Page 131 of A Soul to Embrace

“Itshouldmake you hate me. I know you Mavka can be driven by your emotions, that your familial ties mean little to you unless you develop a deeper bond, but this stubbornness is foolish!”

“What difference does it make to me? You already admitted to torturing people. So long as you stop–”

“When have I ever stated I would stop? I told you, I’m incapable of change. Nothing you do or say will stop me from going to Nyl’theria and trying to take over that world. I will not waste the last twenty-one years of my life by giving up now. What I will have to do there is instil fear, as they are brutal Demons who will refuse to follow someone like me.”

“Someone like you?”

“I am part Elf, Zylah! My scent gives off that I am different. If they don’t fear me, they’ll hunt me until they have consumed me. They war among themselves to further their own completion, consuming each other as there is nothing else left tofeedon. And the only way to instil fear is to hurt everything that tries to touch me until they worry for their own demise. My hands are coated in blood, and I am willing to shed more.”

“Then I will go with you!” Zylah blurted out.

“You can’t mean that,” he grated out, his head flinching back as his face twisted with confusion, like he couldn’t fathom why she was being so stubborn. “You have no desire to hurt others. Taking that journey with me will only bring you pain.”

“I know... and I don’t care,” Zylah whispered, before hugging her midsection again. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to go with you so you could finally destroy the Elvish?”

“Yes, but...” His words died when his eyes crinkled in an emotion she couldn’t read.

He didn’t finish what he was saying.

She wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t know what he wanted to say, or if he was withholding something important. She knew pushing further would get her nowhere.

“I’m offering to help you, to give you what you want.”

“Why?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“Because I want you to stay with me.”

He let out a sigh, his expression falling into something that appeared numb. He covered his face and shook it. “I think you need time alone to think about the weight of that offer, and what it truly means. I won’t accept the emotionally driven words of a person who’s obviously in distress.”

How dare he! Zylah knew what she was saying!

She snapped her jaws at him in warning, stamped her foot until it made a dull thump, and produced a growl with her sight flaring red. “If you leave, I will be angry.”

His lips twitched in annoyance as he rolled his eyes. “You’re already fucking angry.” He ran his fingers through his hair, a sign that he was deeply frustrated. “You’ve already proven how little your anger matters to your own sense of morals. You’re being irrational.”

“If you leave now, maybe I will not want you to come back then!”

She instantly knew she’d said the wrong thing when he grimaced.

But she wanted to resolve this. She wanted answers and to feel better – she could only do that with him here. She didn’t want to be on her own, not when it felt like part of her heart had been ripped out of her chest cavity.

She wantedhimto make her feel better.

“Another lesson to teach you, Zylah. You should watch your words, as they can have lasting effects.”

Before she could even try to take them back, he was gone.

With nothing but the sound of rain and his lingering scent to help her through this, Zylah covered her face as a whine rattled her chest. She crouched down to make herself feel smaller, to shelter the pain that lingered in her abdomen and made her sniffle and heave.

What am I supposed to do?

She no longer knew how to feel.

With his cloak hood hiding him further under the cover of night, Jabez sat on a tall pile of pointless rubble. The last time he’d been here, he knew part of his castle had still been standing.

Likely due to the weather and the foundations already being weakened, the last section had come down in the past two months.

In front of him was a crumbling wall barely tall enough to come to hip height. Much of what surrounded him was broken or cracked boulders, or sections of carved stone that refused to topple. Behind him was nothing but a flat mound of jagged rubble.

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