Page 88 of A Soul to Guide

“We know that now. It was only after the second time we introduced the Delysians into our city that my parents understood what they’d done wrong. He was eating our diet when he needed meat like they do.”

Merikh’s scoff cut Raewyn sharply. “Let me guess, he went on a hunger-filled rampage?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head.

“Yes, but also no. After people discovered he was a biter, they became afraid, started resenting his existence. No matter how much my parents tried to shield him from it, they couldn’t hide it. More and more, their glares weighed on him, and I watched him turn from the happy big brother I knew into someone hateful. He stopped wanting to play with me and kept himself locked up in our study. One day at school, he just... snapped. He purposely attacked the other students, and he killed all those who bullied him. When the teachers tried to stop him, he attacked them too, until he killed one. He’d eaten many of them, and they just thought he was acting like a Demon because he wanted to become what they were accusing him of.”

Raewyn would always remember that day.

The terrified screams of other children who ran away while she was almost trampled in their fright. How five-year-old Raewyn sprinted to the source when she heard it was Jabez. How she paused when she saw him covered in blood at the end of the hallway, and her little heart had dropped to her stomach.

How she sprinted to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pleaded for him to stop hurting everyone.

Jabez put his arms around her midsection to hug her, smearing blood all over her clothing as he petted her hair with his cheek. He begged Raewyn to forgive him, said he was sorry for frightening her, that he couldn’t bear how others treated him.

That his stomach hurt, and he couldn’t handle it anymore.

Raewyn calmed him down, until a teacher snatched her from his arms protectively. He became enraged. Jabez leapt onto the teacher, slit his throat with his claws, and then dragged Raewyn out of their school by her hand.

He hid them both away in the dark.

Despite his violence, not once did he ever lay a claw on her. Instead, that day, he petted her hair, cooed at her, and even sang. She cried in confusion at his actions, and worried about how much trouble he would be in because of them.

He protected her from himself, and Raewyn, at the time, had no idea how to protect him from getting in trouble.

“After that, despite fighting for him, our parents were forced to hand him over to the councillors. They put him away, afraid he would continue to be violent, but they didn’t want to cast him out into the world to be attacked by Demons.”

Raewyn didn’t realise she’d started crying until she needed to sniffle because her nose was blocked.

“We were allowed to visit him, and my parents tried everything to find a way to help him, but... after being locked in that cell for too long, he rejected them. He wouldn’t allow them to draw blood, wouldn’t allow them to try anything. He’d growl and swipe through the bars at anyone who got too close to his cell... even me. He called me pampered, spoilt, and lucky. Said he hated my existence because we were different, and there was no point in pretending anymore. He said I was just feigning care because I was interested in the ‘freak.’ Truthfully, I just wanted to see my brother because I missed him. My parents and I continued to visit him, but it was never pleasant because he didn’t want us there. He said he’d rather be alone.”

“He said he escaped with the help of other Demons,” Merikh stated. “That they were all caged.”

“A few Demons had asked for sanctuary, having eaten enough of my kind who hadn’t managed to get to the city and were stranded in other parts of the realm. They acted like us, spoke like us, were truly afraid to be in the wild, since other Demons would attack them because it aided their own growth. So, we allowed them to integrate with our people. Everyone was wary, but we truly hoped one day we could all live in peace together. Yet, just like Jabez, one of them turned on my people after months of eating like us, and they were all put away. We thought it was best if they weren’t out in the world, being dangerous. It was only when we figured out they needed to eat meat, which was an absolute abhorrent idea to us, that we understoodwhythey weren’t able to assimilate with our people beforehand. We don’t know how Jabez and those Demons escaped, but they wreaked havoc within the city before we just threw them outside the barrier. He managed to steal a mana stone and opened a stable portal just outside our city. Since then... well, he’s been here, and we’ve been afraid of what we know he can do.”

“Our current plan is to make a sun stone with the use of my glamour spell. What are you going to do when he realises it’s you trying to fight your way to his portal?”

Raewyn turned her face away.

“I have no interest in seeing him hurt – I know why he turned out this way. It’s our fault we didn’t do enough for him.” Her drying tears bubbled to the surface again. “I-I know he’s good, deep down inside. When one of the Demons he let out tried to hurt me, he saved me before snarling at me and killing someone right before my eyes. But I want to go home, that’s all I can care about. There’s nothing I can do to help him anymore.”

“As long as you understand that.”

She was shaking now. “If... if we do face him, please don’t hurt him.”

“I won’t make promises I can’t keep. It will be us against him, and if he has chosen not to protect you, then you must face the reality that it’s your death or his.”

“But he was your friend! C-couldn’t you speak with him, make him see reason to let us through?”

Merikh let out a deep growl. “Hewasmy friend. He no longer is, and if he has truly become a madman out for blood, there is nothing I can do. You must accept this, because I don’t want us failing because you have uselessly tried to reach out to him. My friend is dead to me, just as your half-brother is dead to you. Accept it or get yourself killed.”

Raewyn covered her face as she sobbed. “My gosh, how can you say something so heartless?”

She’d always held out hope that Jabez could be saved. She didn’t want to accept he was lost, not when she could remember him holding her after his massacre when they’d been children, how he’d wrapped her in his arms and soothed her until she stopped crying.

Jabez had always been strange around blood because it made his stomach ‘hurt,’ but he’d be the first to wrap her scrapes and bruises. Then he would cart her in his arms to their parents, frantically rushing like he worried her leg or hand might suddenly fall off.

He’d played hide and seek with her. He would wear his best outfits and her silly crowns when she wanted to have a tea party. He would hold her hand when she was frightened at night because she’d had nightmares about the Demons outside the walls, knowing she didn’t mean him.

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