Page 134 of To Free a Soul
He appeared before her, but she ghosted straight through his body and then shifted to human once more. She dodged every strike, evaded him every time he teleported around her, until... a punch landed.
Jabez was just too swift, his Elven side making him fast, and she fell sideways. Her body skated across a rooftop, dislodging tiles, and she turned intangible to narrowly miss his foot coming down on top of her head.
“Do you know how long it took me to perfect this?” he bit out, darting after her when she sprinted away in her Phantom form. “How many injuries I had to sustain? How many times I almost died, just to make sure you can’t fucking drop me from the air again, or try to drown me, or burn me fucking alive?”
Lindiwe could admit to doing all those things.
She’d grabbed him by the shoulders in her owl form and dropped him from unimaginable heights, breaking his legs when he hit the ground. It was just unfortunate that before she could get to him on the ground, he’d already learned how to make portals and had crawled through one. This had beenaftershe’d drowned him and Katerina with the sea, thanks to Weldir’s assistance.
He’d narrowly escaped all of those attempts on his life. She’d snuck into his castle while he slept and tried to stab him in the heart, but he was always alert and managed to catch her before she could strike. She’d tried to do the same to Katerina, but her scream had alerted the castle, and Jabez had created a portal to save her.
Jabez had managed to land a few strikes, sometimes forcing her to retreat before she could shift into her incorporeal form.
If he saw her in the wilds, he’d chase her until they battled, and she’d do the same thing. They were like two magnetic elements; whenever they neared each other, they had this overwhelming need to kill – without ever being successful.
Many of their battles had happened within this village.
It was his. He hated her in his lands, and he had made that known many times.
She eventually stopped running and turned physical when he teleported a few metres in front of her – she’d been intending to float to a new rooftop and then out of the village, admitting defeat.
But there was an avenue here, one she didn’t particularly want to give up just because of his new ability.I won’t be able to come back here and collect souls properly.He had some kind of scrying ability, and he checked on the village often. It was how he was being alerted.
“So, you’ve figured out a way to evade me completely,” Lindiwe grumbled.
“Just as you have always evaded me,” he said, his cold, crimson eyes glancing over her with disdain. “I realised that I’d been pouring all my efforts into offensive abilities rather than defensive. I started rectifying that mistake decades ago.”
I can either give up on collecting souls here, or...Before she could finish that thought, he disappeared from his location and reappeared directly in front of her within an instant.
She shot to the left while turning incorporeal and floated to a different rooftop. He followed her, teleporting in front of her, not allowing her space no matter where she went. If she fled now, would he follow her through the Veil to make his point?
“Aren’t you...tiredof this?” she asked, gesturing at their surroundings and herself at the same time. “If neither one can reach the other, why bother?”
“Because luck can only get us so far, and I’m faster and stronger than you. I will eventually grab you.”
She threw her hands up. “To what end? I’ll just come back.”
“Until you stop interfering,” he said quietly, unnervingly.
“Then stop trying to hurt my children and I will!”
“Then tell Weldir to drop his ward on my portal. As I once told you, all your suffering starts with him, and that includes your offspring.”
The malice in his eyes was darker than it used to be.
It was the gaze of someone who had completely cut out anything good within them. He was no longer the light-hearted boy she’d once known, someone who once said he didn’t want to be a ruler. There was no light in his eyes like she’d experienced by the waterfall as they laughed together.
He was corrupted by his goal, and the chaotic, bloodthirsty journey of it. His heart was likely filled with poison, and his words were meant to be nothing but venom.
He was arrogant, rightly so, and his new power would only make him more dangerous.
“You know what he wants is absolute,” she argued. “I can’t convince him to do anything he doesn’t agree with.”
“Then this will continue.”
He tensed, as if to dart forward or teleport, and she held up her hands. “Wait!” she yelled. “Just wait.”
His pointed ears pulled back as he let out a small snarl. Yet he quickly soothed it and straightened his shoulders, adopting an icy gaze.
