NEVEN

"I'm not surprised you came to the conclusion you did during the tournament."

Neven stood in the Knight Valiant's tower within the confines of Irimount. Snow-capped mountains pierced into the clouds of the neverending blizzard. Soft lamps of fiery blues cast his office in a deep glow. On one wall, every chore and attached squire to them. Armor sat on the stands, scaled and rippling with icy magnificence. Glaives and lances stood upright to point at the ceiling, attached to hooks on the stone walls. Neven tangled his fingers into his fur tunic.

"I thought you wanted me to be a Blizzard Sentinel. You're the one who told me I had promise." Doubt and confusion intermingled over his tongue. "I know I forfeited the tourney, but—"

"I could see the look in your eyes in that dome, Lotayrin. You felt no pride, I wonder if you felt anything at all in those crucial seconds of winning over Volaris' handpicked metal peacocks," Utuvar said and dotted a line on his parchment with his quill. "It's always been a show to them — Atoran's time is over. We're in another age where the rules of honorable combat have long faded. Stories of the Knights of the Round are either flimsy tales or lost obscura texts buried in the snow. Their honor no longer exists here." Utuvar folded his arms over his desk. "So, that's why this doesn't surprise me. I've taught many squires... but none have had your sense of purpose and drive. You live in a world that doesn't exist, and I can say I'm honored to have the pleasure of training you... but I knew from the start this would only lead you to being miserable." He sighed with a shrug, and Neven flinched when he scratched out his name on the squire scrolls. "You're thinking about following Ana to become a Storm Warden, are you not? I meant it when I said that it was a respectable calling — no matter what the inner cities believe." Utuvar got off his chair and sent a burst of flames into the metal sconces. "So, get out of here. If you come back here, you better be able to beat me or I'll question Anaysa's taste in prospective Storm Wardens."

He had one more goodbye to handle before he melted in a distant sun.

Mother and Father both stood in the main entrance hall of the Lotayrin estate.

"I just heard." Father placed down magick tomes.

Unable to articulate his words, he reached out to his parents one last time — before he left Irimount for who knew how long, far away from home. Out of the biting cold of the blizzard. He wrapped his arms around them both. "I'll come back and protect Irimount."

"Only if you wish to, Snowflake." Mother pressed her cheek against his. "Do yourself proud."

He held Father's arms and stared at the back door. He shook his head when Father tapped his brow with the back of his knuckle. Tears bit at the edges of his world in the safety and warmth of his own home. "So much for telling you I wanted to be a Blizzard Sentinel."

"I have a funny feeling Atoran wouldn't mind," Father said and squeezed his shoulder. "Here, I need to show you something."

Neven let him go to follow him and Mother deeper into the estate, to the highest levels where their ancestral shrine rested, the centerpiece of the estate of their family — and all who once walked its halls. Candles burned into blue wax at each headstone, and he held his breath when Father approached the 'Head' of their family. Atoran Lotayrin's shrine. White ribbons wound around the pearly stone, and Father opened a small cabinet. "We are carved by our history, but we are not beholden to it," he said. "I tell my students at the Spire this over and over." He held out his fist, and Neven frowned when he loosened his fingers. A necklace swung with sparkled silver.

A wyvern with wings wrapped around a star — the same star Anaysa wore around her neck.

"There is so much we don't know about anything, for us who live twice-fold lifetimes," Father told him. "There's much more than we know about our own progenitor." He rested the necklace in the groove of his palm. "So, you find yourself a new path and carve it — don't dictate your actions according to our ancestor's ideal. What is the song of the Lotayrins?"

"I am the shield shining bright in memory of the song," Neven whispered to the tune of their words.

"You've found your song," Father said with a grin and placed the necklace back into Atoran's shrine. "So follow it — and remember us. You know how time can pass in the blizzard."

Neven laughed out his growing pain. "It... doesn't?"

"Then, be the shield that shines bright, in memory of your own song."

Neven tried not to burst into tears. "I'll miss you both."

"We'll miss you too," Mother said from the entrance. "It's not goodbye if we'll see each other again, though. Remember that, Snowflake. You may travel to the ends of the star, but you'll always have a home here, waiting for you."

I'll always remember.

He pressed his brow against their foreheads once more, then stepped back out into the main atrium of the villa. "Then... take care of yourselves until I come back," he said, gathering his anticipation to stifle the sobbing note in his throat. "I promise... no Derelicts will ever bring harm unto Irimount when I'm done training."

