MARIA

Thrown aside with ease and into a sanctuary for the downtrodden and the outcasts of Volaris to await Neven's final judgment, she bit on her tongue to taste time when the wyvern born from his soul long disappeared with the flurries striking against the barrier. An Iceshard tossed her her pack, along with Neven's, though she longed to drive her crescent blade into their chest for their ignorance, she held onto her oath and kicked the moth-eaten rug beneath her once more at the shouts of the mob outside when they piled into the streets from the alleys. Glyphs raised and burst out snow at those who cried out their darkness and brought the Derelicts closer through the snow. Underneath the shadow of Evyriaz, the divine cruelty wasn't lost on her as Neven leaned forward, a soft, barely noticeable mist leaving his pale lips. Snow stuck to his eyelashes from the mob's lashes of their magick. Feathers iced over, he swayed when one of the Loyalists prodded his ribs with their heel, their words deafened by the crowd.

Ancients... he's hypothermic at this point. Even with his physiology, this is too much on him. They've been dumping water on him constantly that... his power has completely dissipated. Anymore of the cruelty, and Neven Lotayrin would perish for his strength of heart. Maria drove her nails into the rotted windowsill to view the scene through the glass cracks. In the streets beneath her, Blizzard Sentinels blocked any opportunity to join the mob herself and rescue her fellow Warden. But if I do nothing... Tears carved through the old down her cheeks. This isn't sacrifice, Nev... this is murder. Armor donned, she hooked her crescent blade on her hip and threw both bags over her shoulders. Godsdamnit, I have to try, I'll never forgive myself if I don't.

Downstairs, the Madame of the establishment cast their pale blue gaze towards her. Head bowed, she passed soup to a group of bedraggled children who cuddled together in silence, left without warmth of a family's hearth and home. Another Naveeran in tattered furs tucked themselves into the corner and whispered a prayer to a couple of small crystal spheres, etched with Navei writing. Out the door, she scowled at the push of the mob as they tried to get their view of the murderous spectacle. Sentinels funneled some through and pushed others away with a snap of their fangs through their wyvern-carved helmets. Lost in the storm of dark hearts, she snapped, "Out of my way!"

Some hurried away from her. Half-bred. Outsider. Barbarian. Words upon words, though some turned their frustration and venom onto her the moment she stepped foot into the packed street. Her hand wound around her crescent blade, but the oath she swore underneath the eyes of evenfall prevented her from lashing out in return. Barbaric. Why should I have to prove that I am not? Her hand switched to her extra dagger, where she swore no such promise upon its metal surface. Hesitation iced over her fingers when their shouts rattled her eardrums, and the roar of the blizzard drowned out the view of the platform, where Neven remained still, defeated by the execution on top of public humiliation. Godsdamnit! Her boot cracked against the pavement and sent a whisper of embers around her, though it doused underneath the wind as it blew into her short, scraggly hair. "We're Wardens!" she tried to shout to the crowd which cornered her, but they battled back with hisses and jeers. "Don't you see what you're doing?!"

Back against the stone foundation of the sanctuary, she bit on her lip at the distant portcullis lined with pale pearls. Far from home; from Euros and the Order, from Yuven and her friends. Hope drowned in despair as she choked on pain and heard the Navei of the Loyalists and their call to suspected action. Judgment nigh, Maria tried to shift around the crowd, but they followed with incessant hate for her existence. Windbursts tossed around her, she dodged the pulses when they came, her own energy dwindled from her time in the cell. Can't help those who don't want to be helped, they just want to make everyone else suffer. Maria scowled and tasted Yuven's fury when she inched the dagger out of her sheathe. Fine.

Winged shadows burst over the wall when she drew out the dagger. I don't want to have to do this, Infernal Hells! How can so many people be so ignorant? One approached her with a vicious sneer. Wings formed across the flurry, blended in with the white-sheared environment when claws slammed into the roofs and broke some of the tiles, then took one final leap into the street below, blocking her sight of her hecklers. People screeched in surprise and tried to scramble away from the sharp claws when the hippogryph shrieked, feathers fluffed out for intimidation. The hippogryph bucked and swung out its legs for hard, bone-breaking kicks, though avoided her completely as it bounced around in rage. A couple more beak snaps sent the crowd backwards in terror. Another winged shape slammed into the next roof, camouflage against the buildings when a tightly wrapped figure hopped off it to set themselves against the flat platform around the main roof.

"Back off!" Melodic Navei rang out with power and authority as the white-hippogryph slammed its claws deep into the cobble and broke off pebbles. "Unless you want to lose a limb!"

