, but apart from the pleasure I had felt in hurting it, this was also practise for a much bigger quarry.

  I’d spent too long thinking about the things I couldn’t change after Finlay betrayed us. Over and over again, I asked myself why he had done what he did and wondered if I would ever be able to survive the feeling of complete desolation that tore through my heart every time I woke up from my dark and fractured dreams.

  Then, one morning it had occurred to me: if I didn’t make myself get up that day, I probably wouldn’t ever get up again. I would let myself lie there so long I’d die, and Pen would be left without a Soul Keeper for a second time. So, I decided to get myself up, get myself dressed and go to the library to find a way to kill Sluag—or at the very least wipe him from existence.

  That little fantasy had proved a lot more difficult in reality, and so I had to settle for finding ways to hurt Sluag and his minions instead.

  First, I read up on how to do what I had just done to the angry, little rogue soul. It had been surprisingly easy—just a basic spell that needed to be spoken aloud while I centred my energy and targeted my own power at the soul, stunning it with an invisible bolt of energy that would render it unable to move for a while.

  I nailed it with my first attempt and allowed myself a brief moment of pride mixed with pleasure as I stepped over the furious but temporarily incapacitated little orb and stalked into the woods to search out my real prey. Draugur.

  I had remembered Lyall telling me that I had the ability to send any wandering Draugur back to the Endwood by extracting the souls from their stolen host bodies. So, I had purposely searched out that information and eventually managed to find exactly what I was after.

  The rogue soul had been my way of testing that the information I had found in the manuscripts worked in the real world. The ease with which I had conquered the rogue told me I was ready to give a Draugur a shot. Although I was still a little nervous in case this attempt didn’t quite work out as I hoped.

  I continued through the woods, hoping I would be able to locate a Draugur today. I smiled grimly as I bit back the urge to call out, Come out, come out, wherever you are.

  I suddenly thought I heard a twig snap behind me, and my breath hitched in my throat as I spun around to confront whatever was following me. But scanning the trees, I could see nothing that would pose a threat, and so I continued on my search for a new monster to hone my skills on.

  A few more paces through the snowy woodland brought me out into a clearing that was covered by an almost untouched crisp blanket of powder, marred only by the trail of disorganised footprints that stretched across the ground. My eyes followed the tracks until they eventually came to rest upon a man-shaped thing which turned glazed eyes upon me as I broke through the cover of the trees.

  “Soul Keeper,” it hissed.

  “Draugur,” I replied grimly as I started toward the ghoulish creature.

  It turned toward me with a rotten grin spreading across its hideous face, clearly excited to have the opportunity to capture me after I had escaped its master so recently.

  In response, I started to murmur the words I had memorised, underneath my breath, fiercely hoping they worked. The book had only said they had to be spoken out loud, but not how loud I had to say them.

  I began to walk toward the Draugur and I raised my arm so my palm was facing it, my fingers straight. I urged my energy to leave my body and break into the body of the monster.

  On the final note of my chant, the energy burst forth from my hand. A bluish luminescence shot from me and leapt across the clearing, creeping over the body of the Draugur. It howled as it felt my power and realised what I intended to do to it.<
br />
  I started to mentally pull it toward myself, not trying to recall my energy but almost reeling in the rogue soul inside the Draugur’s body, as though it were a fish on a hook. It tried desperately to resist my power, but it failed and had no choice but to start working its way out of the host that it didn’t belong inside.

  It’s working. It’s really working.

  Delightedly, I carried on pulling at the soul, drawing it farther out from its hiding place until, with a crack and a shriek of rage, the rogue soul burst from the chest of the body it had been hiding inside.

  I had been so unprepared for the sudden rush of my own energy returning to me that I toppled backward, landing on my ass with a thud. The rogue soul shot across the clearing in a bright red arc of anger, aiming straight toward my face.

  My hand shot up almost without thought, and I whispered the same chant that had crushed the other rogue soul earlier. Only this time, as I clenched my fist, I added a final line that told the rogue it had no choice but to go back to where it belonged.

  “Essen khai.” Return to the Endwood.

  The rogue soul hovered defiantly in the air for a brief moment before beginning to shimmer and lose its solidity bit by bit. I could hear its threats inside my head. It swore it would kill me, my friends, and my family.

  I ignored it and continued glaring at it until it quieted down and eventually faded from my sight as it acknowledged its banishment back to the Endwood, where it belonged.