(Amaia)

(Thanks for the gift @MissyDionne)

What had they done to him?

"Your hair?... What happened?" I am so lost for words. Tears blur my vision. The blinding pain in my heart is so intense that I want to yank it out and throw it away.

"It’s nothing." Alnilam extends his arms, trying to pull me in.

The pain is so bare on his face to be witnessed. He is trying to mask it but I am unsure what hurts him more. That I found out or how they butchered his hair and destroyed his tattoo.

"Don’t you dare play it off. Who did this? Where is your hair?" I bristle at him, tears stream down my cheeks, nonstop.

My trembling hands frantically reach for his short hair. They appear so lifeless, so dead that it hurts my soul.

"I am going to kill whoever did this to you," I whimper.

Alnilam gently uses his fingertips to wipe away my tears.

"You don’t have to worry about that. They will grow back..."

And then it dawns on me. The truth plunges me into an abyss so deep that I am unsure if I can even climb out.

Me. The bargain he made. This is it. He let them destroy his hair and take away his status so he could protect me. No way were they going to let a Fae—an Omnifae on top of it to escape their clutches.

A coldness descends on me, the kind which wants me to go and set fire to the whole Istrale for they have dared hurt Alnilam.

They have destroyed the essence of his being. His hair; the crux of his magic. His protection. His strength.

"Me, it happened because of me."

The storm of grief and revenge rages inside my chest, thrashing against my ribcage. I can hardly breathe.

His single lock of hair that has protected my brother, crawls from my wrist and wraps itself around my neck, the edge grazing against my skin in an effort to calm me down.

Alnilam smiles woundedly. "It didn’t. You have enough going on. I didn’t want to be an Enforcer anymore so I got rid of that tattoo and title."

But I know him better. He thinks he can hide behind broken smiles and a strained facade. He can’t. I can see clearly through the cracks, how deeply it has hurt him.

"Where is your hair?" I sternly question but Alnilam doesn’t answer, doesn’t move. He continues to wipe my tears.

His lock does though. It slithers down my body and crawls along the ground as if asking me to follow it.

Stepping aside from Alnilam, I let it lead me.

"Amaia!" Alnilam bends down, picks up his bandana and calls me from behind. But I am already opening the door and following his lock of hair. My luggage is lying outside my door. The sentinels must have brought it from Istrale.

He followsinn my heels. My heart jumps up and down in my chest as the lock leads me towards Alnilam’s room.

"Wait!" He softly calls me again but I am beyond the point of listening.

His silvery strand halts in front of his door and climbs over his bag, jumping up and down on it.

He brought them with him. His hair is inside his bag. Picking it up from the handle, I turn towards my mate.

"Can you open the door?"

He sighs but obeys. Extracting a key from his pocket, he enters it into the keyhole and turns. Swinging open the door, he quietly takes the bag from me and carries it inside.

I enter behind him and close the door.

He places the bag on his bed. Reaching down, I open the zipper and begin to rummage through it, finally finding what I am looking for.

Wrapped in a cloth are his strands of hair that have captured moonlight in them. My shaking fingers trace over them. The emotions descend, like a mountain being dropped on my heart, crushing my chest. Breathing becomes a laborious task as I begin to openly cry.

Why did they have to destroy his hair? The single lock that still carries his magic is twisting over them as if in mourning.

Alnilam’s arms wind around my waist, his warm chest collides with my back.

"Don’t cry," he sadly whispers in the crook of my neck. "I didn’t want you to find out."

"Why do you feel like you need to carry the burdens of the world alone? We are one now. You can share with us, with me."

Gently I cradle the bundle of his precious hair.

The terrible, aching sorrow continues to bloom in my chest. It’s his shared pain, a resonance of loss which I am experiencing with him.

My tears, hot and fat with grief, continue to fall. They trace a slow path down my cheeks, a tiny, solitary river of despair. Then another. And another. They are helpless overflows of emotion too great to be contained.

One tear lands on the severed strand of silver hair in my hands.

Where the teardrop touches, the hair seems to inhale. A faint, luminescence, flickers to life within the silver strand, chasing away the dullness of its severance. It is just a spark, a flicker, but it is there.

"Because you have so much to worry about," Alnilam, oblivious of what’s happening, continues to whisper.

I, on the other hand, startled, look down. Another tear falls, then another, a gentle, sorrowful rain upon them. With each drop, the magic within the hair ignites again. A soft, growing light spreads from strand to strand like starlight catching on a dew-kissed web. They began to glow with a warm, familiar light, his light that they always carry.

The light pulses once, a silent, collective heartbeat. And then, the strands move.

They don’t blow away; they lift. As if pulled by an unseen, tender gravity, the glowing silver threads rise from my hands. They swirl around us, leaving us stunned and mesmerised.

Alnilam gasps as I turn around, his eyes wide, not with hope, but with a stunned, disbelieving wonder.

The severed ends reach for his head. They don’t just stick; they reconnect. Each strand finds its counterpart, the broken ends fusing seamlessly, the light flowing from the hair back into him.

I have hardly seen Alnilam so stunned beyond words. A sharp, shocked sound escapes his mouth.

The warmth blooms, a familiar, rushing torrent of power floods back into his hair.

It’s our magic connecting us on a level none of us understands.

Stunned we stare at each other trying to understand what has just transpired.