Page 152 of A Soul to Guide

A sad thought crossed her mind.I wouldn’t be able to do this so well if I still had my sight.

She could see the magic, could see the glamour’s seal threads, and the darkness surrounding it made it easy to identify each tiny fibre. There were hundreds of them.

Many people who had lost their sight didn’t always lose it completely. Many saw blobs or had such a blurriness they couldn’t make out a single thing. She considered herself as somewhat sightless on the spectrum, since she could see this.

It heightened her magical abilities, and it made it both harder and easier to do her work.

Once she was done, Raewyn placed the stone on the bench with a sigh of relief. The spell was gone, but now she was mentally, physically, emotionally, and magically exhausted. Even her eyes hurt from staring at grey glowing threads for what could only have been a full night and day.

What greeted her was silence.

She kind of wanted someone to complain to about what she’d done. Usually, she would have rushed off to go annoy the Duskwalker into giving her attention, but he wasn’t there.

She leaned her elbow on the bench, placed her chin in her palm, and fingered the stone so it rolled back and forth.

He would have listened to me, though.

He would have let her ramble on and on until she thought his ears might have bled. He would have asked for clarification on things he didn’t understand, or given his own short opinions, but he usually just let her do and say whatever she wanted.

Her lips drew into a hard line.Hey, no!she yelled at herself.I’m angry with him. I’m not going to sit here and miss him because I’m bored.

She walked off so she could finally make herself some food: a vegetable stew with plenty of spices and herbs to make it tasty.

It was while she curled up in his too big of a chair and was halfway through eating that she heard movement.

She snuffed out the urge to get up and greet him. Instead, she turned her back to the entryway, leaning her back against the arm rest with her feet pressed into the other.

Something thudded against the ground just outside, and he left what he dropped to enter his home. The warmth and freshness of his orange and cinnamon scent billowed into the cave.

“I’ve returned,” he said, his vibration surprisingly giving her comfort. Her ears twitched.

She relied on it, even if she didn’t mean to.

“Okay,” she answered before turning her chin up. “Where did you go?”

“Hunting.” The chime of tools, like metal and wood, clinked and clanked as he rummaged through his shelves. “The faint-hearted Elf would be wise to stay away from me until I’ve skinned my deer.”

Raewyn shrunk into herself. She didn’t like that there was a dead creature just outside, the whole idea abhorrent to her. She also didn’t like his deep, displeased tone.

“I-I thought you didn’t eat, since nothing sustains you. What was the point of hunting?”

“Creatures are used for more than just their meat. I’ll feed it to the Demons loitering around the ward, and then once they’re done with it, I’ll get rid of them.”

What needless bloodshed and slaughtering.No wonder he’d named himself something so malevolent asMerikh.

Just as he was leaving, she said, “I’ve removed the glamour.”

His tone was so icy it was lethal as he stated, “Then you better make sure your experiment works. For both our sakes.”

Then he was gone, leaving Raewyn feeling worse than she did before. He didn’t even seem to care that she hadn’t been her usual self towards him.

Did I possibly do something wrong?

She thought he’d left to take out whatever thing he’d shoved up his own butt, but it seemed to be still firmly in place, which meant he wasn’t just angry over nothing.

It was either that, or this was his personality when he got what he wanted. Now that they’d been intimate, was he no longer being kind to her because he’d finally gotten his dick wet? Could a Duskwalker be that... crude?

I don’t think I did anything wrong.

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