Hearts of Dusk

003. Mask of Silver

(possible triggers: angst, loss)

CHAPTER THREE:
Mask of Silver

• • •

After lying there on the cold ground for what felt like an eternity, I choked on a sob and held my breath at the sound of footsteps running toward the cavern. Some part of me begged to get to my feet, to move and hide, but stronger was the side asking why.

Why bother running? Why hide when they'll catch me anyway? I should've been there. I was supposed to be with them when this happened.

My mind went on spiraling as my body continued to shake, forehead pressed to the stone floor. The stench of carnage was nauseating and the footsteps were closing in, yet the will to act wouldn't come.

Not until I heard his voice.

The running skidded to a stop behind me. Through his panting, Seeva spoke, and my hearts leaped as I questioned whether I was hearing things or not.

"No... NO!" he roared.

Hearing the thud of his knees as he fell was enough for me to finally turn, and a strike of relief burned in my chest when I saw him. His eyes were wide and wild as they glazed past me to take in the evidence of the attack.

I welcomed the fleeting distraction from grief.

He was real.

He was alive.

"Moon," he croaked, the sound something I'd never heard from him before. So vulnerable."We... we have to go. They might come back." His eyes connected with mine, and I nearly glanced away because it was too much—that shared loss, the gaping holes that we both had carved out of us.

He called my name again, but there was nothing left in me to respond. After another moment, he seemed to realize I couldn't talk. He got to his feet and bent down to scoop me into his arms, and I could only let him lift me and hold me close, hoping that his warmth might fend off the inevitable ice creeping in if just for a moment.

Seeva carried me all the way to his home in the neighboring village where mostly Alfir lived. The same village where... Namjoon lived.

Thinking of him brought on waves of crushing pain, so I trained my focus as much as possible on what Seeva was saying as he sat me down on the edge of his bed.

"—clean you up and let you rest before I take you back to your family." He spoke so much quieter than normal. Not calmer—there was a panic wading just below the surface that was also unlike him. My utter silence was not typical behavior for me either.

In the midst of my thoughts, I felt his hands flip my wrists over so that my palms and forearms were facing up. My gaze lowered, and I blinked at the near-black blood that dried onto my skin in blotches. It had still been wet when I dropped to the ground in the cave earlier.

"Bath," I breathed out just above a whisper.

Seeva's eyes snapped to mine, filling with tears of relief. "Right," he nodded and squeezed my hand, "of course. I'll heat the water for you."

So he did, and I was in a daze throughout most of the bath. The hot water barely registered against my skin, though there were brief instances where the warmth seeped in enough to relax my muscles and stop the tremors in my body. The calm was short-lived, though, as my head cleared enough that I began washing off.

Seeva had placed a white bar of soap on the stand beside the tub, and I ran it over my arms and hands. My breathing picked up as the white suds tinted blue. My nails dug into my skin as the scrubbing intensified, and soon the water had wisps of dark blue swirling into it. Blood. Their blood. My hands trembled as I brought them up to my face, finding the cursed color underneath my fingernails.