ADARA

"Addie! Addie! Adara!"

Her name bounced across her temples on the flaming trails of her silver magick, blocked by the glimmer of magick which wrapped around her ears. Evyriaz's chains dragged against the peak of the spire when he stretched out his wings. His mouth opened wider into a soundless scream as Neven barked out orders behind her. Some of the Storm Wardens slumped to their hind-quarters, lost in the song lost to her. Others reached out to their fellows, trying desperately to block out the silent sounds. It rumbled the air whenever Evyriaz took a breath to continue. Each time the air rippled, Neven gasped and writhed, causing Yuven to hold out his arms with a harried frown until the rippling stopped.

"This is bad," Yuven hissed as they reached the steps, with Fenrer taking long strides to the doors. "I can't fly up there on Tix'snuv, I need him rested until the final moment."

Evyriaz smashed his tail into the side of the spire. Debris clattered when he tore his spiked tail through the white brick. Dust waterfalls flowed, and tendrils made of black crimson dug through and turned into spears of teeth. In another moment, Fenrer brought his hands together. Jade rivers flowed through his runic shield. Against the cascade of crimson teeth, he threw his arms out to give a golden barrier the momentum it needed. It roared against the clash. It seared and hissed, before bursting into tiny particles of red snow.

"Molvisaliz!" Yuven snapped as he wrapped an arm around Neven, who held the side of his head. "Are you alright?"

Fenrer shook out both his forearms when the runic expanders released a burst of green smoke through the exit points. "I'm fine." One more shake, and the smoke turned into a hiss of steam before it locked back against his forearm for a new intake of his power. "We need to get to the top. If it takes down the spire—" Adara frowned when his gaze shifted to Neven, and from the way Yuven's lips pursed, he noticed the same thing. "It will crush the streets and we need every avenue of opening," Fenrer gave his logical answer, but she doubted Yuven accepted it from the way his feathers thinned, but Fenrer twisted back to the tower with his own rumble of Hanekan, bringing a hand up to his brow to rest against it, a faithful stanza leaving his mouth as he squinted in dismay. "If this is truly Evyriaz, we have bigger problems than we guessed. If he lays waste here, there is too much of a chance he will move on and we may have another Great Crimson Dusk to contend with."

A wyvern who is also a man... who was never a god. Her truth weighed down the music begging for a taste of her silver lilybells. Evyriaz's tail whipped back and forth as his lower jaw split further, screeching into the firmament without taking wing into it. Adara checked on Yuven, who clung onto Neven with a return of the uncharacteristic worry.

Neven's sharp, white fangs revealed themselves and he nodded. "Let us not waste time that we do not have!" he snapped. "We must ascend the spire and stop the doomsong he's echoing!" He let go of Yuven, and rushed past her to keep pace with Fenrer, who opened the large doors with ease and into the crystalline foyer. Yuven's own fangs slid out with a nasal hiss, and he burst into a run, shoving her to the side with ease. Adara groaned and checked on the Storm Wardens they left behind before breaking into her own sprint to catch up with the three ahead. Up above, the chandeliers full of gemstones rumbled. It clinked against the hanging crystals as shadows grew in the deepest corners, tangling and bursting with rot. One of the largest tumors exploded, and Adara choked at the massive cloud of decay and mold.

"This is bad," Yuven hissed beside her. "It's going to start summoning Derelicts if it continues."

Adara tugged her feet away from the growing puddle of rotting veins when they unfurled through the white cracks. Her frown deepened when crimson burrs wrapped around the strange lift, as if the corrupted creature up above sensed their intent. "And exactly how safe are the stairs?" she questioned at another rumble of the spire, which groaned on its own rafters.

Yuven's ears flicked. "I can maybe shift us upwards to shorten our ascension, but I will have to stop for a couple moments to get my bearings of the environment," he explained and rested his foot on the first step. "Worse comes to worse, I hope you've learned how to have your magick take the force of an impact." He glared at her in particular, and he tensed up at another windy ripple, and Neven drove his fingers into his temples. "Stop wasting time with this. Just pray to whatever gods you believe in that the stairs don't crack underneath us — because the one at the top wants to kill us."

