Chapter 260: Healing a Soul
"That’s the Uncle that I remember from so many years ago," Nyrielle said, a smile blossoming on her lips that revealed her own wickedly sharp fangs. "Welcome back Uncle Tausau," she said, withdrawing her power from the older vampire.
The technique she used was still incredibly crude and there was much that she didn’t understand. She had spent nearly two centuries learning to understand the soul and how to destroy it. Her shadow claws could pierce to the core of a person’s being, withering away the thoughts and passions that defined them one at a time just as easily as shredding their innermost self in an instant, leaving nothing behind but a tattered and broken shell of a person. She understood destruction very well.
This time, however, when she unleashed her darkness on her Uncle, it bore as much resemblance to her previous actions as a surgeon’s careful ministrations did to the skillful wielding of a butcher’s knife. While both might neatly separate flesh, the skill required by the surgeon was ten times greater and the results couldn’t be more different.
In order to reignite the passions that once defined her Uncle’s existence, she had precisely targeted and pierced portions of Tausau’s innermost soul. Time had left much of the man’s soul little more than a ground-down and withered husk but once she’d provoked him into revealing his true self to her, she was able to take action.
Instead of rending or excising the vulnerable essence of her Uncle, she’d guided tiny portions of the living energy she gained from Ashlynn whenever she fed on her Seneschal into those exposed and desiccated places in his soul.
What happened next was, at present, completely beyond her control. It was like watering a plant. She could only pour the water on the right spots. Whether the plant grew or not wasn’t up to her. Once Ashlynn had better command over her own powers, Nyrielle intended to work more actively with her lover to develop this unique magic, but for now, she was just happy that she’d achieved some small success with Zedya and now, with her Uncle Tausau.
"I, I feel like the man I was long ago," Tausau said, staring at his hands and pressing them to his chest as if he couldn’t believe that the heart he felt beating beneath his palms truly belonged to him. "Nyrielle, no, your Eternity," he said, overwhelmed by the sensations flooding through him. "What is it that you’ve done to me?"
As he spoke, he couldn’t help but stand, flexing his slender, disproportionately small arms and his dexterous fingers. The sensations he felt from his body were no different than before. He was still, he realized, softer than he had been more than a hundred years ago.
"Hunter’s Focus. Envelop Me," he whispered, using sorcery long neglected to bring out the greatest acuity of his vision, hearing, and sense of smell. All of this, he turned on himself, until he understood his own state better than he had in years.