ADARA

The melody of icy cruelty spun into a whistling glyph between the man on the highest steps, and the boy who put his foot forward and readied the chakrams. Frost whisked off the translucent steel when he raised it through the air. Pupils formed into thin beads, King Laucan came closer as another glyph webbed itself in the center of his spinning chakram. "If you have the audacity to think that this is just your playing field, Traye, you're mistaken." His fingers grasped the handles tighter, nothing more than iceswept claws along his hands when he bared his fangs and two wyverns came to life. "And I'm not about to let you, or anyone, destroy the last hope my people have."

Adara shook Fenrer's back while Hayvala brought her hand to her nose. "Fen," she pleaded, though he remained face-down beneath her without a response.

Air tightened in her lungs when she opened her mouth to call out to Yuven Traye, but he smiled down at King Laucan, swinging out his hand into a swirling maelstrom of his signature glyph. "Good. I much prefer it when my opponent has some teeth and doesn't cower behind an outsider. Another monarch no less." The shaft spun into gilded golds and the wind fluffed out their feathers, and he slammed his palm against it to tear it out of the very storm he created, and he braced himself into his knees, his fangs bared and his own pupils barely visible against the verdant violet fields. "Then let's end this farce of a blood feud, Your Wyvern Grace." Plumes of mist left his mouth when he opened it for a deep exhale, and he shivered. Adara frowned when Hayvala slid in front of her and Fenrer.

"Hayvala—"

Ice cracked along a lake of bloodshed.

Both Avaerilians acted on a deeper instinct.

Yuven leaped from the throne, the blade of the glaive pointed downwards at Laucan's head. In a violent whistle, Laucan jumped out of the magical radius when it pushed pressure throughout the throne room, shaking the banners along the walls. Cracks formed along the glass, their flimsy protection against the elements. Spikes grew out of the glyphs on the floor when Laucan slid the chakram along the carpet, past Yuven's heel when it spun upwards, gleaming in unseen light. Yuven brought his glaive up to cut the connection, but dodged when it whistled straight for the back of his head. Another plume left his nose, and he threw one of the pikes straight at the King of Naveera. In a split second, it slammed into his other chakram, angled with perfect precision when it screeched against the metal. Cold rage filled the monarch's face when he dodged out of another thrown glyph, which burst into crystals on impact with the floor.

Adara trembled at the tightening in her chest and shook Fenrer, but flinched when through their misty battlefield, a wave of cold particles raced for them. Hayvala raised a ticking barrier, stopping them in their tracks. Exhaustion tugged down the princess when she slumped to her hands, shaking her head when it fell around them as dewdrops. "No," she hissed with her own vicious plume through her teeth. "This won't fix anything..."

No matter what Yuven tossed or thrusted, Laucan dodged out of them, or parried them when he used his chakrams as both weapons and an extension of movement. A wave of ice carved across the throne room, the force shattering the glass and a horrible howl filled the palace, a ghostly song when Yuven leaped into his spatial distortion when Laucan lifted his head at the sound. Copies of Yuven came from all directions, but smaller ticking glyphs spun into a full stop, a pulse of power when the real Yuven slammed into its center, blade inches from Laucan's forehead.

Chakram in front of his hand, he slammed air through it.

Yuven rolled across the carpet, but caught himself with an angled glyph. "You can't dodge me forever," he hissed through the vicious smoke between them. Wyverns in humanoid form when he lifted himself to his knees.

"Who said I was?" Laucan revealed his other chakram, then threw it along the wave of frozen stone. It whistled and gathered the power of its own spin along the track. Blue flames burst to life from the sparks. Yuven scowled, and brought forth a shield when it bounced off and aimed straight for his throat. It screeched against the pressure, and Yuven directed both out of his way. Waves of magick flew off the chakram when it tore into the carpet, sending pieces of gray thread into the air.

"I thought you said your brother was gentle!" Adara rasped over the ceaseless power biting at her blood.

