The burning iron heel slammed downward toward the base seam of the sapphire ice wall.
Scorching blood-fire hissed against the morning fog, radiating intense heat designed to detonate the frost barrier with violent thermal shock. A loud explosion would echo across the canyon, shattering the peace of Kaelen’s carriage twenty-five minutes before the milestone.
Mina Vance did not draw her cold-iron dagger.
She did not brace her shoulder against the ice wall to meet force with force.
At Hour 719 and thirty-five minutes, Mina refused to clash with the three assassins’ daggers in a noisy exchange. A loud parry might splash stray Qi onto Kaelen’s hammock, so she dropped smoothly to one knee upon the cold flagstones.
Her dark blue sleeves fluttered back, revealing slender, snow-white wrists. She pressed both bare palms flat against the wet limestone bedrock directly beneath the assassins’ boots.
“Freeze,” Mina whispered softly.
The full, unsealed reserve of her Jade Meridian Mid Pure Yin physique poured into the porous limestone bedrock.
