After hours of whining, Thoriel finally drifted into slumber, her plump face squished against his chest like wet clay. Halsin placed the babe into her cot for the night, his movement impossibly soft for a man of his stature.
Only then did he realize just how quiet the house was.
If not for Thorielβs lively noises and his own deep voice, the cabin would drown in the silence of ghosts.
He soon found one by the crackling hearth, the orange warmth of the flame barely putting any color to her pale skin. She sat there, unmoving, eyes fixed on the faint scars on her arm.
Halsin swallowed to clear his throat, hoping the right words would take shape in his empty mouth and yet all he could taste was despair.
Maleane was thinking of him.
Not the man who silently moved to her side, the one whoβd warmed her bed and cut himself picking up the shards of her broken heart, no.
The other ghost.
βEvery one of these hurt,β she finally spoke.
The druid looked at the patch of skin the drow was fixated on, the tiny scars glistening in the warm glow like beads of wax. They were small, barely noticeable, unless one was looking for them. And yet he knew that when Mal looked at herself, they were all she could see.
Sometimes it was all he could see as well.
βYouβve ever been bitten before?β Maleane finally looked at him, her lilac eyes piercing through him. βNot a loverβs playful nibble, no. One you expect, anticipate, brace yourself for.β
Her fingers curled around her wrist, palm hiding the pale marks as if they were a wound, still bleeding.
βAt times I could hear the skin break, my flesh come apart. It was unnatural. My very body was pleading to stay intact and yet my mindβ¦ it surrendered every time.β Maleaneβs voice grew soft, a light brush above a whisper.
βBecause thatβs what being close to him was. A moment of pain forβ¦ tranquility. When heβd hold me, drink from me, all of my thoughts would slip away, melt into nothingness. Iβd feel him, the way I could no one else, and I knew it was the same for him.β
βPain was the price worth paying. To not be haunted. To be loved.β
