Permafrost Hollows kementári

I love where this is going omg

The specter stood poised in the hush between her words, his silhouette still as the stone that birthed these tunnels. Her sharp glance had not gone unnoticed; it was catalogued, measured, respected. A warning, yes, but not one laced with fear. It was the sort of barrier he had encountered in creatures still capable of striking, of defending what little they had left. That kind of flame was never off-putting to him. In truth, it often intrigued him.
Her compliment (or observation) slid over him like frost on iron. No preen of ego followed, he had been crafted well, perhaps. But not by choice. His silence acknowledged her words without confirming or denying them. Then she drifted into the dark, and only then did Astier allow a shift.
The wraith followed; not with his paws, but with his eyes, trailing her passage through the shade like a falcon might trace the arc of a crow in flight. He did not chase her into the gloom; he did not need to. The watharil had chosen to linger. That was enough. 
At her question, his head turned slightly, just enough for the sharp angles of his face to catch the dim silver cast of light. „If you were interrupting,” came the low reply, „you’d have been dealt with.”
But there was no weight behind it; no true threat. If anything, his tone bordered on dry amusement, cloaked in glacial calm. „I’ve been called many things, trespasser included.” A pause. His breath curled like smoke in the cold. „But I am not often surprised.”
A beat passed, and then; 
„Tonight, I am.”
It was a rare admittance. Not a surrender of power, but a flicker of truth offered like the edge of a blade; reflective, deliberate, and razor-thin. He remained in the half-light, but his presence stretched toward her like shadow chasing shadow.
„Perhaps the night is more generous than I expected.”