Page 88 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)

A time unknown, but of disconnection between ideals

When Weldir felt a tug, he was drawn from slumber.

He knew what it meant; he’d felt its familiar pull only recently.

He opened his consciousness so the blackness of nothing met the blackness of his empty realm. The darknesses were different – one without thought, the other with it. One motionless and uneventful, the other controlled by the push and pull of his will.

Like before, he brought forth the fate tethers that connected him to his offspring and mate.

Only one was taut, the others drifting and swaying as loose, glowing strings that twined with his shadowy thread. I thought it was Faunus again, he mused, as he wrapped his finger around the one in a different state from the others.

He yanked the pink glowing string, and there was no resistance this time.

The Mavka came to him easily, and within a second, Aleron’s spectral, ghostly pink body was brought to him.

He lay asleep in the darkness, one wing resting back as if he lay on something, while the other hugged the top of him.

His chest was unmoving, and no heartbeat throbbed.

But even if it didn’t seem like it, his offspring was alive, just not in the realm of life.

What of Ingram?

Weldir waited to see if his raven-skulled offspring would be joining his twin, the bat-skulled one, but he never came. Considering their special bond, and their inability to leave each other’s side, what had felled one should have gotten its claws into both.

When he willed the viewing disc of Ingram to the surface, instead his mate appeared.

Hugging his large raven skull, which seemed to encompass the entire length of her torso, Lindiwe knelt on the ground, swaying back and forth as she screamed out hysterical sobs.

Half of her face was torn apart and bloodied, and only a few patches of her cloak remained white. Her hands glowed with strange streaks of lava, and if she experienced any pain from it, or any of her wounds, it was obvious she couldn’t feel it under the waves of her grief.

She refused to let go of Ingram’s skull, even when she buried her wounded face between his short ram horns and cried against it. Her shoulders shook as she heaved.

“I’m so sorry, Ingram,” she sobbed against his skull. “I’m so fucking sorry. And Aleron...”

She couldn’t get her next words out, instead screaming a breathless cry to the world. Thankfully she was protected under Merikh’s glowing red ward, and the surly bear Mavka was nowhere in sight.

“Lindiwe?” Weldir called.

“Weldir!” she rasped loudly. “Aleron… Aleron is gone. ”

“I know. His death woke me.”

“I had to choose! I had to choose which one to save.” She buried her face against the top of Ingram’s skull once more, smearing her own blood upon it.

“I tried so hard to save them both, but there were too many of them. I couldn’t.

.. I tried... I had to watch him die . Why?

! You weren’t there. I had to do it all by myself.

And then I had to flee just to protect the ones I carry because you weren’t there to take them. It’s not fair. ”

“This was the risk we took to save Faunus,” Weldir answered curtly, disliking the possibility she was insinuating he’d had a choice in the matter.

“I know!” she yelled, shaking her head. “I know it’s not your fault, but I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch them die, knowing there is nothing I can do to save them. I shouldn’t have to bear witness to this!”

“Aleron is here with me, Lindiwe,” Weldir reminded her, his tone softening, understanding now that she wasn’t blaming him – just grieving. “In Tenebris, he’ll be with me and Nathair. We will take care of him.”

“It’s not the same! There doesn’t exist! It isn’t real! It doesn’t matter to me when I can never see or speak to him again, and it won’t matter to Ingram when he comes back to realise his twin is truly gone!”

He was rendered silent. He didn’t know how to respond.

He... could never feel the same as she did regarding this death. For him, it opened new possibilities, new avenues. In Aleron’s death, his life with Weldir started.

It may be a pointless life, but it was one Aleron could share with him and Nathair.

As opposed to the sadness she felt, Weldir experienced.

.. joy. The loneliness of his realm would become less apparent.

It would be filled by another of his offspring, one with whom he could truly interact, speak, and play.

Someone who could touch him, and he would reciprocate, even if he couldn’t feel it.

“Let me bring you to my realm so I can heal you.”

“No!” she yelled, squeezing Ingram’s skull tighter. “Just leave me alone. I want to stay with Ingram.”

“Then bring Ingram with you. You can meet Aleron’s soul before I consume him.”

