Page 136 of To Trap a Soul

“What do you think I’m doing?!” she screamed, shoving against some of her curls that had stuck to her face and chest wounds before bringing up another ward as a divider between Orson and Nathair’s skull.

Too antagonised now, Orson gave up protecting it and leapt for her. Lindi stumbled to the side to avoid his daunting speed, flickering between physical and ghostly – unable to hold the latter properly in such pain or in the middle of labour.

She narrowly escaped him, throwing her palms towards the ground when he went behind her. A big dome formed around the area, blocking Orson out while allowing her and Weldir to move freely within it. Collapsing to her knees, she blindly fumbled around the ground to feel for the fragments of Nathair’s skull, her stomach impacting her view.

“You’re missing the front of his left bottom jaw.”

Lindi barely felt her tears, too shocked and in pain to truly register anything but one thought: grab Nathair before this child came. Each contraction was unbelievably hard, putting pressure everywhere and shoving downward into her pelvis and lower limbs. Each one didn’t just knock the breath out of her, it strangled her.

When she finally had them, Weldir stated the dreaded words she feared. “I need to you to turn incorporeal so we know you’ve brought them to my realm.”

“Ican’t,” she cried, wincing each time Orson shoved against the black glittering dome with a roar, his hulking body making it tremble.

Thump. Thump. Thump,his hard shoulder bashed.

Weldir knelt beside her on one knee and, even though she couldn’t feel it, hovered his hand over the top of her head as if he wanted to encourage her. “You must try.”

With all that remained of Nathair, her large serpent Duskwalker, able to be held in one crooked arm, she held her belly with the other. She took in a few sharp, shallow breaths while on her weak knees, trying to steel herself against all the agony. Then in between contractions, she clenched, and her body shifted. The fragments of his skull turned intangible with her, and knowing they did – when it had never been possible before – broke her heart that much further.

Yet it was enough for Weldir to take her and himself back to his realm. The shift held, and her contractions stopped midway – a terrible sign of being stuck in a liminal state.

“H-heal me. Heal me so I can finish,” she pleaded.

“I’m sorry... but I can’t,” he said, taking the pieces from her before they could float out of her weakening hold and before he could no longer touch them. “I may reverse your labour. It could harm them, or you.”

The sob that broke from her was tormented.

With her own blood staining her lips, her eyes bowed deeply as she whimpered, “Oh gods.”

April 26th, 1738

Sitting on the damp grass situated next to what used to be Nathair’s lake, Lindi stared at the sparkling water with a sense of gloom. Not even the bright sunshine sharing its warmth over her or the tranquil rush of the waterfall’s cascade playing in her ears could soothe the worst of the ache inside. She’d managed to quell the majority of her tears, worried she’d somehow flood the lake, but they often sprang back, pooling and making her sight waver.

When they did fall, like now, she looked down to the little Duskwalker sitting in her lap. With her legs crossed and supporting their backside with a blanket, she ran her thumbs over their tiny, soft hands.

They whimpered – they made that heartbreaking noise more than anything else – but they curled their gooey hands around her long nails. More than ever, her child felt so small, so fragile, so...breakable.

Well, not yet, as they were truly indestructible, but once they gained their skull, that would change

They would be vulnerable. They’d have a weakness. She could... lose them. She didn’t want to lose them. They were hers. They were meant to be immortal, and live just as long as she did – forever.

Maybe that’s why she’d been sitting in Nathair’s territory for months, stagnant. She didn’t want to leave it, wishing he’d breach the surface and come talk to her like he had in the past. She didn’t want to go out into the world where there were skulls and horns that this child – this sooky, whimpering baby – could accidentally obtain.

“Please stay small,” she whispered, sniffling before wiping her wet cheek with the back of her wrist so she could continue to hold their tiny hands. “Just stay with me forever.”

That wasn’t possible, and she knew that, yet she wanted to prolong this state for as long as it took for the worst of the wounds on her heart to heal. Three months had passed, and it truly felt like an endless space of grieving, one that had no resolution. She didn’t know how to fix the horrible, burning hole in her chest, nor how to make her bottom lip stop quivering, or her hands, or the very foundation of her mind.

Worse still, guilt assaulted her whenever Orson returned in search of Nathair and she made him leave. She knew it was wrong. That somewhere in the back of his clueless mind, he was grieving as well, but he was never kind to her. He was more volatile than ever. He was hateful, vengeful, and... invidious.

The moment he saw her, he’d charge her with swiping claws – until he bashed into the barrier she’d permanently placed around the area.

She thought he blamedherfor Nathair’s disappearance because she was the one to take his skull away. He just... didn’t seem to understand, and she never managed to reason with him, no matter how much she tried.

No matter how much she warded him away... from his very home.

The cave she had her back to belonged to Orson. She knew this, but she just couldn’t find the will to leave and let him have it back. It was too close to Nathair’s lake, literally right across from it, and she needed a safe place for her and this child. A place to lay her hurt, regret, and anger. Her blame. Because out of everyone, she was truly the most blameless.

She was nothing but an ill-informed human. She didn’t deliver the strike that killed her most beloved child, nor was she the one who could know that such a death was possible. She was their life giver, and had she known such a vulnerability existed, she would have done more to prevent it.

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