Nyx's POV
I pressed my good hand against it — carefully, uselessly — and a fresh wave of agony rolled through me so completely that black spots crowded the edges of my vision.
Get up, some distant part of me said.
The rest of me laughed bitterly at the suggestion.
One broken leg. One destroyed shoulder. No powers. No bond. No Frost.
And somewhere behind me, approaching at her own unhurried pace, the sound of a stick tapping steadily against the earth.
She wasn't even running after me.
She had never needed to.
The laughter cut through my pain like a blade.
Cruel and unhurried and deeply, profoundly amused — the laughter of someone who had never once doubted how this would end. It dragged me back into my body, back into the cold field, back into the full, unforgiving reality of where I was and what I was up against.
She was standing directly in front of me.
