Page 36

An icy chill stung Lindi’s nose, causing it to drip.

Stifling the urge to sniffle, she kept quiet as she moved through the forest. The dawning frost had quickly melted under the early spring’s warmth, saturating the world in a dewiness that clung to the earth.

Forest debris didn’t crunch under her boots, but she slowed to reduce the squelch of each step she took, and the suction that happened when she lifted off.

With a brown hood covering her head, the darker fur underneath kept the chill out. More fur lined her thick hide jacket, as well as padded inside her pants that were tied down to her thighs and her calves. Even her boots were padded, ensuring she could survive harsh, freezing temperatures.

Many years ago, such lengths to stay warm had been unnecessary.

Much had changed in the past fourteen years since she, in her heart, had said farewell to Nathair, even if she remained the same.

The distance between the Veil’s forest and the green coastlines grew smaller with every year, making the desert separating them smaller. Along with it, temperatures shifted rapidly.

The summers weren’t as scorching. They were ripe with flora to ensure more insects, more breeding grounds for animals, and more lakes and rivers that didn’t dry up under the unbearable heat. The red dusty soil became nutrient rich, providing plenty of food for all manner of creatures and plants.

As positive as this was, it meant everything was.

.. cooler. Austrális had rarely experienced snow, and if it did, it was generally on its highest-peaked mountains.

Now, though, snow fell, only to melt before it landed – leaving the ground wet.

Then, after the darkest part of night to the earliest hour of morning, ice formed, making the ground slippery and dangerous to tread across in the middle of winter all day long.

After observing such changes over the past five years in particular, Lindi knew the certainty of something: in the north, and even parts of the south, they would soon see thick blankets of snow in the winter.

It was all due to the land that bordered the Veil. Its forest, likely aided by magic, was taking over the world. Animal droppings and pollinators probably assisted this naturally, but its rapid growth was concerning. As was the forest of the Veil, deep down on the canyon’s floor.

There are more Demons roaming, Lindi thought, as she used the cover of a tree and peeked around its trunk to survey the two men walking.

They appeared battle-hardened. Both brandished longswords at their waists, and wore chain-mail armour and metal plates over their bodies.

Her eyes narrowed with spite, as well as to assess their movements, before she crouched to follow them. She ducked behind cover whenever they absentmindedly turned their gazes her way. Neither were fearful with the sun on their backs.

Fools. The Demons run in the shade.

With the desert so small it could be crossed in a single night, those violent, nasty creatures were expanding further and further out.

People were becoming afraid. There had been more attacks on villages, and especially on farms. Terror was beginning to run rampant, causing people to abandon their homes to relocate to walled cities, towns, and villages.

Those houses were then dismantled as easily accessible material, often leaving little evidence behind.

Soon, the flora would take back what was once theirs.

People were uprooting their lives in hopes of surviving the nightmares that moved through the night. Men worked tirelessly, destroying old homes and moving furniture, while others chopped down timber.

Everyone had heard of the Demons, whether that be because someone they knew had heard someone had gone missing, or rumours from other cities told of terrors.

The scent of fear was beginning to blanket the world, so much so that even Lindi thought she could smell it.

The children weren’t just terrified – even grown men were waking up in cold sweats in the middle of the night.

Which meant Lindi’s mission had increased in difficulty.

It would surely stop one day, with people too afraid to leave the safety of their walled cities or villages, but the increase of sacrifices to the Veil’s canyon had grown.

The occult had grown to the point that even civilians were talking about who should be offered.

Idiots. Callous idiots.

With a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, Lindi followed the two men until she found the best vantage spot. Then she nocked her arrow carefully on her taut bowstring and waited.

“Hello, Lindiwe,” Weldir’s roguish, faraway voice muttered right in her ear – or rather, it felt that way, even though it radiated from within her mind.

“One moment,” she quietly demanded, her tone distracted as she lifted her bow. It creaked when she pulled back on the string and took aim.

“You dare ask a god to still himself?” Mingling in with the darkness of his voice, Lindi was sure she heard humour.

