Chapter 70: The Skinned Escape
The terrifying reality struck her mind like a physical blow as the white layer of ice continued to expand around her wrists and knees. Nerida opened her mouth to scream, but the freezing wind forced the sound back down her throat in a ragged, suffocating rattle. She tried to yank her right hand backward, pulling against the solid mass of rime that bonded her skin to the vertical iron pickets.
The metal did not yield a single millimeter.
Instead, the sudden tug sent a blinding spike of pure agony shooting up her forearm, the frozen tissue tearing against the unyielding steel bar. She stared down in absolute horror at her fingers, watching them disappear entirely beneath a thick casing of clear, glistening ice that locked her knuckles in a permanent, rigid c
