Page 20 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)

A time unknown, but of subtle truths

When his mate finally landed near the edge of a cliff, she transformed into a human with her back to the Veil’s horizon.

“Do you feel better?” Weldir asked, noting her clenched fists.

Many hours had passed, enough to note the falling sun and long shadows. She stood in the light and regarded the forest with a stiff face.

“No. Not really,” she eventually answered, before looking down over the cliff. “But there is no point in wasting more energy. I’m ready to return.”

Pleased that she would fill his void once more, Weldir lacked any hesitancy and brought Lindiwe to his realm. She materialised in the nothingness, and her ghostly form became solid as she shifted into a tangible Phantom for him.

With one last look at the many viewing discs before him, Orpheus front and centre, he turned to greet her.

It was unnecessary, as she’d already begun to swim towards him.

Halting at his side to peer into the disc, she went to place her hand on his non-existent shoulder to steady herself.

He made his physical self coalesce there as a piece of support.

Her expression was closed off, but her eyes glinted with rapt interest. “How are they?”

“Mostly the same. She has told him you are untrustworthy, and he doesn’t understand why.

He isn’t adept enough with language to have such a cohesive argument just yet.

It is also obvious he can’t remember much of what you have done to help him, either.

It’s like he has an impression of you but can’t remember specific memories or details. ”

Her lips pushed forward into a purse. “She better not turn him against me. It has taken me decades to get to the point where he trusts me, and even then... it’s fragile.”

“She has taken to calling you the Witch Owl.”

The bridge of her cute nose scrunched. “I guess she isn’t wrong, but I don’t particularly like the term.

‘Witches’ were often just normal women who were taken to silence them.

I’d consider any of our magical capabilities to be coincidences or power loaned to us by gods.

” Lindiwe narrowed her eyelids into a scowl. “Why are you grinning?”

Am I? Weldir thought, noting how he perceived pressure. I didn’t think my humour was so apparent. Although it did vibrate within his cloud rather violently.

“Because you don’t like it. If you call me spirit of the void, I will retaliate and call you the Witch Owl.”

Her jaw fell, and she placed her hand over her heart as if he’d wounded her. “That’s mean,” she grumbled, before the smallest smile curled her lips.

It fell when she brought her gaze back to Orpheus, who was back outside, wasting salt as he sprinkled more into the carving Lindiwe had made. His orbs were dark yellow, and he even scratched at the groove to deepen it in places out of curiosity.

Weldir was sure he’d come to understand the significance of the magic when night and Demons came. Which brought on a question he’d had since his mate left Orpheus’ home.

He regarded the item enclosed in her fist. “You took back the diadem?”

With one hand on top of the other, she opened the top one to reveal the diadem with a pale-blue mana stone. The teardrop gem dangled from the centre of the silver circlet, where there was a delicate vee that would point down to the wearer’s brows.

As Lindiwe thumbed the stone, it clinked against the metal. “I don’t want it to be lost because she refuses to take it. Maybe another one of our children will seek a companion and need protection from the Demons.”

“The human is rather...” He trailed off, unsure of how to describe her. He thought her rejection of Lindiwe’s aid had been quite foolish.

“Things didn’t go as I thought they would,” Lindiwe said, folding her legs to the side. “I didn’t expect her to be hateful towards me. But... I understand it. She has every right to feel the way she does, to believe what she wants.”

“She believes in the god of your past.”

“Hmm.” She brought her hands, and the diadem, into her lap.

“It’s why I get where she is coming from.

It’s hard to shake that mindset. I know I struggled with it.

Even now I can still feel the foundations inside my mind and heart, can still hear my parents whispering to me the teachings.

Faith that strong just doesn’t disappear. ”

Weldir tilted his head at that, and at her fidgeting hands. “But she will let it go, as did you.”

“What if she doesn’t?” She looked down at her lap before curling her hands tighter around the jewellery. “Why does this feel so... wrong, Weldir? Why do I feel like we’re doing the wrong thing?”

“Wrong?” Weldir asked, his tone rather perplexed. He waved his hand towards Orpheus. “I only see this as a benefit. He will have a companion, or she will gift him more humanity. She is already further expanding his vocabulary and teaching him, even if it is accidental. All I see is his growth.”