Without responding, she released her arrow, and it darted through the air with a quiet whistle. It pierced into the temple of one man, who instantly shunted sideways on his horse and into his companion.

Before the living occultist could flee, his steed rearing back when he pulled on the reins in shock, Lindi lifted a hand.

From the branch above him, black tentacles formed, uncurled themselves, and wrapped around his neck just as he kicked his heels into his mount’s flanks.

The horse sprinted forwards, while its rider remained in place to choke.

Once they were securely strangling him like a magical noose as he clawed ineffectually at his tender throat with blunt nails, Lindi strung her bow across her shoulders.

She eyed the man without emotion, letting him cruelly hang there to his slow death before looking around.

She approached the remaining horse spinning in a circle and cooed up at it with her hands out, hoping to soothe it as she reached for its reins. When she’d controlled and tamed the intelligent steed, she yanked the dead rider from its saddle so she could make the magnificent creature hers.

“What do you want, Weldir?” she asked as she patted its warm, thick neck.

It’s been four years since he last spoke to me, she thought, as she ripped her arrow from the corpse now that the horse was calm. It’s never good when he reaches out.

Mainly he complained that she hadn’t visited his mist in a long time, but sometimes he shared new information with her.

I’m sure there is much he is still hiding.

“I often wonder if you will greet me warmly one day, rather than with disdain.”

Lindi couldn’t help looking down. “I wouldn’t say I think of you with disdain.”

In the beginning she’d been rather resentful, but now she just felt.

.. empty. Their bond was frigid and lacklustre.

He called to her when he wanted something, and there was no point in telling him what she’d been up to – as he’d likely watched.

She’d been creeped out by his watchful nature at first but had come to accept it.

Their conversations were often stale and held no warmth.

“Does that mean you think of me?” he asked, and she definitely heard humour this time.

Of course I do. Her right hand balled into a tight fist around her arrow with the left squeezing the reins.

Every time I use your magic, I think of you.

Every time she looked in the mirror and saw she hadn’t aged, she thought of him.

Every time she remembered the last twenty-one years since she gave away her soul, she thought of Weldir.

After staring at the corpse with a disgusted sneer, she looked up, welcoming the oncoming light gust of freezing wind with her arms outstretched.

“How may I assist you, oh great Warden of Darkness, demi-god of some faraway realm, and the consumer of souls?” She lowered her arms and placed a hand on her hip. “Is that better?”

“It seems you have grown rather sarcastic since we last spoke,” he murmured. Then humour once more filled his voice. “I like the praise, and the sudden playfulness. Do go on.”

Lindi rolled her eyes and lifted her palm out towards the dead occultist, knowing the other had likely fallen from his magical noose by now. “Do you mind if I incinerate these two? It’s been long enough that if their souls were going to appear, they would have.”

“You could always wait longer.”

She didn’t want to. And, since she knew she wouldn’t be reprimanded or punished, she let a flame explode from the centre of her palm.

It shot towards the occultist and quickly wrapped him in black fire.

She placed a sandy dome over the top of it, having learned that using a barrier stopped the spread.

Once the flames died out, she backtracked towards the other corpse while leading the horse, looking around to figure out where she was. She needed to return to the town she’d been scouting before she followed these two out of it when they were spilling from her grasp.

“How is Nathair?” Lindi asked, evading his statement with a question she asked whenever Weldir attempted to talk with her.

She always thought about him – and how much Weldir had said he’d changed. He’d grown bigger, had gained a gender – although she was displeased that it required eating a human to do so. He’d become strong, and... dangerous.

After being incapable of staying away, Lindi had asked Weldir to help her find him just once. He’d been just as violent as the last time she’d seen him – like he couldn’t remember her.

That had been heartbreaking for her, and the sorrow of it weighed on her shoulders constantly. But, in her own way, she still adored him.

He was hers, even if he wasn’t normal. Even if he was destructive and what she, in the past, would have considered as evil as the Demons. He was... beautiful, even with his deathly skull and enormous serpent body.