Page 67 of To Free a Soul
“Had you been able to open your heart at all to me, had you not scorned my very presence, I would have aided you.”
Hell, the diadem Lindiwe had tried to give her may have ensured her freedom, had she not so rudely rejected it.
“You did everything to keep me there! I asked for your help, and you said no.”
Lindiwe tipped her head. “In the beginning. I was hoping if you survived that you might come to love Orpheus. I always intended that if it was impossible, I would remove you and take you to a human village.”
The woman’s lips thinned and her eyes narrowed. “Well how was I supposed to know that? You didn’t tell me.” Her eyes darted to Jabez at her side before quickly looking elsewhere. Oh, the regret there was unmistakable. “If you told me...”
“Had you not put up a wall against someone over a prejudice that wasn’t even true, you would have seen what kind of person I am.” Lindiwe waved her hand to the side. “I didn’t marry a devil, nor am I a witch. I married an Elven god, one ofhis” – she pointed to Jabez – “and we have been trying everything in our might to protect humankind in any way we can, fromhim, from Demons. The magic you were so disgusted with is Weldir’s, and it’s not evil, nor is it unholy.”
“Are you seriously blamingme, the one who was taken from her home? I’m the victim in all this!Youshould have been a decent person and saved me when I asked for it.”
“Yes, I can see my faith in you was misplaced,” Lindiwe conceded, bowing her head. “I apologise for that, and all the hurt we caused you. Truly. And no, Katerina, I’m not blaming you for all the trouble we put you through. I’m just informing you that had you been less stubbornly closed-minded, you could have saved yourself. A long, long time ago.”
Gosh, Lindiwe knew that on an intimate level.
The number of times her own decisions and actions had burned her, with no one else totrulyblame but herself, was endless. The number of times she could have made a different decision, could have saved herself, and chosewronghad burrowed deep in her heart and her psyche.
Lindiwe had made her own hell, and she had to live in that nightmare.
She wouldn’t blame Weldir for it. He may have given her the key to the door ofthislife, but she’d willingly opened it.
“That’s a horrible thing to say.” Katerina lifted her chin. “You are a callous fucking bitch.”
“What I read was horrible.” Then Lindiwe smiled falsely once more. “And a fucking lie.”
Katerina’s expression paled before reddening with anger. “How dare you! What I went through–”
“Your faith is entirely vain,” Lindiwe said over the top of her. “You disregarded the tenets of your faith when it was convenient for you.”
Katerina scoffed. “How would you know anything about my faith?”
“Because before I was forced to make a choice between life and death, I was a follower.”
She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Yes, well, I won’t damn my soul like you.”
“Katerina, you tainted your own soul long before you met Orpheus. I know that your core beliefs in your heart do not value your god’s teachings – the kindness and acceptance he stood for. Instead, you corrupted his love and twisted it to suityourdesires, your hate, your disregard for the emotions of anotherpersonby taking what he wroteout of contextto incite cruelty.Whether it be how you spoke to me or treated that Duskwalker. That is not love. That is not what he taught us. Onlyhecan cast judgement, not us.”
Instead of refuting the accusations of harm and twisted faith, Katerina screamed, “You can’t make me fall in love with someone I don’t want to!”
“You’re absolutely right, and you shouldn’t be forced to. But you saw a monster, and hated him and everything he did because it suited you. You perpetuated lies by calling him a devil brought from hell, and me a devil whore, because it fuelled your anger. You never cared about your survival so much as your undeserving ego.”
“Ugh! What would you know?” Katerina turned to Jabez. “Aren’t you going to shut her up?”
“Why?” Jabez asked, cocking a brow. “I’m interested in hearing what she has to say.” Then he shrugged as he added, “And she’ll likely turn into a Phantom and mutter on anyway.”
She almost laughed at that, because he was right.
“Orpheus wasn’t good enough for you because he wasn’t beautiful,” Lindiwe continued, before eyeing Jabez. “You being here is proof of that. You chose someone pretty on the outside over someone pretty on the inside. They both eat humans. There’s no difference between them in this regard, but one only does so because he thinks humans are beneath him, because they are food for his army, because human life is meaningless to him. And he sees no issue in turning on those around him if it gets him what he wants, or if their usefulness to him has run its course. Orpheus, since meeting you, has tried everything in his power to avoid eating humans. You picked a Demon who feeds on the destruction of humankind and did so knowingly because only anidiotwould think a Demon to be a saviour. But you did so because that face of his is unfairly handsome.”
Jabez chuckled before squaring his shoulders back. “I can’t deny any of that. Can I, Merikh?”
A grunt came from behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see he was far, far too close with his arms folded.
Katerina opened her mouth to speak, and Lindiwe closed her eyes while putting her hand up to quieten her. “Whatever else you have to say, I don’t care for it. I understand your manipulative, narcissistic mind on an intimate level, and I don’t think I want to be subjected to another word of it. I didn’t come here to speak with you anyway.”
“Then why is it you’re here?” Jabez asked, his red eyes drifting down her body before snapping back up. His upper lip pulled into a sneer. “Surely it’s not to speak with me.”
