Page 119 of To Free a Soul
I wish this wasn’t happening.She had been growing fonder of Weldir to this point. Of a literal entity of mist, shadows, and a dark void. One who could not truly leave his realm. She couldn’t evenseehim when he did, even if he was standing right before her.
I don’t want to stop being intimate.A woman had needs, and she deserved to have them met.But I can’t fall in love with Weldir.
Love had to be an impossibility, when their realities would never meet and become one. It would be utterly pointless otherwise, and only ever painful.
So when did her lust get away from her to allow this foolishness? She’d known from the very start that she couldn’t allow it, so why did she? Or was it Weldir who reached his ghostly hands into her chest to pull on her heartstrings, just like her soul?
I need to figure out a way to stop it.
Lindiwe didn’t want to go back to hating him, but she couldn’t swing entirely in the opposite direction either. She needed to barricade her heart from him. Lock it so tightly behind a protective, impenetrable cage that he couldn’t pry the door open.
Lindiwe worried what would happen to her otherwise.
May 15th, 1972
Lindiwe had tried; she really did.
She’d tried not to let the festering, growing infatuation turn into full-blown yearning. With human nails and teeth, she’d fought like a rabid, injured creature desperate for self-preservation, striking at the adoration in fear of more harm. She’d hidden it behind false laughs, weak smiles, and light conversation, pretending the pit in her chest wasn’t yawning wider with each passing year.
It’d been a losing battle.
So much had happened in the thirty-nine years since Balam was born. Three more children had been born, as promised, within Greenisland, Peryu, and in Turkcul. She’d collected too many souls, each one proving that humankind was slowly dying as towns and cities were decimated to leave behind ruins.
She’d even witnessed the downfall of her own home; the place a little piece of her heart had always remained. It’d stood proud and strong for nearly three centuries, but Rivenspire had met its end. And Leonidas, who had been called by the warning bell, hadarrived at the end of the Demons’ carnage just as daylight was greeting the horizon.
She’d collected knowledge where she could, filled in her journals until she had a nearly complete encyclopedia of the world, its flora, and its fauna – many of which were now extinct.
The years had passed by in a rush, and she’d flown over much of it in her owl form. When the trickle of time had sped up for her, she didn’t know. When had she started feeling outside of it? Somewhere along the way, she’d lost much of her humanity and had done things she never thought she was capable of. The way she’d grown desensitised to the destruction caused by her very creations, and how her altruism was extended only to them, proved she was far removed from who she once was.
They were also the very reason she was no longer welcomed within Anzúli temples. To them, she was a corrupt being who tainted the very stones she walked upon.
She never thought that helping Orpheus would lead to her being cast out by them.
She didn’t care. She’d learned all she needed to from them, and this all just meant their usefulness to her had run its course. They’d also begun having twisted ideologies that were different from those who had first stepped foot on Earth centuries ago.
Talk of harbingers of bad omens and cursed towns became rumoured whispers as the teachings of the Anzúli grew more frightening. Their people were dying and being eaten. They’d been here too long, their bloodlines mixing with humans just to preserve their numbers, and now primary skills were withering away to basic alchemy and chemistry.
None of this instilled a sense of hopelessness like her thoughts on Weldir.
Nothing about them had changed. It was the same.
Nearly forty years had passed, and the only difference between them was how many children they had, and how muchpower he’d achieved through them, and her. The only thing that had grown between them... was the way Lindiwe cherished every moment with him in a way that was wrong and heartbreaking.
The heart flutters, the stomach butterflies, the shy push of a curl behind her warmed ear. The hidden glances at his side or back as he watched his viewing discs while she went through her belongings in his realm... all of it was killing her slowly.
Her heart was bleeding through her chest, and she didn’t know how to stem it. Yet she kept returning, unable to stay away, as if she needed his nearness to save her. Like she had poison coursing through her veins and the antidote was his shadowy void.
Her desire was selfishly hedonistic, often taking the forefront when her heartscreamedfor her to stop and save herself.
Only for guilt and fear to rear their ugly heads when she came down from the high of her orgasm, or the light of Earth woke her from her hazy, erotic dreams, and all the anxiety she’d forgotten about for a little while came crushing down on her tenfold.
Which was why, when Weldir’s clawed hand began to tickle up the inside of her thigh, Lindiwe flinched away. His fingers twitched when he paused, and she greeted his onyx eyes shyly. Her pulse had long ago started to race, and she was unsure if it was excitement or terror as it drummed in her ears.
The weightless shadows held her firm, even when her heart sank.
“Are you okay?” Weldir asked, his head tipping downwards to look at her body. “You don’t usually shy away from my touch.”
Cupping her hands to her chest, she offered a weak smile. “I’m just a little nervous.”
