The cold bit her as she ran. Her feet hit the slabs, her white breath tore through the air, but she didn't stop. She never did.
Arya advanced through the corridors like a shadow, agile and desperate, dodging fallen columns, jumping over debris, ducking under splintered beams. Ice cracks climbed the walls and ceiling around her, but she didn't look back.
Her legs were pure fury, her heart, a war drum. The sound of ice following her was deafening: creaks, explosions and a frozen wind that seemed to want to tear off her skin. But she continued. Always advancing.
Suddenly, the ground under her feet trembled. First like a whisper. Then, as if the entire world split in two. The walls moaned, dust and frost rained from the ceiling. Arya slipped for an instant, but placed her hand on the wall and kept running, even faster.
And then she saw it. The cave. A black rock arch at the end of the corridor, its mouth open like that of a sleeping dragon, with the sound of the sea hitting the stones beyond. The same cave she had escaped through as a child, when everything was different. Now, that cave was her only salvation.
The salty breeze brushed her cheek, cold and humid, like a promise she could almost touch. The roar of the sea mixed with the beating of her heart. Arya gripped the dagger in her hand and leaned forward, emptying everything she had left into each stride.
The shadows seemed to part, the blue of the ice was left behind, and the gray light of the sea awaited her at the end.
But then she felt it. A light —not blue, nor white— but a voracious green, igniting behind her. The roar of wildfire exploded behind her like thunder, deep and cruel, filling the corridor with a monstrous glow.
The heat reached her, first as a gust that tore the air from her lungs, then as a wall that lifted her from the ground. Pain came immediately, in lashes. Her back was covered with blisters, her clothes scorched and dissolved into tatters, her hair burned in locks that smelled of smoke and salt.
She felt the skin on her shoulder crack under the fire, the sleeve of her coat stick to her flesh before dissolving. Her scream exploded, harsh and brief, lost between the roar of flames and sea.
The dagger fell, resonating once against the stone before being lost in the gloom. She felt her body flying toward the mouth of the cave, beyond, toward the sea. Between the roar of fire and the clash of waves, darkness enveloped her, and there was nothing more.
Only the taste of salt on her lips.