Page 37 of To Trap a Soul

He could even make out her panicked breaths and accelerated heartbeat.

Forcing the tree to shake and offer him a new leaf to inspect, he noted that it still looked wrong.At least its texture has improved.He was trying to recreate something he’d never interacted with, and he either made it too thin that it was floppy,or thick and rigid, or sharp enough to slice through the solid parts of him.

He felt no pain, however, and wounds were truly non-existent to him.

“Come back here! I want to go home!” she screamed, only for her voice to soften momentarily as she murmured, “Well... not that I have a home. Just not here! This isn’t fair.”

Her punishment was entirely her own fault.

Weldir was patient, and had been so for what he knew to be quite a few human years – not that he truly knew the length of time that had passed.

She was not doing the tasks bestowed upon her. Instead of travelling through the desert in search of Ghosts – humans eaten by Daekura – she was in human towns that had no interaction with them. Those she’d found must have been accidents she’d stumbled across in the forests. Or perhaps she discovered them along her journeys each time she crossed the desert when he called her back to the Veil.

It felt like such a waste making her restart her journeys.

He’d like to return her back to where he originally took her from, but he was unable to. He was able to recall her from anywhere, as she was connected to him through a tether of essence, but she re-formed inside his mist – the manifestation of his reach on Earth.

With more power, I should be able to send her back to any location my mist touches.

Yet, she kept using his mana when he told her to be sparing with it. He didn’t stop her, but he slumbered more due to it, occasionally waking up and checking on Tenebris, his souls – to see if she’d brought him new ones to consume – and on her.

Always on her.

He watched her through a viewing disc – a flat, oval piece of floating liquid with glittering sand on the outside – any chancehe could. She was never where he needed her to be, but he understood this self-imposed task was the result of her feminine rage, and he was giving her time to expend it.

Or, rather,hadgiven her time.

He wanted her to fulfil the true reason he’d bonded them. Once they created a servant, she could go back to her vendetta after they worked together to teach their offspring how to do their task. Once they perfected their offspring, he would ask her for more. He could further his reach, his power.

With enough servants, with enough consumed soul power, he planned to encase the entire world with himself. Then he’d have no need for her.

She could do as she wanted, forever, and she didn’t have to see Weldir unless she deigned to. He would keep his promise to let her use his mana, and she would have an endless supply of it to play with. She could lay waste to her enemies to her heart’s content.

Until then, he expected to be given the things he asked for.

“You’re such a jerk,” he heard her state, her voice cracking higher an octave.

Weldir looked up to stare between the branches of the tree he’d created. It was made up of nothing but his mind’s interpretation of what he’d seen on Earth... mostly from a distance, until recently. It wasn’t alive, it wouldn’t grow without his interference, and there was no wind to make it rustle. The green looked too vibrant, the dark-brown bark too washed out, and it still just lookedwrong.

I truly did not mean to hurt her.

He couldn’t see or feel what he was doing, and he truly didn’t know penetrating her cervix wasn’t how a human female became pregnant. He’d guessed, and just so happened to be wrong.

The tree wilted a little, the colours of it dimming. Now it just looked sad. It looked... disappointed in him.

“He doesn’t even have the decency to ask my name!” he heard her scream through the ether. “It’s been six years!”

That made Weldir pause.

I have asked her name before, haven’t I?He made the roots of the tree shift through the inky, watery ground until they sat more naturally as he thought deeply.Her name is...

He didn’t know it.

No matter how much he searched his memories – there weren’t many, as he’d been asleep for the better part of their time together – he couldn’t find her name. He’d never needed it.

If he wished to call upon her, he brought her to his realm.

Has it really been six years to her?He hadn’t realised such a length of time had passed for her – he knew this to be long for a human.

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