Serin's breath caught, her eyes flying open in the dead of night. The air inside the penthouse bedroom felt unnaturally dense, freezing her lungs every time she inhaled. Her own breath turned into thick white fog in the air.
The room's temperature suddenly plunged to the low teens below zero.
The thick glass panels lining the penthouse walls shrieked loudly, threatening to shatter beneath the ancient ice energy rapidly spreading in from outside. On the bedside table, a glass of water had frozen solid, breaking into crystalline shards.
Serin threw off her heavy blanket. Her bare feet touched the oak floor, now coated in a thin layer of frost, sending a stabbing pain straight through her nerves. But the cold in this room wasn't coming from outside the penthouse—it was centered in the living room.
Moving quickly but cautiously, Serin slid open the bedroom door.
In the middle of the dark living room, draped in the dim blue neon glow of the fading cityscape, a figure lay rigid on the marble floor.
"Kaelen?"
Serin's voice caught in her throat.
Kaelen Vance lay curled in a defensive position. His black tactical uniform had been torn open across the chest, revealing skin now covered in a layer of black ice. His body trembled violently, convulsing in the grip of something invisible. Whenever the man groaned in pain, the bluish veins in his neck and jaw stood out tautly, radiating destructive pulses of freezing magic.
He was single-handedly enduring the side effects of the curse freezing the city—absorbing part of the ancient ice-energy meteorite's radiation as it seeped into the apartment so it wouldn't harm Serin.
"Agh..." A hoarse, heavy groan slipped through Kaelen's pale, bluish lips. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his fingers clawed at the marble until his nails bled.
Serin's heart pounded. The hatred that had burned in her chest for decades suddenly collided with her human instincts. She could simply let this man freeze to death right here. It would be the perfect revenge without dirtying her hands.
But when she saw that powerful body trembling in unbearable pain, memories of the city's destruction and the same despair from twenty years ago suddenly flooded her mind.
"Idiot..." Serin whispered, her chest heaving with short, tight breaths. "Do you think you're some kind of hero?"
Serin knelt beside Kaelen's body. The cold radiating from his skin was so intense that her fingertips felt as if they were burning with a prickling heat. Beneath her nightgown, the Peach Blossom Tattoo on Serin's chest suddenly reacted, radiating a warm, dense golden glow.
The Peach Blossom magic in Serin's blood stirred, responding to the pain radiating from Kaelen's body.
Serin extended her trembling hand, intending to place her palm directly over Kaelen's frozen chest and channel warm, burning magic into the curse.
But before her fingers could touch Kaelen's skin—
*GRAB!*
Kaelen moved with lightning speed. His large hand, covered in ice and blood, shot upward and clamped around Serin's wrist with enough force to crush bone.
Kaelen's eyelids snapped open. His gray irises now radiated a wild, icy-blue glow, unfocused and trapped between consciousness and the torment of a magical illusion. His breath blew cold against Serin's face.
His grip tightened, forcing Serin's wrist away from his chest.
"Don't... touch me..." Kaelen's voice was dry and full of despair, trembling violently between his tightly clenched teeth.
"Let go, Kaelen! Your body's being eaten away by ice!" Serin snapped, trying to pull her hand free despite the pain spreading through her wrist. "My magic can neutralize this radiation!"
"No..." Kaelen slowly shook his head, looking at Serin with pain that pierced to the depths of his soul. "The curse in your chest... is bound to your life. If you force your warmth through the ancient ice in my body..."
Kaelen coughed violently, spraying bloody, freezing vapor into the air. He stared at Serin's face and tightened his grip only to make sure she didn't touch the Ice Core in his chest.
"...your magic will reverse its poison and kill you if you take pity on me!"
Why would Serin's magic kill her? Find out in Chapter 11!