Maria drew her gaze to the individual who held on tight to the bucking hippogryph at his command. Wavy whites flowed around stretched out gray feathers when the hippogryph huffed out a plume of mist in time with him. Violet beads swept over her in a mixture of relief and fury. Yuven Traye wasted no time as she reached her hand out on instinct to her lost love. Tix'snuv, who used his body to push the crowd backwards with a growl of his own, took her weight with ease as Yuven chirped the moment Blizzard Sentinels came around the corner with their glaives at the ready. Out of reach and blocked by the crowd they created, Maria held onto Yuven's chest when Tix'snuv took another powerful standing leap to join other hippogryphs and Wardens who knelt close to the roof and out of sight.

"Yuven, Neven is—" Maria motioned at the center and at the thickest part of the mob. Her heart struggled to beat when the Warden by the grey-colored hippogryph tore off their scarf to reveal Fenrer Pyren.

Yuven tugged out a looking glass and scowled. "Stay here, I'll go get him!" he snapped, and Maria shivered at the disbelief etched on his face when glyphs brightened the streets and poured to the platform. Blocks full of moisture formed over Neven's head, who raised his chin upwards with a wince. In a tempo of hatred, Yuven slammed the looking glass closed, but Maria grabbed him before he leaped into his spatial distortion. "Myl'la?" Confusion wrapped across his anger when he held onto her in return.

"The auras are gathering," Fenrer said on her other side with his own looking glass. Broken agony crossed his features when he clicked it closed again. "Yuven... his aura, it's... it's so faint I can barely register it even if I focus on it."

"He's hypothermic and malnourished," Maria explained quickly to them. "I don't even know how long we've been here."

"Almost a moon, Ollain," another Warden said from their hippogryph.

Gods, he's going to die!

Yuven bared his fangs with a hissing plume through his teeth when his lips curled up into a hateful sneer. "Fen," he snapped and headed for his Oathbound. "I need you to create a pathway for my distortion! It is the only way! And—" He choked his collar. "Aim me well." Maria allowed him to grab onto her tight, keeping her against his side as he knelt in front of Fenrer. "Think you can help him once I deliver you to him, Maria?" Yuven asked into her cheek, and she tasted his agonized love. "These two will follow us after we've secured the area."

"I can try, but Yuv—" Maria fell silent when he squeezed her hip and shook his head. Head tipped back when Fenrer unhooked a bow from his hippogryph's saddle. Glyphs gathered over the string when he pulled it back with a toughened breath, and an arrow of emerald vines formed from his fingers. Translucent tendrils raised off of Yuven's body to wrap themselves around the arrow of space-time. "I tried..."

"No, this is not your fault." Yuven hugged her against his side as Fenrer settled himself in his stance. "Molvisaliz, no matter what you do, break apart that damned glyph they're holding over him." Maria wrapped her arm around his back when Yuven vented further mist out of his nose and his feathers folded over each other. "And be quick about following after. I may need you to cave in some skulls if I don't get to do it first." His fangs dug into his lip. Shivers crawled up her legs when the blanket of his power embraced her the moment Fenrer inhaled with an even breath and focused on the faraway destination.

In a synchronized exhale with Yuven, Fenrer loosed the arrow. It shimmered out of reality, and Maria held on tight when Yuven leaped into his magick without fear. Stars splashed around her and threw her. Cries echoed through her ears when the distortion broke apart, and Yuven slammed himself into the ice block the moment it scattered into droplets of rain. On her feet, she stumbled onto her hindquarters from the wave of nausea, though Yuven wasted no time in drawing out two seax's. "Don't. Move," he bit to the Loyalists. "Unless you want me to drive these into your throat."

Silence fell over the crowd as Neven twisted around with tired terror.

"Nev." Maria let Yuven handle the two to grab onto his shoulders as he fell forward. Hippogryphs cast their shadows over the crowd to land on top of the platform and bucked their claws at any who remained. Yuven tucked his seax's into their sheaths and rushed for her.

"Miesero." Yuven choked out a squeak when he pulled Neven into his arms. His blonde-hair stuck to his brow. Fenrer slid to her other side with wide, tortured eyes as he put a hand on Neven's back. Fury filled the violets when he twisted his head to the Loyalists kept back by the threat of tearing beaks and sharp claws. "I am so tired of this," he hissed. "So tired of having my bloodline follow me and hurt those I love." He held on tighter to Neven. "What was this for?" he questioned, louder to the crowd. "Was it not enough to drown, that you must drag others down with you?" He pushed Neven back into her arms to stand up and face the Loyalists who used his name. "You're looking for me, aren't you?" He swung out his arms and took a step forward, full of bloodthirst. "Yuven Traye. Here I am. If I'm to be used, I might as well make this on my own terms." He swung on his heel. "I am Yuven Traye! I am Yuven Traye, and you're murdering the man who is the reason I am alive! And if you truly believe that I am inclined to rescue you from this... I'm afraid I'm all out of sympathy for your kind."

