Permafrost Hollows kementári

The wraith stood still as carved marble. The damp quiet between them thickened, stretched thin like glass, and he let it linger as if silence itself was a tool he wielded with precision. When he moved, it was only to shift slightly, just enough for the cold light to catch along the edge of his profile, casting his expression into shadow and silver.
There was no satisfaction in his stare, no arrogance in her admission. Only that same still scrutiny, a glacier’s gaze; slow, relentless, inevitable. The brush of her tail against stone did not go unnoticed. He saw it for what it was: her way of measuring, of controlling the tension by turning it tactile, tangible. His eyes briefly dipped to the motion, then returned to hers. He had been called ghost before; wraith, shade, words meant to disarm or diminish, to frame his silence as absence. But this one: she saw him, called him real, even as she accused him of shadows.
A breath passed. Then: And yet you stayed, was the unspoken verdict etched into the glint of his eye. Despite the dark, despite the warnings, despite me. But he gave her no mockery in return, only this: „The dark,” Astier murmured, voice soft, but with the edge of something ancient and steady, „is merely the veil before the light.”
He stepped forward once more, a fraction, not enough to invade, but enough to disrupt. „Most turn back when they hear the ghost’s voice,” he continued, „But you followed it. Now that you've found me…” A pause, the corner of his mouth barely twitching. „Will you still choose to listen?” It was not a challenge, not entirely. It was an invitation, a test, a truth wrapped in frost.