Page 86 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)

Nathair lifted his hands to sign something, but they twitched with hesitancy. “Are you sure there is nothing you can do?”

“No,” he answered immediately. “I can create life from nothing, but I cannot give back a life that is taken.”

At least... he couldn’t give back a life to a Mavka, who had an existence after death.

He was unsure if he could bring back a human.

To do so might mean he’d have to bond them to himself, in turn making them a mate.

And, considering Lindiwe’s rejection of such a notion, that was a possibility he’d never experiment with.

I wonder if it’s different if I were to bond a human to one of my offspring, though. The question was: why would he ever do so?

When a day must have passed since Leonidas’ unfortunate death, he felt another tug.

He left Nathair’s side and materialised in his darkness to wait. His soul would come eventually, even if Weldir didn’t pull on his family fate tether.

His soul would be asleep, as that had been the case with Nathair’s. When a soul was brought to him, it was always in a state of rest as it waited for him. That was no different for his offspring. It was only when they entered Tenebris, leaving the limbo in between, that they could be awakened.

The minutes passed. At least he thought it may have been minutes. Then an otherworldly yellow glowing spirit came to his void, except... it was only his head.

The string was still taut, yet now it vibrated, causing his mist to pulsate. He conjured a new viewing disc, and what he saw surprised him.

His offspring’s soul was in two pieces. His physical body from the neck down was attached to his broken skull, which had also regained its headless, spiritual body – with the head missing.

The world around it had sharpened, and he lay curled up in a ball asleep just outside a frozen forest. A strange rope, shimmering with an enchantment, had been tied around his neck and leashed him to a tree like a pet.

Weldir brought his spectral yellow skull closer and investigated the filled crack in it. It was evident that it’d once been broken, that there should be no true life in it, yet he couldn’t pull the two pieces of his spirit skull apart with ease.

Although he didn’t put too much force into it.

Someone has tried to fix it. Well, kind of. Enough to revive him in some sense, but not enough to make him whole. He’s in a state of half life.

“Lindiwe,” Weldir finally called.

Her owl head was quick to rotate forward, and she gave a hoot and lifted her wings to remove some of the snow that had fallen on her. Her black eyes darted around the forest she was in.

“Leonidas is...” He paused in thought. “Hmm... how to explain this? He’s alive, but he’s also dead. Someone has tried to fix his broken skull, and it’s tethering him to life.”

She lifted the arch of a wing to push back her hood, and she morphed into a human. Her backside fell onto the branch so she could sit.

“What does that even mean?” she whined, throwing her hands forward before having to catch herself on the branch so she didn’t fall metres to the ground.

“It means there may be hope for Leonidas after all,” he said, unable to keep the grin that was likely present on his face from his voice. “I cannot bring him back to life on my own, but if whoever has tried to save him is willing, they might be able to.”

She raised a sceptical brow, but the panic in her gaze had softened. “Can you better explain it?” She lifted a hand to rest the side of her face in her palm, with her elbow on her knee when she brought it up. “You always make things so confusing.”

“I will need to go to him.”

Her lips pursed. “But you can’t leave your mist.”

“Not unless I use another soul,” he pointed out, reminding her of how often he’d done so in the past for her.

“Can you do that?” She chewed on the inside of her cheek nervously. “You just woke up. Do you have enough power right now?”

“No. Not really. This will likely put me back to sleep for an exceptionally long time. Will you be okay with that?”

Lindiwe lowered her hands so she could pick at her fingers, and her fidgeting was a sign of her uncertainty.

Her gaze dropped, forlorn and saddened. “If... if it brings him back to life, then yes. I’ve tried to use your magic sparingly.

I’ll continue to make sure I don’t use much, and I’ll keep hunting for souls like I have been. ”

“If any of our other offspring need us...”

“I know!” she said a little louder, half shouting as she clenched her eyes shut. “I know this means I’ll be trapped here in Austrális, unable to help any of the others. So long as none of them are in danger of death, they can survive the rest. I can’t... I don’t want to lose him, Weldir. Please. ”

“As you wish.”

“Wait,” she rasped, leaning forward before biting her lip.

A glob of snow fell on her head from above as she rustled the tree more forcefully.

She either didn’t care or didn’t notice as she looked to the forest with her eyes softening.

“Thank you so much. I know you’re trying, and I know this is all a lot on you.

Thank you for going out of your way for him, for them. ”

“Lindiwe, I cannot do much from this side of life and death. If this is all I can do, then so be it.” Then, wanting to end this temporary goodbye on a lighter note, he asked, “How are the little ones?”

