The stone still gripped Nerys's legs, holding her fast at the waist as her arms flared wide, water surging up in response to her silent command. Her control was battered but intact. Her eyes narrowed, breath calm.
Then—she exhaled.
And the temperature dropped.
It wasn't dramatic at first. Just a shift—a slow, precise stillness that moved through the arena like a passing wind. The air changed, thinned, crisped. Then, in an instant, the shift turned sharp. Ice bloomed from the soles of her boots, then raced outward like vines of silver light across the battlefield.
Not a burst.
A conquest.
Frost spread in spirals and arcs, elegant and fast, curling up along the broken pillars, running through the veins of Kai's manipulated terrain. The earth that had once pulled her in now resisted, tried to lock around her hips—but the moment the ice touched it, the ground stopped moving.
Not frozen stiff.
Frozen in reverence.
