Mina did not hesitate.
She knelt in the center of the three-hundred-foot circle, her fingers steady despite the bitter polar wind.
She picked up the first pale-gold sphere from the red silk lining.
The pill was cool against her lips, smelling faintly of glazed honey and wild winter plum blossoms.
She swallowed it whole.
Nine more spheres followed in quick succession, each one dissolving upon her tongue into a rush of cool, fragrant nectar.
Before the sweet liquid could even hit her stomach, Kaelen tapped the sole of his cloth slipper against the blue ice.
A razor-thin thread of Saint Vessel Qi rippled through the frozen lake floor.
