Warm

'What is this?'

His hand patting the kid's back stopped and he moved his head back a little bit, staring at Ariyan's hair with a blanck, shocked face.

'Was this... like this before?'

He blinked his eyes several times to make sure that he was not seeing things.

'No, I'm sure it wasn't.'

He was sure that Ariyan's hair didn't contain any dark gray hairs before. 

Kairen moved his hand from the kid's back to his hair and stroked it. Once he did, he could see that only a small number of hairs were dark gray while the rest were still the same color as before.

"Ariyan what-"

"Sniff hic."

Ariyan was in no state to answer. Kairen wanted to get up and rush to Mrs. Neal and ask her if she knew what had happened to his hair, but he couldn't do that right now because Ariyan was clinging to him and crying in his arms. 

'Dark gray...'

He couldn't help but be reminded of something he had seen a few days ago.