Chapter 4
HAYVALA
Pieces fell into place underneath ice-strewn, crystal chandeliers basking in light born of magick. Droplets of snowbound illusions fell through the air when she stomped her way through the royal wings of Volaris palace — once a safe refuge against the endless blizzard nights, now a symbol of their isolation and apathy. Music sprinkled, deafened by their own refusal to listen to her song. Flurries clashed against the windows and slipped into the runes within to spread out the minuscule heat. Her evening dress trailed behind her, her boots clicking against the marble floors with etched glaives pointing her way to the king's room. Her baby brother. Foolish as he was, a child he continued to be.
His Sentinels stood at attention when she walked past them and up the small stairs to his room.
How could you be so reckless? It was clear she had less pieces than she wanted, what with Adara Sazaka's arrival. But is this Laucan's plan? Or someone else's machinations using his age and inexperience against him? One single name underneath bubbles of tar. Her fangs threatened to sink into her own lips when she stopped in front of the door etched with snowflakes. She'd get the answers, one way or another, and she wasn't out of the game.
Laucan took a step back from the desk too large for a boy king. "What is it now?"
"You, Laucan Travon, have overstepped," Hayvala snapped with the slam of the door behind her. "You did not mention that not only did you order the Iceshards capture the Anima, you captured a Traye. Ancients only know what price you paid for both!" Hayvala threw her hands at his flickering fireplace of blue embers. "You should know better than to go to the Iceshards! Might I remind you that Father's use of them saw our coffers near empty?" Drawn closer with her wave of agitation, Laucan's feathers puffed out in belligerent, childish rebellion. "And you brought a Traye here, of all places!"
"It was the only way. I did it for us — for our people," Laucan insisted. "Now, we can get answers about the fall of Irimount. Now, we might be saved from the clutches of the blizzard. Do you not see, Hayvala? This was the only way!" He held himself strong, but any breath of wind would shatter him to his bones. "This is the only way that our people will ever see the sun!"
A horizon, stretching far into the distance, Ser Yokonei sat with her, a warm smile on his face. Stars, glittering across the black expanse of the Echo Obscura.
On the song of his voice, Hayvala argued, "And you think capturing the Anima and a Storm Warden will change this? How can you be so ignorant to what truly plagues our people? You want us to see the sun? Your concern shouldn't be the blizzard." Hayvala prodded him in the chest. "Look. Hear. You are not hearing, Laucan. You aren't listening to anything but what you believe is the right course, but your eyes are closed. You will never hear the song on this path." Arms folded, she huffed. "The council doesn't know about this, do they?" His alarmed reaction told her more than enough. More than their hopeless isolation. "This is a mistake."
He narrowed his eyes, his sky-blue irides thinning into beads. "No. It is not a mistake. You want to know what was a mistake?" Laucan took a heavy step underneath an unseen crown. "It was a mistake to ignore the hints of dark magick in Irimount." One more step up icy stairways into the heavens. "It was a mistake to think that we could wait out the blizzard — surely it must end, but no, no, it won't end. It won't end unless we drive into the very core, and without wings, how are we to do that?" He glared at her, an imposing figure though he barely stood above her. "We can't sing the blizzard away, Hayvala."
I am not referring to the blizzard.
Laucan folded his hands across his chest. "I will not be telling the council that there is a Traye in this palace."
"They will find out," Hayvala whispered. "They will find out, and there will be bloodfire across the frostlands. You are making a mistake. You are mistaken to think the council will just nod their heads along — and you are ignorant if you think you can sway them with the vague musings of a Keeper not from our lands and with flimsy promises of old glory!" Pieces flew across the board, and he knew none of the careful steps. "You are making a dangerous decision, Laucan, a choice that won't lead you to anywhere you'll like."
His downy feathers smoothed out with the pop of his fireplace. "Are you done?"
No, but you will not listen no matter my words. Hayvala set her shoulders straight and proper against the tide of snow. "If you go down this road, I cannot help you."
"I don't need your help."
You foolish child. Hayvala breathed out a plume of mist strewn with the wyvern fire inside. "Tell me thusly, then," she said, hiding her voice behind ice. "You throw Sazaka into a tower. I'm assuming you threw Yuven Traye into the Ice Gaol." His aura shivered with the approach of one last name. "You mean to hide them from each other. Keep them separated." Auras drove into her temples, but she fought through the endless pain underneath her skin. "They weren't alone, were they?"
"What?" Spikes grew from the blue bubbles.
"Yuven Traye and Adara Sazaka weren't traveling alone. I am not stupid, Laucan," Hayvala whispered. "You speak of the blizzard's core — but your aura focuses on something else." It fluttered out of her blurry field of vision, and she shook her head. "What happened to Fenrer Pyren?"
He lurched. "How—?"
"I have been at this longer than you, Laucan."
Bubbles froze into icicles and fell across his aura in horrible shame. "I don't know," he admitted with a shuffle of his feet. "I was not there when they grabbed them from Sivaport. I was expecting—hoping—" his correction didn't escape her notice, but she brought no attention to it, "The Iceshards only knew to take Yuven Traye and Adara Sazaka alive."
"You told them that?"
He lowered his gaze to his feet.
