The words had not even fully settled before the ambient temperature plummeted into absolute zero.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
A violent sheet of glacial ice erupted from the frozen gravel, crawling up Aiden's legs like jagged, hungry talons.
In a fraction of a second, thick, frosted rime encased his boots, greaves, and thighs, locking him up to his waist in a solid, unyielding pillar of pale blue ice.
The shock stole the breath straight from his lungs, his jaw snapping shut as the cold bit deep into his flesh.
Before he could even register the agonizing frost, the air around his head ignited in a blinding, golden glare.
A dozen razor-sharp daggers constructed from condensed, humming light materialized out of thin air.
They hovered mere millimeters from his jugular, their tips buzzing with enough radiant heat to singe the skin of his neck.
