A Reaver's Secret
The old city sat on the horizon like it belong. From that distance, Boston looked like someone had tried to pull it out of the ground by the hair and given up halfway. By the time they reached the outskirts, the scenery became even more grotesque.
Broken overpasses jutted like jawbones. Skyscrapers were chewed stumps, half-collapsed, leaning on each other like drunks who’d forgotten which way was up and which was down. The wind hissed through empty windows and snapped ragged tarps, carrying the sour reek of standing water, rust, and very old sins.
Vex walked in front, as always. Her boots ground broken glass and old bone into powder. The air tasted of rust and ash and the tired chemical sting of places the Veil had scraped too thin. She walked as if the fractured city belonged to her, or owed her, or both. Her long coat whipped at her boots. Weapons clinked softly at her hips, shoulders, lower back. The left half of her face gleamed with scar tissue in the weak light, melted into a permanent red grin that exposed too much tooth. The right half did its own work: hard eye, raised brow, the suggestion she was unimpressed with everything.
Behind her came the familiar rhythm of her band.
Karn, heavy and deliberate, each footfall a small statement. Rook barely made a sound at all, just the suggestion of movement around the edges of things. Nella’s steps skip-light, matched to the tuneless hum under her breath, flamestick resting across her shoulders. The Kid brought up the rear, mostly because everyone had quietly discovered he tripped less when he had people to follow. His pack was too big, his boots too large for his feet, his eyes still too bright for the horrors of the world. He tried not to stare at Vex’s scar, and failed once every ten steps.
They’d been walking for days.
Vex had said "We’re heading north” and nothing else. In Reaver math, that was almost excessive exposition. Still, curiosity is like hunger: ignoring it only works until it starts biting. Karn cleared his throat. The sound was like gravel reconsidering its life choices.
"Boss.”
“Mm?”
"Wanna tell us why we’re walking into the lungs of this corpse, or are we just admirers of architecture now?”
"You growing old, Karn? Thought you liked long walks.”
A few huffed laughs. Nella’s humming picked up, pleased by the mood shifting even a little. Rook slid up beside her, his steps matching hers without effort.
"We’re tracking something,” he said. “You’ve got that look.”
"What look?” she asked.
"The one you get when you’re about to introduce someone to the idea that consequences are real.”
"That’s just my face,” Vex said. "Half of it, anyway.”
The Kid winced reflexively, then colored when he realized she’d seen. Karn tried again. Patience was his virtue; stubbornness was everyone’s curse.
"Boss, with all the respect... fuck you. Come on, spit it out!”
She sighed and tipped her head just enough that they could see the good eye. "We’re hunting.”
"Hunting what?” the Kid asked. “Veilbeast? Mutants? Maybe one of those twisted… what d’you call ’em, the half-and-half ones...”
"Chimerics,” Rook responded.
"Yes, those. I’m good with those! They’re ugly, but they go down if you hit hard enough.” The Kid frowned thoughtfully, clenching his fists with the enthusiasm of unreasonable fearlessness. “Heard a story ’bout you and a chimeric once...”
"Stories are mostly lies wrapped in flattery,” Vex said. "Except the parts where I look good. Those are fact.”
"We’re hunting a who, aren't we?” Karn said, as if he’d just recognized something in his leader’s tone, ignoring the Kid. "Not a what.”
Vex’s shoulders tightened imperceptibly.
"We’re hunting a debt,” she said. "Debts tend to come with a face.”
"Whose?” Rook asked.
"Mine,” she said. "You’re just along to clap or drag me out if I slip in something sharp.”
That should have been the end of it. But the Kid, clinging to courage by poking at legends, tried again.
"Is it him?” he blurted. "The mage? The one from the story? The one who melted your face?”
Vex stopped. The wind sighed as if it regretted getting caught in the middle. She didn’t turn. Very carefully, she let the band move that one crucial step closer while she forced her hand to stay at her side, not rise to the scar. Behind her, Nella muttered, "Idiot,” under her breath, but not very harshly. Everyone had asked about Vex’s face once. The Kid was just late to the curiosity."Didn’t mean…” the Kid started. "Just - if that’s who it is, we deserve to...”