He's not a god. He's Euron Traye.

Adara stared at his surname's namesake when Yuven grabbed onto them. Vomit tore into her nose at the violent motion through a blur of color. It swept through lines of light, but she gasped when she found herself face-first on the floor, and the sounds of wet chokes to her right. Both Neven and Fenrer rushed closer to Yuven when he sank to his knees, blood splattering over his lips as he shook out his head. "Damned—" He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, licking at the last spots. "I can hear it screeching through my magick." His beaded gaze drew upwards, but when he went to grab them once more, Neven let out a hiss and rested on his hands and knees himself. "What?"

"It's louder," Neven said and bared his fangs. "Yuven... you cannot push yourself when you still have a part to play." His feathers stood on end at another ripple, and he pulled his fingers down his eyebrows. "We're going to need you when we reach the final stage of this operation..." A soft moan escaped his lips, and he ruffled his feathers. "You must continue, and I will return to the Storm Wardens to get them out of the way in case things go wrong, I—" He took in a sharp inhale. "The closer we come, the higher we go... ulnex'kahpas awel d'lo, Yuven... I fear if I come any closer to him... the song will overtake me."

Wind shivered.

"Why would you hurt us?" Fenrer questioned.

Adara winced when the building rumbled once more, and Yuven sighed. "There's no point in asking why, Fenrer... you do not know the strength of the song," he mumbled. "If Neven gets overtaken — so will she." He pointed at her rather lazily.

"Thanks for your vote of confidence," Adara said.

"It's not a vote of confidence, Adara," Yuven bit. "It is the simple truth. You do not grasp the power of a voice."

"I thought you said you weren't sirens." Adara clung onto the sides of her head when silver worms dug into her ears with a screaming crescendo the longer Neven sat there, his vertical pupils tightening each time the air gasped.

"We're not," Yuven growled, though kept his attention up above them. "But they're not the only creatures who have the power of magick deep within their voice." He squinted at the shuddering roof. "I can't see any higher, this is as far as the spatial distortion could get before it was cut off and I could not get my bearings." He twisted to Neven, who let out a soft huff and bit on his lip. "If you cannot stand the music, Miesero, then you are right. You must return to the other Wardens. And whatever it is you're planning, I trust you."

Neven's pained grimace softened into cathartic relief. "I am glad." He tore himself to his knees with Fenrer's assistance. "I will not betray your trust, Yuven. I will be there when the time comes." He raced for the steps Yuven skipped with his magick, disappearing down them when the building shook once more, and Yuven returned his attention to the ceiling.

"Fenrer? Do you have a better read on it?"

Fenrer's pupils tightened, and the galaxies spiraled closer to each other. "We're well within the zone of pressure. We must take caution. It knows we're here, but in turn... I think I can start the cleansing process if we get closer." He readied his runic expanders with a nod at Yuven. "Though I can't see the spark of light from here... I know it is there, I must reach out to it as soon as possible."

"Then let's shut up this ugly lizard before we're enthralled. Neven is waiting and we still have a job to do." Yuven huffed and raced for the steps across the giant room full of crystalline bookcases. Pages fluttered and tomes smacked against the ground at the trembling of powerful worlds. In their haste, Adara dodged out of the cascades of torment when they ran up the steps. Every so often, Irimount revealed itself through the cracks as they ascended higher to the heavens. Yuven kept the lead, with Fenrer in the middle sending out bursts of a golden shield to protect them from clattering debris. Bile swirled into her throat when they reached the last floor before the end, where crimson tendrils wrapped around the pillars and pulsed like veins. Glass windows cracked to the corners with the unsettling howl above their heads.

"How are we going to shut it up?" Adara asked as Yuven went into the center of the creaking room. A violet glyph slipped off his wrist and pressed itself against the roof. His pupils formed into beads when the tail snaked down the stairs, sweeping across the other wall. Fenrer approached Yuven with a frown, snapping his fingers twice in indication. Tension stabbed her in the throat when Yuven nodded and motioned for Fenrer to step back as the tail lifted to reveal flaps of scaled claws.

