A Soul to Keep

Reia is upset that the demons that waited outside the house while Orpheus was injured damaged the garden. There is not as much food available as before, so Reia asks Orpheus to hunt for her. Orpheus is worried Reia will leave when he hunts, but she promises to stay. Orpheus wants her to be happy, but she says she still feels trapped. Orpheus tells her they could safely travel if she becomes his bride, as the ritual would make her safe. She stays silent, so Orpheus drops the subject. He agrees to hunt for her and get a beehive for Reia to have honey, also offering to train her in sword fighting so she can protect herself. When it starts to rain, Orpheus ushers Reia inside as the water washes away the salt barrier. He replaces the protections and returns inside, watching and learning as Reia cooks. Reia watches demons try to breach the barrier into the house before Orpheus banishes them. Reia is then visited by the Witch Owl, a “part-human, part-other” creature that has lived in the Veil since the start of time and leaves gifts like the diadem. Orpheus warns Reia not to talk to the Witch Owl when she is in her human form.

Orpheus bathes Reia quickly so he can return outside to place more protective trinkets as the rainstorm continues. He’s lost a human to a storm before, so he’s overly cautious about protection while the ground is too wet and muddy to replace the salt circle. When Reia goes outside with him to the garden, they see that the Witch Owl used her magic to make the destroyed plants regrow more bountifully than ever before. The Witch Owl was the one who taught Orpheus about the salt circle and protective trinkets when he had his first human. Reia again asks Orpheus to hunt for her, which makes him nervous she’ll try to leave again. He realizes that her leaving would break his heart as he is starting to fall in love with her. He offers to bring her fish when he goes to the stream to collect water. Orpheus begins to pick fruits and vegetables for Reia, but they are interrupted by the arrival of another Duskwalker. This Duskwalker has eaten fewer people and is less human and advanced, so Orpheus helps him with protection, passing on the information that the Witch Owl gave him. The Duskwalker asks Orpheus for more salt as the storm washed away his salt circle and he has not yet grown the crops to make protective trinkets. The Duskwalker wants a human companion too when he discovers Orpheus will not eat Reia, so once Reia goes back inside, Orpheus agrees to explain how he gets human companions. 

The storm keeps Reia inside for two days. She and Orpheus spend their time talking, and Orpheus reveals that he built his house for the first human companion he had, as she did not like his cave. Like Reia, she was not afraid of him, and they lived together for years until she left him. She also named him Orpheus. Orpheus does not know where he came from: He just recalls being hungry and faceless until he killed and ate the wolf whose skull he now wears, eventually growing in consciousness as he ate more humans. Reia asks about the demon town, and Orpheus describes the trade economy that has emerged among more sophisticated demons, who studied human language and now peddle human goods, like the clothes Orpheus wears and the salt he uses for his barriers. Reia asks to go to town, which Orpheus did with his first companion to obtain the goods she wanted and things like metal that he could not make himself. Orpheus agrees to consider it. Reia starts menstruating, and the scent of blood activates Orpheus’s hunting instinct, so he runs outside to stay away from her.

Reia endures her period symptoms and misses Orpheus, who remains outside to avoid the temptation to eat her and to keep the other demons attracted to her blood at bay. Even as he claws at his back and Reia shouts for him to come inside, he runs away, motivated to keep her safe from him. When Reia goes to sleep, she wakes to Orpheus on top of her, eyes glowing red to indicate he wants to hunt. She asks if he’s going to eat her, and he says yes. She hugs him and plays with his fur, which calms him. He also realizes her period causes her pain, so he agrees to hold her and use his warm hand to ease her cramping as his desire to ease her suffering is stronger than his instinct to eat her. Reia touches Orpheus intimately, and then they fall asleep.

Orpheus continues to help Reia train with her sword, even bringing a demon into the salt circle for her to kill. Reia asks to use some of the beads and other protective totem materials to make Orpheus a bracelet as a gift, which makes his eyes turn pink with an emotion he can’t name but describes as warm. Orpheus then leaves to go hunting as he thinks Reia can protect herself within the salt circle, trusting Reia to stay and not run away again. After he leaves, Reia debates running away. She wants to stay with him because of their growing emotional attachment, but she wants to leave for her own sense of freedom. She feels conflicted over her sexual attraction to Orpheus but decides to stay.

Reia works on Orpheus’s gift. A demon lingers near the salt circle, and she uses her sword to kill it, demon blood briefly disturbing the salt circle until she fixes it again. The other Duskwalker appears, wanting to talk to Reia to better understand humans so he can obtain a human companion. He asks Reia to name him after she explains why Orpheus is called by his name instead of Mavka, which is the demon term for Duskwalker, but she does not. He tries to convince Reia to come with him, but she refuses. They are attacked by a flying demon, and the Duskwalker fights and kills it. Still in the hunting mindset, he tries to attack Reia, but she makes it safely inside the house. The Duskwalker eventually calms down, and Reia lets him stay inside the salt circle as he is injured. The Duskwalker smells Orpheus returning, and Reia hopes she can keep him calm.

When Orpheus returns with a deer and beehive for Reia, he is angered by the other Duskwalker’s presence. They fight, but Reia stops them before they seriously hurt each other. She tends to the other Duskwalker’s wounds, which makes Orpheus jealous, so he asks her to take care of the bee stings that he received while retrieving the hive even though they barely hurt him. When Reia is done taking care of them, Orpheus and the other Duskwalker talk, the latter explaining why he came to talk to Reia and how he protected her from the flying demon. The Duskwalker and Reia want Orpheus to take them into the demon village so that the Duskwalker can learn more about how to make a home for a human companion, but Orpheus refuses. In his panic about the demon that attacked Reia, Orpheus says that he does not trust her to stay alone. Reia is angered and enters the house, slamming the door behind her.

Reia shares the deer with Orpheus and the Duskwalker but refuses to talk to Orpheus. She lets him bathe her but not touch her intimately, and eats dinner and sleeps in her own room. When Orpheus finally asks why she’s upset, she’s shocked he doesn’t know. She explains she’s upset that he said he doesn’t trust her and that it hurt her feelings, as when she makes a promise, she keeps it. Orpheus apologizes but still doesn’t want to leave Reia behind to take the other Duskwalker to the demon village because he would be gone for eight days and Reia would have to go outside by herself, leaving her vulnerable to flying demons or other demons if the salt circle breaks or washes away. Reia still wants Orpheus to help the other Duskwalker, though Orpheus is hesitant. Reia guides him toward an empathetic view of the other Duskwalker, reminding him of his past when he encountered loneliness and grief as he lost human companions. She also tells Orpheus she will never forgive him if he does not help the other Duskwalker because she cannot remain with someone selfish and cruel.