"You deserve clean water and a day without something trying to eat you,” Vex said evenly. "Anything else is luxury. Including answers.”
There was a beat where the only sound was broken glass shifting in the wind. Then she added, with a slant of humor sharp enough to bleed on, "And if I were hunting a mage, you’d know. I’d have brought people who can aim."
They laughed; a raw, nervous sound that needed somewhere to sit. Inside her head, the word mage had hit her like a thrown rock, cracking through the thin shell of years she’d lacquered over the memory. Not because it was true. Because it was the story she’d chosen the first time someone pointed at the melted half of her face and asked "What did that?”
Because "A mage did this to me” was a legend.
On the other hand the: "I carried a bastard traitor into my home and he sold us all for a smile from his master”, was not.
The Kid shuffled his feet. "Sorry,” he mumbled.
"Don’t be sorry,” Vex said. "Be useful. Whole different sport.”
She started walking again before the past could get its hands any deeper into her, but it was too late. A scent on the wind - burned metal, old oil - rolled the clock back whether she liked it or not.
She was younger when she met him, but not young. The Cataclysm had burned childhood out of people fast. He was slumped against the rust-scabbed railing, one leg stretched out, the other bent, arms wrapped around his middle. Heat thickened the air until the horizon wobbled. Blood, dark and gummy, stained his shirt around a neat hole just right and down of center.
"Don’t..." he whispered when she’d come close enough to cast a shadow over him. His voice sounded scraped raw. "...please... don’t let them take me back.”
"Who’s them?” she asked, keeping her machete between them, casual-like.
He swallowed and winced. "Immortals,” he said. "Their… people. I ran.” Then he laughed, short and sharp, like he’d surprised himself. "Didn’t run very well, I guess.”
"You an idiot?”
"Yes,” he agreed. “Help me anyway?”
She could have walked. Should have. Bodies on the road were warnings, not invitations. The world had made that very clear. But she also watched too many people die alone with no one to witness it. There was a part of her that hadn’t yet calcified into pure cynicism, some stubborn muscle that still flexed at the idea of ours versus theirs.
"We’ve got a settlement a few hours west,” she said, doubting herself the same moment she said it. "You bleed all over me, I make no promises about where I drop you.”
"Fair,” he murmured.
He wasn’t heavy, but he was an extra weight she hadn’t planned on, an arm slung across her shoulders, breath hot against her neck as she half-carried, half-dragged him back across the baked road. Every step she took, some small, sensible part of her mind counted reasons to turn around. She didn’t listen.
That was her first mistake.
She learned his name - Rowan - on the way back. Just Rowan. No family name. Family names had become luxuries like sugar or a goodnight's sleep.
"Vex?” he repeated when she given him hers. "That like… short for something?”
"It’s short for none of your business,” she said. He made a quiet, pained noise that might have been a laugh, then bit it back as the jolt of her step tugged at his wound.
The settlement looked almost alive when they reached it. Metal walls welded from old shipping containers. A factory-turned-home slouched in the center, its broken chimneys looking at the sky in silence. Voices drifted across the dusty yard. Kids darted between makeshift shelters. It smelled like boiled grain, sweat, hot metal. Mara - their leader - met her at the gate, sleeves rolled to her elbows, hands red with work.
"That thing yours?” she asked pointing at Rowan.
"No,” Vex answered. "He followed me home.”
"Great. Feed him, name him, take him to the vet.”
"Shut up,” Vex said smiling.
They laid Rowan on a cot. Mara stitched him up with the same tenderness she used on broken tools. "You’re lucky," she told him.
Rowan blinked, "Debatable.”
"You get patched here, you owe work, got it?” Mara said.
"I’m a fast learner,” he said.
He healed fast. Within days he was helping patch leaks and haul water, sitting by the fire with the others, listening more than speaking. He asked questions that made sense. He forgot no names. He played with the children and told them stories. He was handy and always helpful. He remembered to thank people for small things. He seemed… decent. Not charming or dazzling. Just decent. In a world where decency had become somewhere between rare spice and extinct animal, it was easy to mistake it for virtue.
Night watch suited him. They stood together on the western wall sometimes, looking out at the desert of broken towns and hungry twilight.
