Frostbite

Chapter Twenty-One

Even as a small child, Eira had never believed in ghosts. When people died, they really were gone forever—that was the harsh truth she had faced the first time she'd experienced loss. She'd made a choice that day; she wouldn't take comfort in grasping an unrealistic hope. She would keep her eyes trained ahead. If she clung to a whisper of the past, then she would never be able move on.

However, in that moment, there was something in front of her that couldn't be anything other than a ghost.

Someone.

Her heart pounded, her breaths shallow gasps.

A face she'd known once. A face she'd tried so damned hard to forget, but never quite could.

Was she dreaming?

This couldn't be real.

It couldn't.

"Gwen?" Eira whispered, voice hoarse. She hated how weak and feeble she sounded, like that scared little girl she'd been at the beginning. Or perhaps she hadn't changed at all. "Gwen?" she repeated.

The face she saw in all of her dreams and all of her nightmares changed. What had been possibly a look of surprise—horror even—morphed into to a hardened, unreadable one.

"My name is not Gwen. I don't know who you're mistaking me for, but whoever it is, I am not her."

~

Had she been mistaken?

The person in front of her was not a ghost, that was for sure— she was blood, and flesh, and bones—but perhaps not who Eira had thought.

She undoubtedly looked like Gwen, that was for sure, but Eira remembered what had happened mere hours ago in the music hall. With Cerin.

Perhaps she'd seen so many similarities that her mind had conjured up an illusion of someone long dead, because of some foolish hope she thought she'd eliminated years ago.

Why could Eira still not trust her own eyes? And why did it feel like she was just trying to make up excuses for herself? Because she couldn't bring herself to believe she'd lived a lie these past few years and couldn't face having to come to terms with such a rejection from a long-dead friend? Because some deep, buried part of her whispered that the one in front of her was Gwen, alive and breathing, and that she really had seen Cerin that afternoon?

Eira did her best to ignore that part of her. Instead, she forced herself believe the things she told herself—excuses though they may be.

She looked to the woman, but did not meet her eyes. Could not. "I'm sorry. I mistook you for somebody else." Her teeth were clenched as she spoke, the apology losing all its meaning when she refused to make eye contact.

Kea gave Eira a bemused look, but didn't remark. Instead, turned his attention to Darrow. "Can I ask why there's a Frost in our midst?" he questioned, probably a little louder than intended.

"Some Frosts have reasons to rebel as well. It's just that they're less obvious."

Realisation crept up onto Eira—that hadn't been a figment of her imagination, too? She really was a Frost?