ADARA

"You should talk to him, Yuven."

"I don't know if you've noticed, Sazaka," Yuven grunted when they walked through the damp, dim streets, "Fenrer prefers an avoid and evade tactic when it comes to his problems. It is bad habit of his. I am to assume he was asleep?"

A light drizzle caressed down her cheeks as she sighed and nodded. Firelamps swung in the wind roaring off the ocean, where the waves intensified and spread foam across the rocks at the base of the distant cliffs with the crash of erosion. Gulls quieted in the skies. Thunder rumbled over the expanse and the clouds of rainy rage crept closer with their waterfall of mist. Shivered ice prickled her skin into gooseflesh, and she kept her shawl tight around her shoulders. "He was, so I left him there."

"Good."

"Also." Adara raised a hand to her brow to wipe the wet haze off her bangs. "Are you sure it's a good idea to train in this weather?"

"Best time, I think," Yuven mumbled and wound his way through the streets. "It will teach you control, and we will not have to worry about you setting fire to Sivaport."

Small aqueducts caught the water to push it through metal grates. Water sloshed and bubbled when it slipped through. Cyan runes purred to life, and the collected water swirled along the inner tunnel. Adara sped her pace, careful not to slip on the smooth, cobbled streets to stand underneath one last lamp with Yuven. He pointed to where the wall ended. Several square houses built against and alongside it, a stepping stone to the cliff path leading outside the city and to the distant pebbled beach, whose steep slope slid into the gulf. Fields waved with the spray of the sea, where larger houses with scaled roofs and wide trellis' protected small gardens. "We will train near there." Yuven indicated to the wall.

"Aren't people living there?"

"Those aren't houses, they're reinforced storage in case of a flood or tsunami." Yuven raised an eyebrow. "You forget, Sivaport is on the coast of a gulf. Derelicts attack from land, and the sea reminds them that they're not quite safe." He folded his arms. "It keeps them on their toes, as they should be."

Adara faltered. "Oh."

Out of the thick alleys and into the open air, she shuddered at the blast of wind unimpeded by buildings built around the elements, to stand strong against them. Light squeezed out of the blinds of houses they passed, a flickering hearth of warmth with them out in the damp cold. Boots squished the gravel paths taking them to Yuven's chosen training grounds. "The sun disappeared quickly in the evening..."

Yuven didn't take her attempt at conversation.

In the shadows of the strange storage blocks alongside the limestone wall, she waited while Yuven examined the area. Barrels tucked underneath awnings, and through one of the windows, boxes piled on shelves and on top of each other. Small ladders went upwards into the landings, straight to the flattened rooftops, connected together as one cohesive whole. On the outside, smaller staircases wound around, and she twisted to check on the precarious cliff path.

"Well?" she mused.

Yuven shook out his head and sent droplets off the tips of his grey feathers. "Am I to also assume you didn't study?"

"I did." Yuven folded his arms, and she took his silence as an indication to prove it, "Glyphs are a magickae's signature on the flow. In primordial uses, the focal points connect in the center matrix for a focused expression of the flow." Adara copied his stature then said, "How about that?"

"It is the basics," Yuven admitted, but whisked his hand outwards. Palm up, white flames bubbled and formed underneath ice as focal icicles collected the intensifying rainwater. Droplets hovered over each point, then drained into the glyph. He sent it upwards, and she gasped when the rain burst into flecks of snow. "I could've made it hail, but I know you'd complain. Your turn. Focus on the flow — on the fire inside you, and as Fenrer told you before, let it ignite."

Adara brought both hands in front of her. Steam whispered at her fingertips, where tiny embers fluttered on her palm. It sparked, a creation of a circle, but she gasped when Yuven pushed her to the ground, and the haze of silver dissipated. "Hey!"

"I said we were also going to work on your footwork," Yuven pointed out. "You missed another basic. You must be centralised in yourself, but all I've seen from you as we journeyed is this consistent belief that you are incapable. It will affect how your magick expresses itself through the flow." He raised his slender fingers, and icy crystals hovered over them, before curling into white flames, unimpeded by the moisture falling from the clouds. "The more you tell yourself that thing — the less responsive your magick will be. As such—" Adara made to get up, but he pushed her again. "You cannot hope to create and hold a consistent glyph, if you yourself aren't consistent."

