Page 85 of To Free a Soul
“I can’t keep thinking about this,” Lindiwe muttered firmly while clenching her hands into tight fists. She softened her grip as she raised her right palm and made black mist puff above it. “He has enough that my abilities haven’t faded.”
She just... used them sparingly.
Lindiwe didn’t want to harm him, but she also needed it to survive. To check on their children from afar.
Bringing both hands together with a slap, she then pulled them apart, and glittering black formed between them. A ball of shadows rotated to life before it flattened when she spread her hands further apart.
A disc formed, and all Lindiwe needed to do was think of the face she wanted to see, hold their name in her mind, and they’d come into view. An image of Dymphna brightened the viewing disc, and he was as she’d last checked on him in person – perfectly fine.
He’d been given the name Lurion years ago.
She had no idea of its meaning, only that it was Nyl’kira and given to him by Demons he’d once befriended. Those Demons had died long ago. An accident and hazard of being nearLindiwe’s children, who easily fell into a rage and were unable to distinguish between friend or foe.
He’d not befriended any others since then, afraid of his own strength and bloodlust.
Lindiwe closed her hands, and the viewing disc faded entirely. She’d already checked on her children before coming here, and she wouldn’t waste Weldir’s magic when he may need it most.
There were also more important matters to attend to.
Lindiwe stepped across a groove that had been carved in the ground by a metal spike, and she was careful that her bare feet didn’t kick any dirt into it. She inspected the line of salt within it, finding it adequate.
Then, lifting her gaze to the log cabin home at the very centre of a clearing, she noticed Orpheus waiting for her at the top of his porch stairs.
I hate the colour of blue in his orbs,she thought, approaching him as he sat on his backside with his hands at his sides against the ground to support his position.It’s so much deeper than it’s supposed to be.
What should have been an ethereal sky blue, was now dark like the frightful depths of the oceans she often flew across.
Keeping her distance due to his preference, Lindiwe halted a few metres away from the house. Any closer and she’d be snarled at, even if her presence in his territory was welcomed this day.
“Are you ready?” she asked, cupping her hands near her stomach as uncertainty pulled taut.
“You no know if this will work,” Orpheus answered, his voice deeply distorted due to being in his monstrous form.“What if only hated?”
Despite his longing to remain near his home, Orpheus had left it on the odd occasion. Lindiwe had watched solemnly as he’d tried to befriend other humans wandering the surface recently, only to be spotted. Only to be screamed at and run away from,driving his bloodthirsty instincts to the surface until he rent them to pieces with his claws and fangs.
His humanity had grown, but it’d come at a cost.
His understanding of language had deepened, and he could articulate his thoughts better, but... it meant he puzzled over the final words Katerina had said to him. He felt them more, believed them, deciphered their true meaning, and he’d been able to look back on their time together with an understanding that he didn’t have before.
“I have already spoken to the village, and they are aware of what will happen. I already have their approval.”
“What if I destroy human?”His wolf skull drifted to the side as he looked around his territory.“Protection stay long time.”
“Then you will wait for it to fade and try again.”
Lindiwe hid her reservations, her uncertainty, and how much she thought this would... fail.
That Orpheus, like all her children, would remain alone forever.
I just need one human...If one could see past what he was and love him for the good he had inside, then wasn’t the possibility worth it? Even if it took a hundred years or half a millennium, if there was just the tiniest thread of hope, wasn’t that worth following?
It would be better than sitting here alone in the dark for the rest of his life.He needed to somehow look to the future, rather than dwell in the past.
Even if he killed and ate each one, they would gift him intelligence he could use to charm the next person.
Her right hand curled into a fist once more.There has to be one person in this forsaken world...
“Follow,” Lindiwe demanded. “That’s all you need to do for now.”
