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were the most horrific Reapers the world has ever known, and in battle, they were legendary. I know firsthand the peril creatures like you cause, and for that reason, I helped ensure they were all put to death at the end of the war.”
    I stared at her. “You…you executed other Reapers?”
    She met my gaze steadily, defiantly, with the certainty of her own rightness. “I put down mad dogs. Just as, when Adonis sees the truth, I will gladly put down you.”
    There it was. Eldrid believed it was her duty to destroy me. I tried to take in all these revelations, to make sense of what this ancient warrior woman was telling me. I’d never heard this bit of history before and frankly couldn’t believe it. The Reapers I knew, including myself, held all non-Demon life sacred. I should’ve been awed, appalled, curious, outraged, any one of a dozen emotions. But instead, I fell back on my trusty friend, anger. I was pissed off. “Well, as long as my father has me under his protection, you can’t do jack to me, old woman. So there.”
    She smiled again. “That’s not true, Aella. I can take no action against you, but I can help you destroy yourself.”
    “How? By lecturing me until I cut my own head off just to shut you up?”
    “By telling you how I interpret the prophecy of the Red Reaper.”
    I rolled my eyes. That damned prophecy, written down by my mother in one of her trances before I was born, states that I am to be the last Reaper, the sole guardian of mankind. That part might be right: Reapers are unable to breed with each other, and with the Demons gone, no new ones were being made. But the rest…there’s no way I could be responsible for all that. Just…no way at all. But the other Reapers, including my father, believe it.
    But there’s another secret connected to that prophecy that no one else knows. Only me. And it’s simply this: I want it to be true. I want it more than anything. To have a noble purpose, something greater than myself, something that makes all this…suffering…worthwhile. To be the mother protector to all humankind. Like a king, except with even greater responsibility: the protector of kings. But I could never tell anyone, not even Keefe, about this.
    “The prophecy says that the Red Reaper will be born into the line of Teller Witches, as you were. She will have the strength of ten Demons, with the heart and soul of a human. She will be the last birthed Reaper with a sacred duty to the world of men. She will herald peace and end the terror of the Demons forever. She will be…” She bent over a scroll to make sure she got the words exactly right. “The keeper of the prophecies, a wielder of magic and steel.”
    “But I don’t use magic,” I said.
    “That’s because you’re not the Red Reaper.” She let that sink in before continuing. “I’ve studied this prophecy. I know what the others say it means, but I think they’re wrong. You are crucial, but you are not the subject of this prophecy. You will be the mother of the Red Reaper.”
    I know I stared. I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped open. I didn’t say anything though; I couldn’t think of anything to say.
    “Your purpose is to be nothing more than a vessel,” she continued. “You will, at some future point, be taken by a man—Reaper or human, the prophecies don’t say. But a seed will be planted in you and will grow to fruition. It will be properly miraculous since Reapers don’t often breed. That will be the Red Reaper. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was a male child.”
    “B-but the prophecy says the Reaper will be female—”
    “Have you ever seen an original prophecy, Aella, the way your mother wrote them down? Her handwriting while in trance was atrocious. Those who copied it wrote it down as ‘female,’ but the original manuscript is far from clear. But no matter; the important bit is that it doesn’t apply to you. You’re a mere brood mare in this process, Aella. Nothing more. Your job