HAYVALA

Blood splattered across the crystal floor of the throne room, staining the white carpet crimson when they knocked out his knees and forced him to kneel to the lounging shape on the seat of sharp, unforgiving ice.

A scream tore her throat hoarse with the ripping crescendo as she fought against the arms of Father's unrelenting Sentinels. Her knight. Yokonei Traye dragged in undignified fashion, where his armour provided him no protection from those he used it to protect. His silver feathers drooped against his ears, where one of the larger ones fell to the ground. Chandeliers shuddered snow with her screech as she kicked, flailed, and failed to protect him. Father sat on his throne, cold and unforgiving while two of his best Sentinels stood below him, their glaives at the ready against a true knight. Her heel found the shoe of the Sentinel, who hissed in her ear but refused to let her go to him — to grant him the succour he deserved.

"Yokonei Traye," Father said. "You stand accused of treachery and conspiracy to the Traye Loyalists with your undisclosed trip to Irimount. Under the oath in your song, do you deny this?"

I was so ignorant. He was a hostage all along. His old grief twisted into a cry of homesickness but never ruined the song he sang to her. Hayvala chewed on the scaled armour of the Sentinel as Yokonei refused to lift his head to King Jevtay, the absolute ruler who crushed all and sat on the bones of their kin.

His moon-touched aura shivered, then twisted into hot steel when he kept his gaze trained on the carpet. "I do not deny it, Your Winged Grace, but it was not undisclosed. I had gone with the supply route to make sure they were delivered with swift, prompt action for the next wave of the blizzard." He rolled his quivering shoulders as a dot of blood stained his lips, but he refused to crack from the stalwart sentinel she relied on for support. "Under the oath of my song, I planned no treachery against the crown."

"The word of a Traye means little," the previous Knight Valiant argued. "You were not permitted to join that supply train to Irimount due to extreme circumstances. You were to stay within the castle and guard the Princess of Naveera with your life. Do you deny abandoning your charge? After that mob in the streets fanned by the Traye Loyalists themselves?"

He told me! I let him go!

His aura melted with his words when he whispered his want to her. One want she had always wanted to hear from him. One wish to give to him as he had given many of hers. One smile rocked the world, and he bowed to her in gratitude and promised his return — to continue being her shield and her glaive. Homesickness choked her, and she let him have an escape she could never have from being a doll. "Let me go!" she screeched into the Sentinel's arm and continued to kick, pulled out of the limelight when King Jevtay eyed her captor.

Yokonei glanced at her. Violet concern washed into weariness when one of the Sentinel's grabbed his face to force him to acknowledge Father. "I will give you a reprieve, Yokonei Traye," King Jevtay growled, his long white feathers stretching above the top of his head. "You have sworn with a song — I will have you keep it." Notes swam in the air around Yokonei and Father. Both their eyes turned into the beads of their wyvern ancestors, and Hayvala dug her heels in, to plead for his precious life — to not tear out the snow rose from the ground lest it wilt and die. "You will tell me where Ikarun Traye and his son are, as well as the location of all Traye sympathisers. I will hear the truth of the song." King Jevtay held out his fingers. Ice coiled through the notes singing on the icy breeze and collecting into the snow shuddering from the chandelier's candles.

Yokonei! You have to escape! You have to flee into your magick! Just go! I release you from being bound to me! Hayvala longed to scream out her own song, but with the arm in her mouth and against her fangs, her voice failed her. Swear to me! Swear to me that you will run! Run! Go home! I know you can! You can get out of this! You've always just wanted to go home! You never wanted to be here! You were a bargaining chip, just like I was. Tears froze against her cheeks when the ice notes coalesced and created a glyph between King and Knight — anymore, and Yokonei would never be able to flee from the palace or Volaris. The frozen wastes were safer from the grip of a tyrant who refused to let go of any power he had.

Yokonei winced when the Sentinel's holding him tightened their grip on his loose arms. "Speak the song, Traye," Father hissed and the notes crescendoed through the unforgiving breeze in the throne room. "An oath was sworn. Tell me about the dissidents in Irimount."

Another drop of blood from Yokonei's lips stained the carpet in his silence.

"You can bite your tongue all you want," the Knight Valiant said from the side. "You're compelled to answer if you value your life. You know the consequences of breaking a song to the king."

