A Soul to Guide

After the rescue, Raewyn¹ asks the stranger,² who calls himself Merc,² to take her with him when he leaves. He agrees with unsettling ease, asking only if she has menstruated recently and if she is fearful. She lies about both. At dawn, they depart Clawhaven's south gate, connected by a rope around his waist.

He is silent and brusque, threatening to leave her when she demands boiled water. They walk for days through sparse forests. She shivers at night, hides her features constantly, and finds his scent increasingly distracting. He shares a false story about a farming hometown and dead parents. Raewyn¹ spins her own half-truths, never revealing she is an Elf.

A Demon attacks them at night. Merikh² tells Raewyn¹ to hide and throws his cloak over her. She hears a brutal fight: roars, snapping bones, and a strange, distorted voice demanding she be handed over. When Merikh² wins and approaches, she throws herself at him in relief, but her hands touch not flesh but a bear skull, fangs, and horns.

He was never human. His dark chuckle confirms it: she has been traveling with a monster. In her panic, she kicks him in the groin and flees into the forest. He gives chase, laughing, while Demons begin converging on the commotion.

After Merikh² kills two more Demons to protect her, he carries Raewyn¹ back to the abandoned cottage and forces a confrontation. He removes her hood and wrappings, revealing her white hair, pointed ears, and starburst pupils. He names her an Elf and demands to know how she got to Earth and if she can return.

Terrified but defiant, she admits she accidentally created a chaos portal and seeks the Anzúli, Earth's magic users, to help her get home. Merikh,² who calls himself a Duskwalker, proposes a deal: he will guide her to the Anzúli, and if they find a way back, she will take him with her. The alternative is death. Raewyn¹ agrees, knowing she has no choice.

Merikh² and Raewyn¹ travel to Ashpine City's temple, the only Anzúli stronghold in the southlands. After a tense entry, the holy overseer, Maia Sheltier, joyfully recognizes Raewyn¹ as an Elf but delivers devastating news: the Anzúli portal was destroyed nearly two centuries ago, and their numbers are dwindling.

They cannot open a new one without knowledge Raewyn¹ does not possess. Raewyn¹ crumbles on the temple steps, sobbing that she is trapped. Merikh,² awkward and inexperienced, sits beside her and describes the city's sunset in an attempt to comfort her. It works, barely. She leans against his arm, and for a moment, she shares his sight.

After leaving the temple, Raewyn¹ reveals she is a head scientist who once attempted to create a sun stone, a weapon that replicates the radiation of her world's three suns to destroy Demons. The experiment blinded her and nearly killed colleagues. Now she proposes using Merikh's² glamour diadem, which contains a mana stone, to try again on Earth, where the weaker sun might make the spell stable.

If successful, it could protect them long enough to storm Jabez's³ castle and use his portal. Merikh² is reluctant; the diadem is his only cover among humans. Raewyn¹ begs, and he eventually agrees, moved by her tears and her promise to get him through the portal.

After their deal, Merikh² begins showing small kindnesses. He dismantles a human guide cane to understand its construction, then builds a custom one for Raewyn's¹ height, complete with a spinning stone tip. He presents it to her with gruff embarrassment.

Later, after watching her risk impaling herself on his quills during sex, he spends days curing deer hide and sewing leather guards for his forearms and back so she can safely touch him. These gifts are practical but deeply intimate: he is adapting himself, his dangerous body, to accommodate her needs and her presence. Raewyn¹ receives each gesture with tearful gratitude, understanding they are his awkward language of care.

Trapped in a cave during a violent storm, Merikh² holds Raewyn¹ for warmth. In the dark, the conversation turns to his past. He tells her about his brother, the first Duskwalker, whom he accidentally killed during a play-fight because neither of them knew their skulls were mortal.

He waited for his brother to regenerate until Weldir and Lindiwe⁵ came to collect the skull. His mother blamed him, and their relationship never recovered. Raewyn¹ holds him, growling softly back at him in a way that quiets his snarls. For the first time, he shares his deepest wound, and she does not recoil.

While Raewyn¹ works on the sun stone, Jabez³ appears at Merikh's² ward. The half-Elf, half-Demon king offers a deal: join him in destroying the Elven realm, and he will stop hunting Duskwalkers. He wants Merikh's² strength at his side when he crosses the portal to rally the Demons already there.

Merikh² learns Jabez³ has already killed one Duskwalker temporarily and will continue until the species is eradicated. He has one week to decide. Merikh² is torn: siding with Jabez³ would protect his brothers but require him to betray Raewyn¹ and her people. He returns to the cave, sees her holding the completed sun stone, and realizes his choice is already made.

Cykran⁴ and a team of Elven soldiers open a portal into Merikh's² ward and try to pull Raewyn¹ through. Merikh,² panicked and unable to reach her through the wall of spears, attacks to get to her. The soldiers wound him deeply, and one severs his head.

In the moment before death, he plunges his claws into Raewyn's¹ chest, extracts her glowing blue soul, and swallows it. Her scream is cut off as Mericato⁷ shoves her through the closing portal. She lands in Nyl'theria, heartbroken and screaming at Cykran⁴ for leaving Merikh² behind. His skull is collected as a trophy and brought to the Elven realm for study.

Merikh² regenerates inside the central tree palace, his skull having been collected by Mericato.⁷ He bursts from the laboratory, naked and disoriented, terrifying everyone. He flees through the city, chased by soldiers, desperately searching for Raewyn's¹ scent.

He climbs the massive tree, leaping across rooftops, evading capture while fighting his hunger instinct triggered by the fear scent saturating the city. Eventually cornered, he is about to lose control when Raewyn¹ arrives, carried by Cykran.⁴ She walks through the spear line, growls at her own people to back off, and calms him with her touch. He curls around her protectively and refuses to let go.

The eighteen councilmembers debate Merikh's² fate. Ulair,⁸ the most skeptical, demands a mind reading to verify his intentions. Merikh² reluctantly agrees. The spell reveals everything: the humans he murdered, the Anzúli he ate for magic, his original plan to eat Raewyn,¹ the four thugs he paid to create the staged mugging, his friendship with Jabez,³ and his recent consideration of joining the Demon King's war.

Raewyn,¹ translating, feels each revelation like a blow. Yet she stands by him, arguing that his actions, however terrible, were driven by his desire to escape Earth, and that his love for her is genuine. Mericato⁷ and the others, seeing his sincerity, vote to grant him sanctuary.

Merikh² is freed and officially made Raewyn's¹ assistant, replacing Cykran.⁴ They settle into a domestic routine in her home and laboratory. He wears leather guards so she can hug him safely. He tolerates curious children touching his skull, grows accustomed to people seeing his real face, and begins learning Elvish from Raewyn¹ and her father.

Their sexual relationship flourishes now that they are truly safe. Merikh² meets her parents, who are wary but accepting. The book closes on a moment of peace: Raewyn¹ teases Merikh² about their upcoming meeting with her parents, he panics about being judged, and she reassures him that his worth is not determined by anyone's approval but hers.