"He is no less an Avaerilian. He is born of the wyvern's blood. All of us... each of us... have the instincts of our ancestors. We are... not human in your way, though we may look it." Hayvala turned to her. Despair cracked ravines across her brow. "I cannot protect you here. If they continue like this, there is too much of a chance that Fenrer Pyren will die in his condition." Another cold front blasted into the throne room and mixed into the mist and wyvern flames.

White fireballs spun across Yuven's glyphs when he sent them through the hanging crystals. Pieces of the chandelier fell and cracked along the ground when Laucan spun out one of the attacks, a graceful dancer in the middle of a fight. One of the chakrams left his grasp and pushed through the glass. Yuven caught it with the glaive he kicked up with the top of his foot, interrupting its path. Walls of flames, a mixture of blues and pure whites, came down between king and Storm Warden when they pushed into the magick singularity.

"He just let Blackwall get away!" Adara groaned and shook Fenrer's shoulder blades. "Come on, Fenrer, you have to get up, Yuven isn't going to listen to anyone else..."

Though the flames raged, no heat ebbed off of them. Yuven slammed through the tower of embers with a raging snarl, too focused on his opponent. King Laucan's nostrils flared when he lifted his head up, downy feathers puffed against the cold wind when the trail of smoke left his nose. Air squeezed through the inertia of their blows. Chakram broke apart the ice glaives with quickening ease. Blood spotted Yuven's lip, and he wiped it off with his tongue and continued his assault. Distortion rippled around them when he pushed Laucan closer to the pillar, who let go of one of the chakrams. It bounced away, gathering magick.

Stop! Adara blocked her brow at the blasts of blizzard wind, and put her other hand on top of Fenrer's head, as if her useless touch would do anything to prevent the fatal chills. Her fingers hooked over his collar, but her strength failed her. The chakram hovered and gathered the crystals around it, with Laucan raising his hand out, wrapped in blue twine. He gasped when Yuven slid backwards, then sent his foot into his side, Laucan stumbled, and the chakram's extra weapons broke into pieces.

Yuven ran straight for them.

Bile rose up to her throat long before the spatial distortion slammed around them as Laucan lifted his head off the ground, pupils disappearing into the frozen night when Yuven hooked his arm around Hayvala's waist, and his other hand grabbing Adara by the collar before the throne room fluttered into a quick, twilight sparkle. Vomit oozed into her nose at the fractured movement so different from Euron's subtle flight through the planes. Her back hit solid ground. Air escaped her lungs when she coughed for reorientation, flipping over onto her stomach. Hayvala scrambled to her feet, her own beautiful, moonspun hair flyaway as Yuven dove for a box of his clothes and armor.

"What?" Adara held her throat at the dizzying blur of what she could only assume was an armory.

"We don't have a lot of time." Yuven slipped into his armor and tied his runic expanders around his wrists. White mist slipped out of the circuitry when he clenched his fists, then his belt clicked where his crescent blade sat on his hip before shoving two seax's into the lower leather straps. "I hope this escape of yours works, Princess, and you better damned well make sure your inflated brother doesn't follow." He grabbed her wrist. "Think of its placement. I will get us there."

"Wait, Yuven, I barely—" Adara held the salt down when the bubble expanded, and they zipped through reality. Tongue between her lips, she tasted acidic water when they lanced once more in a massive dome. Thirteen statues all, with the largest a likeness to the man from the world sphere. Euron Traye. On his breastplate, wyverns coiled around the stem of a snowrose, breathing flames into its fiery petals. On the mosaic wall around his statue, wyvern wings grew out of his back with his horns forming out of the clouds above. On his right side, an armored individual with an ice glaive set at attention in front of them. Nothing more than a golden breeze from a distant memory. On his other side, a woman of intimidating stature, her shield set at her feet with her wrists over the top.

"What is this place?" Adara asked as Yuven scooped Fenrer into his arms, a soft word leaving his mouth.

