Page 19

A time unknown, but a new beginning

Holding a small leaf, Weldir’s coalescing form moved to show solid darkness where he slid the pad of his thumb against its green edge.

Pressure radiated across his face, and as usual, he was unsure of the expression that filled it.

Perhaps a thoughtful one? He imagined so, considering he was inspecting the leaf and its flaws.

“It still doesn’t look right,” he murmured to himself, as he dropped his hand and lifted his gaze towards the tree before him.

To his eyes, everything appeared either too fuzzy or too smooth.

The leaf was tough and hadn’t bent to his touch.

He’d witnessed them fold and be rather malleable on Earth.

From afar, the bark of the tree – not that he knew the name of it – appeared to mimic those that had formed near the Veil.

Up close, however, it was fuzzier than it should be.

The tree’s image shifted until smoothness on the tops of the leaves gave a rough sheen, while the undersides remained satin. The bark did the opposite, and suddenly the trunk looked scaley like a reptilian, rather than like tree bark.

He threw the leaf to the side, finding this process to be a nuisance due to his lack of skill and understanding, and it fluttered through the air.

It disintegrated before it could touch the darkness below his feet.

His gaze drifted along the high, arching roots that wove through the liquid black base he’d given his inner world, his stomach – the place in which souls were held.

The ground looked like black ink that reached on forever.

A feminine roar, like she’d done it through clenched teeth, warbled around him. Although it was loud to him, as if it had come from within the depths of his very mind, the rest of Tenebris – his stomach – was quiet.

“Such a noisy thing,” he stated to the air as he looked up. “It’s as if she knows I can hear her.”

She wouldn’t. For what could have only been an hour or so, she’d been yelling at him, about him, to the darkness around her. She spoke to herself, frustrated and annoyed, or sometimes just screamed.

Weldir, try as he might, found her hard to ignore. Since she was in the part of his realm that housed his mind and the depths of his consciousness, using magic to block her was remarkably draining.

So there she floated, constantly being a pest, and he was subjected to listening to her outbursts.

The longer they went on, the more frantic she sounded.

He could even make out her panicked breaths and accelerated heartbeat.

Forcing the tree to shake and offer him a new leaf to inspect, he noted that it still looked wrong.

At least its texture has improved. He was trying to recreate something he’d never interacted with, and he either made it too thin that it was floppy, or thick and rigid, or sharp enough to slice through the solid parts of him.

He felt no pain, however, and wounds were truly non-existent to him.

“Come back here! I want to go home!” she screamed, only for her voice to soften momentarily as she murmured, “Well... not that I have a home. Just not here! This isn’t fair.”

Her punishment was entirely her own fault.

Weldir was patient, and had been so for what he knew to be quite a few human years – not that he truly knew the length of time that had passed.

She was not doing the tasks bestowed upon her.

Instead of travelling through the desert in search of Ghosts – humans eaten by Daekura – she was in human towns that had no interaction with them.

Those she’d found must have been accidents she’d stumbled across in the forests.

Or perhaps she discovered them along her journeys each time she crossed the desert when he called her back to the Veil.

It felt like such a waste making her restart her journeys.

He’d like to return her back to where he originally took her from, but he was unable to. He was able to recall her from anywhere, as she was connected to him through a tether of essence, but she re-formed inside his mist – the manifestation of his reach on Earth.

With more power, I should be able to send her back to any location my mist touches.

Yet, she kept using his mana when he told her to be sparing with it. He didn’t stop her, but he slumbered more due to it, occasionally waking up and checking on Tenebris, his souls – to see if she’d brought him new ones to consume – and on her.

Always on her.

He watched her through a viewing disc – a flat, oval piece of floating liquid with glittering sand on the outside – any chance he could. She was never where he needed her to be, but he understood this self-imposed task was the result of her feminine rage, and he was giving her time to expend it.

Or, rather, had given her time.

He wanted her to fulfil the true reason he’d bonded them. Once they created a servant, she could go back to her vendetta after they worked together to teach their offspring how to do their task. Once they perfected their offspring, he would ask her for more. He could further his reach, his power.

