Page 12 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)
Folded stacks of clothes were put into piles depending on whether they were dresses she wanted to keep or special garments she collected from lands far from Austrális.
There were even a few traditional items of clothing from Unerica, Kanata, Zafrikaan, and Eyropea, reflecting how she’d held onto those cultures after immersing herself in them temporarily.
Even one of the interesting hats she’d taken from Pyrssia had been placed on top of the pile, along with a pair of clogs from a country close by.
An array of knick-knacks further filled the endless space, creating a vortex that started from what she believed to be the first one she’d left here and ended with the last.
Guilt slipped down her spine at the ball of white feathers – the evidence of the snowy owls she’d hunted for her new cloak – with the corpse of one hugging it. Had it not been so still, she would have thought it was merely resting.
Next to it was a much smaller ball of black feathers.
Every item had the tiniest blob of black, highlighting Weldir’s magic holding onto each one to keep all of it tangible to him.
Lindiwe had never known what he’d done with her things, but she’d assumed they’d just be scattered as a messy congregation of her stuff.
Something warm and pleasant swelled in her heart at seeing this place.
It felt like a... shrine to her and her memories.
Everything had been placed with artistry and care.
Her pulse quickened, and she brought her hands together so she could pick at her nail beds, struck by a tenderness that fluttered in her stomach.
I can’t believe he did all this, she thought, digging her thumbnail into the side of the other, unsure of what to say or how to show her appreciation.
It looked like he cared , but that didn’t particularly align with how he could often come across as emotionless or emotionally false.
I thought he’d changed because he’d been emulating humans. Pretending to be one simply to placate her and make it easier to relate to. Was I wrong?
Why go to all this effort when it had been doubtful, until now, that she’d see it?
She peeked at him, expecting him to gauge her reaction to all this with a suave smirk. Instead, the demi-god had crossed his legs and begun plucking the black feathers from her cloak without a care in the world, unaware that she might be feeling strange.
He obviously thought nothing of it.
He was probably just bored, her mind grumbled as she kicked her legs to float closer to her belongings. I’m looking too much into it.
Gingerly pulling a book from the ring of them, she crossed her legs as well, flipped open the cover, and read through the very first journal she’d written of Anzúli spells. She figured starting from the beginning and familiarising herself with them would take up most of the time as she waited.
“Your handwriting has improved over the years,” he commented dully, never lifting his head away from his task.
She peered at the shaky, although carefully recorded words. “Well, I didn’t really know how to read or write when I met you. Most commoners, especially women, didn’t have the time or means.”
It was one of the first things she’d taught herself when she started hunting occultists. She’d needed to learn how to read their letters and notes that she pilfered from their corpses, as they were often leads.
“I know.” He slowly pulled on a feather with a tendril while making sure he didn’t damage the cloth of the actual cloak.
“Memories of humans have detailed such things. Humankind has not been kind to its women in many places, and even less to those born of poorer families. I’ve never understood that inequality. ”
Lifting her gaze away from the journal entirely, she gave him her full attention. “Is it not like that in Nyl’theria?”
“No. The Elysians protect their weakest. They shelter everyone, and crime is low due to that equality. No one feels the need to fight for resources, or steal them from another, when the basic necessities for life are freely given. A home, comforts, and even grooming products are provided always, and food, water, and even many baths are often in public spaces to encourage unity and bonds.”
The young Lindiwe would have been horrified to learn of public bathing, but she’d done it many times now in cultures that provided those spaces.
It had allowed her to stop feeling so shy and insecure about her body, as it was just what housed her spirit – well, would have, if Weldir hadn’t taken it.
She was still bashful about being touched , but her cheeks no longer flushed in embarrassment at her own nudity in public – so long as she was aware of the eyes upon her.
In places where she thought she was private, the appearance of others could still catch her unaware and fluster her.
“Could you tell me more about the Elven realm, then?” she asked.
“What more do you want to know of it? I’ve already explained what the forests are like now, due to the Demons that inhabit them.
