The old man felt it a fraction of a second too late, that sudden, unnatural plunge in temperature. In a single breath the air turned sharp as glass, and every inhale started burning his lungs from the inside. Before, it had been cold. Now it was glacial in a way that had nothing to do with weather or seasons.
Only raw, brutal magic.
He saw the girl's heels flare with an intense blue light, so bright it briefly flashed his vision white. Natalia smiled, calm and faintly satisfied, then slammed her right heel into the ground.
There was no boom.
There was an eruption.
A wave of cold detonated around her, blasting outward in every direction at a speed the old man couldn't even judge, let alone stop. Before his body could react, before his muscles could even receive the command to move, the entire area within two hundred meters froze solid.
