From every surface beneath the feet of the shadowy figures, hands erupted, vast and pale and formed entirely from ice, their fingers long and tapered and ending in claws that caught the dim light of the chamber with a faint, cold gleam.
They came up in clusters, surging from the floor with a speed that gave the shadowy figures no interval in which to react, and they seized each one with a grip that was not merely strong but viciously thorough, the icy claws closing around limbs and torsos and pulling downward with a force that allowed no resistance.
The shadowy figures struggled, their dark forms writhing against the restraint, but the cold was already doing its work independently of the grip, climbing through whatever spiritual substance composed them and converting it, layer by layer, into something rigid and still.
