Battle Scars

The First Dead Trove

Nesta and Eve sat on the couch, hand in hand, taking in slow measured breaths. They both were lost in their own thought and near a deep slumber.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Eve asked. Nesta shook her head, but she replied, her voice strained, "can you hear it?" Eve tilted her head, "hear what?"

"The Mask," Nesta whispered into the Night so lowly that Eve had to make out her words by the movement of her lips. It was then Eve paid close attention to the air around them. She had assumed it felt heavy and amorous due to them being in Hewn City but maybe she had been wrong.

"The air feels strange and beckoning. But, I cannot hear anything but-" Eve took in a sharp exhale, getting up quickly. Nesta followed suit. On and on they went, taking twists and turns till they reached the room Rhys had said was guarded impenetrably by him.

Nesta reached out and pushed the door. It opened.

"It is calling to me. Speaking all kinds of promises and enticing statements," Nesta told her. They stared at the cloth under which the Mask was hidden, on the table, centre of the room. Eve did not know how long they stood there before Rhys, Cassian, Amren and Feyre came. Azriel winnowed a second later. She instantly went to where he stood, away from the rest of the Circle.

Are you okay? She mouthed. He nodded, his hand finding hers.

"How did you get in here?" Rhys asked from beside Azriel, night swirling at his fingertips.

"It called me," Nesta said numbly, and scanned their faces as if looking for someone. Cassian stepped into the room, and her eyes settled on him. Eve squeezed Nesta' hand before letting go.

"Does it speak to you?" Feyre asked, angling her head.

"Only a desperate fool would don that Mask," Amren said, keeping well away from the table. Whether it was to put distance between herself and Nesta or to avoid the Mask, she had no idea. "You're lucky to have been able to pry it from your face. Most of those who have worn it could never remove it. In order to sever it, they had to be beheaded. It's the cost of the power: you can raise an army of the dead to conquer the world, but you can never be free of the Mask."

"I wished it to let go, and it did," Nesta said, surveying Amren with cool disdain making Eve smile a little- though she hid it.

"Like calls to like," Rhys said. "Others could not free themselves because the Mask did not recognize their power. The Mask rode them, not the other way around. Only one Made from the same dark source can wear the Mask and not be ruled by it."

"So Queen Briallyn could use it," Azriel said. "Perhaps that's why the Autumn Court soldiers were in Oorid: she can't yet risk setting foot here, but she found a unit to go in for her." Eve gulped.

Nesta again stared at the Mask. "It should be destroyed."

"That's not possible," Amren said. "Perhaps if the Cauldron had been truly destroyed, the Mask might have been weakened enough for the High Lords and Feyre to join their power and do it."

"If the Cauldron had been destroyed," Feyre said with a shiver, "then life would have ceased to exist."

"So the Mask remains," Amren said wryly. "It can only be dealt with. Not eliminated."

"Deal with it then. Dump it," Eve said. "No taste for the living dead, girl?" Amren asked. Eve ignored her, just like she was ignoring the pull of the Mask. Gods.

"If we dump it in the sea," Azriel said, "some wicked creature might find it. It's safer to keep it locked up with us."

"Even if it can open doors and undo spells?" Rhys asked.