Her lips curled upwards slightly. “They’re good,” she said, before her small, broken smile fell. “Except one has a Demon skull, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”

“A Demon’s skull? How odd.” A light chuckle fell from Weldir. “I guess I’ll have to investigate that when I return. Hopefully nothing more happens during my absence.”

“If you could make that hope tangible, I’d appreciate it more than anything right now.”

So would he.

When he tore apart a soul to make himself visible, then tugged on Leonidas’ fate tether – not to bring him here but to go to him – he was thrown into a winter land. In the background, a small cabin with a smoking chimney lay before his offspring.

Weldir hadn’t expected a short, black-haired woman to be kneeling in the snow sobbing. Nor to learn that Leonidas’ new name was... Faunus, as she poured her heart out to his feline Mavka offspring.

He’d been half expecting a Demon to be the reason for Faunus’ curse of a half life or perhaps an Anzúli. Just someone with magical capabilities.

“So this is where you are,” he said, alerting the female to his presence, while greeting his offspring.

Alright, Leonidas. Let’s see if we can save you.

“If it is so beautiful, I hope I never see it then,” said the little fawny female – whose name Weldir forgot to ask for – after he explained what Tenebris was like.

“It appears you won’t, for now.” He turned his face away from Faunus to her, with pressure cutting across it – a smile, probably.

“He has accepted your soul, and it has allowed the part of him that is here to strengthen through the bond so I could force the lost fragment back together in that powerful moment.”

He’d bonded a human soul and a Mavka soul, threading them together by force, and thus answering a question he’d always wondered. If he were to manually tether a deceased human to a Mavka, he could indeed bring them back together.

Faunus’ new bride’s brows knitted together with concern as she stared down at his feline skull. “But his eyes are still gone.”

“I’m sure they will appear – give it time,” he said as his form hovered backwards in the desire to retreat.

“Since I’m no longer needed here, I will leave while I still have power from the soul I have consumed.

Spooking my mate in this realm tickles me rather deeply, especially since I can’t do so very often. ”

And his mist shimmered with triumph. He was excited to see how Lindiwe would react upon learning he’d brought back their offspring. She will be pleased. But it was her expression he longed to see, cast at him.

Sensing where she was in the world by their bond, Weldir shifted himself through space to be at her side.

She was within a village and didn’t appear to have been there long. She’d just finished asking someone if they’d heard any rumours about haunted ones – ghostly beings that may lurk in the town or the forest. It was rare for a human to see them, but it wasn’t completely uncommon.

“Hello, Lindiwe,” Weldir said right in her ear.

His female let out a squeak, like a hidden scream, and with wide eyes and covering her right ear, she turned. Then she waved her arms through him as if to dispel him. She ran in between the gap of two buildings nearby.

He followed with mirth vibrating through him.

“Are you insane?!” she whisper-yelled, peeking out from their hiding place to make sure no one saw them. “Why would you come here like this?”

He chuckled at her reaction. It almost makes using a soul like this worth it. She acted similarly every time he appeared when it had nothing to do with their offspring.

“I told you I would be using a soul,” he said, crossing his arms and tilting his head at her.

His mist was thinning rapidly, but he had a few more minutes before it was disastrous.

“Yes, but not like this.” She eyed him over, his visible fullness, and nibbled her lip. “How... how did things go?”

“Leonidas is now called Faunus.” Her eyelashes didn’t flicker, informing him she already knew his newly appointed name.

“He is also alive.” As soon as those words left him, all the stress, the pain, the fear, melted from her in the form of joyful tears.

“He’s also bonded to a female with black hair. ”

“Mayumi bonded with him?!” she asked, her pretty brown eyes brightening as a large smile curled her lips.

“Was that her name? She agreed to offer her soul in exchange for his life. We have her to thank.”

“I guess I’ll have to figure out how to do that,” she stated with a laugh, her eyes darting this way and that, only to fall to the fading white soul partially hidden within his shadows and mist.

Lindiwe wrung her hands and stepped a little closer while staring up at him. She looked awkward and more out of place with him than usual – and that was saying a lot.

It looked like she wanted to reach out to him. Then again, Weldir could be mistaken, wanting that to be the truth. Or perhaps it was that he wanted to cup the side of her cheek affectionately.

Her smile right now is worth much. It was what he’d wanted to see, for it to be shone directly upon him for the first time in nearly fifty years since their unwanted distance began.

It was why he came here.

“I’ll have to sleep for a while. I ask that you remain safe.”

His mate laughed lightly, happier than he’d seen her in a long while – likely from the high of her relief. “You’re forgetting what I am.”

I am not. He worried for her regardless of the fact that she was a Phantom, as she could still suffer pain in her heart and soul.