Chapter 88: Cold Hands, Warmer Eyes
The steam from the tin cups drifted lazily toward the cracked ceiling, vanishing before it reached the beams. Silence stretched between them — not cold, but fragile. Like glass. Neither of them dared to move too much, as if the wrong breath might shatter something.
Aria's hands curled around the warm metal cup like it was a lifeline. She sipped, burned her tongue, and said nothing. The heat of the drink did little to ease the simmering heat that still lingered beneath her skin, ignited by the touch of Selene's body just hours ago. She couldn't shake the feeling of it — the way Selene's cool skin felt like ice but somehow made her burn from the inside out.
Selene, as always, was a study in contrast. Composed. Poised. Her fingers were wrapped around her own cup, but they didn't twitch. Not from the cold. Not from anything. She could've been carved from marble, pale and still. The only movement was the slow rise and fall of her chest, the faintest hint of life beneath a surface as cold as winter.
"You always like this in the mornings?" Aria finally asked, breaking the quiet with a forced lightness. "All… goddess of frost and silence?"
Selene didn't answer immediately. She watched the wisps of steam rise from her drink like they held secrets. "I'm not a morning person," she said, voice smooth, amused. "But I've learned how to survive them."
"That's comforting," Aria muttered, taking another scalding sip and glaring at the fire like it had betrayed her. "So it's just me who wants to melt into the ground right now."
"You've already melted into me once," Selene said without looking up, voice dry. "One might call it a habit."
Aria nearly dropped her cup. "That's not—!"
Selene smiled faintly. It wasn't cruel. Just entertained.
She shifted her posture, leaning back on one arm. The movement pulled her jacket open slightly at the collar, exposing the silver line of a long-healed scar that ran just beneath her collarbone. Aria's eyes flicked there, then away. But Selene noticed. Of course she did.
"You're curious," she said.
Aria blinked. "About what?"
"About what I've survived. About how I became this." Selene gestured vaguely to herself.
"I didn't mean to stare," Aria murmured, guilty.
Selene turned her gaze to her, cold but not unkind. "I don't mind it. Staring, I mean. Just… be prepared if you start asking things you aren't ready to know."
That hung in the air like snowfall — silent, heavy, unmelting.
Aria studied her. The pale skin. The scars. The impossibly still eyes. The chill that never quite left her, even when the fire crackled at her feet.
"How are you always cold?" she asked. "Even in sleep… your skin feels like — like winter."
"Affinity," Selene replied.
"But you're not dead."
"No," she agreed. "Just close enough that the line doesn't bother me anymore."
That should've been terrifying. But Aria didn't feel fear. Just… sorrow. And fascination. Like standing too close to a cliff not to look down.
Selene must have seen it on her face, because she shifted, slightly — closer.
"Don't pity me, Aria."
"I don't," Aria said quickly. "I just… wish I understood."
Selene's lips curved, faint and unreadable. "That's what everyone wants. Until they do."
She reached for her canteen, unscrewing the top with precise movements. As she drank, a trickle of water slid down her jaw and disappeared beneath her collar. Aria followed it with her eyes, then quickly looked away again, heart skipping a beat.
Selene glanced at her sidelong. "You're easy to read."
Aria made a noise of protest. "I am not."
"You are," Selene said, tone annoyingly confident. "It's cute."
That did it.
Aria groaned and stood, pacing toward the window just to get away from that maddening calm. "You act like nothing touches you. Like nothing matters."
Selene didn't rise, but her voice followed her, softer now. "That's not true."
"Oh, really?" Aria turned around, frustrated with how cold and unreadable the woman was. "Because I've watched you kill with less hesitation than most people drink water. And sleep like it means nothing. And flirt like it's just another game to pass time."
Selene set her cup down. Quietly. Deliberately.
"I flirt," she said, rising to her feet, "because it's the only honest thing left in this world."
Aria froze.
Selene stepped closer. Not touching. Not even brushing.
But the cold rolled off her like mist.
"When I say you're beautiful, I mean it," she murmured. "When I tell you you're warm — I mean that, too. You keep trying to pull away like you're afraid it'll mean something."
Aria looked up at her, cheeks pink, eyes wide. "And does it?"
Selene smiled slowly, like ice breaking beneath sunlight. "Everything means something, Aria. The question is whether you're ready to admit that."
For one long moment, neither moved.
Then a distant groan echoed through the ruins outside. The rotters. Stirring with the day.
Selene's face shifted — focus returning. "We'll need to move soon. Pack light."
But her hand brushed Aria's as she passed. Just once.
Chill skin. Callused fingers. Lingering.
Aria turned slowly, watching her silhouette against the morning light.
She wasn't sure what had just happened. If it had been a warning, a flirtation, or something in between.
But the frost that had crept between them in the night now felt like the start of a thaw.
As the day continued, the tension between them simmered like a slow burn. Neither of them spoke much after that exchange, the weight of the unspoken words hanging in the air like an unlit fuse. Their shared silence was both a comfort and a challenge — like walking a tightrope stretched across an endless abyss. One wrong move, and the balance would shift, sending them both plummeting into something neither could fully control.
Aria couldn't help but watch Selene, her every move graceful, deliberate. She was still an enigma, a woman of ice and fire all at once, and Aria felt herself being drawn in, even as she feared what might happen if she let herself fall too far. Selene was cold in a way that wasn't just physical — it was a detachment from the world that Aria couldn't quite understand but found herself mesmerized by.
They gathered their things, moving through the cold, dilapidated factory with practiced efficiency. Aria kept her distance, though her gaze kept slipping back to Selene. There was a tension now, an unspoken connection between them that neither of them seemed willing to address directly. But it was there, undeniable and heavy in the way Selene's eyes would flicker toward her whenever Aria wasn't looking, the way her breath caught slightly when their hands brushed.
The journey outside the factory was cold and harsh, the wind cutting through the ruined landscape like a blade. Ash floated through the air, a reminder of the devastation that had stripped this world of its warmth. But even as they trudged through the wasteland, a part of Aria remained tethered to Selene, a part of her heart that had become irrevocably tangled in the web of cold hands and warmer eyes.
And as they moved forward, Aria couldn't help but wonder what would happen when the thaw came. Would it be a slow, gradual warming, or would it hit like a sudden storm, sweeping them both off their feet before either of them could fully understand what had happened?
For now, all she could do was follow, her heart a quiet drumbeat in the silence between them. And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.