Page 72 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)

“Weldir!” Lindiwe shouted, her hands shaking while maintaining a viewing disc. “Oh god. Please be awake! Weldir!”

“I’m here, Lindiwe,” he answered calmly. “I’ve been awake for quite some time.”

He didn’t tell me? A cold sadness dripped against her chest, even if... that was what she’d wanted – distance between them. Wait. She clenched her eyes shut and shook her head. That’s not important right now.

“I can’t see Leonidas.” She refused to call him Kitty. When she’d learned of this name, she’d tried to explain to him what his actual name was.

He didn’t want it. Apparently Kitty was more suitable to him.

She’d been considering teaching him his name nearly two decades ago, as he’d become rather intelligent, but Lindiwe had grown... tired of trying. Her children didn’t want her, and she was always failing with them, so... she stepped back.

She needed to shield her heart from them as much as Weldir, and she’d completely stopped trying to connect with them. She was the Witch Owl, a strange being that created unease in them, and she’d long ago learned that’s all she’d be.

In doing so, she became colder, more resilient to their dislike, and... deadened inside. She’d shifted beyond what her humanity could handle, and fully accepted that she was different, a Phantom, not only in species but to the world.

She didn’t need a place to exist, except within herself.

She gave them names, but they only existed to her and Weldir, as they’d inevitably gain their own. It had become a recurring thing.

Sometimes they found each other, and the older ones helped the younger ones, like Fennec and Orpheus.

Or Merikh with the twins, who had discovered him and didn’t seem to understand he wanted to be left alone.

Or Ari with Fisi, the hyena-skulled Duskwalker, and Kambarah, the crocodile-skulled Duskwalker.

“I cannot see Leonidas either,” Weldir eventually answered. “The image is murky and indecipherable.”

She hated how calm he sounded when she was so panicked.

“Then where is he? Why can’t we see him?” And how long had it been since he’d gone missing?

I’ve been so busy with Auberon for the past week that I only checked on everyone today, she lamented. None of them usually needed her.

She surveyed the cave she was resting in somewhere high in the mountains of Pyrssia where Auberon, a second bear-skulled Duskwalker, lived.

“We both know the answer to that question, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

Lindiwe said she wouldn’t interfere, except if their lives were in danger. It didn’t matter that she was halfway across the world.

“Please take me there,” she demanded, tucking her journal away and stashing it into her satchel. She threw it over her shoulder.

She was brought into a darkness she hadn’t visited for quite some time, as she hadn’t left that continent in years.

She glanced at Weldir, noticing his form was barely one-eighth, and a cruel loneliness crept inside her. I hate coming here. I hate seeing him. It reminded her of what she couldn’t have, and all her painful wishes that’d never be granted.

Her unrequited love that was often too much to bear.

The awkward uncomfortableness between them was so thick she doubted she could bite through it and swallow without choking. She shifted her gaze away.

Thankfully, it only lasted a few minutes.

Transported right to the fringes of Jabez’s lands, Lindiwe took in his newer castle that had stood for many decades.

It was larger, more imposing, and utterly dreadful compared to the last. What had once appeared like a humble estate, modest in size for a ‘king,’ now stood as a daunting pillar of chaos amidst a haunted forest.

The structure was grey, and the bottom level was tall enough to fit a giant depicted in tales.

The firepits illuminating the front entrance gave the impression that it was the doorway to the palace of damnation.

The dark clouds on a moonless night gave it a foreboding aura, and the Demons patrolling made its warning clear: approach at your own peril.

Lindiwe stuck to the shadows so her colourless Phantom form was harder to see. She had no need to enter through the front doors and chose to go around the side to float through a wall, ending up in a dark room.

Staying intangible, which made her unable to be scented or heard unless she spoke, Lindiwe began to investigate the castle. She poked her head out of every door or wall first to check if it was clear before exiting into a new room or hallway.

Red carpet lined the hallway floors, while dimly lit candelabras created flickering shadows. She hid in many of those dark spots to avoid patrolling Demons in her search, most of whom were midway or fully developed.

Jabez sat in his throne room, lounging on his chair irreverently and looking bored, while Demons spoke to each other in the hall.

Katerina read quietly off to the side in an adjoining area with two guards, one protecting her back and the other in front of her. There was no opening, not one where Lindiwe would be able to strike before Jabez teleported to her side – or created a portal to her.