"You focus on that." Mother's smile shifted into mischief when she tickled the tips of his feathers, and he squirmed. "Go on and fly."

Freedom set his soul soaring as he rushed out of the estate grounds and to the massive walls separating them from the frozen tundra beneath the mounds of snow. Two Sentinels checked and saddled a pair of gryphlings to the front. Anaysa stood close when they powered the runes along the wheel bearing. Neven reached her. "Um... Warden Anaysa?"

Her eyes widened in shock, and she turned to him. "Lotayrin? What happened at the tournament?"

Neven rubbed the back of his neck. "I... I thought about what you told me," he forced out. "And I realised... I'd never be able to live with myself if I continued on this path. So, I'll come with you. I'll follow you to Euros to be a Storm Warden." He peeked around for other prospective candidates, but uncertainty strangled him at the lack of familiar faces. "And I... I apologize for my dismissive behaviour." He tipped his head to her. "It was unbecoming of me."

"Seeing a Derelict for the first time will do that," Anaysa said. "I know how hard it is to leave your home — and to experience something else. Being a Storm Warden means accepting the change it will bring you — in physical body, endless thoughts, and eternal soul... thoughts especially. Your loyalty will be to the world, not one kingdom or king." Anaysa pressed her hand into the runelock across the carriage doors. It split with an icy crack, then swung open to reveal the covered interior. "Get comfortable. It's a long journey to the pass. If we aren't stopped we should get to the outskirts in no time."

He lifted himself into the carriage first, shuffling through the veil to the back seats. Furs piled into a makeshift bed, and Anaysa took the other seat before knocking her knuckle on the front to the driver of the carriage. Neven settled himself in the comfort of furs. "What is our first destination?"

"Once we reach the fort, there's a small hamlet on the other side. We need to get you a fresh set of clothes."

Neven hugged his heavy furs, befit for nobility. "Is the temperature truly so different?"

Anaysa smiled at him. "You're going to feel like you stepped into the Infernal Hells." It widened to show her fangs. "We're taking a train to Haneka. We head to Sivaport to meet up with the other prospective Trainees before sailing to Euros."

His stomach churned when he pressed himself against the stone-cold seat rocking beneath him. Wind hushed through the frost-bitten walls of the carriage.

"Get some rest," Anaysa said. "It'll be some time before we reach the path I took."

"What..." Neven shivered at the howl of the blizzard outside. "What is Euros like?"

"It is..." Anaysa hesitated. "I cannot describe it. You will understand once you set your eyes on it."

Neven drew the furs over his shoulders. "I'm not going to be the only Trainee, am I?"

"No, but you're the only one I managed to convince," Anaysa admitted.

I'll be alone, without my friends. He tucked deeper into the furs, and his heart swelled at the idea of being outside the Aethejiin mountain range. Dread followed in freedom's shadow with twisting curls as Irimount disappeared into the storm when he peeked out the back window. Anaysa slipped through the snow veil to the other section of the carriage. Left in his privacy, he allowed the rest of his tears to fall. Twisted tangles burst from the blizzard to crawl through the wheels of the carriage, lifted above the sinking drifts. He tucked his nose into his furs to relish the last comfort of home, until a harder rock jolted from him from his nap of endless days in the carriage, stopping in small towns to give the gryphlings time to rest until the journey continued.

It never ended until huge mountains rippled across the expanse, where the blizzard wall faded into curled, puffy clouds.

"Are we there yet?" he asked through the veil.

"Almost," Anaysa said on the other side. "We'll be out of here."

"Is the heat... really bad outside?" He withdrew into the comfort of the blizzard's chill. "I heard it's so bad people melt."

Anaysa chuckled and tugged the curtain back. In a shatter of the blizzard's cloud, it ended at the peaks of the Aethejiin range. It tore through the peaks to create a massive ravine, where a fort grew out of the sides to pierce the ground. Jagged spires shadowed their carriage when they rolled through the checkpoint — the separation of Naveera to the rest of the world. Out of the cloak of darkness and into the light when their carriage rattled over the bridge to take them out of the fort's confines. Metal creaked when they tugged the gate upwards to let them pass.

Excitement drowned his dread when the gryphlings took on a burst of speed the moment their heavy claws hit dirt.

