Page 144 of To Trap a Soul

“I’m not sure yet.” She shrugged her right shoulder, which dipped that side of her body forward while she was reclined on her arms. “Maybe Austrális again? It’s been a while since I visited Fenrir. I’d like to see where he is with his humanity now.”

Over the last few years, they’d grown into an ebb and flow. She’d come to accept Weldir’s presence entirely and often filled the quiet void between them. It was due to the lack of any shared tenderness.

They were... friends. If friends lacked any common ground except the proximity of their minds. She had their children to contend with, but they weren’t great companions, and he had Nathair. Other than that, all they had was each other.

She’d found solace in that.

“As you wish, Lindiwe. Do you wish to fly this time, or would you like my assistance?”

He always says my name,Lindi thought, once more lifting her eyes to the owl, only to blink rapidly when she realised it was gone. A silent predator so skilful she hadn’t even heard it depart.

She kind of liked that aspect of it.

Lindi... Lindiwe...She looked up to the blue sky between the stark and needleless branches above her instead.I... don’t remember the last time someone called me by my nickname.

It’d long ago felt foreign. Like a part of her that she’d been holding onto – a sickness, a disease even, that continuously festered. A wound she could heal but refused to bandage.

It’s been so long since I saw my parents’ faces. I don’t even remember them anymore.How many years had it been? seventy-three years, perhaps.I can’t believe I’m ninety-four and I still look the same as the day I died.

Why was she holding onto the nickname? Why was she holding onto people who only mattered in her memories from solong ago? They’d always be cherished and valued, but why linger on them when they only brought her pain?

I keep losing those I hold dear to my heart.Her parents, Furir, Nathair... the countless other humans and Anzúli she’d befriended, only to part ways with them and return to find they’d died or aged beyond recognition.

Her heart shifted. With snowflakes collecting on her lashes and causing her eyelids to twitch, she thought,I think Lindi is gone.

The child she’d been. The inexperienced and unjaded woman. A daughter to parents who were gone. A friend to people who were long dead.

Lindi hadn’t been used to being an original thinker.

She’d done what she was told, because what she was told to do was best for the family. She’d been allowed to make choices that would impact her future, but until she married, she was under her father’s rule.

Of course, Lindi once had fantastical thoughts.

She’d wondered about the world, the stars, and what it all truly meant. She could be stubborn and headstrong, and determined in all the best ways, but she’d done as she was told, because that’s what made her parents happy.

It was all different now.

Other than Weldir, who was a soft voice in her ear, there was no one to tell her what to do, and no one she needed to make happy.

Other than doing her duty for Weldir, she was free, but that freedom came with longing and loneliness. Isolation. She was given freedom to explore and learn as she once dreamt, but she’d lost the heart for it once it was in her grasp. She never realised how much she needed and relied on those restrictions to keep her rigid and determined until they were taken from her. They’d kept her complacent. She’d had her dreams and loved the ideaof them until the rains of reality were different to what she’d imagined once she experienced them.

They weren’t refreshing, inviting, and serene; they were cold, barren, and tiresome. Her life was different, and she’d come to shoulder all those burdens in a way she’d never thought possible.

She,Lindiwe,had explored much of the world and had borne witness to much wonder. She’d learned far more than an average farm girl could have.

She’d birthed monsters, and had come to adore them and all their strangeness. She’d murdered vile occultists and had long shaken away any guilt regarding those actions. She’d died far too many times than she cared to admit or remember. She’d learned new languages, experienced different cultures, and had even travelled to an Elven realm.

Lindi, the commoner, the farmer, the young woman naïvely seeking love in a world about to be overrun by Demons, could never have done those things.

No, it was Lindiwe. The raven, and the one who a demi-god made of black cloud and mist called out to.Shecould do those things, had done those things, and still managed to hold onto what remained of her humanity. Could still smile and find the light and contentment in an otherwise dreary existence.

She found the precious things that made her grip on life unyielding and strong.

“Weldir,”Lindiwecalled out.

“Yes, little human?”

“I think I’m ready now,” she answered softly, bringing her legs in so she could fold them. At the same time, she scooped up a handful of snow and compacted it so she could begin to make a sculpture of ice. “And I want to finish what we started in Zafrikaan and then go to Austrális. I don’t want Fenrir alone with Orson for much longer.”

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