For once, I’m not here for them.

She lingered within a wall so she could listen to their conversations and see if she could get a hint of what he’d done with Leonidas. Or if Jabez had him at all.

What if he’s decided to become Jabez’s new guard? She could see Jabez replacing Merikh easily.

A muffled roar, buried deep, bellowed from below her feet.

“Can someone shut that Mavka up?” Jabez commanded, palming his face in annoyance. “If it’s not going to give us the pleasure of dying, the least it could do is be quiet.”

“Y-you want one of us to go down there?” a Demon nervously asked, his hand gripping the front of his shirt.

“Did I stutter?” Jabez asked, lifting his hand off his face slightly to glare at the offending Demon from the corner of his eye. “I’m tired and annoyed from dealing with it already. Are you insinuating that only I should do it? What point is there in having servants then?”

“No, Your Majesty,” a woman cut in. Dressed in tight leather, she threw her hand out to the fearful one. “But none of us will survive if we tend to it. Should I call for Woik to place a sound-dampening spell?”

“That will take time,” Jabez retorted. “You will have to travel to him and return with him.”

“Not if you retrieve him, Your Majesty.”

Jabez’s nose crinkled tightly as he bared his fangs. He was gone in an instant. He returned a few minutes later holding the arm of a large, burly, horned man.

“Deal with it. I’m leaving.” He exited the throne hall into the adjoining room, and his voice echoed from within. “I’d like to go for a walk.”

“I want to stay here,” Katerina sneered in answer. “It’s winter. Go freeze by yourself.”

“Your impertinence is beginning to annoy me, Katerina. I give you everything you want, and you can’t even go for a stroll with me to help me clear my thoughts. It’s not difficult to wear a warm cloak.”

“Except you can’t give me the one thing I desire because you keep fucking failing.”

His voice grew quieter, but the menace in his tone was apparent even if Lindiwe couldn’t discern what he said. It was a warning, one that would have set even her on edge had it been muttered with such unnerving calm at her.

There was no crash as if something was thrown in anger, no shattering of glass. His temper wasn’t childishly explosive. Yet when she poked her head inside just enough to see, he was gone, and Katerina’s expression was pale and spooked. She muttered profanities while snapping her book shut.

Lindiwe didn’t care about whatever messed-up dynamic their relationship had. Or that it was obvious Katerina was impatient for the demise of Lindiwe’s children and was punishing Jabez for it.

She quickly followed after Woik and the woman who’d suggested his presence. Woik was a tall Demon, perhaps close to encroaching on Jabez’s height, with muscles nearly twice as big. Yet he walked with a dignified grace and silence unexpected for his size.

He was taken through a doorway that opened to a spiralling stone staircase. A guard behind them grabbed a torch from the wall just outside to brighten the dark descending tunnel.

Growls, snarls, and pitiful whines echoed from the belly of the castle, and each step down brought them closer to it. It frayed Lindiwe’s nerves, and she desperately wanted to pass them and go to her precious son.

But she needed to remain undiscovered, especially as she had no idea where she was going.

The moment their approach was scented, Leonidas bashed against the wall.

“My barrier is still doing well to keep it contained,” Woik stated, baritone voice soft and gentle.

He knelt in front of the wooden door that didn’t shudder, even with Leonidas trying, with all his might, to hit it. The barrier protecting it trembled instead. Woik drew a symbol on the ground, a mix of triangles she couldn’t decipher, and placed his hand over it.

He grunted as orange wafted from between his fingers like smoke. Sounds of the distressed Duskwalker dampened before fading completely.

He then stood and rubbed his wrist.

“I understand his majesty doesn’t wish to maintain this kind of magic, but I’m unsure how long I’ll be able to keep both present at the same time. I’ll remain in the castle so I can warn him if it fails, and he can apply them himself.”

“Do you know why he won’t?” the woman asked. “It doesn’t seem that hard, and his abilities are much stronger than yours.”

He turned to the woman and narrowed his white brows at her. Pointed Elvish ears flicked. “Do you really have that little understanding of the significance of what he does? The deepest well has an end if you drink from it constantly.”

The woman averted her gaze. “This just seems so minor.”

Woik reached up to scratch at his short white hair. His skin was a light tan, likely from eating many humans, but he’d retained many Elvish features.