Page 29 of To Free a Soul
“I was watching. It was not him. Fenrir came upon her as she was packing her artefacts to leave.”
“Without someone to protect her, she must have been escaping to a nearby village then,” she muttered. She looked up at the sky momentarily. “And it must only be early morning there. She was waiting for the sun.”
A small silence was shared between them as he watched both his mate and his offspring. When it went on for too long, Lindiwe unmoving upon the ground as her eyes stared off into the distance, Weldir broke it.
“What do you want to do?”
Her lips drew inwards as they tightened. “I... don’t know.”
“It’s likely that he’ll eat her,” he pointed out.
“Exactly. Why intervene if what he’ll do is just natural for him?” Her fingers picked at the seam of her satchel. “But the question is...”
“What if he doesn’t?”
Her voice was small. “Yes, exactly.”
“We can wait to see what happens.” Then Weldir offered a possibility that hadn’t come to mind until now. “They are soul eaters. There is a possibility that if they eat the soul of a living human, they could bond with one.”
She lowered her face with her lips parting on a quiet gasp. “Like what you and I have?”
“Perhaps similar.”
She regarded this new information in depth, darting her eyes back and forth across the ground. But he knew her expression and what the invigoration in it meant.
Lindiwe was excited about their offspring finding mates.
“Let me know what happens if they reach his cave,” she said, grabbing her bag to rifle through it in search of her writing charcoal and journal. “If she makes it there... I’ll get you to bring me to your realm to watch what happens.”
Lindiwe flicked through the pages of her journal until she found a blank one. At the top, she marked the date, and it orientated Weldir to how long they’d truly been bonded. A hundred and forty-nine years had passed.
March 14th, 1832,she wrote.
A time unknown, but of strange beginnings
Huddled in the corner of Fenrir’s cave, the human never took her eyes off the Duskwalker who sat before her. His backside was on the floor, his arms straight to hold up his bowed torso, and his deer tail wagged. His orbs flickered between bright yellow for joy, and dark yellow in curiosity.
Although it was daytime, the cave was deep enough to be shaded. A dusty sunbeam cascading from the entrance and an oil lantern on the ground next to her feet brightened everything enough for her to see.
Her pale-pink skirts were dirty and leaf debris clung to her. Her brown lace-up boots were neatly placed to the side, with her socks tucked into their openings. Glaring through falling strands of her black hair, she pulled one of her satchels closer and flipped open the flap. She retrieved an uncooked carrot and crunched down on it loudly.
Her blue eyes seemed to narrow further at Fenrir as she chewed.
“She has barely moved from her spot except to relieve herself,”Weldir commented as he tipped his head to the side to look at his mate. “Fenrir learned quickly of this need during their travels to the cave.”
“Did a Demon not come upon them?” Lindiwe asked, her eyes never straying from the disc.
The white feathers of her cloak lifted and swayed, as did her hair. Sitting cross-legged and similarly to Weldir, she was much more animated as she absentmindedly picked at her nails or scratched at an itch. She appeared restless.
“They managed to arrive without interference,” he answered her, resuming the observation of his offspring’s captive at the sound of another crunch.
“I’m worried about what will happen when a Demon does eventually come.” Her voice was small, yet her furrowed expression was indecipherable. “If he tries to protect her, he could go into a bloodlust and kill her without realising what he’s doing.”
“Do you think that will bother him?”
“Who knows? He might not care, or maybe he won’t remember.”
“You seem... nervous.”