"These are the Knights of the Round," Hayvala said. "And it will be them that will open the escape tunnel. Yuven Traye." Her finger raised to his ancestor, then traced the Navei scripture along the pillars. "Read those words along the arch. You will understand how to get out of here. Only those with the blood of space and time can open it — I will prevent my brother from giving chase, but first..." Hayvala wandered over to Zamira's feet, slipping out a box from behind the shield. "Here are some supplies. They will help you survive out in the Frozen Wastes." She set it beside Yuven, who ignored her for Fenrer. Hayvala knelt closer.

"We don't need your charity, Princess, would that we could escape on Gryphlings, but this will do," he hissed, and Hayvala frowned at him. "I can get them through the blizzard fine." He hauled Fenrer's arm around his shoulder and dug his other arm around his side, pulling him into a sitting position.

"Yuven Traye, there is no need for pride," Hayvala insisted when he nudged the box with his foot. "Pride will not keep you warm out there."

"Maybe we should..." Adara began.

"Shut up." Yuven held Fenrer closer. "Go and stop your brother, Princess. We're Wardens. We don't need sympathy from monarchs who caused this to happen. Sazaka, get over here unless you want to be left behind." Adara scrambled into his reach, and Hayvala winced when he kicked the supplies further out of the rune beneath them. Yuven twisted to the archway around his ancestor, studying the scripture with a scoff. "Of course. Try not to vomit on me, Adara," he bit. "It makes it harder to phase shift."

"Then don't do it so—"

Air popped in her ears when the rune lit up underneath her, and they sank through the floor. Into the mirror of stars. Her knees buckled against stone when they flopped onto old marble, where an otherworldly howl sounded from the end, shielded from the junction. Mist hovered over the ground, and she sighed and glanced upwards. The swirls of space became the unyielding hands of time.

"Fenrer."

Adara stretched her legs out when Yuven cradled him and cupped his chin, moving his head from side to side. "Molvisaliz," his words came out taut and broken. Glyphs wrapped around his free hand when he raised it closer to Fenrer's nose, and it spun slowly, softly. His chest rose and fell in shallow, pained waves. "I am sorry for hurting you again."

Adara wrapped her shawl closer around her shoulders when the air breathed for Fenrer in faint pulses. On her knees, she came closer, but not before Fenrer stirred, then scrambled out of Yuven's arms with a startled gasp. On his stomach, he choked. Adara put her hand on his back when he shuddered and hacked up what appeared to be yellow phlegm. In her peripheral, Yuven lunged forward and grabbed his shoulders. "Molvisaliz! Nex'ushacor u'lo!"

"No, no..." Fenrer coughed and waved him off, wheezing as he wiped his mouth. "You know that's not the case..."

"What?" Adara rasped.

Yuven ignored her to tug Fenrer into his arms again when he swung his arm through the air for support. "Fenrer, I am so sorry," he pleaded and held him tighter when Fenrer's head lolled with a steadier exhale. "I thought—I thought Keeper Blackwall was using you to get to me again." Tears fell down his cheeks, and Adara frowned at the two tired Wardens.

"Aye..." Fenrer lifted his gaze with a woozy smile. "No... it's okay. I can only imagine what he did to you. I'm alright. I'm so happy that you're still here and that the Corruption hasn't taken you yet. I can rectify it, get you back on track with the medication if I can stifle the Husk. We're so close now..." He tilted his head back into the direction of the tunnel, but stopped when Yuven wrapped his arm around his neck. "Come on, we just have to stand up and walk."

Adara set her hand on his brow when his eyes closed. Flames bit at her fingers in pyretic rage. Yuven's fangs drove into his lips when he took two, sharper breaths. "Come with me for a moment." A gasp escaped her throat when he put Fenrer flat on his back, then tugged her by the arm to the end of the tunnel, into the swirling mist.

Endless veils of white. The song turned into a frozen howl.

Snow stuck to her pants and bit straight to her skin. Her shawl ruffled in the wind, and she hugged herself, though Yuven held himself in disarrayed confusion. "Yuven," she rasped and came closer to him. "Yuven, he can't walk through that! We'll freeze to death!"

On the edge of the blizzard, out of the flimsy safety of temporary warmth, her flames died underneath the oppression of Naveera's constant blizzard.