"You have done something that can't be undone," she whispered. "I can only hope we will all get out of this alive." She left him no room for further arguments and left him to his thoughts and haphazard ideas built on someone else's schemes. A dance, where one slip led to death.
Out of the royal wing, she went deeper into the palace. It grew colder with the twist of the unseen night. Magelights came to life over runes within the wall sconces and in the candelabras of the chandeliers. Shadows cast across the white carpets as she tread to the dungeons, once unused since Father's death, who tried to fill it to the brim with all his enemies.
Not all.
Sentinels walked in line with her when the marble fell into cold black rock, the walls lined with crystal permafrost. Mist rose from her nose and she ignored her quiet guardians. Metal bars rose from the uneven stone, with small fur beds providing little peace to any prisoners unlucky enough to be within their grasp. Little lamps hung on the ceiling and squeaked with the wind. It clanged with chains, and she shuddered at the phantom layer over the gaols. Down another staircase, where the cold flayed at her skin, she refused to hide behind her furs as she reached the Ice Gaols, holes in the ground with nothing more than a single door and a magick platform to bring anyone down to the prisoner.
"Princess," one of the Sentinels started a fluttered warning.
"No." Hayvala opened the door.
Runes glowed behind the layer of frost to block any attempts at magick from both prisoner and jailers. "Let me down," she hissed, and waited on the centerpiece. It glowed across its focal points when both Sentinels held their hands out, and she kept herself on her feet when it lowered with the horrific scratching of frozen rock and dissonant songs. A barrier whispered along the platform, and she turned when it hit the bottom. Hand against the ice barrier, it gathered and opened up a small path into the gaol.
Ice crinkled with the wind bursting through the open grate out of reach for escape, but she faced the innocent crushed underneath the heel of a king. Chills dug into her toes, but she ignored the pain to come closer to him and the maelstrom of his white aura. His snowtouched hair weaved with every breath of the blizzard, his head tilted down so she struggled to see his face, into his eyes. His wrists sat in manacles at his sides, locked to the wall with no option but to sit. He tucked his legs underneath himself when she came closer with a deep, venomous hiss, drawn out with hatred and fear.
The Traye Prince... the last of his dynasty, brought to this. What are we becoming?
"Yuven Traye," the name danced upon the wind with the Naveera of eld.
His feathers rippled when his hiss fell quiet, though his down feathers remained puffed. A young man. Younger than her. Hayvala lowered herself onto her knees to the one Laucan and Blackwall deigned a prisoner. He lowered his head further, where the ends of his snowy hair bounced with the movement when he tried to push himself deeper into the wall to avoid her shadow. Fists clenched, his chains rattled when he shook out his arms. Hayvala checked on the Sentinels above, but they waited outside.
"I am so sorry for this treatment that you've undergone," she whispered. "It might not mean much, but I swear on my song that I will try to get you into better conditions than this. You have done naught to deserve the Ice Gaol."
He tilted his face away from her to glare at the other wall before sitting cross-legged. He bared his fangs when she edged closer, but hid them once more when she stopped. Is this the cycle of hatred we've continuously stuck on? Oh, Yokonei, is there nothing I can do? Hayvala adjusted her skirts to sit in front of him, on his level, on equal ground. "Are you hungry? Or thirsty?"
She found no fault in his refusal to talk. Which only makes me more concerned as to what Blackwall has planned, what he intends to do using Laucan to get to you and the supposed answers in Irimount... Hayvala leaned closer. But I think we both know that it won't lead anywhere pleasant. "I won't ask for understanding," she pushed. "I won't ask for anything. It is us that have wronged you, Yuven Traye..." Waves boiled his aura, and she frowned at the palpable pain of grief. "You are but a light in the dark."
His shoulders tensed, but he kept his head lowered and song quiet.
"I am Hayvala Travon," she gave him the notes in her name.
I knew your uncle.
He was... a father to me.
A flimsy connection underneath layers of ice.
His fingers dug into his manacles, a softer hiss leaving his nose with a plume of fiery mist. Fangs over his lips, he raised his head ever so slightly, but refused to look upon her as Ser Yokonei had done to acknowledge her as not a doll, but a wyvern. Hayvala scooted closer. "Show me," she urged. "Show me the truth of this, Yuven Traye. I only want to know the situation..." Another name skittered across her lips. "Your charge, Adara Sazaka, is alive. She's worried about your wellbeing."
He stiffened with fluttered pride, and she relaxed when a sigh escaped his chest. Back on her feet, Yuven Traye followed the motion with his head. His eyelids fluttered open with the quiet light from the runes.
Snowflecked violets swirled with familiar power. Grief slammed into her own heart, born of her own hate when he glared at her with thin pupils, unwavering.
Yokonei...
Yuven blinked at her, then scowled with the remnants of her shining knight, brought down by a tyrant, the only difference between them was Yuven's sharper features compared to Yokonei's oval facial structure. Grey feathers against moon-touched silver, cast in the light, it became a gentle blue.
Lost in the tundra fields of lavender.
A shard of Yokonei, back to life.
Wyverns bound by a single snowrose set afire in white, ripped from its roots before its time.
You are still alive. Hayvala left him with no power to release him. It will have to be enough.
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