Page 51 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)

A time unknown, but of memory fragments

Weldir’s subconscious twitched.

It shifted, spiralling further and further apart, until his hold on the tethers unravelled into invisible fraying strings. He felt no desire to pull the pieces taut. He lacked the strength, will, or even the thought to do so.

Instead, the weightlessness crushed into him and pushed him deeper into the waves of his memories.

Of darkness, of nothing but his own echoing roars. Of heavy loneliness and abandonment that never ceased its yawning gulps.

His subconscious twitched again, and it twisted in reaction, pulling in on itself, only to scatter like dust.

His own voice muttered to him incoherently as moments of madness festered within the ache of his mind. The dullness of living for eternity, in his own self-made suffering, was his imprisonment.

Memories flickered, all the same. Just a string of indecipherable thoughts.

Then a face, beautiful with a mix of brown and gold, appeared for a millisecond.

It was gone before he could truly discern who it was.

Their face returned multiple times, each time growing more withered and drained, and the golden glow radiating from their very being became lacklustre.

The darkness always returned. His darkness.

Another twitch, and this time his subconscious stretched in two different, twisting directions.

Then he managed to grab ahold of a memory when it blessed his everlasting void, and it played out in his mind.

A set of green hands, the soft flesh of their palms paler and near cream, picked up his prism. He felt nothing, despite knowing he was no longer lying upon the bed his mother, the Gilded Maiden, rested on.

Bright-green scales covered the hands as the sides and backs of them came into view. Cream-coloured claws chinked against whatever was keeping Weldir contained. Then the darkness parted like a curtain, and a strange, humanoid face with short dark-green hair was revealed.

The facial scales appeared soft and malleable, allowing the reptilian flesh around his yellow eyes to crinkle. The spikes framing his eyes and brows moved with his frown, and a forked red tongue licked at his dark-green lips, which incidentally revealed his sharp, thin fangs.

He looked Elven formed: a broad jaw, high cheekbones, and arching brows. His long, pointed ears twitched, tipped with little spikes upon them. Yet his face lacked a proper nose; it was only two little slits with a slightly convex bulge where there should be one.

He’d never seen this male before. As he eyed the spikes jutting out from the corners of his jaw, and the scales lining his neck, the rest of him faded from view.

“I know you are in there, dark one,” the being, likely an Elven deity, stated. His voice was soft, rich, and smooth, and oddly had a calming influence upon Weldir’s subconscious. “I have felt your power shifting and changing as your prism lies in my mending vines.”

He remained silent; no one could hear him beyond his prison.

The bright, indistinguishable background sped past in a downward fashion, as if the male lowered to sit upon the ground with the crystal prism in his hands.

“I hope you don’t mind, but it’s time I introduced myself.”

Yellow mana rippled from the male’s fingertips like water.

Weldir’s mist perceived an intrusion, and he spun in a circle to find the male behind him. He was in the far distance, searching the endless darkness, so Weldir transported directly in front of him.

He wore a pair of loose white pants, and a sleeveless shirt made from vines and pink flowers. His clawed bare feet were also adorned with green leafy-patterned arching shoes that lacked soles, with little pink flowers. Over his shoulders he wore a half vest made of thick, scaly brown material.

The male spun, his head moving one way and then the other, and almost passed over Weldir. Yet he stopped, and his yellow eyes slipped back, then widened when they fell upon him.

“So, you have truly gained some kind of form.” He pushed forward in a way that was unnatural, as if the makeup of the prism didn’t affect him. “But it’s still not whole.”

“It’s a manifestation,” Weldir answered, unsure if he’d be heard or even understood.

The male whisked his hand through his mist.“Of mana?”

Weldir’s entire being pulsed without his control.

“It is real. I can feel this is a part of you, a solidness that isn’t complete or truly tangible.” The male then lifted his yellow eyes with slitted pupils to meet his gaze. “It’s more than we hoped. It means you have a semblance of... control.”

Weldir lifted his arms to look down at his body, seeing it in its entirety. He also saw the constant mist that shrouded him wherever he went.

“Who are you?” Weldir shifted to look behind him, to where the image of this male still existed beyond his prism. “And how are you here? How have I not eaten you?”