Yokonei's nostrils flared, and Hayvala stopped struggling when he gave her a focused side-eye. Moonlight stretched from the shimmering violets. Thin beads against the mirror of the snowflecked air. In a moment, the auras cracked, and the visage of a beautiful moon-scaled wyvern gazed at her from afar, on the surface of his aura where the rest around her had theirs buried underneath mounds of snow and shields of ice." My lady," it spoke with his voice, deeper, stronger, full of the song of their people. "I know it is too much to ask, but I hope you can forgive me."

Hayvala shook her head and pushed her own aura into his, to bridge the river between their thoughts. I won't let you! Just run! Or get me out of here so I can plead with him!

The faint wyvern closed its violet eyes and its scales shuddered under the pressure of compulsion. "I need not break your song. I need only break mine — even though it will curse my name. Come what may, Hayvala... I must thank you for that gift... I got to see my big brother again. I hope your name will ring out through the rest of time for your kindness."

Yokonei, no! I won't allow it! I forbid you! I can find another way! I am as much a wyvern as they are!

Yokonei smiled in the crushing silence of the pause between passages. "No," it rang out through the throne room, and the notes shattered into quiet, dissonant screams.

Everyone's eyes widened, and ice chipped from the force of his denial.

No one broke a song oath — especially not to their tyrant of a king.

"What?" King Jevtay hissed through his teeth, and his feathers stiffened against his ears.

"I'm afraid I cannot sing that song," Yokonei said and raised his violet irides, swallowed in the flames of broken oath. "Nor will I ever sing that song to you, King Jevtay. I will not betray my older brother thusly — nor will I ever forsake my nephew for my own life." Plumes of mist left his nose. "You may force me to kneel for your flimsy absolution. Break my will, but I will never allow it to bring further harm in this cycle between our families. I will not stand by and let you compel me into it against my brother and his child," he growled in draconic rage. "You may curse me, or rip my scales out from the roots. I deny you, Jevtay. I deny your name and your song." Auras rippled from the moonlit dance, and it formed into a snarl of their ancestors. "And I accept the punishment in lieu of your lies."

No!

Hayvala screamed when the Sentinels threw their fists into him.

More blood to add to the foundations.

"Then you shall go with the rest into the Tunnels of Apathy," King Jevtay said. "May your name be forgotten in its annals for your disobedience, for there is no greater disgrace than to break the song you swore."

Oathbreaker. Traitor.

They forgot who you were.

Hayvala stomped in the night and hungered for a brother's hate. Her nails dug into her skin and she longed to make herself bleed when she snuck past the guards to approach the world sphere, who held their history, but she wanted more. Her own desperate wish when she allowed him his, and it killed him.

In its twisting embrace, she unleashed her teeth.

'Give unto him the pain he has caused, and I shall not be satisfied with any other punishment than the death he gave to him.'

Hayvala jolted from her covers at the nightmare of a memory. Light flickered from the fireplace, where her medications from Blackwall rested on the bedstand to her right. Ice swept up her skin, and she tugged her furs closer around her shoulders. I had thought myself free from those nightmares. "Kazmira?" she called out to her handmaiden and stood up from her mattress. Kazmira bustled from the room off to the side, where she often stayed when on duty for her needs.

"My lady," she said with a bow, and her short, blonde loops bounced. "I did not know you had awakened... are you well?" Concern overflowed the deep blue aura of her handmaiden.

"I'm well," she said and headed for the dressing partition, and Kazmira grabbed a dress and several ornaments, but Hayvala chewed on the resentment of their glitter. "It was just a bad dream of mine." Hayvala undid her sleeping gown to place yet another gown over her body. While Kazmira tied the winged ribbons across her waist, she worked on her buttons and her furs. "You may put the jewels away, Kazmira. I won't be needing them for this meeting." Hayvala brushed her hand through the silver-white hem along the furs, and sighed.

"Are you sure you're well enough?" Kazmira fretted.

"I appreciate your concern, Mira," Hayvala said and touched her shoulder. "I hope to not be too long. Have some tea and poundcakes prepared. I intend for us to enjoy the rest of the day afterwards. Do think about something you want so I can have it brought up for you." Hayvala left the protection of the partition and lifted the front of her dress for ease of movement. One of the Sentinels jumped off the wall, their young feathers frizzed out in alarm.

"I was not sleeping!" he gasped.

Hayvala giggled. "If you are tired, go get some rest at the barracks. I will be just fine on my own. If the Knight Valiant complains, tell him he can bring it up with me."

Yokonei stood outside her room, never allowed peaceful rest. Memories, he leaned on his glaive too much sometimes, head rested against the shaft with dazed violets. Oh, Yokonei, I could not see how you suffered so, too in my own silly world to notice, but I will not let your name fall into the curse. I refuse to let it happen. I will make this right. And it starts with the trade route Laucan proposed to King Reyn. If the lords will not listen, they will drown in my song. Hayvala pressed herself deeper into the stone below her, and stomped her way to the council room of what they tried to regain in their past of the round table and the knights.

