Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 98: Contemplation

Chapter Ninety-Eight: Contemplation

Things within the cave were dark and quiet, like always.

Empty.

Lacking the light that could have been.

Vordt was sitting alone in the dark with his back resting against the bloodstained white stone, seemingly staring off into space. From the outside, he looked only as if he were in a daze, but in truth he was inside Xaphile's head just as he'd been since the moment of his forced marking.

The boy didn't realize it.

Even now, inexperienced as he was, he couldn't sense Vordt's presence within his mind, but instead of finding answers by spying on him and the other humans from within his own head, Vordt had found nothing of any use, nothing that would mark any of them as a threat.

In fact, quite the opposite since aside from the hunter they were really just a bunch of moody youngsters.

Watching them was equal parts interesting and boring for him.

Xaphile had just rejected the Sacred Rider, Krishna, and had told her and Karla the truth about the mortals that had come to stay among them, which was a good decision in the long run, but one he'd already expected for obvious reasons.

On the other hand, he had noticed some incredibly disturbing things about his nephew's alleged human soul.

Among the Fae, every soul had a unique presence, but humans were not similar in this regard due to their inner nature.

With the marking, he had been able to get a feel of Xaphile's spirit, but what he'd recognized had been strange since it was like nothing he'd ever felt from one of his own kind, a bizarre combination of human and faerie.

"Brother...?"

Vordt blinked, then his head turned with a snap since the silhouette of a very familiar efamil was standing in the entrance to the cave.

Zelphira's sheer white gown drifted weightlessly around her figure in the dim moonlight, pale skin whiter than snow beneath it. Her blue eyes, nearly black, gazed at him in startling contrast to her illuminated silver brows, but he wasn't quite sure if it was guilt in those eyes, or pride.

"Sister," he greeted curtly, speaking in a cold tone. "Why have you come to me?"

"I wish to talk with you," she said softly. "It has been long since we've last spoken on kinder terms. I am afraid I have rather missed confiding in you."

He returned her statement with a stoic expression since he knew there was more to it than that.

The last time she had visited this place, not including that first night, had been ten years ago.

"Come in," he eventually muttered. "Say what you wish and then begone."

Her eyes lit up and she flounced forward nimbly as a deer, but he didn't look at her when she sank down beside him. Her arm touched his own, and before he could blink, she let her head come to rest against his shoulder.
For several minutes, the two of them were silent.

"I know what you did," she eventually murmured. "You gave him a warning. You tried to change the future."

Vordt's ear flicked.

After seeing Xaphile's memories, he had gone to see Zelphira. One thing had led to another, and because she had begged him to, he had broken one of their most sacred laws and allowed her to show him pieces of the future.