"You don’t trust me,” he had said once, not accusatory. Just naming the shape between them.
"Trust is for people with better options,” she replied.
"You still carried me here,” Rowan had said.
"I can still change my mind if you prefer it."
He’d smiled slightly, as his gaze turned to the settlement. "It’s a good place,” he said. "You’ve made something that feels almost… whole.”
"Don’t romanticize it,” she answered. "Roofs leak, water’s lukewarm, and half these idiots snore.”
"Still better than anything I’ve seen in… a long time,” he insisted. "Thank you, Vex. For giving me a chance."
There were a dozen tiny moments like that. His hand brushing hers when they passed tools. His shoulder bumping her arm when a joke landed harder than expected. Those small, stupid things that feel bigger than they damn well should when the world doesn’t leave much room for softness. She wasn’t in love. She’d never been foolish enough to use that word for anything short of vertigo. But she had let him closer than she should have. That was enough.
She only started to see the shape of it the night that her world broke to pieces.
The night the Immortals arrived.
A boot crunched behind her, and the flash of memory snapped shut like a rusted trapdoor. Fire, screaming, Rowan’s face... everything slid back into the familiar corner of her mind: The one labeled Revenge.
Boston loomed closer now, the sky above it bruised and tired.
"Boss?” Karn’s voice barely rose above a gravel scrape. "You drifted.”
Vex rolled her shoulders once, shaking off the echo. "Memory lane. Terrible neighborhood. Don’t visit after dark.”
They pressed deeper into the ruins. Vex set the pace, her stride tightening into something flinty, almost sculptural. It looked as though the world bent around her path, not the other way around. Suddenly, she lifted a hand. The band dropped behind a decaying sedan, metal groaning beneath their weight. Her good eye had locked onto a squat building across the road; a bar in the same way a corpse is a person. The sign hung on one hinge, the letters still clinging to a name: LUCKY’S
The windows were boarded from the inside, as though someone believed that would keep the world out.
"Cute,” Vex said, lips curling. "He always liked irony.”
"You sure this is it?” Nella asked without looking away from the bar, fingers tightening on her flamestick in a rhythm that suggested impatience rather than fear.
"Lights inside,” Karn muttered. He shifted to get a better angle. "Someone’s definitely in there.”
"Well,” Vex said, tapping her thumb against the hilt of her machete, "someone’s going to regret it.” She was already seeing the world in shades of red.
"Now you gonna tell us who this is?” Rook asked. He slid a bullet into the chamber of his rifle with too much interest. Vex caught his wrist before he could snap it closed.
"I won’t,” she said. "This is my hunt. I go in - you stay put.”
Karn didn’t bother pretending to like that one bit. "Bad idea."
"Maybe.” She leaned forward just enough that the burned half of her grin caught the weak moonlight. "But this is my mess. And I want my face to be the last thing this bastard sees.”
"We’re not leaving,” the Kid blurted, far too loud.
"I never said leave.” Vex straightened, dust slipping off her coat like loose scabs. "You hear me make a noise that sounds like I’m losing, and then you decide how brave you’re feeling.”
"How does that sound?” the Kid whispered.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. The band shifted; tiny tells of tension everywhere. Nella’s fingers drummed the flamestick; Rook’s jaw went granite-hard; Karn exhaled like the decision weighed more than the air around him. But they were Reavers. They followed the point of the spear, or they weren’t a band at all.
"Don’t take too long,” Nella muttered. "I get twitchy.”
As Vex stepped forward, Karn reached out and gripped her shoulder. "You die in there without us,” he said, "I’m dragging you back just to kill you myself.”
Vex smirked sideways.
"Thanks Karn. If I die, feel free to loot my corpse.”
Vex pushed open Lucky’s door with the same confidence she used when kicking skulls. The hinges groaned like they recognized trouble. Inside, the smell was overwhelming: damp, old wood, older booze, and something metallic lurking under it all, sharpening the air. Two figures sat near the door. Both raised shotguns at her the moment she stepped in.
"Evening, boys.”
Their eyes froze on her melted cheek. A half-second too long - long enough to tell her they didn’t like what they saw. Then they glanced at her weapons and the empty street behind her.