Her brows pinched with an emotion he couldn’t decipher.

“But how is that fair on her?” She turned her face to him with a beseeching expression.

“How are we any better than the occultists who sacrificed women to the Veil? She has no other choice but to stay there or die, just as I was given no other choice but to...”

She averted her gaze to the side, and her jaw clenched tight enough that the muscles in it ticked. A shadow of emotion seemed to fall over her, tensing her shoulders and back.

“Sometimes one must be sacrificed for the greater good. It is how we learn, and we can pass this knowledge and help on to our other offspring should they need it. It’s selfishness at the cost of one life.”

“How is this good?” She waved at the viewing disc. “Every life matters. No one should be sacrificed. It’s... it’s cruel.”

“And yet we have allowed our offspring to cease many hearts.”

“I’ve never been pleased about that,” she grumbled curtly.

“The right thing to do would be to take her home, but I think... I think he would hate me for taking away his friend. I don’t want to lose his trust in a way that he may never forgive me.

He needs me too much to grow hateful of my presence if no one else will be there for him.

” The hurt on her face worsened and tears dotted her lashes.

“Even if she makes him hate me, so long as she survives and he has someone, I think that’ll be okay. ”

Weldir leaned forward, even if it was only in her periphery. “Is this why you flew for so many hours?”

“Yes. My heart was telling me to do one thing and my mind another. I want him to be happy, but at the same time, I’m riddled with all this guilt that I just don’t know how to process. I feel so out of my depth with this.”

Seeing she needed comfort, Weldir tentatively slipped his fingers into a clenched fist, so he could gently hold her hand. “And you settled on not interfering, other than offering aid to our offspring.”

“I picked Orpheus. I decided to pick a future in which he can be happy.” She looked down and clasped his hand in return.

“I’m hoping that she just needs time to accept and care for him.

If Merikh’s friendship with Jabez has shown me anything, it’s that our offspring can form bonds. That they can emulate human affection.”

“Will you be upset if he eats her?”

“Yes, but... really, it would be long overdue. He should have done so when he first met her. I’m surprised she’s lasted this long. That any human has.”

Weldir considered her words as they both stared at the viewing disc.

The little female was sparking her tinderbox so she could light her lantern before darkness truly settled upon the world. Once done, she shuffled back against the wall with a blanket and then pouted with her arms folded on top of her knees.

Orpheus was outside scouting the area to make sure it was safe, completely and blissfully unaware of her negative emotions towards him and his existence.

“Perhaps they are more like me than we considered,” Weldir said quietly, inspecting his wolf-skulled offspring intently.

“What do you mean?”

“They are incomplete creatures that seek companionship, even if the means are not always fair. They are going against their nature, and they will likely stumble, as I often have. I hope that doesn’t make us any less deserving of affection, even if we aren’t always able to properly reciprocate it.”

Joy radiated through Weldir’s mist when he saw Orpheus back at the salt line, sitting at it as he twisted his head one way and then the next.

He understands, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

His language capabilities were stilted, but he comprehended enough that he didn’t immediately ruin Lindiwe’s work.

He even brought the satchel she’d left behind inside and dumped it in front of Katerina, who sneered at it. When his back was turned, she gingerly kicked it to the side.

If Lindiwe can come to accept me, then surely this human can accept my offspring.

That had taken decades, but that was due to their inability to share real moments.

They couldn’t exist long term in either realm, as she had a duty to perform in hers, and his realm wasn’t a life worth living.

There was no possibility of him existing in her world, when he could not touch it, taste it, or even smell it.

He would merely haunt her, like a spirit.

She sought the light, and he belonged in the void.

Katerina looks upon Orpheus similarly to how Lindiwe once looked upon me. Seeing it again, a gaze that wasn’t narrowed on him but on someone who was just as ignorant, formed pity in his consciousness. Hopefully she learns to trust him long before he realises what that gaze means.

Although Weldir’s thoughts had turned forlorn, especially regarding his mate, he had this yearning to look upon her beauty. To know that her gaze had lost its ire and spite, and she now looked upon him fondly.