Frostbite

Chapter Seventeen

But, today she felt volatile. She felt as if she could easily fall down into a hole and never fully fall out. Her thoughts of her parents solidified that fact.

I need to keep it together, she thought as she purchased the dye she needed from a bored-looking stall owner. 

"Keep it together," Eira repeated, aloud. Hopefully her words would work.

~

Kea appeared at his usual time, much to Eira's dismay. He sported an angry purple bruise on his cheek and still braced a hand against his ribs. He looked, quite frankly, terrible.

"I feel as bad as I look," he said, by way of greeting.

"Good evening to you too," Eira replied.

Kea grimaced and sat himself on a bar-stool. 

Eira turned away and began to dish up his food. Since it was always the same thing, he needn't  ask for it.

"What time does your shift end?" Kea asked as she placed the bowl of stew on the bar in front of him.

"Nine," she replied. Al was letting her go early because of how many hours she'd been working nonstop over the past weeks. 

"That's good, then." Kea picked up his spoon. "Because if it had been any later, I would have had to excuse you from your work."

Eira placed down the glass she had been drying with accidental force. "What do you mean?"

"We have work to do," came his reply. There was a glint in his eyes Eira hadn't seen before.

~

"What does this "work" require?" Eira questioned as they left the inn.

"Are you any good at listening?"

As it so happened, she was good at it. Six months of eavesdropping on Tutors rubbed off on a person. "Yes. I'm certainly practised in it."

"Good. Because, that's exactly what this job entails. Darrow has told me to "lend a hand" with your first mission. If it's something you're adept in, then it shouldn't be hard at all."

Kea strode off and Eira had to jog to catch up. All of a sudden, she was getting deja vu for some odd reason; the exact same thing happened the night before. Slow down, damn it.

But, despite his usual gait, Eira could see that Kea was walking with a slight limp. Just what sort of fight? She knew it had been with those drunks she'd scared, but what had he done to them? She remembered the barely dried in blood that had stained his clothes and his hands. 

There was something about him, she thought. Something that seemed awfully like a hungry beast set free. Bran Darrow really wasn't the only mystery she had on her hands; Kea Alden really was one in himself. Or whatever his actual name was. Darrow had said everyone used fake names, so why would Kea be the exception?

 It was mutual. She didn't know his name, he didn't know her name. Well, he probably did—it was plastered on every bloody newspaper in the kingdom—but he didn't know that she, Lowenna, was Eira the Frost. Or at least she hoped he didn't.