I breeze in briskly.
Kelan closes the door whilst giving me a thorough once over. "....Are you cold?"
"You mean this?" I pinch the flap of the hood that's attached to the oversized cloak. "Not wearing it by choice."
"When I awoke this morning, I completed my on-sea routine. Solaris strode back inside our cabin and gawked at me like I was a stowaway, like he did not know me. Only to realise that there was something unrecognisable about me."
I yank the hood back, fingers scrambling through my hair. Desperation claws at me as I drag every strand forward, searching. And then I see it. A shock of white, like smelted snow bleeding through the darkness.
I seize it, pulling it free from the tangle—a single, snow-pale lock threading through the rest like rot in fruit. What once was shadow is now frost. A whole section of my hair has turned stark and unnatural amid the black.
