That stare of mine turns darker, hollower.
Half-perched, half-leaning on a headstone, Samick brings a pinkie-sized knife to the sleeve of leathers.
I don’t know where he got the leathers from, but I know it wasn’t from his satchel. He just had them, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Shark had something to do with that, that when he crept back from the direction of the carts, he might’ve brought something that doesn’t belong to him.
Not that it bothers me.
I just have my suspicions that the stolen leathers are the leathers that belong to the dead warriors, the ones who passed on the carts.
Now, Samick works with the materials—the cut leather strip and the wool-like clump that rests on his lap.
I watch as he pinches the strip of leather between his fingers, then starts to weave a needle and thread around the edges.
The face I make is unkind.
Not that anyone notices.
I’m a ghost in the cemetery, invisible and apparently insignificant, because no one even looks my way.
Not even Samick.
Arwyn murmurs something over the flames of the campfire. The soft pink of Samick’s lips spread around a lazy smile—and it startles me.
For heartbeats,one, two, three, I’m struck by it.
I’ve never seen that before.
Samicksmiling.
The soft grin reaches the pallor of his eyes, but he is still frost, and it’s a striking contrast. The smile is relaxed, effortless, and surprisingly it suits him.
But it’s fleeting, quick to fade, and he returns to being a frosted-over marble statue in a cemetery.
His left boot is some inches off the grass, and it dangles, his other boot planted firm. Behind him, the rows of memorial stones loom above the blend of darkness and faint firelight.
The coils of light ribbon over him, glittering the fine chains draped over his shoulders, highlighting the caked, dried blood smearing his leathers, and warming the soft hue of his hair. Strands fall into his face, like spirals of sawdust in winter, and the tips graze over his brow.
That wisp of a smile returns at Arwyn’s murmur and scoff, conversation I don’t understand, but the faint smile suits him, even if it was only a whisper, so quick to come and go that I almost doubt I saw it a second time.
If I ever was stupid enough to be attracted to a dark fae, then he would be a contender at first glance.
That ice thaws for the briefest moments in time, snapshots of small smiles, but then he’s cold again, flesh turning to stone.
I don’t particularly consider the fae around me attractive in any way. There’s just something that bitoffabout them. Like deformed people. Stretched and elongated.
Frankly, they creep me out.
But if any of them were sort of attractive, then it would be him, under the generous light of the campfire, washing over him and his hands as he sews the wool to the leather strap, and he speaks in soft murmurs back and forth with Arwyn.
I decide Arwyn is not as pleasant looking.
Sure, he has long, thick lashes I would have sold a soul for. Not my own soul, obviously, someone else’s. But his complexion has this matte sheen to it, a sort of textured granite stone, and that matches the greyish hue of his eyes.
I wonder if they change colour like Samick’s. White to green, or in his case, white to grey.
Right now there must be no threats—even Rust’s frequent glances from further down camp don’t concern them, at least not for the moment—because there are no frosty eyes around this campfire.
I don’t keep the same assurances they do.
