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“Are you sure he’s this way?” Lindi asked out loud, knowing Weldir was listening in.

Climbing through the brush, she pushed back the thick foliage, eager for it to thin out once more.

She was careful of any spiderwebs and any potential nasty traps their owners could leave under unassuming dry leaves or under flaps of loose bark.

The rough trunk of a nearby tree brushed beneath her fingertips as she steadied herself to step over a cavity in the earth.

Insects flew through scattered rays of sunlight penetrating the criss-crossing leaves above, soaking in the summer heat as they emitted a cascade of different sounds: buzzing, flaps of wings, and many even sung.

Butterflies chased each other right in front of her untrodden path, while a mosquito haunted her every movement until she almost slapped herself in the ear, trying to swat it before it could sting.

A harsh gust of wind made branches creak, clack, and groan, but Lindi lifted her face in welcome as it blew past her. The cool air was a reprieve from the scorching heat. She also searched beyond the brush for whom she sought.

This wasn’t Lindi’s first time walking through the forest below the Veil’s canyon, and she was thankful she was on the fringes of it near the cliff wall.

The forest was still rather sparse due to the young growth.

In due time, it would mature, thicken, and be impossible to see any light through the crossing branches like further within the Veil.

She was nervous about walking through it, but not enough for it to stop her. Lindi just kept a wary ear out for danger.

“Yes. I’m sure,” Weldir confirmed. “I can feel your spirits drawing closer to each other, but I can’t tell you exactly where to go. Just the general direction.”

Watching her next footfall, Lindi blew a sweaty curl from her forehead, only for it to fall exactly where it’d been.

“I wish there was an easier way to travel,” Lindi complained. “I also don’t like being on the ground here.”

A shiver tore up her spine in worry, and she flinched whenever something snapped or rustled in the distance.

“You could try a horse again.”

She almost rolled her eyes at that, but she did huff. “No. Horses are exceptionally intelligent creatures. I think that’s why they spook whenever I have one of our children on my person.”

Plus, she could only imagine how she’d get a horse to willingly descend any possible path along the cliff walls to the bottom. She’d only tried to utilise them for transport in the previous years when Weldir no longer wanted children from her.

Lindi had acquired a few horses, but that was in between her first and second child.

They refused to let her near them with Nathair when he was a baby, and she imagined it would be the same with the one who currently had their nose to the wind over her shoulder.

Many were also wary of her, although she was a natural with a horse due to her family owning one to sow their crops.

She had a feeling it was something to do with her magic abilities or the fact that she was actually half dead.

“Can’t you just... I don’t know, give me the ability to move from one location to another in the blink of an eye?”

“I don’t have such abilities, Lindiwe.”

“But you do it all the time in your realm!” she argued, keeping her voice light.

His answering soft chuckle had her ears warming.

It was too decadent and rich, and it always unnerved her how quickly it could send a pleasurable shiver across her skin.

“That’s because my realm is me. As you can touch your nose, I can move to anywhere within me.

On Earth, I would have to walk if I wasn’t trapped in my mist.”

Lindi turned her head to look at the baby currently clinging to the back of her brown tunic with their head over her shoulder. “He isn’t being very helpful, is he?”

Hearing that she spoke to them, their little oval nostrils flared rapidly in her direction. They gave a bawk and leaned closer – but Lindi leaned back, unsure if they would playfully nip her or lick her nose. This child happened to be much feistier than Nathair had been.

“Let me dwell on a solution,” Weldir offered. “I may not be insightful about Earth, but all Elven deities are aware of all spells that the Elysians learn. There may be something in my memories that I can find.”

But I want something nooow! She didn’t dare utter her childish pout, but she did stick her bottom lip forward slightly. Then she moved them onto the current topic at hand.

“I’m still surprised he’s in the Veil,” Lindi commented, noting the trickling water in the distance.

“It seems he favours a particular lake.”

A lake in the middle lands of Austrális... After wandering the desert for years, she wouldn’t have thought such a thing was possible, until now.