“It’s a projection.” He waved down at himself. “I’m not truly here – merely an illusion – and you cannot destroy what isn’t real.” Then his thin lips pursed. “Although I can feel you eating away at the mana the longer I do it.”

Weldir waited patiently for him to answer all his questions.

“I am Leyfr, the god of forestry and flora. One of your potential sires, and one of the last three deities remaining on this plane.” He gestured towards his own face beyond the prism wall.

“I’m the one who has been keeping Almethrandra alive within my mending vines and monitoring your progress in her stead. ”

His gaze slid down Leyfr completely, and he expected that by the time he looked back into his eyes, he would regard him differently.

He didn’t.

He felt nothing for his potential sire. Just emptiness.

Not due to hate, indifference, or abandonment, but simply because... why should he care? Weldir was an adult and lacked any connections. He wouldn’t turn away from this bond, but it mattered little to a being who was imprisoned without an end.

“You seek something from me.”

Leyfr’s spiked brow cocked. “I was hoping to see how far you’d come in controlling your power.”

“Do you need it?” He regarded the reptilian Elven god once more. “Forestry and flora? Whatever it is you seek, it is out of the realm of your capabilities. It’s not life you wish to grow in the dirt, but something else entirely, and my mother is still incapacitated and of no use.”

“I see,” Leyfr said with a hum. “It appears I was right. You may be ill-formed, but your mind is stable. The foundations of you aren’t inherently evil.”

“I’m not evil at all.”

His lips pulled into a grin. “Yes, I can see that. You must understand, our first meeting of you was during the destruction and carnage you wrought. Almethrandra had hoped you were benevolent, as you saved her by healing her of the Daekura venom she absorbed. But... we didn’t know if you desired such things or if it was accidental. ”

“I have little recollection of my birth.”

“You are a facet of death, which shouldn’t be possible when we already have a being of death.

Every living thing your shadows touched was eradicated from the inside.

You consumed their spirit and destroyed the vessel that housed it.

But there is more to you; I have been able to sense it from my vines.

You can manifest your mana, touch what no one else but Yanyas, the god of the afterlife, can.

Souls.” Then Leyfr lifted his arms and spun in a circle.

“You are the Warden of Darkness, and your shadows can manifest and reach out in a swarm. They have completely blocked you inside this prism so that not even we can see you.”

“I am broken, and my power is insignificant,” Weldir admitted freely. He lifted his arms to show the tiny dots of solidness. “You can see me, but I can sense there is little of me.”

“Care to expand it?” Leyfr asked, making Weldir lift his gaze to his once more.

“A strange child, part Demon and part Elysian, was born some years ago. He, too, was imprisoned for things he couldn’t control, and led a massacre upon gaining his freedom.

During that freedom, he took a portal stone and has opened up another avenue. ”

“A portal to another realm?” Weldir’s mist shifted in thought. “Do you wish for me to aid him? How will this benefit me?”

“Aid him? No. We are hoping more will follow behind him. We want you to stop Demons from returning through his portal, then consume the souls of the humans they’ve eaten.”

“How? I’m trapped here.”

“I can take a piece of your mist with me, a flicker of your mana. A link between you and that world.” Leyfr hummed as his eyes slipped to the side pensively.

“Well, I wouldn’t be able to do such a thing, but Rokul sure can.

” The male tsked and scratched his pale claws through his dark-green hair.

“It really is a shame that the first one you consumed was Taoveen. She was a creator and could have given you a body in which to house your scattered spirit.”

I know these names from Mother, Weldir thought.

She’d shared with him many of her own memories, which helped to puzzle out all the pieces of what Leyfr spoke of. He’d seen all of Nyl’theria through her perspective when she let her consciousness wander aimlessly.

Leyfr offered him a smile. “If you consume enough souls and grow your power, you may be able to stabilise your form and become complete.”

“No. I don’t have the capability to give myself a physical body. This manifestation is at the edge of my limitations.”

Leyfr’s hopeful expression fell. “You do not know that.”

But he did.

Weldir’s brokenness, his incompleteness, could never be fixed on his own terms. It would require assistance that he was unsure if even his mother could offer.

“I don’t need false hope. It is an emotion for those who can feel it,” Weldir answered coldly. “I’m willing to agree, simply because it will give me the freedom I lack now, although cruel. Thank you for not wrapping this request in a facade of liberation that is untrue to hide that cruelty.”