NEVEN

Ding.

Neven cleaned off the rest of the flour from between his fingers at the sound of the poundcakes rising finish inside the runic oven. Water swirled through his skin and tickled at his magick, but he dried them off with a towel when it gave another cursory click. He took out a service plate from the bottom cupboard to put it on the counter, but took out a smaller one for a special recipient before heading to the oven. A layer of ice protected his hands shielded with the towel as he tugged out the tray of small poundcakes — one last gift from his late mother. He frowned down at the fluffy, cream-filled pockets of love before setting it on the counter, drawing out the flames from the runes. Using his knee to close it, he returned to the counter. It was empty within the private officer quarters that only he, Maria, and Kemal ever used. His crescent blade and glaive sat on the rack, with Kemal's and Maria's missing from their usual sections.

Seeing Kayal... to see if there is still a song left in his soul. Neven clutched the towel with a sigh, shaking his head when a breath of wind slipped from the open window to tangle with his feathers. It depressurized the warm headache in his temples, but never took away the pain in his heart. Can I really do naught else? He raised his head at a familiar flutter and a distant, echoing giggle. In a flurry of memory, he was back home, on Euros. Yuven and Fenrer, barely older than ten, swelled with ancient pain but full of a child's light. He smiled when the shade of Yuven turned to him with a rare, excited smile while he held out a magelight, finding it within himself.

Hm... Neven put the towel off to the side to clean and set his arms on the counter, left in the low pitch of the past, then set a cooling blanket into the remnants of shimmering heat before setting his hands back on the lacquer finish of the wood. A smooth, soft touch of something found, and the tree it came from. He ran his fingers over the knots and ridge, and the gentle heat of autumn. Gold, oranges, purples, an expansion of colours past the endless frozen wastes. It drove a thin knife of loss into his heart, even what was yet to come.

'He only has until his twenties, Nev.'

A cruel passage made him weak.

No.

He placed the poundcakes onto the large plate to bring to the Trainee section of the lodge, but set another onto the smaller dish. It warmed the bottom when he brought it into his hands before leaving the private house behind. Sunlight spread through the heavy canopy shielding Asairai from the worst of the elements the sky rained down upon them. Fluffy swaths of white painted what little he spotted through the speckled leaves before his route took him through the harbor. Bells tolled with the sound of harps from the Elvkin chapel. Another piece of homesickness to strike at him, though he squished his nose when the sharp scent of fish impeded it. He entered the Infirmary the Storm Warden chirurgeons used at the gracious hosting of the Elvkin. He shuffled past the entry area, where a young chirurgeon sat and wrote down needed medicinal supplies. One hand on the door, he took a breath and entered.

Julis, Kemal, and Maria all stood around Kayal with varying expressions of dismay, but turned at his approach.

"I brought a little something," he whispered and motioned at the poundcake, setting it on the table beside Kayal. "He hasn't changed, has he?"

Maria ran a hand through her hair, twisting the small braid. "Not a bit, I still have things I could try — but I think it'd be best if we sent him back to Euros for further treatment. We can't do much here," she reported. "We're lacking supplies as it is, and if what you say about the cult is true..."

"We'll find them," Kemal muttered.

"We've sent teams of Storm Wardens to find them," Neven pointed out. "Every single one of those teams disappeared. Kayal is the only survivor of these ambushes to date." It stuck to his throat like clumps of hard snow, and he stuck his tongue between his teeth to chew on it. "All our leads brought us to dead ends. I thought that those ruins would hold something substantial, but..." He sat on the chair in front of Kayal before eyeing Maria, who folded her arms. "He is still eating and sleeping, at least?"

"When prompted," Maria answered. "It's... strange, to say the least. It won't last him like this for long."

"His aura is empty," Julis reminded them. "I can not sense his thoughts, his mind, though his body lives."

Neven gripped the side of his head to tear out the missing piece. "We'll send him back on the next boat to Euros."

"You think they'll try to finish him off?" Kemal asked.

Neven frowned. "I don't know, but I don't want to risk his condition changing for the worse so far from Euros. If anything, he deserves to be home, not here." It melted in his chest and he set his hands in his lap and the silence screamed a dissonant tune. He sucked in his lips when Kemal poked Julis in the corner of his eye.

"Let me talk to him," Kemal said.

Julis left without argument, though Maria stood her ground for a moment before leaving behind him. Neven pushed the plate into Kayal's hands, where he gripped it, a pale resemblance of awareness as the young Warden stared blankly down at it. Kemal stood at his side without saying words, so he drew out his own. "You must eat, little one," he whispered in the song of Navei. "You will endure this wave of storm and snow and find your way back again, but you must keep your strength. We will be here to stand vigil, waiting for you." He sat there and Kayal never responded. It weighed the sides of his head and straight through his feathers. Come what may, you are a Storm Warden. We will keep the way lit for you in the dark.

"Nev."

Neven got out of the chair to face his Oathbound. "I am going to return to the Athenaeum."

"Nev," Kemal said once more with a scowl, not that it'd deter him from his course.

Neven walked past his Oathbound. "I know you do not agree with my ways," he said and forced himself to look Kemal in the eye, who folded his arms. "But, if there is something, anything, that I can do to clear a path — to find our missing Wardens, then I will. I must." He frowned when Kayal held the poundcake, but never took a bite with hungry fervour. "If I must throw myself into the abyss so another child never need experience its cruel touch, then I will gladly pay whatever price incurred on me. I am a Storm Warden — it is the very least of my duty." He waited for further argumentative words from Kemal, who lowered his gaze to the ground. "If it helps, I do not plan on reading with my eyes this time. It is clear that my eyes alone are unsuited for this."