"Business?” one of them asked.
"Rowan,” Vex said plainly. "Tell him Vex is here.”
The other one flicked a look toward the bar and the shadow that was sitting alone there. A nod was enough and the man stepped aside saying, "Come in.”
With the second one close behind her, she moved deeper into the room. Lucky’s had been scrubbed and rearranged. Tables shoved to the walls to clear space. Dozens of candles burned in thick glasses. The room looked prepared for something intimate or violent or both; Rowan never did know the difference. The lackey shadowed her to the bar. He set his shotgun down and drew a knife. He stood beside the figure whose back remained turned.
"Vex..." a voice said. It was the same voice that once gave her comfort. It sounded exactly the same, only now it caused her blood to boil in the temperature of hate. "I heard stories,” Rowan continued. "Vex the Red. Mage-slayer. Reaver. I told myself half of them were lies"
"Three quarters, at least” she said. "People have a habit to be dramatic.”
"Apparently they got one thing right.” He sipped his drink. "You didn’t die.”
"You didn’t try hard enough.”
A low laugh came from his side. Rowan didn’t turn, he just flicked his fingers. "Get out,” he said to his guard dogs.
Vex smiled.
"Oh, no they’ll stay,” she said. "I don’t like an audience that leaves before the finale.”
The first lackey moved fast, hoping her attention was on Rowan. Mistake. She sidestepped, caught his wrist, and slammed it against the bar’s edge. Bone snapped. The knife clattered. She caught it before it hit the floor and drove it under his ribs while staring straight at Rowan. The man lost fell with a soft gasp.
The second guard lunged, shotgun rising. She didn’t dive. Instead, she surged forward. The guard was confused and shot too early. The blast tore through the bar behind her, spraying the air with liquor and splinters. She grabbed the barrel mid-recoil, shoved it aside, and hammered her knee into his crotch. He folded. She ripped the gun from his hands, cracked him across the skull once. Then twice. He went down and didn’t move again.
Two heartbeats.
Two men down.
Vex's half smile betrayed her delight as she dropped the shotgun and turned back to Rowan.
He hadn’t moved an inch.
"You came all this way to kill me, Vex?” he asked, unimpressed.
"Don’t flatter yourself. I also plan to drink your scotch.”
"You will be disappointed,” Rowan murmured as he finally rotated his stool to face her. "It’s a terrible scotch, and I cannot die the way you expect. Not anymore.” He set his glass down as Vex froze in place; her smile dripping from her skin.
His face was wrong. Too smooth. Too still. Untouched by hardship, untouched by time. Her lungs forgot how to work for a breath.
"You didn’t…” she whispered, a splintered gasp. Then louder, sharp, shaking with fury she refused to hide, "Rowan, you stupid, selfish bastard! You actually let them turn you.”
He smiled. It was a slow shift in his expression. Almost tender. Almost familiar.
Almost.
Fangs pressed against his lower lip as he licked them clean.
"They didn’t turn me, Vex,” he said softly. "They rewarded me.”
Her stomach twisted once, fast and violent - like catching the scent of burning grain and hearing children scream - then vanished behind her anger.
"You can’t win this,” Rowan continued. "But for old time’s sake, I’m offering you one chance: walk out that door. Tell your band you found nothing. Keep your legend and never look for me again.”
Vex stood her ground. The instinct stirred in her legs, but she ignored it. Fear might whisper, but rage spoke louder, and she had spent years letting it sharpen her spine. Rowan watched her take him in: the smoothness of his features, the unnatural stillness, the faint prick of fangs on his lower lip. His expression wasn’t triumphant. It was worse. It was proud, like a man showing off a promotion earned through hard work and a few necessary corpses.
"I said you could leave,” he said softly.
"And I said I’d drink your scotch,” Vex replied, though her voice was low, vibrating with something older than wit. She took a step forward. The old floorboards groaned beneath her weight, a brittle protest swallowed by the hush of the room. Rowan rose from his stool with a grace that wasn’t his. Not the Rowan she’d seen hunched over leaky water pipes or cursing twisted screws. This movement was rehearsed, predatory. A performance he had practiced in other rooms, with other throats. He came toward her, one slow step, then another.