She couldn’t help lifting her gaze to the twinkles of sunlight shining through the gaps of lush green pine needles.

At any point, the sky could turn grey, and they could be in the middle of torrential rain.

The development of such chaotic weather was new, and she already surmised it had something to do with the forest that had been unnaturally grown both within and around the Veil.

Something had to keep it all healthy. She didn’t know yet if that was by the intervention of Demons, or if the growth of flora forced the sky to change. Either way, Lindi had been rained on countless times during her pregnancy as she’d clung to the forest.

Her family home... it’d been destroyed quite some time ago. The resources were given to Rivenspire, and already the earth had begun to take back the land, cleansing it all in rot. In another decade, she doubted it would even look as though there had been a home there at all.

Rather than finding a safe house to dwell in, Lindi had made the forest her home.

She’d learned much about camping and making a temporary shelter out of branches and animal furs quite some time ago. A farming girl had turned into an adventurer in her wanderlust; hunting occultists had been an arduous journey of travel.

Since Weldir had intended to call her back to his realm right after birth, she’d made herself a soft and safe nest beforehand. All she’d been thankful for was that it had been mid-spring, not too hot and not too cold, while she’d felt like her body was splitting in two.

Since then, Lindi had been nurturing her little forest buddy.

They’d travelled away from the worst of the Veil to avoid the rare sighting of Demons – although they were becoming more frequent as the months passed. She was often at the fringes, in places like the last bit of desert in the west, taking in its red-dusted beauty before it disappeared forever.

It also so happened to be where she found an echidna.

And, curious to see if her child would obtain its features if she let them eat it, she gave it to them – while first removing its head.

If she was going to be able to choose what skulls her children obtained, she wanted them to have predator ones so they could defend best against Demons.

She’d learned that she was correct.

Although no bones had formed, this child obtained echidna spines from eating it. It was only afterwards that she was thankful they were pliable and non-dangerous like their bendy claws – otherwise she would have been constantly pricked by them.

She thought they looked kind of... cute with spines. She often played with the ones going down their back, forearms, and calves by brushing her fingertips in a soothing manner. They always curled their back in delight, as if they adored the sensation.

After a little more trudging, Lindi’s ears rang from the familiar sound of crashing water. She followed it, hoping she’d find what she sought at the end of it.

That sounds like a... The forest opened up to a waterfall rushing from the surface into the Veil. Ironically, a rainbow glimmered in front of it, as if the world was lying about the beauty it was pouring into.

The churning froth collected in a large body of water so deep she couldn’t see the bottom of it, which connected to a thin river that ran deeper into the Veil.

The midday sun allowed the entire area to be bathed in sunshine, and she placed her hand above her eyes to shield them from the worst of the blazing light. Lindi searched to find it empty.

She noted the towering, rough wall and how it grew convex just to her right. He could have told me it was next to the cliff wall. She’d been wandering the Veil for no reason!

With those spooky... Demons.

Not all were as human-looking as Jabeziryth, Lettie, and Yusel. Actually... most were so inhumanly pitch-black they looked like a glossy void, as if they didn’t have flesh. And Weldir had confirmed they didn’t – their outer bodies were made up of energy that kept all their internal organs in.

It disappeared as they grew actual flesh. It thickened, hardened, and they could morph into any shade that humans were born with.

I don’t see him. Other than the waterfall, the space was vacant.

“Weldir, are you sure this is the right–” Before she could finish, a giant wave of spraying water flung in her direction, right as something leapt from the middle of it.

Instinctually, Lindi backed up and turned intangible, and the child attached to her turned ghostly as well.

The creature, perhaps eight metres long, landed right where she’d been standing.

With a snarl, his long, coiling serpent tail slithered and splashed, remaining in the water as he warded back thin air with a menacing hiss and his long serpent fangs bared.

Then, leaning on his hands, he looked up at her Phantom form.

Unable to form tears due to her intangible nature, Lindi just offered a heartfelt, shaky smile. “Hello, Nathair,” she whispered.