"What do you mean? How else do you read books?" Kemal asked with a sniff.

"Think for a moment. I cannot believe I didn't think of it sooner. If Aurus read Obscura texts on a level I cannot..." He brushed his chest. "It is clear I need to read it a different way." He left Kayal behind, but Kemal's footsteps followed him to the ends of Aztryxer. "Are you going to come with me in case I lose myself again?"

"What else am I going to do?" Kemal questioned as they made their way through the treetown.

Music danced in the air, but a layer of unease cracked the chords on the breeze. He pushed open the doors to the silence of the Athenaeum. Mounds of books he searched through for an answer. Through jagged edges of parchments to the heaviest leatherbound tomes on the highest shelves above his head, none gave him what he sought. Journeys of the Princess of Evenfall as she flew her way through the twilight seas. The mountain range which gave him a weird sense of deja vu, a stone snake wrapping through the entire continent of Elvkana. To mythic islands within the sky, home to one side of his ancestors — and his answer to the incomprehension within the book. A single connection in his soul, his heart, and his song. He heard it; felt it; understood it.

He bowed to the Elvkin Keeper behind the desk to the Obscura section, and they waved him past with predictable familiarity. He sighed out the tension in his lungs, though Kemal scowled deeper when the rock walls tightened around them. Every step they took further down brought them closer to the abyss he tried to peek through. Old paper burst into his nose as they wound themselves around the stacks dug into the wall. Books, yellow of paper and shredded of cover, some in languages he couldn't discern — others, empty of anything, but never gave the same prickled sensation in his mind then the one, all alone in the magick protected dome.

"I hate it down here," Kemal complained.

"You are a son of the sea, to not be able to see the sky is... daunting." Neven frowned. "I hate it down here also... but if I look up..." He followed his own words, and ice swept across his cheek in shattered memories. Engulfed in a blizzard, he fought to breathe in a brutal container and to crawl himself through dunes of snow. "It is no different than what I remember in Irimount." My home. He returned his attention to the podium in the center, its wings holding onto the book. "Kemal, if you fear the worst, you know what to do."

Kemal grunted and took a spot near the door, closing it behind him. He brushed his fingers across the wood. His glyph spun around the circumference, then locked with the strength of elements before disappearing with the wind. "Just do what you have to do."

Neven nodded and came closer to the podium. It hummed in his ears, wrapping crimson tendrils through his world. Temptation crawled through his fingers, begging him to read, to consume the hidden knowledge his eyes found incomprehensible. No. I shall not succumb to this. He glared down at it, then brought his fingers closer to his heart. Not as I am, not with what my eyes are trapped in seeing. An endless blizzard to swallow all.

Let me see her heart.

Darkness enveloped the area around him, leaving only him and the book. Frost crawled along his boots to keep him grounded, but he allowed it to deepen further with the song of his own soul. It growled in his ears. Golden feathers stretched out of the shadows of a wyvern. He timed his breaths along with it, mediating on its movements, on its tune which left its throat as it slithered around him. Its tail weaved with the wind before it disappeared behind him.

If I cannot...

The shadow engulfed him, an owl aiming for prey.

He focused on the crimson bulb stuck to the flow the wyvern flew through, then opened his eyes to sapphire hues. He let go of his chest, where the glimmer of air lifted the book out of the podium and put it to rest in front of him. It snapped open, fluttering through pages and pages of nothingness. Tendrils of murk coiled out of it to form letters above it, to float as mist. Images exploded out of it, but with each one he discerned, another took its place with aggressive confusion. Every page whipped and tossed in the wind to throw out the information it refused to give him. Runes and old marble pillars grew out of the broken letters of mist. Feathers pressed against his ears, and he shivered at the tendrils which tried to form its own truth.

"Nev..." Kemal called from the door.

"Those ruins..." Neven mumbled when the image repeated behind other words. "There is something there. I knew it."

"What?"

It slavered for more, but golden wings wrapped around him and cut the connection with sharp claws. He stumbled back and the book fell to the ground, open on a blank page. It struck into his temples and near brought him back into its embrace, but he shuffled farther out of its influence when it slowly closed with a flutter in his head. Glyphs of edge-tipped sapphires wasted and broke from his inner protection, and the wyvern followed suit.

"You alright?" Kemal hauled him to his feet.

"Yes, headache." Neven rubbed his fingers through his feathers, touching the longest tips. "We need to investigate those ruins further, Kemal. You mentioned Aine spotted some markings denoting a portal?" He steadied himself on the wall, rubbing his brow.

"Yeah."

Neven glared at his hands. "We need to figure out what's on the other side and open it." He twisted to his Oathbound. "It has something to do with the cult and our missing Wardens, Kem. We have one missing piece, and I have a feeling Kayal has one in his mind, if we can only get him to wake up. I will be sending him back to Euros with Maria, and I will be going with them to discuss our findings with Warden Commander Fahariel."

"How can you be so sure if the information from that book is so incomprehensible?"

Neven held his singing heart once more. "I saw it in my soul. It is our last lead."

Their last hope.