Farther away from the river than where they had gone with Tavras previously, Arius decided that they would land. One hand shoved her roughly so that she fell to her knees.

Since Val held Foofy, she could not properly catch herself. Her knees struck the ground, and she tried to sit back as best as she could at the expense of her legs. Releasing her arms, she let Foofy jump out and spin around.

“Let me ask you this for the third and final time. Do you want to get away from Tavras?”

“No?” Val said in the smallest voice. “I already told you that I would like to stay close to him—”

A sharp point pressed to the side of her neck.

Not daring to move her body, her eyes swung to the side. Red aura had materialized into a knife in Arius’s hand. Without drawing blood, he leveled the blade at the location of an important vein.

“I just want to make sure that we understand each other. If you want to be completely insane and unreasonable, then I can be completely insane and unreasonable!” The note of delight in Arius’s voice certainly made him sound that way.

Val did not know whether to construe his tone of voice as an attempt of communicating some salvageable friendliness or something more sinister. Maybe his eyes were golden at the present moment, deriving joy from pressing a knife to her neck.

Too scared to look at Arius, her gaze locked with Foofy’s livid eyes for help.

Foofy’s warning growl rang out—ineffective given Val’s present circumstance.

“Stay,” she said by trembling lips.

To start with, Val probed Arius’s mind to see if he would let her connect with him there. If any chance existed that he would let her use Keep the Peace on him, she had to try.

As expected, his impenetrable Mind Shield had been established already. Val would require some other sort of guile to diffuse his hostilities.

At first opportunity, she needed to get the sharp object away from her throat and have Foofy stick him. If their previous bout were anything to go by, the Dobie could buy some precious seconds against Arius.

Divine Judgement should take the rest from there, given how demented the situation had become. The prior events to Arius sticking a knife at her throat left her bewildered, her knees trembling at the point in which they drove into the ground.

This was absolutely insane. After she got out of this, she would most certainly breakdown crying and admit to Tavras that he was right. There went her fleeting hopes for any involvement with Arius.

“Even Foofy recognizes the danger that you’re in,” he murmured, “waiting patiently for your command. What do you wish to do now, little demigoddess?”

By the slight shift of the point at her neck, she could discern Arius’s movement behind her. His form dropped downward, propping himself onto one knee. His free arm wrapped in front of her. In part, he held her tenderly but also held her in place.

Val swore that he could feel her whole body shake. Any second now, she would release Divine Judgement and see if she could blast him to the sun above.

Of course, Arius could discern any of her movements beforehand through Read Intentions. Even if that had not dawned on her, his next speech served as a reminder.

“Before you try anything rash,” he said softly, “let me inform you that the only thing which has kept you alive since we first met was this bond that we have as soulmates. My life would be a lot easier if that meant nothing to me, because I really am supposed to kill you.”

Arius let those words hang in the air, just a whisper in her ear, before he continued more conversationally. “I thought to give you a chance though—maybe you could be worth the inconvenience. If you turn out to be a terrible soulmate—something disastrous like Evalaite and Tavras—you will leave me with no other choice but turn against fate. We’re only supposed to be soulmates until one of us dies.”

Again, the lethal threat lingered in her ear upon his lips. He seemed all-too serious about his intent to kill her.

An additional thing that Val had just learned about Arius: he liked monologuing—a lot. She just had to keep him talking for as long as possible, use Divine Judgement once she could stall no more, and hope that Tavras would turn up to save her.

They were near the river where they had parted ways. Surely, Tavras had not left her completely on her own with Arius, had he?

Trusting in him, Val focused on her stalling tactics.

“How does that work exactly?” She, herself, would also ask long, drawled out questions in kind. “If we are soulmates according to your ability, the Weaver destined us to be together. It does not seem very romantic for you to kill your soulmate.”

“I could kill you in a lover’s throe of passion.” This time when he whispered in her ear, Arius effected an odd note of faux seduction. “There have been more unfortunate ends to true love than that. At least I would want to try to forge my own fate.”

A romantic through and through, Arius was quite the charmer. Thrilled to have him as her soulmate in all the wrong ways, Val scarcely dared to breathe. When her eyes met Foofy’s deadly gaze, she reminded herself that they would get out of this.

Val only needed to stay calm and get creative.