Page 71 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)

But I did sense it. Maybe she was just used to detecting magic so she could feel for Weldir’s mist when it was invisible, and in the process had trained herself to perceive magic.

To sense when it was around her. When he first teleported behind me, my skin crawled like when the clouds charge right before lightning.

She backed up and then floated to the top of a roof. He teleported in behind her, likely wanting to flaunt this new ability to incite fear or wariness.

She hadn’t felt the charge, as she couldn’t perceive anything when incorporeal.

To test her theory, she became tangible, turned, and ran down the slope of the roof. She sensed a charge from her left and ducked to the right to avoid his fist. He frowned before chasing after her when she sprinted away.

He appeared before her, but she ghosted straight through his body and then shifted to human once more. She dodged every strike, evaded him every time he teleported around her, until... a punch landed.

Jabez was just too swift, his Elven side making him fast, and she fell sideways. Her body skated across a rooftop, dislodging tiles, and she turned intangible to narrowly miss his foot coming down on top of her head.

“Do you know how long it took me to perfect this?” he bit out, darting after her when she sprinted away in her Phantom form.

“How many injuries I had to sustain? How many times I almost died, just to make sure you can’t fucking drop me from the air again, or try to drown me, or burn me fucking alive? ”

Lindiwe could admit to doing all those things.

She’d grabbed him by the shoulders in her owl form and dropped him from unimaginable heights, breaking his legs when he hit the ground.

It was just unfortunate that before she could get to him on the ground, he’d already learned how to make portals and had crawled through one.

This had been after she’d drowned him and Katerina with the sea, thanks to Weldir’s assistance.

He’d narrowly escaped all of those attempts on his life.

She’d snuck into his castle while he slept and tried to stab him in the heart, but he was always alert and managed to catch her before she could strike.

She’d tried to do the same to Katerina, but her scream had alerted the castle, and Jabez had created a portal to save her.

Jabez had managed to land a few strikes, sometimes forcing her to retreat before she could shift into her incorporeal form.

If he saw her in the wilds, he’d chase her until they battled, and she’d do the same thing. They were like two magnetic elements; whenever they neared each other, they had this overwhelming need to kill – without ever being successful.

Many of their battles had happened within this village.

It was his. He hated her in his lands, and he had made that known many times.

She eventually stopped running and turned physical when he teleported a few metres in front of her – she’d been intending to float to a new rooftop and then out of the village, admitting defeat.

But there was an avenue here, one she didn’t particularly want to give up just because of his new ability. I won’t be able to come back here and collect souls properly. He had some kind of scrying ability, and he checked on the village often. It was how he was being alerted.

“So, you’ve figured out a way to evade me completely,” Lindiwe grumbled.

“Just as you have always evaded me,” he said, his cold, crimson eyes glancing over her with disdain. “I realised that I’d been pouring all my efforts into offensive abilities rather than defensive. I started rectifying that mistake decades ago.”

I can either give up on collecting souls here, or... Before she could finish that thought, he disappeared from his location and reappeared directly in front of her within an instant.

She shot to the left while turning incorporeal and floated to a different rooftop. He followed her, teleporting in front of her, not allowing her space no matter where she went. If she fled now, would he follow her through the Veil to make his point?

“Aren’t you... tired of this?” she asked, gesturing at their surroundings and herself at the same time. “If neither one can reach the other, why bother?”

“Because luck can only get us so far, and I’m faster and stronger than you. I will eventually grab you.”

She threw her hands up. “To what end? I’ll just come back.”

“Until you stop interfering,” he said quietly, unnervingly.

“Then stop trying to hurt my children and I will!”

“Then tell Weldir to drop his ward on my portal. As I once told you, all your suffering starts with him, and that includes your offspring.”

The malice in his eyes was darker than it used to be.

It was the gaze of someone who had completely cut out anything good within them. He was no longer the light-hearted boy she’d once known, someone who once said he didn’t want to be a ruler. There was no light in his eyes like she’d experienced by the waterfall as they laughed together.

He was corrupted by his goal, and the chaotic, bloodthirsty journey of it. His heart was likely filled with poison, and his words were meant to be nothing but venom.

He was arrogant, rightly so, and his new power would only make him more dangerous.

“You know what he wants is absolute,” she argued. “I can’t convince him to do anything he doesn’t agree with.”

“Then this will continue.”

He tensed, as if to dart forward or teleport, and she held up her hands. “Wait!” she yelled. “Just wait.”

His pointed ears pulled back as he let out a small snarl. Yet he quickly soothed it and straightened his shoulders, adopting an icy gaze.

Lindiwe waved her hand back towards the village behind her. “I know you care about Spiral Haven. Let me do this. Let me rid it of the spirits of dead humans. The haunted ones.”

