Tivnir’s lustrous fingers couldn’t help himself once he was alone with Yiwa. The altered reality was like a well wrapped gift handed to him by the heavens.

"I have missed you since our days at Qihera," he whispered by Yiwa’s ear.

Yiwa felt a toe-curling joy course through his body. His small frame melted into the broader male, fitting perfect as though Tivnir’s arms were created just to hold him.

"This isn’t the time. We have to find a way to get out of here."

"But doesn’t this place remind of Qihera."

"How can it, there is no lake?"

"How can it not?" Tivnir’s twirled him around, now they faced each other. "A house to ourselves... no one else around and all the time in the world to..."

Yiwa clasped his palm over Tivnir’s mouth. He couldn’t hear anymore without picturing it all in his head and reminiscing on the good times.

Despite the rare opportunity to be alone together. He was filled with worry. They weren’t exactly on vocations. They were trapped by an unknown entity who demanded they prove their love or remain stuck there forever.

But the problem was, the two of them weren’t in love. Yes, they had fooled around a couple of times when they met in Qihera, but that was it. Utmost they shared an attraction to one another’s body. Unfortunately, that wasn’t love.

’How can they prove something that doesn’t exist between them? And why had the villain selected the two of them for the test when no one knew of their time in Qihera? What agenda did the villain have in trapping them? What would he gain by getting them to prove their love?’

His worries were endless, and Tivnir’s lack of priority wasn’t helping. His heart beat faster.

"Maybe we should try and find that serpent first. We should interrogate her and find out the identity of the ’Lord’ she mentioned," he suggested.

Tivnir wasn’t having it. Tracking the serpent, finding a way out, and reuniting with the others could wait. He hadn’t had a taste of Yiwa in a long while that his body craved him hungrily.

He slipped his finger under the hem of Yiwa’s silk shirt and traced a path upwards.

Yiwa’s breath hitched in his throat. He wanted to resist and insist they focus on breaking the illusion, but every inch of him that remained starved since the day they parted held back his resolve.

"Listen, I know that the mission is important, and we must return to the others. But, you can’t deny that this chance we’ve gotten is extremely rare, and it will continue to be so now that your master has returned. So, why don’t we just enjoy this opportunity and worry about everything else later?"

Yiwa floated away in his words. His body softened in Tivnir’s arms, arms digging into his palm as that one touch awakened the parts of him only he knew existed.

He leaned into the touch. His body heating up from the contact. His body shined and bathed in moonlight.

Tivnir leaned close, his face barely a pinch away. The thick scent of iron and snow coming off of him made Yiwa’s heart beat rapidly.

"Your body tell me that you missed me too," he said, his dark yet brilliant eyes eating up how dazzling a veiled butterfly looked while blushing.

Yiwa felt hot under his intense gaze, and subconsciously, his dark brown wings with red spikes for feathers that were half his body size spread out at his back.

Tivnir had to move his hands away quickly. In order to avoid getting pierced by the poisoned spikes. But he didn’t let go of Yiwa.

"Ouch!" Yiwa snapped his eyes closed. Pain shooting up his body.

When his wings spread out, the torn part of his left wing was forced to stretch out despite itself, and pain shot up from that spot, so he let his wings fall. Too pain to let them up.

Tivnir frowned. "How come your wings haven’t healed yet?" He let go of Yiwa and veered to his back and examined the wounded left wing.

"It’s not that easy for it to heal."

"Why is that?" Tivnir quizzed, he reached for his light, only to remember that his beast was being suppressed.

Then, his eyes widened when he realized that Yiwa was still about to tap into his beastly form.

"How is it that this illusion doesn’t suppress you?" He asked casually, eyes still focused on the wound in Yiwa’s wing.

"It’s a fox based illusion."

"Huh?"

"As you know, as veiled butterflies hail from fox territory. We are like their distant cousins without the furry bodies and tails. Our beast abilities work similar to theirs, so it’s not easy to be harmed by their works as it recognizes us as family," be explained.

"I didn’t know that. It’s not recorded in the beastirium."

"Most beasts don’t disclose much about their clans to the world. It is expected that some knowledge miss in the beastirium."

Tivnir nodded. He understood that truth better than anyone. His clan, the war-tigers, concealed many secrets from the Emperor and the beastworld. Only divulging basic knowledge, nothing of their true power, so in case of war, they can’t be left at a disadvantage.

"Veiled butterflies can distort realities in large areas and spread illusions just like the one we are in. Does that mean that you can break this illusion?"

Yiwa froze. His wings shuddered, betraying the panic in his soul and echoing the truth he’d denied for a long time.

The answer to Tivnir’s question was no, he couldn’t break the illusion nit because a veiled butterfly could not but because with his wing damaged, his soul was too. Not only couldn’t her spread illusions or distort realities, but he couldn’t even feel the rest of his clan. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

The tear had cut off his connection to home. He was left feeling alone in the world.

With his feelings saddening, his wings disappeared back into his skin. As though hiding could keep the truth at bay for a little while longer. A spec of dust flew from his wings and into Tivnir’s eyes.

Tivnir rubbed his eyes. "You, why did you..." his words got stuck in his mouth because his raised eyes landed on the wall. He spotted several eyes watching them. They hadn’t been visible until the dust from Yiwa’s wings entered his eyes.

"Why did you stop?" Yiwa turned around, sensing something amiss in his silence.

Tivnir pulled him over, leaning his lips next to his ear and kissing his earlobe lightly. "We are being watched," he whispered to him.

"By whom?" Yiwa mimicked his hushed tone.

"The whole hut has eyes. Just eyes. No bodies, so it is difficult to know what is watching us," Tivnir reported to him.

Yiwa glanced around the wooden walls of the hut but saw nothing. "Are you sure? I can’t see anything."

"I couldn’t either until dust from your wings entered my eyes."

Yiwa felt his breathing growing short. He pulled back and looked into Tivnir’s eyes and caught the reflection of the eyes Tivnir was seeing. His body chilled.

From his time working for Nytherael in his marital abode, he’d learnt a few things about unrecorded beasts in the Abyssal Coil and instantly recognized what beasts were in the walls, watching them and the purpose of which someone could’ve planted them there.

"Tiv..." his body shook greatly. "Don’t think about anything from our past. Don’t feel our bond," he warned him.

"Why?" Tivnir inquired, looking lost and confused.

"Because we won’t remember them when we leave here," Yiwa quickly informed him, a tear falling down his eyes because already, they had thought and felt so much of what once was.

And the idea of walking away from there, without the beautiful memories of his stolen moments with Tivnir at Qihera, broke a piece of his heart.