Page 120 of A Soul to Steal

He also did need his boots, and he swiped them up one at a time to put them back on his feet.

Just as he was shoving his second boot on, to his right, a large black creature jumped off the cliff edge. It started to fall towards the rushing sea.You idiot!

Gideon bolted towards the shore like he intended to go save him, despite not knowing how to swim, only for Aleron to spread his wings and glide. He flapped, turned as though he was quickly adjusting, and flew across the sky along the horizon. He dipped to Gideon’s left and flew over the forest, back towards the centre of Austrális.

Aleron was truly leaving, and that somehow made him feel even fucking worse.

“Heactuallyleft.” He sat down and placed his face in one of his hands. “How did my life come to this?”

He was arguing with a Duskwalker. In any normal situation, that would be a death sentence.

I just want shit to get better. Is that too much to ask?Just when he thought he could actually accept Aleron, he learned something that would make it impossible.I feel so trapped.

“Can the bond really not be broken?” he mumbled, utterly dejected. At this point, he was beginning to truly wish to go back to the afterlife just to escape it.

As much as he wanted to live, he didn’t particularly want an empty, shitty life.

“I tire of watching you torture one of my little ones,” a deep voice echoed.

I remember that voice,he thought as he lowered his hand to look about at the empty space around him. It was the same voice that had revealed the ugly truth he’d just learned, but had also been there the day he’d come back to life.

“I will not allow my carelessness to be the cause of this miscommunication...twice.”

Gideon threw his hands up while letting his head fall back in defeat. “Ohgod, what now?!”

Wary, Gideon shuffled back at the voice, unable to see him, and wanting away from him. Before he could stand, something took hold of his entire head. It didn’t feel like a set of hands, but rather an invisible ball of magic.

“I cannot make you remember, but I can give you my memories of that day.”

Gideon let out a strangled choke as he was rendered immobile. A flood of memories were injected into his mind.

From an outsider’s perspective, the first image that came to life was of himself and Aleron wrapped in his wings, laughing and goofing off together while he wasnaked.

He wasn’t given time to think about it, as the rest were forced upon him swiftly.

Gideon learned his name was Weldir and recalled Aleron telling him that before.

He watched Aleron obtain a skull imbued with magic. He heard the words Weldir stated that had caused this fight, as well as Gideon’s paling complexion and hurt features back in anotherworld. He patiently observed Aleron’s confession, and Gideon’s realisation that none of their time together had been mingled with trickery or betrayal. Then his own confession, and how he’d been the one to reach out his hand to Aleron, so they could come to Earth together.

The longer the forced memories were shoved into his brain, the more he convulsed. Even though he couldn’t see the real world, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Liquid tickled as it dripped from both his nostrils before the taste of coppery blood spread across his lips and tongue.

Excruciating pain forked across his skull.

No matter how much he seized, how forceful and violent it became, Weldir didn’t let up. There was no Aleron here to interfere. He didn’t let Gideon pass out either, keeping him conscious during the injection.

After a while, everything became shrouded in murky red, as if his blood was flooding his brain to the point where it clouded everything.

When it finally ended, he collapsed to the ground. Dark silence swallowed up all his senses. His head felt like it’d been split apart, one ear blocked as though it was filled with the blood that permeated in his mouth.

Hours later, the cold clutched at his bones.

On his side, he shivered before a gasping wince burst from his lips. Gripping his throbbing head, his eyes drifting in and out of blurriness, he curled into a ball.

My head feels like it’s on fire.

It burned, a branching pain of lightning sparks that moved like insects crawling across the inside of his skull.

Whatever Weldir had done to him, the pain continued to linger. Dried blood clogging one of his nostrils made it difficult to breathe, and the ear on that same side had gone near silent.

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