Noctisardor Bypass glistening shards

<3

The gamble paid off. The stranger’s laughter was a landslide of sound, effectively drowning out the quiet retreat of the terrified woman near the treeline. Astier watched her slip further into the shadows from the corner of his vision, satisfied that she had become a ghost to the bear. He did not know the doe-eyed stranger, nor did he trust the intentions of the man standing before him. It mattered little, however. The world could fill with strangers, but the Wraith had eyes for only one woman.

As the wind shifted to carry the bear's laughter away, it brought something else in its wake. A scent, faint, but unmistakable, a memory sharper than the biting cold. Astier’s silver gaze wanted to snap toward the ridge. He felt the pull of it in his chest, a physical tether yanking him forward. In his peripheral vision, he caught the ghost of movement, not the fleeing doe, but a different silhouette, one that had haunted the edges of his mind since he left the north.

His heart gave a singular, traitorous kick against his ribs. She was there, watching. Instinct screamed at him to turn, to acknowledge her, to close the distance that had stretched too long between them. But discipline was a cold iron collar around his neck. If he turned his head now, if he let his gaze linger on the ridge, the massive man beside him would follow his eyes. The solitude she sought, the solitude he needed to speak with her, would be shattered by him. He could not risk it. To find her, he had to ignore her.

With an effort of will that cost him more than he would ever show, Astier forced his attention to lock onto the norseman. „Honesty,” Astier drawled, his voice steady despite the adrenaline spiking in his blood. He stepped closer to him, deliberately placing himself as a wall between the morseman and the rest of the valley. „Is a rare virtue in these parts. I suppose it makes you less dangerous than a bear, if only just.”

He offered the male a dry, thin expression, „You have a name, dökkur?” he asked, demanding the stranger's focus, ensuring he had no reason to look anywhere else.