“Maya, you’re getting worse,” Elder Healer Eliza said, her voice full of concern.
Every time I passed out, she sat by my side until I woke up, just as she had when I was a young apprentice years before.
“However, the patients… “They need me,” I whispered, looking out at the long queue of injured people waiting for assistance. My heart twisted with guilt.
“You’re still as stubborn as ever.” She sighed softly, her eyes gleaming with pride. “But I found something–an antidote herb. “It comes from one of our ancient medical texts.”
She took out a small cloth bundle from her robe and opened it to reveal a luminous silver herb. “I gathered it myself, from deep inside the silver dust zone. I may be old, but thankfully, I have not lost all of my abilities.
Only then did I notice the faint burn marks on her hands.
“Master…” My eyes welled with tears.
She smiled gently and tapped me on the head, as she had done the day I healed my first patient. “Silly child. You are my proudest student. How could I allow you to suffer?”
Under her care, my strength gradually returned, as did a piece of my old self; I began to smile again, small and tentative at first, but genuine.
At night, when everything was still, I could hear Cassian calling my name from beyond the mist. His voice was full of regret and heartbreak.
Even though my heart trembled at the sound…
There are some paths in life that, once taken, remain behind you indefinitely.
Cassian realised he was playing a dangerous game when he broke into the silver dust zone for the tenth time.
The first time, he had only been mildly poisoned and could be easily treated by a regular healer.
However, when he did not see the familiar figure he had hoped for during treatment, he went deeper the second time.
“Maybe if I get hurt badly enough, she’ll appear…” he murmured to himself, charging into the toxic zone again and again. Each time, his injuries worsened, but someone else treated him.
By the fifth time, he was coughing up blood, and by the seventh, his skin was covered in festering, raw burns caused by the silver dust.
Still, he refused to give up because he knew she was hiding somewhere in this facility.
This time, he threw himself into the densest part of the toxic zone with something close to a death wish; the silver dust surged into his lungs, and just before he passed out, he caught a fleeting trace of a familiar scent.
When he awoke, he was in a bright, clean treatment room.
A veiled healer was tending to his wounds. Despite the layers of scent-masking ointment she had applied, the thick makeup and mask covering her face, those hands… that warm, radiant energy…
He knew it right away.
“Maya?” He enquired hesitantly, hope flickering in his dim eyes.
My hand trembled slightly, but I didn’t say anything; looking at his pale, hollowed face, a sharp pain twisted in my chest.
The once-proud Alpha was now a broken man; his body bore the unmistakable marks of silver dust poisoning, and his sharp, handsome features were now gaunt and withered.
He suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“Your scent…” His voice shook. “Even if you tried to hide it, I’d never miss it. Maya–is that you?”
