Excerpt: The Butterfly's Masks

Seth cursed after his hand stuttered, making the originally shallow, straight cut deep and irregular. The knife fell from his hand and into the water-filled basin in front of him and he glared at the door. It was now, almost a year since his brother died, that someone tried to reach out and pull him from his self-imposed exile? Seth snorted and shook his head. It was a little late for that. Besides, whoever was on the other side of the door was probably just checking to see whether or not he was still alive.

Seth plucked a square of linen and pressed it to his arm, turning his attention back to his task. “Go away.” Seth’s face twisted in pain before the square of linen joined a pile of its brothers and Seth reached out for the knife again only to drop it when the door banged and shook. Seth sighed and swayed forward over the basin. “Go away!”

Silence stretched in the following long minutes and the man sighed, relieved that no more knocks bothered the door and himself. Seth let one more minute pass before picking up the knife a third time and pressed it against his skin. White teeth bit into rosy lips as the knife’s blade, in turn, bit into the sparsely scarred skin. He stared at the blood leaking out of the cut shallow cut he just made. The first, deeper one bled a slower but still bled, making him feel a little dizzy. But no pain. Seth sighed again, this time a little irritated. He set the knife down beside the basin and dipped his cut arm into the water. The cutting and the bleeding was getting tiresome, and he had become completely numb to the pain.

Seth jumped when arms slid along his own and pulled his cut arm out of the water. “What have you done to yourself, my Treasure?”

Seth felt like a terrified little boy, staring down at the water, now coloured red by the blood. “Nikolai...”

One of the hands pushed back his hair and the person holding him sighed. “You need sleep and a healer, Treasure. You look terrible.”

“No!” Tears formed in Seth’s eyes and twisted in the other’s arms, trying to get away from the other. He didn’t want anyone to see what he had done to himself. “I’m fine. Go away Nikolai.” He could hear the other man trying to calm him down, but he wasn’t listening anymore. This was all just too much. Seth just wanted to lead a quiet life. Everyone had let him when he first locked himself up. Why should anyone care now? But the more he fought to get away from Nikolai, the more he felt his consciousness slipping away.

It was either blood loss or lack of sleep that finally made him pass out in Nikolai’s arms.