"You look at me like I’m a monster,” he said. "But you of all people should understand survival.”
"Survival’s one thing,” she said. "Selling out everyone who fed you, carried you, stitched you up? That’s something else entirely!"
He moved. Faster than Vex's eyes could follow.
It was like watching a shadow decide to break the furniture. One moment he stood still; the next his hand wrapped around her forearm, fingers tightening with supernatural force. Pain shot up her nerves like wildfire. She twisted, tried to leverage his momentum, but his body didn’t respond like a man’s anymore. He pivoted effortlessly, sending her crashing into a shelf of bottles. Glass shattered over her shoulders, cutting into her coat and skin. Rowan didn’t give her time. He was on her again, hand at her throat.
"You burned them,” Rowan said; his voice low, almost conversational. "That’s the part you never say aloud. You hide behind my betrayal, but truth is you killed more of your people than the Immortals planned to take.”
Vex forced herself upright.
"They preferred death,” she said. "You know what the blood-slaves are. You watched them drag the children. Don’t you dare rewrite what happened.”
"You saved no one.”
"I saved them from becoming you.”
That struck something; an old nerve or an old ego. He grabbed her wrist and twisted it. The machete clattered to the floor. Her vision flared white-hot. Rowan leaned in, voice low enough she could feel the whisper on her ear."You’re not leaving this room.”
Vex snarled. She drove her elbow into his face; once, twice, three times. The third connected hard enough to crack something. Rowan’s head snapped sideways, and he loosened his grip just enough. She tore free, stumbled back Rowan recovered faster than she expected. He lunged, fangs bared, eyes bright with hunger and triumph. Vex kicked a toppled stool into his path. It barely slowed him, but the moment’s stutter was all she needed. She grabbed a broken bottle, smashed it onto the edge of the bar, and jammed the jagged glass into the side of his neck. Dark blood spilled, smoking slightly as it hit the air. Rowan staggered back. He looked amuzed and surprised. One moment he stood still; the next his hand clamped onto her arm and he slammed her into the bar so hard the bottles jumped. His other hand raked across her stomach, claws cutting clean through coat and skin. Hot blood spilled down her abdomen. Vex gasped - a sharp, involuntary sound - but didn’t fall.
"You think that will stop me?” Rowan asked as he lowered his mouth to the side of her neck.
"No,” she said as the fangs tore her skin. She smiled as she drove the broken wooden table leg she had grabbed before he struck, directly to his chest, "but this might.”
The door to Lucky’s burst open so hard it slammed against the wall.
Karn charged in first, axe raised. Rook slid in a breath behind him, silent as a rumor. Nella ducked under Karn’s arm with a knife already drawn. The Kid stumbled through last, boots skidding on broken glass. They all froze, trying to understand what they were seeing.
Vex was sitting at the bar. Blood soaked her coat and dripped steadily from her fingertips. Her stomach was a torn red mess, her knuckles split open, and a severed head was resting beside her glass. She lifted the glass, swallowed what little scotch remained, and grimaced.
"Terrible scotch,” she muttered. "He wasn’t lying.”
Silence buckled around them. The Kid stepped forward, voice cracking. "Are those... fangs?" he said pointing at Rowan's head, "You… you killed an Immortal? Alone!?”
"He wasn’t very good at it,” she said.
Karn exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for hours. Nella let out a disbelieving laugh. Rook’s eyes flicked from Vex’s bleeding stomach to Rowan’s empty stare, and for the first time all night, he looked genuinely impressed. Vex slid off the stool. She limped toward the exit, with her boots leaving wet prints on the boards. A half empty bottle of booze hung from her hand. Behind her, Rowan’s head tilted toward the guttering candles, as if it begged the flames not to forget him. At the doorway, she paused.
"Take what’s worth taking,” she said to her band. Her voice was flat, scraped down to its last edges. "Then burn this fucking place down.”
Great story. You are such a good writer. I don't know if this had a happy ending, but it was definitely a satisfying one.
Explore Etrea | WorldEmber 2025
You don't know how much this comment means to me <3 I am thrilled you liked the story. Thank you so much!