"Maybe it would help if you stop pushing me," Adara snapped.

"Do something about it then."

Adara shimmied across the flat stone, then leaped to her feet. Flames of the twilight gathered around her arm when she went to send her fist into his face, but he dodged, then pushed her off to the side. Knees bent, she turned to face him then brushed her loose bangs out of her face, and he waved the silver embers to the side with ease.

"Little better, but if I am honest, it is not your physicality that is the main issue. You are untrained in combat, as such, I expect nothing from you on that front," Yuven said with a dismissive shrug. "However, with your magick as it is — with your power, your self-inflicted disbelief will wipe your feet from under you." In a quick instant, he swung an icy pole for her feet, and she tripped where grass met stone. "You are distracted."

Don't get too close.

It burned her tongue and immolated her voice. Thorns dug into her heart from the rose Tara placed in her hands. A soft, measured smile as they stood beside the lake and dreamed different dreams. Nails dug into her palm, she snapped, "I get it! I shouldn't get too close to Fenrer because I will get distracted and distract him in turn!" Her legs burst with embers, but she hopped to him and he stepped back. "You don't have to tell me what I already know, Traye! I know I have the power to ruin everything around me! Just like in Tebora! Just like at the Summit!" It cracked through her throat, the future untold too uncertain for comfort. "You don't have to tell me that! You don't have to remind me of that simple fact when I have lived it." Her finger prodded his chest, and his feathers thinned when he pursed his lips. "The people I've loved and lost because of me!" Rainwater steamed into silver smoke around her, and she gasped out her pain when she threw a kick into the air, and it followed her heel into a burst of flames, bouncing across the rain.

Into a dead fizzle.

Adara wiped her eyes, but grunted when Yuven sent another icy pole into her back. Her knees gave out from under her when his stone cold swings pushed her onto the grass, before stopping short at her chest when he lunged. He blinked, his pupils expanding with the motion before he sighed. "Name."

"What?"

"Name, Sazaka, I won't ask again. Tell me who you lost."

"What does it matter to you?" she bit.

Yuven raised the icy pole with a blaze of violent intent.

A wolven warhammer.

Adara chewed on her tongue, and the names drifted out of view. "Tara."

Thunder rumbled.

"Tara," Yuven repeated, then allowed the pole to melt into the stone.

"I don't remember when I met her. We were friends for a long time though, and then it grew into something more," Adara rasped. "Garren warned me just like you did. Told me that it was dangerous for that sort of relationship — what with the magickae genocide, and anyone thought involved in them being set underneath the headman's axe, but Tara was the only one who knew what I was from the start. She knew, and she didn't care." Adara slumped into her shawl, her tears mixed with the rain. "So, against my better judgement and Garren's warning, I went for it. I was ready to do what it took to just have something normal in my life," her voice cracked. "But no, I couldn't even have that. One day, Tara confronted Gregor due to his advances towards me, and then it went downhill. He wouldn't leave her alone for days and days. I saw her change, and she wouldn't tell me what was wrong." Adara pressed her fingers into her temples. "Then, one night when I was working, something... happened between them. I don't know what, and maybe I don't want to know. Jisa, another magickae hiding in Prunal, told me Tara ran to the servants quarters of the castle, a complete mess, from what she told me. That was the last time I saw Tara. Her, leaving the tavern... and then Gregor following her. No goodbyes. No anything. I don't know what happened, and all I can wonder is if there was something I could've done to stop it."

Lightning flashed in the clouds.

Yuven released a deep sigh. "I see." Adara half-expected him to sneer at her, but he rolled his shoulders without a word. He glanced up at the clouds, then studied her. "It may not be enough, but he might've gotten the justice he deserved."

"I didn't want justice to be served, I wanted her."

