Page 133 of A Soul to Embrace

A person couldn’t hate themselves for something they were knowingly doing. They also didn’t have to like themselves, either.

Instead, he’d tried to mould himself into an idea. An idea didn’t have to have a heart, morals, or compassion. An idea was not a real person. He could feel desire and affection, although it was never deeper than surface level, so the emptiness within him mattered naught.

He could look in the mirror that way. Actually, he made sure doing so allowed him to fixate on the Elvish parts of him in order to fuel himself as an idea. To hate that part of himself, and to think of the Demon in him as a priceless tool to be used.

His magic was simply both sides of himself managing to bleed together to make him into some powerful being that consumed more, and more, until he could be unstoppable. A god in the lowest mortal sense.

It’d worked up until recently.

So why was the empty hole in his chest trying to grow a heart he didn’t want and had never needed?

I’ll only bring her pain.In her one-sided deep affections, in the fact that he would likely always prioritise his vendetta over her, and how he was absolutely willing to die for it. Of course he tried to avoid his own death, but that was simply so his plans could come to fruition.

So his idea didn’t die alongside him.

I should just leave–Before he could finish his thought, he sensed the air around him shift.

In all rights, what he felt shouldn’t be perceivable, but he’d long realised when Weldir’s black mist was being disturbed. And, since his disappearance, this area had become darker due to that demigod’s intangible reach.

Only one creature could do such a thing.

So, that Mavka and his bride told the others I’m still alive.Then again, he’d foreseen that. It’d only been a few days since he and Zylah had met them, after all, and he was certain they were trying to figure out some kind of scheme to intervene. Herparentswouldn’t like that she was spending time with him.

Unless, of course, Weldir sensed him hanging out in his foreboding mist.That’s a possibility.

Jabez picked up another stone and rolled it in his palm as he coldly stated, “You would be wise to remain incorporeal.”

Weldir’s mist shifted as a figure – so transparent she’d lost all colour and had turned white as a Ghost – floated to his left. With her toes hovering barely an inch from the ground, she slid through the air like one might across ice and moved in front of him.

For someone he hated, it was impossible to ignore that she was a pretty thing. When she wasn’t incorporeal and almost invisible, her brown skin was near flawless – not reflecting the hundreds of years she’d lived. If he had to guess, Weldir must have found her when she was in her early twenties, and she hadn’t aged a day since then.

Her hardened personality matched her sharp but feminine features – which he’d once found contradictory when she’d been a softer being. Her brows were arched, her cheeks high, and her jaw strong. Her nose was rounded and sat above a set of full, plump lips.

Her loose corkscrew curls were often messy from travelling through the Veil, but her dark-brown hair had always appeared glossy, even when it was littered with leaves or twigs.

Her curved and busty figure was hidden underneath her white cloak of feathers, but he vaguely remembered it from before she’d obtained this covering. It used to be black, like a raven’s dowl, but she’d opted for a more owl-like quality after a few decades. Her outfit over the many years had changed often, evolving to what it was today: a white dress that left her legs bare from the knees down.

She used to wear boots and flats, but he figured she’d given up on those. They wouldn’t last through her years, and she probably discovered being barefooted made her more nimble.

Jabez ignored her ghostly appearance as he looked down at what lay in his palm. He tossed it nonchalantly, as if to prove her presence here meant little to him.

“What do you want?” Jabez asked.

“To see you be miserable,” the Witch Owl stated, before hopping up onto the stone wall in front of him as if it was a seat. She crossed her ankles and swung her legs, her bare feet going through the solid wall and disappearing before reappearing as they flung forward.

Jabez rolled his eyes and let his head fall to the side. “Misery you won’t find.” He gestured to the rubble beneath him, and made his tone exaggerated and flamboyant for his next words. “I’m merely scheming the best way to rebuild my castle and rise from the ashes of my death like a phoenix.”

He lifted his gaze up to her face, just in time to see her smug appearance fall and dread wash over it. Her loose curls floated around her face and hung there as she lowered her gaze in anger, peering at him through long, dark eyelashes.

“You just don’t give up, do you, Elf?”

He stifled the urge to sneer at what she’d called him, despising the word. Especially as it was intended to be an insult.

“No. I’m incapable of giving up.” He cocked a brow at her, feigning smugness. “Why did you think it would be different this time?”

Her full lips pouted in ire. “I thought your near death would awaken you from your stupidity.”

“So long as I live, while the Elysians hold their impenetrable city, I will always be steadfast in destroying it. That has never changed in the many years we’ve fought.”

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