Page 61 of To Trap a Soul

This world is changing just as much as my own.If the forests surrounding the Veil continued to expand, it wouldn’t be long before Demons had the means to cross the land and hunt humans freely.

Even the desert has begun to disappear.Replacing it was more life, more flora, and even fauna.

The Veil had grown exponentially. What had started off as a small crack in the earth now spanned thousands of kilometres in width, and quadruple that in length. Its expansion was beginning to slow, as if Jabeziryth and his companions were pleased with its size.

Along with this, the halfling alone had been growing the forest inside the canyon, while his companions grew the one above the Veil’s surface with a mana stone. It was mildly humorous thatthey had followed similar paths, as Weldir had been doing the same in Tenebris – shaping earth and growing flora, for himself and those around him.

Except Weldir sought to protect the souls that Jabeziryth’s companions created.

Something has happened,he contemplated, noticing the uptick in tainted souls that he pilfered off unaware Demons.

More of those void-flesh creatures had begun arriving through the portal Jabeziryth had made to join him on Earth. Weldir doubted it had anything to do with the half-Demon, half-Elf. No, something else was pushing them to this realm.

He had an inclination that it had something to do with his fellow Elven deities.

They can be rather meddlesome.

Perhaps that was due to the overwhelming energy he could currently feel loitering in his mist. Weldir felt everything moving through his essence, and this was far stronger and unearthly than anything he’d ever perceived before.

It appears I’m being sought out.

Rather than going to them right away, Weldir had chosen to greet his mate in one of the rare and infrequent times she – unknowingly – visited him. The loitering entity could wait, just as he’d impatiently waited to be released from the confines of his entrapment.

He was also untrusting of the presence. Why, after over two human decades, would his fellow Elven deities seek him out? Only once had he ever been spoken to, and that was by the Evergreen Servant. This presence was... different from that flora-encrusted male.

It meant he knew exactly who waited to greet him.

Still, once the beauty of Lindiwe and her mesmerising and confusing expressions disappeared from sight, he finally produced a sigh. Weldir immaterialised in order to travelto another location within his mist, thousands of kilometres passing in the blink of an eye.

Within the floating, although nearly invisible, mass of his cloud, a figure sat cross-legged on the rocky ground with his back turned to the forest. With his eyes closed, blue eyelashes created a fan of shade against his round cheekbones. The same colour of light blue swayed from on top of his head, the hair short except for the two thinly braided tails coming from right behind his long, pointed ears to rest down his broad chest.

Rökul, also known as the god of force, was a rather cheerful male, despite that half his body had once deteriorated from the sickness that had decimated his fellow deities.

A sickness Weldir had brought forth with his birthing.

Now, though, he appeared as whole and as strong as ever, his lavender skin having a pastel hue to it.

His formal midnight robe, which had silver etchings and swirls stitched into it as elegant patterns, covered his entire body. It was tight against his arms like a form-fitting tunic, while the skirt of it was thick as it lay across his folded legs. Black strapping had been placed around his big toes and threaded around his ankles to give the impression of soleless shoes.

Five silver barbel piercings going up the crest of both his pointed ears glinted in the sunlight, while hanging flag-like adornments dangling from his lobes fluttered in the wind, white but appearing as though the ends had been messily dipped in silver. More barbels adorned his face, one on both sides of his bottom lip, each nostril, and one just behind the upper arch of each of his blue eyebrows.

It was obvious by his hair and jewellery that he valued symmetry on his person.

Lean, with only a small amount of muscle beneath his clothing, he didn’t look formidable, despite being quite apowerful deity. Weldir, after sifting through human memories, would say he looked like a tall, slightly muscular bookkeeper.

“There you are, Weldir,” Rökul stated in Nyl’kira, the Elven language, with a stiff smile curling his darker lavender lips. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”

His eyes flipped open to reveal their ethereal depths.

His irises glowed multicoloured, with a singular silver disc that rotated around each of his circular black pupils to let him see magic and forces that no other could. They often sat on the top outer edges between his pupil and iris border, which could be disconcerting to the mortal Elvish who had been gifted with his presence.

Currently, the silver discs circled his pupils in order to perceive Weldir floating before him, despite his usual invisibility.

Rökul then unfolded his legs, drew his knees to his chest while leaning back, and kicked his feet forward to acrobatically stand. Dark-grey pants were revealed through the flap of his midnight robe, but they were quickly hidden away once more when the outer garment settled. Occasionally they peeked through when the wind gusted around him.

“Why wouldn’t I come?” Weldir asked in Nyl’kira, the language instilled into the very fibre of his being.

With his head straightening and his shoulders rolling back, Weldir’s floating form held no animosity or dislike. He felt nothing towards Rökul. He was just another being – one who couldn’t touch him. He couldn’t hurt Weldir, couldn’t control him, and they’d never had any contact ever before.

---