Page 26 of A Soul to Embrace

Fuck. It’s been too long. I can barely remember shit.Like most adults who were thirty-seven years old, his memories of his youth were... muddled. Accompanied by the fact that it was worsened for those who lived fifteen times the lifespan of a human, and that he had obtained a deep wound not long after escaping his confines, he... he no longer truly knew if his memories were clear.

And he hated being questioned about it.

I don’t remember anyone.Not his wretched mother’s face. Not his stepfather, or his surname. He didn’t even remember if he had family beyond that, although, somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought hemight.

What he did remember was the conference chamber filled with snobby, blurred faces belonging to the councilmembers who put him away. He rememberedwhythey put him in his little cage.

Shifting nearby drew his attention, and he watched as Zylah exited her burrow. She struggled to leave, as her antlers, despite being much smaller than when he first met her, often tangled in the roots.

Palming his face and lifting a knee to rest his elbow on it, he waved at her to show he hadn’t run off.

We have to leave here.He’d been hoping to hold out on his mind cracking so he could properly explain to her why they would be vacating her burrow. Even if he despised it, it was her home, and he already knew she had a deep attachment to it.

I will have to trick her.He’d take them on their daily walk, and she wouldn’t know they just wouldn’t return. However, he didn’t wish to upset the Mavka, as he was trying to gain her trust despite their lack of communication.

She’s fucking smart, though.Smarter than he ever could have given her credit for.I was right. The further the lineage from Weldir, the quicker the Mavka can gain humanity.Although her physical characteristics continued to be like every other Mavka.

In half the amount of humans it’d taken to feed Merikh, Zylah was shredding him in the learning battlefield. She learned words within the blink of an eye and was already trying to figure out how to string sentences together. Yesterday, when he’d realised just how quickly she was able to soak in information, he even taught her how to count to one hundred, and he hadn’t needed to repeat himself.

He’d thought anything like counting or math would be out of the question for weeks, or until she ate more humans. At every turn, Jabez underestimated her wit.

When I first met Merikh, he could talk, but it was like talking to an idiot.Someone had been slowly teaching him, whether that be the Witch Owl, or perhaps even Weldir somehow sharing his voice. Regardless,someonehad been guiding Merikh.

But he’d eaten at least fifteen humans by that point, by my estimations, and then however many dozens after we met.

Zylah had eaten around thirty humans due to him, and maybe two before that, but she just needed to know the words. Sheneeded knowledge, not more humanity. Once she understood something, it registered almost immediately.

I had to go hunt down humans for him, and it still took forever for him to truly become intelligent.

Already, Zylah knew how to utilise her magic to some degree, such as healing a wounded Jabez.

He chuckled behind his hand.Merikh would hate being beaten by her.He hated being beaten by anyone, just like Jabez.

Zylah slowly crawled her way closer, and he lowered his hand so he could watch her. She fidgeted nervously, scratching at herself in uncertainty, and he figured it was from how he’d left her home in a regretful panic.

She figured out how to transform within seconds.All he’d needed to do was show her she could retract her claws, and then she’d curiously wondered what else she could do.

I think she’s met another of her kind.She must have in order to know she could stand on two legs, rather than just walk on her hands.It takes others of her kindyearsto figure that out.

Merikh may have been the first he’d truly ever come across, but he’d been watching and observing their kind for hundreds of years. He inspected his enemy to figure out their weaknesses – of which there were very few – and their strengths, which evolved constantly and varied between each animalistic feature.

Zylah had a mean jump and was shockingly fast – but not as fast as Orpheus. The feline-skulled Mavka was the best at climbing, whereas Merikh was the strongest, like a bear. The bat-skulled Mavka would have one day learned how to fly, had he not died. Each new characteristic shaped them to be different, yet all were remarkably strong beings.

Which made killing them difficult, despite him now knowinghowto end the life of a Mavka.

He took in Zylah once more, noting that she’d changed to her more monstrous form for ease of moving around her smallburrow. She refused to close the distance between them, and the white colour of her orbs revealed she was wary of him.

He was only just managing to settle his panted, anxious breaths. The gentle, cool wind chilled the sweat on his forehead and neck, while also drying him.

“Sorry to tell you this, but it’s time to move on from here,” he stated, momentarily lowering his gaze to the bright sunlight sparkling against the dewy grass just beyond his feet.

She tilted her head with her orbs returning to their natural teal.

If the other Mavka don’t watch out, Zylah will surpass them all in no time.

Walking in the sun, Jabez carefully adjusted the hood of his cloak to avoid the light. He peeked down at his bare feet and noted they were mostly shielded from the burning rays by the attached black hem of his cloak. A minor quick sting occasionally assaulted his toes when he stepped too far out of the shade.

The tall grass helped to hide the lower half of his body, and he lifted his gaze when they came to the top of a short hill. For a few hours, they’d been crossing meadows by following the shade. When they couldn’t avoid the light as the sun reached its peak, he decided to just brave it.