Tundra stretched out before him when the frost carriage cracked against pebbles. Moongrass swayed with the wind, and the mountains contained the blizzard at their peaks, preventing it from swallowing the rest of the world. Beds of snowroses tickled the dirt road they rumbled on — thriving.

Heavy clouds blocked the sky, but it breathed with warmth.

Their carriage came to a stop outside a small hamlet, and he relaxed at the signs of civilization. Naveerans tended to fluffy tundra chickens. Tinges of brown laced through their fair feathers, to match the truth beneath the snow. One passed skinned furs to a shopkeep, who waved them off with a singing chortle. Anaysa opened the carriage, and Neven listened to their Navei. It rolled with the wind with a strange texture, but it held the same song in his heart. One of freedom and the sun.

"Come." Anaysa led him through the hamlet, and he resisted the urge to dig his boots into the dirt, to tear it and reveal what was beneath it. In the center of the hamlet, a wide building with the standard of the Storm Wardens on a pole, flapping in the tail-wind of the blizzard. Anaysa guided him inside, where a bunch of tables sat around a flickering fireplace, spitting out embers to warm the runes within. "Stay."

Neven fiddled with his tunic strings and tried to avoid the curious looks of the other Wardens until Anaysa returned with a large bundle tucked between her arms. "Here. Go change. Those furs of yours won't do you any good. The train should arrive soon."

Trains... I've seen them in books, but I've never actually seen one in reality... but I guess I haven't seen a lot of things. Neven shuffled into an empty room to change out of his furs of nobility and into the new clothes. It fit lightly around his arms and stomach, without any fur woven into the seams. A chill swept down his skin, but he packed his old clothes, donning a fur cloak around his shoulders.

Anaysa proved to be more of a busybody than he initially believed. He led him out of the outpost and into an open platform. Metal dug into the dirt, and runes of fire set the path alight. He jumped at a distant, hissing roar, half expecting to see a wyvern fly over his head. A snaking body of carriages rolled into the platform with another steamy hiss. He boarded it with tentative steps, fearing the ground to give out from underneath him, but the lack of noise within unsettled him.

"Why are there so few people?" he questioned when Anaysa nudged him through the corridors.

"For the same reason it's difficult to find Warden prospects in Naveera." Anaysa ushered him into a compartment. "It's not an easy thing to explain, Lotayrin, but our people are isolated from the outside world. To them, the idea of spreading out, of opening their hearts to new songs is... incomprehensible."

Neven sat down and tucked his hands between his legs. "I can't say I disagree..." He glanced at her. "What made you leave? I'm sure if you stayed, you could've..."

"I would be wed the moment I turned twenty and five, without ever finding my song. Someone would find it for me, I would never get the distinction someone of your place in life would, Neven Lotayrin," she said. "I had a different dream, I did not want to be surrounded by an icy cage and have people examining you like you're a precious glass bird."

"It's... We all have our roles to play."

Anaysa leaned forward. "You'd be surprised, Lotayrin. How did you feel at the tourney?"

Like... a performer, I was performing for them, dancing to their tune and not my own.

"As I said, you'll see when we're out of the influence of Naveera," Anaysa said. "You've a good heart inside, Neven... open your mind a little. Do you know any Common?"

"Common?" Neven sucked in his lips. "Uh... no."

"I see. We'll work on that before we reach Sivaport. I can teach you the basics," Anaysa said. "I'm afraid you won't find any Navei speakers in the outer kingdoms. Take in what you can. I know this is daunting."

On the contrary, the release from the blizzard cage set his soul afire, a spark he never knew he carried. Outside the window, the world moved in space and time. "So I'm going to be the only Naveeran."

"Yes."

Neven tucked his fingers into his cloak.

"But don't worry, the outside isn't so bad."

"I've heard people outside live such different lives to us," Neven murmured. "I heard they hug in the streets — in full view of people."

Anaysa laughed. "Well, you have to consider that they don't have the added burden of proprietary. Our people stick to ours like a thorn. If you want another nap, I'd have one now." Neven leaned in his seat when she stood up. "I'm going to grab you some books to study. It'll be a few days before we reach Haneka."

Questions rolled in his mind, but he huddled in the corner. Tundra fields bloomed in pale colours and passed him by. He twisted his head around to the white-capped mountains of Naveera, getting farther from the second.

His family; Mother and Father, who stayed in Irimount, safe behind the walls.

Wyverns took flight, and a baby giggled in the wind of their launch.

I... I hope this is right.