I’ve also explained the society itself and how it’s managed by the synedrus council.
Honestly, I know the basics, but the inner workings of Lezekos City are actually beyond my knowledge.
I’m only aware of what my mother shared with me through my prism. ”
“That was the prison you were kept in?”
“Prison, shelter, haven – it really depends on how I view it. It protected me as much as it protected everyone from my destruction. I came to appreciate it as much as I hated it.” Then Weldir paused and looked up at the nothingness. “Actually, we are still inside it.”
Her brows came together in puzzlement. “What do you mean we’re inside it?”
“My realm is me, and I still lack a true form. If I were to leave it totally, I would consume everything – unless my mist is contained fully within a physical form.” He shifted his face to meet her gaze, and the spots collected together like he wore a mask.
“There are different parts of me. The parts I manifest and the parts that just are. The mist on Earth is my mana. It cannot touch the world, but it can touch souls. It’s partially visible to the human eye due to its makeup, but it’s not tangible in any form.
My essence – the parts of who I really am – is tangible, and it eats everything it touches, wanting a form to stabilise itself, without ever achieving it. ”
“Then why have you not consumed me?”
“Because that part of me I have forcibly housed within the realm within my stomach. Into my centre. The prism helps; it shields and provides stabilisation. Without it, without something physical containing me, I’d no longer have such control over it.
Spirits are not tangible. They are not real or alive, and therefore cannot be eaten.
You currently sit between Tenebris and the prism wall, in darkness I cannot control, within mist I cannot contain, but is harmless.
The best way to explain is it’s like you are within my mind, and I can move you anywhere within me – my heart, my lungs, the place that creates essence – but we cannot go outside of those borders. ”
“I’m sorry, Weldir, but I don’t understand.”
And she really hoped he never took her to the place where his seed was likely stored.
He gave a hum of thought. “The form you see before you is the one I have chosen. It is the physical shape that feels the most right, but it is still just a manifestation of my magic. As it stands, my true form, my soul, is the shape of the prism, although I don’t know what it is.
There are two of me: an external physical form that reaches the edges of my prison, and then the internal physical form that you see before you.
If I were to ever be given a real body, I believe it would all pull together, like the splayed-out threads of a cloth being tugged into a decipherable shape.
I long ago realised I am... broken. In pieces.
I doubt that will ever change, and that I’ll ever leave my prism. ”
“Then how are you able to visit Earth?” she asked, shaking her head.
“In the same way my mist does: manifestation. My mist is a link, and I’m able to take this body there through it, just not my soul.
But the makeup of this form is different to it, and as I am not truly there, I cannot interact with the world other than through my voice, through thought.
My mist is visible due to the toxicity I push out, which momentarily allows it to be seen, and you have mentioned you can smell that toxicity.
It’s actually clear, invisible, like me when I am there.
You see me when I consume a soul because I have taken the essence of something else, which pushes the boundaries further, but I still cannot interact with life.
Without assistance, I am nothing but a soul harvester there, just like I am a danger without assistance from the prism. ”
Does that mean I’m technically in the Elven realm right now? The only answer she could come up with was yes.
Lindiwe thumbed the edge of her journal’s back cover. “Doesn’t that upset you?” she asked, wondering why there had been no deflated edge to his voice, no crack of pain or longing.
His voice had been smooth, empty of emotion, and devoid of life. Like someone telling a story.
“This is just how I am. I’m no longer bothered by things I cannot change. I’ve come to accept it and appreciate it, as I don’t want to be a violent, all-consuming entity upon the worlds.”
I guess it’s like how I’ve come to accept my place in the world and in our marriage. Things no longer bothered her, and she looked for the positives where she could.
“At least I’m no longer truly alone,” he stated, his gaze holding hers much deeper than before, until he lowered his face back to his task. Her stomach tightened in surprised tenderness, as well as pity, and the feelings grew when he added, “I have you and Nathair.”