Chapter 36
NOX
Neo sprints through the forest, branches whipping against her arms as she chases the elf darting ahead.
"Neo!"
Her movements are sharp. Every step is a strike against the earth; every glance over her shoulder filled with fury rather than fear.
She isn’t running to escape; she is running to fight, to hunt and to kill.
She holds a sharp icicle in her hand, jagged and gleaming like a blade carved from winter itself.
She holds it low at first, the frost dripping from its edges, then raises it with a violent snap of her wrist. The air around her seems to freeze, the storm bending to her fury as she lunges forward, striking with the raw force of ice turned into a weapon.
Her whole body is catching shards of moonlight as she runs through the trees.
The witch as a hunter. And when I reach them…
Neo and Ice stand face-to-face on the frozen lake.
Her eyes glow with a strange light as the surrounding air thickens.
Shadows stir, whispering voices rising from the silence.
The ghosts normally only she can see begin to gather—flickering shapes of the forgotten, their forms half smoke and half memory.
With a sharp gesture, she commands them forward.
The spirits surge like a tide, their wails cutting through the snowstorm.
The lake whispers, its frozen skin groaning, carried through frozen veins of water.
I have never beheld a beauty so unearthly.
The pale phantoms drift across the frozen lake, their movements slow and solemn, encircling her in a silent dance.
The ice beneath them sings with ancient creaks, as though the world itself is bearing witness to their ghostly procession.
This is your moment. Show me how wild you are, nightshade. Show me death by your hands.
The ghosts claw at the elf, their spectral hands dragging at his arms and legs, pulling him off balance. The jagged icicle she carries trembles in her grip as the phantoms swarm, their touch colder than any winter frost.