Given no time to scream when teeth launched out of the tail, a scythe through fields of wheat.

Fenrer brought her to the ground and the wind from the impact against his barrier pushed them both back. Clouds of rot filled the room as the tail swerved and broke the supports keeping the tip of the spire in the heavens. Several golden glyphs tipped with violet blooms spun through the blinding mist. Glaives spun from the ice grew out of the focal points, gathering into a larger one right where Yuven had been standing. It flashed at its tip, and Adara grunted when the momentum of magick coursed through the gold shaft, and it broke through the roof, and a screech echoed in her ears.

Hindlimbs landed inches from where she and Fenrer sat, hand up to her mouth when the wyvern's growl fluttered out of its nose in a plume of red mist. "Usha'tor... keil..." Its voice sent a quake through her bones as Fenrer clutched onto her when it shook debris off of its body. Wings outstretched once more, Adara braced herself from the wind of its launch and it took to the sky, the song silenced.

Yuven sat down in the middle, winded as he glared at Evyriaz's escape. "Oh no you don't." He ran to the broken edge, then sent a whirring transparent orb of energy straight into its tail. Ignored, Yuven stepped back with a scoff and rushed to them. "We must get back down to the ground! We have silenced it, but it may get desperate and form a bubble, and once it does that, there will be no hope of escaping this place a second time."

"What did you throw at it?" Adara questioned as she let Fenrer lift her to her feet.

"Nunya. Nothing important to you." Yuven spat out a glob of blood onto the splattered floor of dead tendrils. "We leave! Fenrer, I need some of your magick, I can get us quick but I don't have the strength," his admittance came out a hiss as he grabbed onto Fenrer, who held on tight, and Adara groaned when they sank through the floor once more. Flashes of colour bounced and twirled into a mixture of nausea, and she slipped onto her knees when they hit the bottom as ghosts, before Yuven let them go and they returned to a solid world.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to that..." Adara moaned as they wandered out of the spire.

"Come!" Yuven motioned at them, and took off in a run towards their base camp as Euron's shadow flitted through the thick clouds of the blizzard.

But when she turned back to check on Fenrer, he was nowhere to be found.

Wait. What? Adara broke into a sprint to grab Yuven. "Wait!"

"What—?" Yuven stopped himself and looked over her shoulder, then let out an irate groan. "Molvisaliz..." His fangs tucked over his lips, but he snapped out a hiss and shook his head at her. "Leave it! We must regroup—" He flinched when Evyriaz descended into one of the streets with two quick flaps, and his landing quaked the ground once more. Adara evened out her heartbeat to keep up with Yuven's sprint as they ran through broken buildings, and found themselves on the same street Euron landed on. It writhed and screeched, several rows of teeth revealing themselves through his mandible.

"Neven!" Yuven called.

"What's wrong with it?"

Magick ripped through the air, all at once, everywhere.

"What in the Infernal..." Yuven's eyes widened when beautiful beams of white light pierced the firmament, taller than the spire itself. Off the claws of the cradle, light fell into a wonderful weave to create a new bubble of life instead of death. It roared with a melody, where ahead, Evyriaz whipped his head around in apparent confusion. Over the music, a singing whistle echoed out through the street of the small glowing statues on the tops of the intact buildings. It spun into a flourish, breaking apart the unnatural dissonance echoing deep from the belly of the beast.

Adara gasped, full of her wanderlust, but it broke when Evyriaz growled with a desperate hiss, twisting to them with wide, crimson eyes. Slobber slipped onto the ground when it roared, and jaunted for them, bursting through golden shields when they stretched to stop its endless advance. Stumbling to get out of its way, she flinched when a huge golden chain slammed through one of the windows and tangled with the dark one wrapped across its body. It slammed to a stop, tugging on it.

It opened its mouth, but it was no longer the one singing.