The tiger tried to push its head under its chest to bite at my leg, but couldn’t reach. The dumb dead animal started to tip over forward and to the right, choosing to ignore balance in its attempt to bite at me.

The claw ripped itself out, twisting as the thing fell. I screamed again, out of fury. The pain was white hot and I used it.

Sick a goddamn puppet on me?

The tiger rolled over, throwing snow into the air. It floundered, clawing at the ice and the stone. Shrapnel of grey rock mixed with slivers of grey bone.

The snow was bright red around me, blood pumping out of the gaping gash in my leg. The cut was deeper and more ragged than any I’d ever had. The way Jordan had cut my shoulder had been nothing compared to this. I hadn’t felt that back then. I wouldn’t feel this now.

I reached for the stillness and the suffocating cold swimming in the air. I clenched my fist before my face, muscling the fingers closed slowly. The wind stilled. Snow stopped swirling and dropped to the ground.

The white tiger rose to its feet, shaking its head like a real animal could have. Its lower jaw dropped to the ground, the bones broken too far for the magic to hold it together any longer.

I’d rip apart the rest.

I invited the cold. The blood must stop flowing. The heart could start beating again once I was done. Coratorus had written how using the Null wasn’t a question of equal balance, but of compartmentalization. The mold tried to get in, but I spun for it a prison of mana, life twisting around my stomach in a maze of guts and organs and whatever. There was no need to name them, as I drove the mana to sustain what couldn’t be allowed to fail. The presence screamed in my stomach, but it was the wrong place. I had no interest in listening.

The tiger pounced at me. It slammed a paw as large as my head at my shoulder.

“No!” Falar screamed.

I wasn’t ready yet, so I ignored them both. The claws dug into my skin, almost penetrating it. I let myself take a step back as the tiger leaned on me, standing on its hind legs.

It swiped its other paw at my face, but that was going too far. I caught it with my left hand. The frozen flesh shattered at my touch. I twisted, breaking the limb off at the shoulder. It ripped in two parts as I threw it behind me.

Where was I?

The Null couldn’t be controlled. I had to exist within it. The mold and the rot made things more complicated, but it was impure. I pressed it between life and the true lack of anything. Coratorus had hinted at something existing at the boundary of the Null, but as I tried to remember what it had been, the tiger bit my face.

It had no bottom jaw left, but it swung the front half of its maw down, yellowed teeth scraping against my skull. I blinked at the memory of a pain, the stench wafting against my face from somewhere deep inside its body.

Coratorus had written that—

The tiger leaned further and I fell back, sinking into the deep snow next to the path. I screamed in frustration and the scream shattered the teeth chomping down on me. Its head jerked back, but it lay on top of me, as large as a bull. I pulled my knee to my chest and kicked up, aiming at its midriff. My boot cracked the dead flesh, punching through. The tiger split in half, both sides thrust into the air and flopping in opposite directions.

The backside fell off me, the stomach and two legs flipping to the side. Its front half flew up, even when it tried to hold on with its claws ripping through the shoulder of my coat and the tusk lodged behind the back of my head.

I kicked the ground with my other leg, throwing myself into the air and spinning a full circle. The monster crashed into the ground below me and shattered, limbs falling of the body.

I landed in the middle of the wreckage, boots crushing brittle bones and cracked frozen flesh. The tendrils of mold let go of the corpse and came for me instead, but I was too cold. The stench wafted against me and I lifted my chin, staring up toward the mountains. I would kill it, too.

I clenched my fists and planted my feet, held them from rushing somewhere, looking for something more to kill. It would have been so easy to keep going, but I knew I couldn’t.

Shouldn’t.

Coratorus had been clear that overextending the effect would be dangerous. And besides, I had experienced it once for myself already. I didn’t fear the pain, not at the moment, but maybe I would again, when I wasn’t colder than the ice, colder than empty spaces beyond the world.

A hand touched my shoulder. The black leather of the glove frosted white. “Lina,” Falar said. “Listen to me.”

“I know,” I whispered.

He winced at the sound, but held on to my shoulder. “I’ll talk you through it. You did well.”

His words made a wave of warmth rush through me. I gasped at the pain it revealed. My leg made a soft blub sound, as a thick clump of blood pumped out of it.

“For a rank amateur. Don’t let go,” Falar said. “Close your eyes. I have some ambrosia left, but not enough. We still need to find our way back, and your strength will be needed for that.”

Grit’s hair was a single dark brown and sticky clump from the blood. Her mittens had been shredded, revealing the white palms underneath. She wiped the blood off her eyes, smearing it around her face. “Damn, you look like a mess,” she said to me, grinning widely.

Falar had dabbed the ambrosia on my leg. It burned without pain, fighting with the Null infusing my flesh. The wound wasn’t a gaping, seeping hole anymore, but I was sure it would hurt like hell once I let go.

He had made me drink the rest of the ambrosia. Drinking anything that glowed blue didn’t feel safe, but the light tingled in my stomach, pushing against the cold everywhere else in my body.

Weird.

“It’s the Null,” I said, voice rasping, cracking, and unnaturally loud.

“Try not to talk,” Falar said. He sat on a rock, leaning his arms on his knees. “It can damage your vocal cords unless you’re careful, and you have shown nothing but contempt for your own safety.”

I shrugged. The balancing effort took everything I had. Steeped in the cold and the dark like I was, getting angry would be a bad idea for everyone.

Grit waved a hand at the pile of broken bones behind her. “I didn’t know that I would so soon be using all the techniques you taught us, Lecturer. Thank you.”

“You did well,” Falar said. “You were an adequate student then, and this proves it further.”

“She doesn’t get an insult with the compliment?” I asked, keeping my voice steady as well as I could.

“Insults are reserved for reckless fools with more talent than common sense,” Falar said.

“I don’t want to know how hard you are on Fek,” I muttered.

“You can only imagine,” Falar said. “Enough banter. We cannot remain here. I can walk again, at least somewhat, and we need to get you back to the safety of the Academy.”

Grit reached down to Falar. He looked up at her for a moment, but clasped the offered hand and let her pull him up.

He turned away before seeing how Grit’s cheeks lit up bright pink. Bloodied and caught between a day’s journey through snow and a furious undead presence, she still had enough energy left to get flustered. What a dumb girl.

I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out the envelope enough to see it was still there. It had one ragged hole where the tiger had pressed a claw through my coat, but otherwise it was fine.

Holding it made my leg spike with dull pain and the bite marks on my scalp flare. Maybe I was a dumb girl as well.

I'm running a poll to decide which characters should I include in the next naughty bonus scene over on Patreon. If you have opinions, let me know in the comments. Surprise the patrons! >:D