The barn was burning, but the fire didn't touch me—the ice did.It was Leo’s ice, borrowed from my own veins and returned as a freezing verdict that shattered the last of my composure.The exact second we breached the inner sanctum of the ice-crystal core, the world didn’t just turn cold; it crystallized. A high-frequency whine, sharp enough to make my molars ache, sliced through the ash-choking bitterness of the passage.Ahead of us, suspended in a ribcage of translucent basalt, the Third Fragment pulsed.The Heart of the Frost.It wasn't a stone. It was a rhythmic lung of indigo light. Every time it exhaled, a wave of frost energy surged through the air like a predatory tide. My breath turned to jagged shards of ice before it even left my lips.Each inhale felt like swallowing broken glass. The ground beneath my boots was no longer stone—it was a living frost layer, cracking with sounds like distant gunfire. Fine ice crystals drifted from the ceiling like gray snow, sticking to my e
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