MAEVE POV
I felt the cold wind pierce straight through to my bones as I made my way along the path toward the snow-capped mountain. I walked toward the Purification Arena, hugging my body tightly, because the wind felt like razor blades slicing across my skin.
We arrived at a vast stretch of rocky ground at the mountain’s peak, covered in snow. The moment my feet touched the snow, the freezing cold spread through me as if it were trying to stop my blood from flowing.
But the cold outside was nothing compared to the torture tightening around my chest.
The synthetic skin Dorian had created felt like a heated iron corset, clinging to every inch of my chest and squeezing the life out of me. Just as the alchemist had warned, this illusion didn’t just hide my female anatomy—it drained my