His feathers flicked, and he relaxed. "Of course. Names. You remember it, and that is all you can do." He tucked into his collarbone, and she jolted at the reality of the young man in front of her. "Now I know why Fenrer snapped that day. The look on his face... like he was seeing something everyone else turned their backs on," A sharp hiss left Yuven's nose and drew out his fangs. "That look... it was the same look he had in Sungrove."

Ice cracked the air, until Yuven melted it with a quiet, "Sorlo d'lo, Adara."

"What?"

He scoffed, then mumbled, "I... am sorry — for my words."

"You're—?" Adara rubbed her hands when he kept his gaze locked on her boots. "Thank you, Yuven."

Shadows fluttered underneath the doused lamps, and grew into a cloaked shape on the edge of the roof.

Adara went to say his name.

Yuven twisted around when it leaped on billowed wings and a mask of ice. Yuven parried their dagger with his own. A spark of ice froze the ground, but Adara jumped when another cloaked figure ran out of the storage houses. Yuven kicked the other attacker away to run for her before them.

Adara screeched when Yuven grabbed her around the middle. Images swirled around her, a rush of colours as he dragged her into his magick with the same force he used before, and a sharp whip of ice missed them both by an inch. Adara stumbled onto the top of the roof as Yuven scowled over the edge. On her feet, she joined him as the cloaked figures ran up the steps, but when Yuven pushed her forward, she poked him and pointed when other shadows revealed themselves.

"Yuven," she whispered.

"I see them." Yuven withdrew his seaxs, but he stopped when one of the cloaked figures stepped forward, and withdrew their hood.

Long white feathers stretched from openings in their bumpy grey mask. Yuven snarled, and hissed, "Adara, if I tell you to run, will you do so?"

"What do you mean?" Adara gasped when they lunged, and the force of air pushed both her and Yuven back when he tried to meet it with his own icy glyph. Her back hit the roof, but Yuven held his ground and sent his own plume at a nearing one gunning for her. They tumbled off the roof, but she frowned when he coughed.

"Damned..." He shook bloody droplets off his fingers, then clenched his fist.

"Who are these people?"

Yuven kept her behind him as he held his seaxs at the ready, his pupils constricting into beads. "What are damned Iceshards doing here?" His knuckles turned white from the pressure of his grip, and Adara held onto the back of his armor, before keeping an eye on what rested behind them — a sheer, dangerous drop to the ground below, before the tumbling cliffs.

"Yuven—!" Adara screeched when one hopped from one of the upper roofs. Their fist flew into his face, and he stumbled, but he drove his seax into the air. It collected ice, and it threw all three of them to the ground. Yuven spat out a glob of blood, and he shivered when he pushed his hand underneath his chin to catch the strings of crimson.

A cold arm wrapped around her waist and throat, and she thrashed when they wrapped silken white threads around her arms. Yuven snapped his head around, then lunged at an approaching one. His spatial distortion stretched around him as he molded with the wind and rain, kicking them out of his way as he rushed for her.

"I wouldn't do that, Yuven Traye," a far more familiar voice said.

He grunted when one of her abductors kicked him in the chest, but he held his ground and latched onto their hands with a snarling song. Pupils full of wyvern's flames, both of them released plumes of mist through their nose. Ashen paleness crept over his bloody lips, and he winced when they pushed him closer to the edge.

A different cloaked figure stepped up with ease when Yuven's attacker threw him to the ground, their icesteel sword at the ready.

Yuven slid back with a bubbly scoff of blood as he spit it at the shoes of his attacker, who stepped to the side to dodge it. From the corner of her eye, Blackwall withdrew his hood.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"There's been a change of plans, Yuven Traye," Blackwall said. "Both you and Adara will come with us."

Yuven knelt and glared up at his attacker, who kept the sword pointed at his chin. Adara frowned at the stained blood in both his palms. "Maybe you should let her decide that?" He slid closer to the edge, and she tried to puzzle together what he intended to do in his condition. "What are you doing here, with Iceshards, no less?" He coughed, and Adara cried when another splatter coloured the rain red. "Actually? I don't care. If you think I'm going to let you get away with this... well..." Yuven wiped blood off his lips, then held out his hand with a chilling grin.

