Page 22 of To Free a Soul
In places where she thought she was private, the appearance of others could still catch her unaware and fluster her.
“Could you tell me more about the Elven realm, then?” she asked.
“What more do you want to know of it? I’ve already explained what the forests are like now, due to the Demons that inhabit them. I’ve also explained the society itself and how it’s managed by the synedrus council. Honestly, I know the basics, but the inner workings of Lezekos City are actually beyond my knowledge. I’m only aware of what my mother shared with me through my prism.”
“That was the prison you were kept in?”
“Prison, shelter, haven – it really depends on how I view it. It protected me as much as it protected everyone from my destruction. I came to appreciate it as much as I hated it.” Then Weldir paused and looked up at the nothingness. “Actually, we are still inside it.”
Her brows came together in puzzlement. “What do you mean we’re inside it?”
“My realm is me, and I still lack a true form. If I were to leave it totally, I would consume everything – unless my mist is contained fully within a physical form.” He shifted his face tomeet her gaze, and the spots collected together like he wore a mask. “There are different parts of me. The parts I manifest and the parts that just are. The mist on Earth is my mana. It cannot touch the world, but it can touch souls. It’s partially visible to the human eye due to its makeup, but it’s not tangible in any form. My essence – the parts of who I really am – is tangible, and it eats everything it touches, wanting a form to stabilise itself, without ever achieving it.”
“Then why have you not consumed me?”
“Because that part of me I have forcibly housed within the realm within my stomach. Into my centre. The prism helps; it shields and provides stabilisation. Without it, without something physical containing me, I’d no longer have such control over it. Spirits are not tangible. They are not real or alive, and therefore cannot be eaten. You currently sit between Tenebris and the prism wall, in darkness I cannot control, within mist I cannot contain, but is harmless. The best way to explain is it’s like you are within my mind, and I can move you anywhere within me – my heart, my lungs, the place that creates essence – but we cannot go outside of those borders.”
“I’m sorry, Weldir, but I don’t understand.”
And she really hoped he never took her to the place where hisseedwas likely stored.
He gave a hum of thought. “The form you see before you is the one I have chosen. It is the physical shape that feels the most right, but it is still just a manifestation of my magic. As it stands, my true form, my soul, is the shape of the prism, although I don’t know what it is. There are two of me: an external physical form that reaches the edges of my prison, and then the internal physical form that you see before you. If I were to ever be given a real body, I believe it would all pull together, like the splayed-out threads of a cloth being tugged into a decipherable shape. Ilong ago realised I am... broken. In pieces. I doubt that will ever change, and that I’ll ever leave my prism.”
“Then how are you able to visit Earth?” she asked, shaking her head.
“In the same way my mist does: manifestation. My mist is a link, and I’m able to take this body there through it, just not my soul. But the makeup of this form is different to it, and as I am nottrulythere, I cannot interact with the world other than through my voice, through thought. My mist is visible due to the toxicity I push out, which momentarily allows it to be seen, and you have mentioned you can smell that toxicity. It’s actually clear, invisible, like me when I am there. You see me when I consume a soul because I have taken the essence of something else, which pushes the boundaries further, but I still cannot interact with life. Without assistance, I am nothing but a soul harvester there, just like I am a danger without assistance from the prism.”
Does that mean I’m technically in the Elven realm right now?The only answer she could come up with was yes.
Lindiwe thumbed the edge of her journal’s back cover. “Doesn’t that upset you?” she asked, wondering why there had been no deflated edge to his voice, no crack of pain or longing.
His voice had been smooth, empty of emotion, and devoid of life. Like someone telling a story.
“This is just how I am. I’m no longer bothered by things I cannot change. I’ve come to accept it and appreciate it, as I don’t want to be a violent, all-consuming entity upon the worlds.”
I guess it’s like how I’ve come to accept my place in the world and in our marriage.Things no longer bothered her, and she looked for the positives where she could.
“At least I’m no longer truly alone,” he stated, his gaze holding hers much deeper than before, until he lowered his face back to his task. Her stomach tightened in surprised tenderness, as wellas pity, and the feelings grew when he added, “I have you and Nathair.”
Giving him a weak smile, she nodded as she returned to her journal. She drew the side of her nail over a sentence.
He can be so confusing sometimes.Not because of the complexity of what he was, but what he said to end it.Because of me and Nathair?She peeked around at all her things again, floating in his ether, before darting her gaze to him still working and then back down.
He’s never shown whether he’s lonely or not, or if he can even really feel it.Lindiwe had. She’d proven to him time and time again, whether through words or actions, that there had been a sickly hole developing where her heart was.
But what do I know of loneliness in comparison to being locked away in a prison for nearly a millennium and a half?That was the time frame he’d estimated in Earth years when he first explained it to her.I guess we’re lonely together.
There was a void between them that not even pleasure and touch could breach. It made it more bearable, though, and she could admit that their relationship wasn’t, for the most part, strained. There was no love, only lust. Passion in their needs, but no comfort of the spirit.
But I do have some value to him other than just being his servant.This place and his words were proof of that, and it made her chest ache for him in more ways than one.
Was it enough for her to open her heart to him? Never. She needed more than this. To feel cherished, treasured, and loved. She felt appreciated in the way one would value a friend, and she couldn’t fall in love with a friend who was entirely out of reach. Someone far away, not physically, but emotionally. Someone who couldn’t support any growth, when they didn’t even know how to sow the seed properly.
This didn’t mean she couldn’t see his efforts, and it was those efforts that heartened her.
Even the fact that he was changing her cloak, despite it still being fit for purpose, was heartening. He could have told her to remain a raven, as an owl was similar in form, but he didn’t.
Once she was finished reading the first book, she moved on to the next, occasionally peeking up at him through her lashes. It wasn’t long before the feathers were plucked from it, and the holes and claw marks in the plain dark-grey cloth began to shut, as if he was stitching it back together with his magic. Then he brought the body of the white-feathered owl closer, and plucked and threaded the plumes through the material one by one.