With enough servants, with enough consumed soul power, he planned to encase the entire world with himself. Then he’d have no need for her.

She could do as she wanted, forever, and she didn’t have to see Weldir unless she deigned to. He would keep his promise to let her use his mana, and she would have an endless supply of it to play with. She could lay waste to her enemies to her heart’s content.

Until then, he expected to be given the things he asked for.

“You’re such a jerk,” he heard her state, her voice cracking higher an octave.

Weldir looked up to stare between the branches of the tree he’d created.

It was made up of nothing but his mind’s interpretation of what he’d seen on Earth.

.. mostly from a distance, until recently.

It wasn’t alive, it wouldn’t grow without his interference, and there was no wind to make it rustle.

The green looked too vibrant, the dark-brown bark too washed out, and it still just looked wrong.

I truly did not mean to hurt her.

He couldn’t see or feel what he was doing, and he truly didn’t know penetrating her cervix wasn’t how a human female became pregnant. He’d guessed, and just so happened to be wrong.

The tree wilted a little, the colours of it dimming. Now it just looked sad. It looked... disappointed in him.

“He doesn’t even have the decency to ask my name!” he heard her scream through the ether. “It’s been six years!”

That made Weldir pause.

I have asked her name before, haven’t I? He made the roots of the tree shift through the inky, watery ground until they sat more naturally as he thought deeply. Her name is...

He didn’t know it.

No matter how much he searched his memories – there weren’t many, as he’d been asleep for the better part of their time together – he couldn’t find her name. He’d never needed it.

If he wished to call upon her, he brought her to his realm.

Has it really been six years to her? He hadn’t realised such a length of time had passed for her – he knew this to be long for a human.

The tree wilted even further as his mist swirled tighter around him. The back of his mind thickened with an emotion he wasn’t quite accustomed to. Guilt, perhaps. Regret? Shame?

The least he could have done was show a little more care regarding her.

But I have been asleep, he argued in his own defence. All because she used my mana too much.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

The power she’d gifted him through their bond had allowed him to force every soul he’d consumed into a deep slumber. He finally had peace, and he slept to preserve it, giving himself the chance to rest. He’d been letting the well of his mana re-flood enough to handle the constant expenditure.

Without it, he already knew the souls would awaken once more to fret. They’d wail again if he didn’t snuff them into a slumber.

I have also been making this tree. Once he perfected it, he could begin making others. He could make... more.

I want my own forest. One he could interact with. A proper world in which the souls he’d eaten could wander. He’d like to make mountains, grass, rivers.

He wanted Tenebris to come to life. To be life in the afterworld. A place of serenity that even he could bask in.

He wanted his darkness to house beauty. For the yawning loneliness to be filled with distractions. He wanted to pretend that he could breathe the wind he wanted to create, could drink the water, could feel the sunlight.

Weldir wanted to feel as though he existed.

Currently, the only way he existed was through the interactions of a little human female who did not look upon him fondly. She was constantly wary, eying him with a stern regard, and he didn’t understand her, or humans, well enough to know how to change that.

The souls here were the first people he’d ever spoken with, and they were always panicked at their deaths. Not quite the pleasant conversationalists. Then there were the sacrifices that were brought to the Veil’s cliff, but those conversations, until his mate, had all gone the same.

Confusion at his voice, fear of it, uncertainty of what he offered. Always rejection – or they’d die before they could make up their minds.

He’d never even spoken with his mother.

If it wasn’t for the fact that he could talk to himself, he wouldn’t have even known he had a voice. He’d been placed in an isolated box; a magical prism.

He’d been hoping having a mate might change his seclusion, but his female wasn’t very chatty with him. She didn’t seem to like his voice, as she often shuddered whenever he spoke, and she frequently narrowed her pretty gaze at his words.

He thought giving her space would help, hence why he let her adjust to her new life over the years, but that hadn’t worked. So, if she would not be his companion, then his servants could be.

That’s if I can speak with them.