Tendrils of crimson danced from the dripping blood he knelt in. It bubbled, then spun into a beautiful, spinning glyph of red and white mist. The focal points intensified and spread outwards. It set alight the roof and tingled the air, but when Blackwall shoved her and the Iceshard back, a wall of thick ice exploded out from the attached red glyph.

In another moment, Yuven tugged his hand back with a strained grimace, two fingers outward as a glyph of white shone above her head. Distortion rippled, and she flinched when a clone of Yuven slammed their sword into the center of the matrix. Energy cracked, but the clone hovered above her and the Iceshards head.

Blackwall frowned at it, then at Yuven. "You can struggle, Traye, but you're outnumbered, and you are vulnerable." He studied the blood magick in the air. "You're not doing too well, are you, Traye? Blood magick, with your condition? It's a little foolish, even for you."

Yuven scowled. "The Storm Warden's won't take this lightly, Keeper Blackwall," he said with a fiery hiss.

Adara checked on the clone, who held its position above her head, sword piercing into the glyph. Violet ice swept over to her, but the ice wall prevented a backwards escape for her captor.

"I suppose I'll take that risk, Traye," Blackwall said with a calm tone. "Take him. He can't use his spatial distortion like he is. He overextended his hand."

Yuven burst out into laughter, the sound cold against her spine. "Me? Overextend my hand?" he asked, then it dropped into a terrifying scowl. "Not likely, roxho. I have two of them."

He released his clenched fist.

Ice broke above her.

In a whisper of icy wind, the clone pointed their sword downwards against the energy. It crackled once, then swept into nothingness. Adara widened her eyes when the clone gave a snarling grin of a wolf, and Fenrer dropped out of the visage, a bow on his back. Adara gasped when he landed on her captor. His hands swept underneath her knees, and forced to wrap her arms around his neck. Blackwall's eyes widened, but his attention drew to Yuven. Glyphs made of his blood spun when he got off his knees, held down by an unseen weight as both him and Fenrer shared one final look.

Bile drove into her throat when Fenrer jumped into the spatial distortion Yuven gave them.

Thrown across space and time.

Embers screeched under her skin at her inability, but both her and Fenrer gasped when the path broke, and they both tumbled into the dirt. Far away from the roof, she whipped around when the ice wall exploded into mist, and Yuven disappeared with Blackwall and the Iceshards.

"Gods, Yuven," she rasped, but nausea swam in her temples when Fenrer steadied her with an arm around her shoulders, and she found herself gripping onto his collar.

"Adara, you have to go to the castle," he insisted. "Reyn will protect you. Tell him what's going on."

"What?" Adara jolted when Fenrer went for the roof they left behind. "No! I want to help!"

"You heard them, they want you," Fenrer argued. "Go, Adara. I can handle this."

Adara rushed forward to grab him around the arm. "Fenrer, please," she begged. "He did this to protect me! I can't let him—" Ash littered across the embers, and bubbled silver blood. "I can't do this. Don't ask me to leave someone else behind again." Tears swept through her throat when Fenrer hesitated, and the castle cracked with Jisa reaching her hand out to the sparkled crystal of blooming roses. "I can't leave him behind."

I won't!

Auroras whispered in the reflection of the slowed rain, and the phoenix broke through the twilight mirror.

Adara held on tight to his arm, and begged.

He stared at her, eyes widening.

"You—" He faltered, then held onto her shoulders. "Yuven just threw us so we could escape."

"And since when have I ever listened to his ideas?" Adara said, shrill. "You're going back, but you expect me to run? He just—"

He protected me!

"You can trust me, let me try," she rasped.

Why is he being so quiet?

His gaze trailed across her face, and Adara stepped back when he withdrew the bow instead. "Your compassion is bright against the world, I understand, if this is what you wish to do, I will follow you," he whispered, soft. "Adara... I need you to pour your magick into the arrow I create. We're going to give Yuven an opening."

"I'll try." Her hands shook.

Fenrer smiled at her. "You will."

Her heart hammered as the sheet of rain battered the coast.

I won't leave you behind, Yuven. Neither will he.