"Good of you to join us, Princess Hayvala," Lord Lazron said with a sniff — one who witnessed the fall of Yokonei Traye, and crowed Oathbreaker and Traitor with the rest of the lords at the table, save Lord Vlazis, not yet a Lord when they condemned Yokonei to apathetic death. "We can resume talks about this foolishness of allowing the barbarians safety within our walls—"

"I thought the matter was closed already, my lord," she said and stood at Laucan's side, who hadn't taken his attention off her since she entered. "We will need assistance in furnishing the old embassy for their arrival, or are we to condemn our own guest rules as well?"

Lord Lazron's feathers puffed out. "I made no such claim."

"Then why do we continue to argue this?" Hayvala asked. "They will be coming, and we shall show them that we can create new bonds and not put the sins of the king on the subjects." Hayvala eyed Laucan, who lowered his head and continued to stare at her. "King Laucan has made his decision, I advise you to respect it. We need to speak of logistics for the Festival of Ice and the ball. We need food to share with the populace of Volaris. Together, I think we can see this through. Lord Vlazis..." One affirming smile sent his way, she tugged on his need to see her in place of her brother. "You have the closest access to Whitehaven pass, do you think you could send a messenger to figure out what Hanekan's enjoy in their meals?"

"Now we are to eat their food?" Lord Lazron muttered.

"Last I looked, Lord Lazron, you are fifty and two, not a seven turns old child bemoaning having to eat their vegetables," she said, calm, precise, but she smiled when Laucan's lips twisted to fight off a grin. "His Winged Grace never complains about what he has to eat."

"Your will be done, Your Grace." Lord Vlazis, eager to please from the way his aura spiked, brought his hand to his heart. "It may take some time, but I am sure I can find the information you require."

Lord Lazron glared at Lord Vlazis, who met his gaze without fear of his seniors. "You seem all too willing. It is like you forget that not all of us have the grace of being close to the Aethejin range," he said, cold as his aura fought to envelop Lord Vlazis' in an attempt of intimidation. "I caution you, Lord Vlazis. There's a reason the late King Jevtray closed the iron gates of Whitehaven pass."

"I take your caution." Lord Vlazis refused to fall for the pressure of aura.

They can fight... but it changes nothing. Hayvala winced when the lords fell into their usual bickering match, ranging from complaints due to lack of supplies, or the mere thought of having to share the space with the Hanekan dignitaries. Other lords cut in with their opinions, but Lord Vlazis kept quiet and gazed at her.

Each one of them had their own agenda.

"You're being exceptionally quiet today, Laucan," she murmured to not grab the attention of the bickering lords.

"I have nothing else to say to them that they will not throw back at me anyway. I am not as well versed at this as you are."

"You will learn."

"I will have to."

Hayvala frowned at his choice of wording, and when the council meeting drew to a close with plans for rebuilding the embassy laid out, she followed Laucan out while Sentinel's guided the lords to the aristocratic wing of the palace. "Laucan, what troubles you?" she asked, resisting the urge to run her fingers through his sky-blue aura, the last memory of their mother.

"I should be asking you that." Laucan headed deeper into the heart of the palace. It grew colder the deeper they went, but Laucan remained on his course. They came to a stop at stairs which split to a lower level into the ground. On the floor below, a giant rune spiralled, and she frowned when he descended the stairs to stand in the middle of it. Hayvala joined him.

"Laucan..."

He ignored her when the rune lit up with the crackling energy of purples and whites. It rumbled and the stairs became distant as a barrier rippled over their heads to cover the truth of what laid at the heart of Volaris. Hayvala cupped her hands into her sleeves to keep out the unending freeze they drew closer to, and she frowned when Laucan unwrapped his own furs to give to her.

"I'm fine, Laucan."

"You're not. You need to keep warm down here."

Hayvala took the furs to add to the pens around her shoulders, shielding her neck from the grip of the blizzard. Laucan went quiet again when they reached the bottom with the drip of water. A staircase of frosted marble led them down into the cavity. Lamps lit up with blues when Laucan took each step slow and steady, as he had done a thousand times before without prompting.

