The faint whisper that barely reached my own ears had his twitching. His swollen and bruised jaw clenched. It didn't take the rest of his features long to tighten at the pain that resulted from the mistake.
Smoothing his strain pulling his brows together out, I watched him struggle to open his eyes, only managing to open them a crack. Through thin slits, his green eyes darted back and forth, searching the space in front of him for the source of the noise that had his ears perking, but lacking the range necessary.
Catching on my hand that twitched when his eyes neared again in his search, it returned to follow it up my arm to land on my face. Struggling to lift his head, he let out a grunt as he put all his effort into moving it back to land against Rowan whose body propped him up so he could face me. While his chest rose and fell calmly, Silas's moved violently with every labored breath he took.
But when his eyes met mine, it stilled for a moment as he grew rigid. The next breath he released was a sigh of relief that had his shoulders sagged and his body relaxing.
"Greysi," he croaked out, the corner of his lips rising in a bloody smile that quickly had him wincing.
I couldn't bring myself to return it. Not because I couldn't move physically, but because I saw nothing that could justify a smile.
"Wha..." What had they done to him? I almost couldn't recognize him.
As his eyes roamed over my face and down my body, it didn't take long for what remained of his smile to disappear. "Greysi," he repeated, his tone holding a weight it had lacked previously as his eyes locked onto the side of my head where I felt dried blood crack and pull at my skin with every small move I made.
Tightening his jaw, his eyes slammed shut. Closing his hands into fists, he pressed his head back against Rowan and began to shift his body closer to me. With gradual shifts and strained grunts, he shuffled and jerked his way across the wooden boards that lined the bottom of the cage.
When he was close enough, he lifted a trembling hand to reach for me. His fingers skimmed a few strands of my hair before falling to land near my neck. The frown on his lips deepened with strain as he lifted it again to let it flop down against my head. Hair clung to his hands, sticking to the blood that slicked his knuckles as they shifted towards the hardening mess of dried blood that stuck my hair together. I winced when his finger got caught in the clumped strands to pull painfully on my scalp.
I didn't get a chance to sound my discomfort before the sting of pain quickly turned into the pleasant and unexpected warmth of healing magic. It had my lips parting to release a breath that had my body loosening.
My eyes had just begun to shut when a thud sounded that had Silas's warm and healing touch sliding off the back of my head. Catching on a dried clump of hair, it painfully ripped it free from my scalp and other hairs as his hand dropped away to land behind my head where a sizzle sounded.
It took a moment for the sound to reach my ears with my focus locking in on the broken pieces of the sphere of ice that had struck the side of his head to knock him out cold. It lay in three broken pieces between us that, unlike Silas, were still moving as they slowly spun to a stop where they slid across the wood to land.
Dragging my eyes away from the spinning chunks, I watched as a fresh drop of blood trailed down from his hairline near his temple. "Si... Si-las." I could barely feel my chapped lips that were chattering in the cold. I could barely feel anything.
I wanted his warmth back. I would have even settled for the pain his touch had initially flared.
Anything to know that he was okay.
