Page 17 of To Free a Soul
“He is evil and will turn on you the moment you are no longer useful to him,” she stated firmly, pointing at Jabez’s grinning face.
His sharp fangs looked more prominent than usual. His crimson eyes had an arrogant edge to them that wasn’t present the last time they’d faced off at the waterfall. He looked older, somewhere in his early to mid-twenties, and his hair was shoulder length.
“I don’t see why you give a fuck about who he spends his time with,” Jabez pointedly answered, loosening his crossed arms to shrug with exaggerated nonchalance.
Weldir noticed the way her pretty features winced, and how her eyes darted between them as she scrambled for a suitable answer.
“Because I’ve befriended other Duskwalkers and they aren’t inherently evil.” She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her pointed chin. “You took this one to a village and destroyed it.”
“We did see another Mavka there as we were leaving.” Merikh sneered, his red orbs brightening to show his growing anger. He mimicked Jabez and folded his arms across his muscular chest, which caused his narrow hips to push forward.
“You just want to get in the way of his evolution. You want him to be stunted, like the other Mavka we saw. The feline-skulled one.” Jabez cocked a brow, as if daring her to say otherwise – when he couldn’t be further from the truth.
Lindiwe no longer deterred their offspring from evolving. She often wasn’t there to stop it. She was always in another part of the world when they ventured near humans and had grown to accept that this was just a part of what happened when it came to their offspring.
They didn’t always attack villages, towns, or cities, and were more curious than anything – depending on the Duskwalker and their level of humanity. Anzúli had scent cloaks aroundmost villages now, so his offspring just sniffed along the borders and walls and then usually meandered away with boredom.
Merikh loosened his folded arms enough to point a claw at her. “You see us as monsters, as a danger, and want to protect the humans.”
The hurt in her eyes was unmistakable. “I could never see you as a monster, Orson.”
Merikh cocked his head in a lack of understanding. “That’s not my name. Whoever I was to you died the moment you took the serpent one from me.”
Tears instantly brimmed her doe-brown eyes, reddening the whites of them. “You did that! Don’t blame me for taking his skull somewhere safe when you were the one who killed him!”
Merikh stammered as he stepped back, his orbs flashing blue, then orange. “N-no. You did. You destroyed him.”
Both Weldir and Lindiwe registered that Merikh had warped memories of that time; he no longer remembered it clearly. In the same way he often forgot his name or how to speak at the time.
“It means he doesn’t remember how he killed him,” Weldir stated through the bond. “He cannot tell Jabez how to destroy his own kind. This is a good thing, Lindiwe.”
With the way her forehead scrunched up and her eyes crinkled in anguish, she agreed, but it was obvious she didn’t appreciate the silver lining in this.
“I took your brother to Weldir’s realm after you destroyed him, Orson.”
“That’s not my name!” Merikh roared, parting his maw to flash his fangs in their Duskwalker way as he bared his claws. He then bashed a fist against his chest where his heart would be. “It is Merikh!”
She flinched and her eyes crinkled further, almost with loss. “Merikh, then,” she conceded. She levelled an intense glare at Jabez like she wished the world would crumble on top of him. “He will turn on you. Exactly how he turned on me.”
“Because I didn’t care about you,” Jabez answered, the bridge of his nose crinkling. “You’re Weldir’s fucking pet. You’re the enemy, and in our way.”
“As the protector of humans and Duskwalkers, I don’t approve of this.” Then she turned a beseeching expression to Merikh. “Do you remember nothing of the time we spent in Nathair’s territory?”
“I barely remember you at all. Only my hatred of you and what you did.”
Her hands fisted at her sides. But her anguish deepened, and she didn’t have a response.
Jabez narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Lindiwe. Then he stepped forward, stalking around her and encroaching on her space. “Why do you care for Mavka so much?”
Lindiwe steeled her expression and lifted her chin once more. “Why do you care for him so much? I am deathless, and they aren’t evil. I have found companions where I can. Shouldn’t our time at the waterfall have made it obvious as to what I seek?”
Then she stared up at him in her incorporeal form when he towered right in front of her.
“Come near us again, and I’ll be much quicker at killing you. Then you can go back to Weldir like a good pet and lick your wounds, and come back for me to do it again.”
“I could end you within a heartbeat.” She sneered up at him. “You have no idea the power I wield, and the only reason I have not done so is that I could incinerate this entire forest with a black fire not even I could put out if it reaches far enough. The flames would engulf every tree, rock, Demon, and Duskwalkeruntil they reached the shores. And even then, they would not stop.”
He chuckled menacingly and arrogantly down at her. “That’s doubtful.”