His name rang out through Naveera.

"Neven?" Fenrer clutched onto the back of his prisoner garb.

Maria tucked her finger against his wrist, and bit on her tongue at the lackluster response. Yuven dropped his arms with another agonized whimper through his fangs as he jumped to Neven's side once more in the silence he created with his blood. "Miesero?" he whispered when he tucked Neven's cheek in his palm. "Miesero... please wake up. You have to. This place doesn't deserve you..." Yuven sucked in air and held it and Neven closer against his chest.

Maria glanced at the crowd when some of them shifted. On the edges, Naveerans who hid children in their cloak widened their eyes in terrified realization, though others remained clueless to the damage they created. His name echoed through Volaris, for reprieve and absolution. Yuven swung his head around, his fury dying into alarm and confusion as their rage died into despair and tears. Helpless. Frozen. Yuven's breath came out shattered and broken, torn both ways as Maria tried to equalize Neven's temperature with her weak magick. It responded in turn. Golden scales shimmered over his skin and formed a mirage of horns in his hair as Neven shuddered and opened his sapphire eyes. Fenrer leaned back from something unseen, drawing his gaze upwards in disbelief, though Yuven focused on Neven, trying to shake him out of the stupor. "Maria?" he whispered with Naveera's torment. "Maria, you can help him, right?"

Help us, the crowd cried to her love, who wanted his dad back above all.

"If you have a way out of here that would be a start," Maria rasped. "But, Yuven, there's a—"

"I know where their Umbral Gate is," Fenrer said. "If we can get there—"

"I can activate the Umbral Redirector and return us to Euros while the Volcanic Path is still open," Yuven whispered. "I won't be able to move him with my magick while he's like this..." Yuven doubled over to hug Neven when he went limp again and the wyvern's mirage died in an instant. "Fuck." Tears tore through the violets full of helplessness as the crowd became a chorus of pleas — the very thing Neven scolded them for, to rely on someone else for the problem they created. Their self-made ice as they humiliated him and stripped his dignity away. Her own anger burned, but she focused on her fellow, struggling Warden as the weight of the cold world drove down Yuven Traye by his spine as his feathers flicked over his ears to block out the noise. His beaded gaze went not to the crowd who shouted for an answer, but to the palace shining bright against the cliffs.

"So easy to sit down and... call one a king..." Yuven rasped with a shiver. Maria reached over to squeeze his shivering fingers when he looked between the crowd and the palace over them with increasing panic swept breaths.

"Captain," the Warden by the hippogryphs bit while they fluffed out their feathers and caused the Loyalists to choose their fight wisely. "What do we do?"

For the first time, Yuven remained silent.

"Yuv? Myl'lu?" Maria raised her hand to his cheek to try and pull him out of the panic.

"I..." Yuven drove his teeth into his lower lip with a scattered chirp in his Navei.

In her peripheral vision, Fenrer lowered his gaze from Yuven to Neven. Swirls danced with stars when he released a heavy sigh, and against the weight of Naveera, he got onto his feet, taking off his hat and scarf to place both onto Neven. Yuven snapped his attention to him with a confused noise. "Molvi..." It barely came out a whisper when Fenrer straightened himself out with another cold huff, gaze set, full of conviction when he took slow steps for the edge of the stage. Terror formed in the violets as Yuven covered his mouth, and Maria set her hand on his shoulder to comfort him as Fenrer came to a steady, powerful stop. 

On the edge of a cliff as Father pointed out to the First Flame, who held his hands out to lift the dawn from the horizon, Fenrer's ancestor, the resemblance uncanny in a reflection of oceanic waves.

It glittered against black metal of a crown, and he lifted himself to face the crowd with strength and pride, then whistled with the song of people not his own and caught their attention.

"A thousand turns your people have suffered," he said, calm, full of cold certainty in his concise, near perfect Irimount dialect. "For a thousand turns have you dragged each other down in trying to find the surface of the water." He clenched his fists when they jeered out the same words they spoke to her, but Fenrer held himself taller, a giant. "We are going to the Umbral Teleporter. You can either stay put, frozen where you are to be dragged further because you're too afraid to swim, or get out of our way, and learn how. Because in the end, the only person who can help you isn't a king, isn't a bloodline, it's yourselves, and you have only yourselves to blame for the choices you make here and now. None of you were ordered to demean this man. None of you were told to join in on this!" Fenrer rolled his neck then finished, "So, I'll give you that choice. Stay put, or get out of the way, and accept the consequences of each and not put it on someone else's shoulders."

Well now... Maria found herself grinning at the power of Haneka and the first flame's voice. Look at you.

Pride filled her lungs, but she faltered when she turned to Yuven, who looked upon Fenrer as if he had become a monster.