“Why? So you can empower Weldir? I won’t aid him by allowing it.”

“Because it disrupts the peace here,” she explained calmly.

“You and I both know their screams upset the people. Sure, it may empower Weldir, but I will keep coming back here to do it, no matter how you try to stop me. You will just make that process slower and will incidentally be the reason visitors stop returning when it’s entirely riddled with Ghosts. ”

Jabez lowered his eyelids in annoyance and placed his arms behind his back superiorly. “They will adjust. They’re easy enough to ignore once you’re used to them.”

“What about those who can’t? Or the children who are easily frightened by them?”

Surprisingly, his right ear twitched when she mentioned the young, and his red eyes narrowed. They quickly dulled.

“Haven’t we destroyed enough buildings that need repairing? Or almost harmed the innocent in our fighting?”

“It’s barely considered fighting when all you do is run like a coward.”

“I’m the only one who can rid you of this problem, as no living thing can remove or touch them. The cost of that is I take them and give them to Weldir, but what’s a few extra souls when he already collects thousands?”

He regarded her suspiciously, and he brought his arms forward so he could cup his jaw.

“You’re speaking of creating a balance. Payment, essentially.” His gaze softened as he looked over the village, and he tapped his lips as he thought. “You want this place to be a location of truce. Where we don’t fight, even if we are in proximity of each other.”

That wasn’t what she intended, but... “Yes, that would be beneficial. I have no ill-will towards Spiral Haven, as you have seen. Why not let this be neutral ground?”

“Because I hate seeing your fucking face?”

Lindiwe couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “The feeling is mutual, Jabez. You’re literally so self-involved that it’s utterly sickening.”

“You’d be surprised by just how wrong you are about that,” he murmured, still tapping his face. His red eyes darted to the side at her, and his lips thinned. “What else do I get out of it? I already let your abominations meander through it safely.”

Seeing as they were having a relatively safe conversation, she needed to show she was trustworthy by being vulnerable.

“What do you want?” she offered, turning tangible.

His brow cocked in surprise, but he stayed right where he was. “What you’re asking for goes against the very thing I’m trying to do. It has to be something good.”

He continued to think, but the exaggerated manner in which he looked up at the spiralling, branched ceiling informed her he already knew what he wanted. He just made her stand there in anticipation.

Lindiwe was officially bored with his antics.

Finally he placed his hands behind his back, leaned forward a little, and had the audacity to demand, “Kneel.”

Tipping her head forward to look up at him through her eyelashes in irritation, she sneered. “You’re joking, right?”

“I think I would find it quite entertaining. I am a king and therefore should be knelt before.

“I kneel for no one,” she retorted. “Least of all you.”

“Not even Weldir? Considering all your offspring, I’d think you’d be used to kneeling for a male.”

She shuddered. “You’re still disgusting.”

Jabez threw his head back and gave a deep, boisterous laugh. He brought his right hand forward and waved it dismissively.

“I’m fucking joking, you uptight prude. You’re just as easy to make squirm as you were all those years ago.”

Gosh! I want to kick him in the shin!

He gestured with his clawed fingers towards the village.

“Bring a trade, something that is difficult to get but would be invaluable to the merchants, even if it’s low in value for a human.

Iron, dyes, silk cloth, even books. Benefit Spiral Haven.

The payment of souls is nothing but to your benefit.

Do more beyond self-gain to aid the people here who want to improve the lives of others. That will be your price of entry.”

Taken aback by his request, it rendered her silent. She never expected him to ask for something so simple or selfless.

It didn’t erase the fact that he was a violent psychopath who targeted her and her children when it suited him. It didn’t even make her see him in a new light. It just revealed he could be cunningly benevolent, and often just chose not to be.

“How should I give it?” she asked.

“I will have a box made. You will leave an item in it for each time you enter, and I’ll share your contributions with those who would enjoy them the most.”

“And you’ll inform the occupants to leave me be when I work? Some do try to catch or attack me.”

“That sounds like a you problem.” When she gave him a glare, he rolled his eyes and let out a big sigh, like she’d asked him for the moon or something. “Fine.”

Then, Jabez teleported right in front of her. Lindiwe looked up at him, meeting his glare head on, but was ready to change forms if needed.

“But outside of this place, only hostility exists between us – unless Weldir drops his ward. I can be forgiving, Lindiwe.”

“I have no interest in being your friend, even if given the opportunity.”

She finally gave in and kicked him in the shin and then turned incorporeal before he could do anything about it. As he growled and held his shin while hopping on one leg, she poked her tongue out at him and let her intangible form sink to the ground.

We should have had this discussion years ago .