“I don’t want to see it! I don’t want to see my son’s dead fucking soul.” She shook her head frantically. “I want to be left alone. I don’t want to see you, or it, or do anything but be here. Just... you don’t understand. I know you don’t, so please .”

She’s right – I don’t. He never could.

To say he was disappointed was an understatement, as she was missing out on seeing the ethereal beauty of their offspring’s soul. It looked just like him in form, only pink and transparent.

At the same time, Weldir could see how much this burdened her. He didn’t know how to comfort her through this, what to say that would ease her weeping, or how to hold her when it was obvious she wanted nothing but to break down before she undoubtedly collected the shattered pieces of herself.

“Please don’t ask me to collect his skull fragments,” she whispered with a whimper. “They’re everywhere. The Demons took all of them. I wouldn’t even know where to start, and I... can’t do it. It hurts too much to touch their skulls when they aren’t whole.”

“As you wish.” Just before he turned from the viewing disc to tend to Aleron’s soul, he paused. He watched her for a little while longer before he said, “Call out for me when you are ready, Lindiwe. I will heal you and do whatever it is you need from me.”

“Okay,” she croaked.

Weldir finally gave his attention to Aleron.

Her anguish had guilt shimmering through his mist at the elation he experienced from seeing the soul of his winged Mavka. The feeling deepened when he knew that consuming it would not only give him another offspring to meet, but that it would empower him immensely.

More than any untainted soul he’d ever eaten.

I’ll never tell her so, though.

He could only imagine how angry she’d become if she learned that eating his own children made him far stronger.

At least I’ll have more mana to spare, should we need it.

He made Aleron’s soul shrink, so he could place it in the centre of his palm, and quickly swallowed him down. Then he teleported to Tenebris to greet him in the afterworld with shadowy open arms.

March 14 th , 2024

Lindiwe managed to swallow the barbed sorrow long enough to speak with Ingram when he came back to life after she had beheaded him.

It had been just as horrible an experience as the first time she’d ever done it, and it didn’t get any easier – but she’d needed to stop him from fighting the Demons after Aleron’s death.

It’d taken her hours to get the worst of her grief out. Hugging Ingram’s skull had been unbearable, knowing her child wasn’t going to be okay at the loss of his twin.

She knew he’d never accept it, that he wouldn’t be able to handle it any better than her. He might even suffer more due to it. Their bond was special; they spent every waking and sleeping moment together. The absence of Aleron’s constant presence would be sorely missed.

It was for that reason that she swallowed the heavy poison of her grief, so that she wouldn’t burden Ingram with it. She needed to hold it in long enough to help him through something he didn’t have the emotional maturity to handle on his own.

To be a rock for him, when she felt like fractured glass.

She hadn’t known that she’d put him on a path of foolishness. He plans to seek out humans to help him kill Jabez. It was futile. The humans would never help, and even if they did, they wouldn’t do so alongside a Duskwalker.

The only thing she could think to do was follow his snarling, whimpering form while she flew above him as an owl. Maybe I can speak with whomever he goes to. Whether it be the Demonslayer guild or a human town of soldiers.

She had no idea where he was leading them, only that violent determination and utter loss forged their path.

I can be a buffer. She’d explain the situation, so they didn’t harm him and then take him away before chaos ensued when he was rejected.

No one would ever know how much his path took a toll on her.

How she wasn’t allowed to properly grieve because she had to watch over him instead.

How it’d barely been two days since Aleron’s death, and instead of wallowing in her pain, of absorbing the loss of another child, she was forced to grin and bear it.

She was struggling.

Her heart felt broken into jagged little pieces. How much more could she take before Lindiwe lost her mind to all this? How much more emotional anguish would she have to suffer before she just... couldn’t anymore.

She could feel her mind fracturing.

Everything felt hopeless.

Her children were being targeted, and the threat of that constantly lingered over her head like a horrible storm cloud.

The person she loved was unobtainable and out of reach, and she so desperately wanted to cave to him.

To have him collect her in his non-existent arms and just..

. take this pain away, exist with her in a way where she didn’t have to feel like she was doing this all on her own.

If only he could grieve with her, rather than be so detached from it he couldn’t even properly support her.

Lindiwe knew Weldir saw no issue with their deaths because it meant they achieved new life with him. They eased his loneliness, even if it stopped them from truly living.