When he heard the wolves, he immediately picked up the pace. With other magic beasts, he wouldn’t have been so worried, but they had encountered winter wolves one other time since getting to the mountains. Igrette slew them all easily, but Jonny had nearly frozen to death in the process, even while hiding a few hundred feet away. When he sped up, though, Igrette stayed back. In fact, she seemed to be slowing down. Jonny wouldn’t have minded, because that was what she should have done, except this time, her slowing down didn’t seem voluntary. When he turned to look, she was limping harder than ever, taking lurching steps, and her bad arm was flopping limply in its sling. “Igrette?” he said, slowing down.“Go ahead,” she said, grimacing in pain. “I’ll take care of them here.”She slowed to a halt, and Jonny did too. He hesitated for a moment, wavering on whether to say something until she pointed ahead with her sword.“Go!”Jonny hesitated a second longer, then nodded.“Don’t die. Please.”“I don’t plan to.”He gave her a look, then turned and continued fleeing, escaping the cold wind that was already starting to catch up to them. After a few seconds, he veered left, going uphill toward a small peak that would give him somewhat of a vantage point. With all the trees, he couldn’t actually see much more Igrette or the wolves than the occasional glance, but he could see the cloud of snowy wind rapidly approaching the place where he had left Igrette behind.Soon, the cloud nearly covered the forest (...)