Page 37 of A Soul to Guide

Okay, so maybe no gripping by the throat, since it looked rather delicate, but he wasn’t letting her go. Not until he got what he wanted.

His sight then found her round face, unobstructed by material, and her beauty was just as mesmerising as the first moment he’d seen it.

Her freckles were dark little spots dotting over a cute nose and high cheek bones, while the brief sun streaking across her already rich complexion gave it a glitter of bronze. Her white eyelashes reminded him of the soft, fuzzy wings of a colourless moth, and they framed those brown irises and starburst pupil eyes with supreme contrast.

When his sight dropped to her full lips – that had a merlot colour on the inside seam – and stubborn chin, Merikh lightly growled at himself and brought his skull forward to stop looking. He was a little relieved he couldn’t see her behind him, and that her other pretty features were hidden by her cloak.

Regardless of her angel-like appearance, Merikh had little interest in her. He had no aspirations of acquiring a bride. She was a means to an end, that was all.

The humour that twisted his gut was one he was familiar with, full of dark realities.Only a fool would think anyone would want to be eternally tied to one of us.

He could think of a certain blue-orbed Mavka who had uselessly tried.

He lifted a branch to make way for his horns just as he thought,I wonder when Orpheus will realise it’s pointless and give up. Shouldn’t be too much longer.Orpheus’ mind, from what Merikh had observed, was twisting further and further into hopelessness.He will eventually turn out like me.

Maybe then, Merikh would have someone who understood him.

He was just about to absentmindedly release the leafy branch, but instead held it to make sure it didn’t harm the Elf behind him. Once her head was clear, he let it go, and it swiped right where her face would have been a second ago.

“Thank you,” she chirped, her voice just as lovely as her face.

He grunted in response and continued making sure his path would be of even footing, for her sake.

Just as a new bout of drizzle fell, she asked, “Where do you live, if not in a human town?”

“Nowhere,” he abruptly answered.

“You don’t have a home?”

“Yes, I have a home.” He looked around the familiar forest he’d walked many times in his long life. “I just haven’tlivedin it for nearly a hundred years.”

“A hundred years?” Her voice was thoughtful, and he suspected her white brows were furrowed. “How long do you live, then?”

“Unendingly forever. From what I know, I’m at least three hundred years old, if not more. How much longer I live is solely up to the world and if it wishes to break me.”

“So, you can die. How, if you can supposedly live forever?”

His tone was nonchalant as he asked, “Why do you wish to know?”

It wouldn’t be the first time something wished to gain the knowledge of how to kill his kind.

“Just curious about what you are, to be honest. We Elysian Elves can live around fifteen hundred Earth years, sometimes more, sometimes less. I guess it would be like... a hundred, for a human?” She made a squeak, as though her foot had almost come out from under her because of how slippery the ground had gotten. “But we can die just as easily as a human.”

Merikh did the math in his head, but he wasn’t very confident about his guess.One year equates to about fifteen of ours?He’d confirm that later, but there was a real possibility that she may be older than him.

“Mavka, or Duskwalkers, as the humans call us, can only be destroyed by breaking our skulls. Many have tried, and many have lost their lives to my claws, so I wouldn’t try doing so yourself.”

Raewyn snorted an empty laugh. “Oh yeah, just kill my Earth guide. How stupid do you think I am?”

“When creatures feel cornered, they tend to do idiotic things. It has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with fear.”

“Okay, so if youdohave a home, where is it?”

He tilted his head in thought. Her questions weren’t unwelcome. He didn’t care what she learnt, nor was her chattering annoying. Merikh was just so accustomed to silence, or others thinking he was human, that he just wasn’t used to it.

It helped that he found her voice, and even her little Elvish accent, pleasant. It was almost musical, in its own way. It was so gentle and feminine he thought she could lull any creature into a calm stupor if she tried.

“My cave is situated in the southland area of the Veil’s walls. Do you know of the Veil?”

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