The echoes of Jack Kaiser's absolute condemnation had barely faded into the frozen stone of the colosseum when the ambient temperature of Floor Thirteen collapsed.
It was not the sharp, crystalline bite of Pho's ancient ice magic, nor the pressurized chill of Rhys's newly awakened permafrost.
This cold bypassed the flesh entirely.
It sank immediately through muscle and bone, coiling directly around the metaphysical marrow of the soul.
The violet spectral flames burning in the perimeter braziers sputtered and died, their light shrinking into dull, lightless embers. The edges of the shadows cast across the arena floor began to stretch, elongate, and pool into thick, oily black reservoirs.
The air grew intolerably dense, tasting of damp graveyard loam, embalming spices, and ancient, oxidized copper coins laid over dead men's eyes.
Space tore open in the center of the royal viewing box.