"Every king of Naveera came down here to protect the cities," Laucan observed as Hayvala followed him, her own dress trailing snow. Water echoed in quiet cascades, and her breath left her lips in a mist. "... Father couldn't, could he? He just claimed it was pointless to try and fight the blizzard." he questioned. "Ser Yokonei knew that, right? And then the Prince of the Traye's found out."

"Why are you bringing this up?" she asked when he led her to the final step, and a puddle of water lapped at the marble shore.

"Did he know?"

Hayvala bit on her tongue. "It's possible, but that is not why Father had him killed, if that's what you're asking." He was a hostage, and hostages aren't allowed to escape.

She frowned when Laucan set his hands on her shoulders. "You've been crying, Hayvie."

Hayvala blinked at his observation. "I just had a bad dream, Laucan."

He frowned, then drew his shoulders close to his neck. "I want to show you that I can do this," he stated, then turned to the wet shadows. One breath, it echoed outwards when he released it.

One step onto a beautiful snowflake.

Icy chords whispered out into the massive lake underneath the palace. Her heart pounded with the whispering tune in the air when he walked over the crystal surface. Columns of runes rose from the water and sprinkled droplets into the air. In her ear, the wyvern of moon scales purred in her ear at the expression of the Navei song. Every step her brother took brought up further colonnades from beneath the surface to light up the giant cistern. At the very back, their ancestor's statue, King Lasen Travon. Laucan reached the center of the lake.

Hayvala frowned when giant crystals bloomed out of the water like icy snowroses, with smaller ones following in their wake. Tendrils of white drove into her brother's aura, but he turned to her before holding out his arms, to give his developing magick to the icehearts. Wispy whites danced off his fingertips and the snowflakes gathered around him. Mist wrapped around the crystal spheres and spread pollen to the ice roses underneath them. A pulse went through the world above her — the ancient barriers around Volaris.

Inside one of the spheres, Volaris from on high.

"Laucan."

He pointed at the wilted crystal rose holding up one of the spheres. Black whips cracked along its surface, but he whispered, "Even without my intervention, Irimount still isn't buried. I've tried to piece together the involvement of the cult and the Traye loyalists, but Father didn't keep records of the fall." His aura drained, but he stood strong and eyed her. "I want you to see the sun, Hayvie."

"I will, someday."

Laucan shook his head and left the icehearts and their frosty pollen to return to her. "Not if you deny Blackwall's medication," he whispered. "And not if you ignore your plight like you have."

"I have been taking Keeper Blackwall's medication."

Laucan pursed his lips, and his downy feathers fuzzed out. "Yet it won't mean anything if you keep subjecting yourself to their stupid arguments."

"It's my job as your regent, Laucan," Hayvala reminded him. "You are only six and ten."

He trembled, and his aura dimmed. "Hayvala, I don't want you coming to the council meetings anymore."

All the crystals wilted without the presence of the king. "What?"

"I do not want you coming to the council meetings," he repeated. "Not until we've sorted out your auric entanglement. I am not a baby. You are struggling, and the only way the medication will work is if you let it work. If I'm to be king, I need them to take me seriously. I can't always expect you to be there to put them in their place. I have to learn how to do it without you."

His words dawned on her, and the troubling truth in his pearls of thoughts smacked her in the face harder than Father ever managed. "Is this what this was about?" she asked, fighting down her fury. "Laucan, you have so much to learn. I know not what Blackwall told you—"

"Do the council meetings make your auric migraines worse?" he demanded.

"What does it matter if they do or not?" Hayvala glared at him. "I am your sister and your regent, Laucan. I can handle myself."

"It matters because I don't want you to fall into the Sleep and die," he bit and bared his fangs. "You won't be much help as regent if you undergo that."

"You don't get to decide that, Laucan."

"Actually, I can decide that," Laucan said and steeled himself against her. "As your king, I forbid you from coming to the council meetings."

Laucan made his first move on a board that would eat him alive without a second thought. Hayvala drove her fangs into her tongue, but the king's rule was ever so absolute when it came down to it, where the aristocracy had to bend or suffer the consequences. "Do you really want to do this, Laucan?" she hissed.

"Yes."

Stalwart. Sure. As echoing as Yokonei's denial to a king's forceful demand.

Oh, Laucan, I don't want your good heart to get you killed like it killed him... Hayvala dug her nails into her palm, then bowed to him. "As you say, Your Winged Grace," she mumbled. "I shall not impede the council further. Make sure the embassy gets refurbished in time for the arrival of the Hanekan diplomats. We are at a turning point, and I can only hope you don't follow in the footsteps of your forebears."

She left her brother on the crystal lake of the icehearts, where he gave his magick to them to protect what was left of their home.