Chapter 271: What the Cage Costs
The third day of the siege brought no relief. The cold sat heavy over the eastern quarter, thick with smoke and the smell of ten thousand unwashed people.
Reina Frost knelt at the edge of the canal, her chest heaving.
She had been kneeling at that bank for three days, pulling clean ice out of poisoned water with her bare hands. Her fingers had locked into a half-curl she could no longer straighten, and her arms shook from the sustained mana drain. A thick layer of frost clung stubbornly to her silver hair and would not melt.
Aegon Logcheville stepped out of the hazy smoke and walked up beside her. He did not ask if she was alright. He knew the blunt, competitive girl would only spit at his pity.
Instead, Aegon reached out, his gauntlets radiating a faint, comforting heat, and closed his hands over her frozen fingers until they loosened.
