Page 91 of Souls We Rip

“What do you want to say, Eugen?” I offered a hand to him.

He placed his small palm against mine, hoisting himself up. With a strong voice and hard eyes, he laid what was in my mind, but unspoken.

“Perhaps living so much time surrounded by death made you forget what life feels like.”

I took a deep breath and followed him home, the storm long gone. In its stead came the cold, autumn settling for good.

The feelings for her were more powerful than the Order itself. She knew the whole of me, as no one could. And even if the child had some truth to his words, I was not sure Ana would listen to my feelings.

There was a battle both within her soul and outside the lair.

Ana

The seventh soul

“This one will be difficult,” Tiberius said, his voice gruffer than usual.

I was still getting used to calling him by his birth name. From time to time, the ethereal name would slip from my lips, earning a mischievous gaze from him.

The month of Brumărel was passing by, the rain getting colder, the trees were losing their green crowns, giving way to voidness.

“Why?” I asked, watching as drops of water fell from our scythes.

“Because he doesn’t think he is evil…”

I turned my head to him, a question in my eyes.

“He thinks that what he is doing is righteous, that he is saving the people who work for him. But in fact, he enslaves them.”

“Eugen’s mother thought she was doing the right thing by killing him,” I argued, not fully understanding where he wanted to go with that idea.

“True, the difference here is that the mother of Eugen knew what she was doing was bad, like all the other five souls you took, and against the law. But this one sends the people to slow murder.”

A factory lay in front of us, horns and pipes surrounding the building. As shown in the Mirror, people of every age, from young children to older men, worked day and night between brick walls. Tubes and packages were daily delivered by large trucks and burly men, all of them looking angry, frowns darkening their faces.

Some of those depicted worry, many hours of work under precarious conditions so they could have food on the table. Others were filled with fear that they were not doing enough for their families.

And some were, by nature, angry.

Scrawny men came to unload the shipment, unable to hold the pipes properly. Another man, taller than all the others, towering over them, barked orders left and right.

“He reminds me of you,” I mocked, hinting with my head towards the man in question.

“That joke of yours almost made me smile, my lady,” he said flatly.

The corners of my mouth lifted, remembering his arms around me. How he kept me under his protection on the day of the baptism, how slowly he became a better person.

Even with Eugen, he behaved properly. The boy was curious about all the morbid stories Tiberius had to tell. And as a goader, the man loved to voice his experiences.

The sound of the trucks leaving drew my attention.

“Ready, Stag Woman?” he asked, his tone amused.

I nodded and transported myself to the main office I had seen before in the Mirror.

I left my skull at home. How odd it was to call his lair ‘my home’ after all these months?

Smiling to myself, I realised that the skull did nothing for me or for Tiberius anymore. Once I was over this damned contract, and if we found a way from this curse, I would break that wretched mass of bones and burn it with a laugh on my lips.