ADARA

"I don't think this is a good idea, Fen."

King Reyn's chosen, small hunting party prepared some horses for the journey. Supplies and weapons were clamped onto the saddle Fenrer hovered by, his attention not on her, but the ground while his hand remained in the mane of the horse. Adara approached him, to hook her hand around his forearm to try and rouse him from his inattentive stupor. "Besides, if Yuven gave you an order—"

"I don't see him here to put his foot down." Fenrer slid his hand down to his side. "Besides, I'm not just doing this because I'm trying to avoid him, I'm not doing this out of spite or whatever he got into his head. I'm doing this because His Grace asked me for counsel and I gave it to him." He faced her in full with a sharp exhale. "I want to do right by my family, by the people my father protected when he still walked Aztryxer — for those I couldn't save back then. Just because I never really got to that part of my education doesn't mean I wasn't given some beforehand." He grabbed onto the reins, causing the horse to tilt its head at him with a huff, its ears angling into a relaxed state when he pat its neck. "I meant it when I told Reyn the people of the Goldwood need to see him. Not any messengers he sends. Not his housecarls. Him. He agreed."

"Isn't this situation a tad different?"

Fenrer looked over at the hunting party as Reyn wore something less recognizable — no different from the people he ruled. Everyone bleeds, Garren told the knight before he cut off his head with ease. Adara tucked herself into the crimson shawl around her shoulders when Reyn climbed into the saddle as a couple housecarls went onto the path ahead of the hunting party. She opened her mouth, to try and convince Fenrer otherwise, but her own conviction failed her. Everyone bleeds.

"Fenrer Pyren." An icy melody ripped through the air, and she turned to see Yuven stomping up, and not alone. Maria on one side, another Warden on his other. Fenrer let go of his horse before he could get into the saddle, and Adara scooted out of the way, once more stuck as a mediator between the two Oathbound. Yuven raised a hand to stop the two Wardens who came to back him up, with Maria keeping her arms folded. "If you are so intent on disobeying my direct order, at least have the common decency to report your intended path."

Fenrer tossed a scroll to him and refused to meet him in the eye. "We're taking the exact same path we took when we first left. We follow the river up into the Goldwood, with the final stop being Sungrove."

Yuven unfurled the scroll with a scowl, his gaze flicking over the contents. He handed it over to Maria, before stalking forward. "This is a mistake, Molvisaliz." Though his authoritative front reminded her of the King's Summit, she knew the truth behind the shield of power — the perception Yuven used to hide his pleas for Fenrer to stay. "You've put this on me at the last second that I can't reinforce the path."

"I'm sure Keeper Kalla can find a way," Fenrer countered.

"I think even a Keeper with a network would struggle to keep up," Maria argued.

Adara let the three bicker. Every attempt to dissuade Fenrer served only to make him stick into his saddle, so she turned her attention onto the hidden king. Reyn fiddled with the reins in his hands, the shadows of his hood hiding most of the recognizable traits, including the thick black hair. Everyone bleeds. Her nervousness lodged into her throat, causing Fenrer to turn his attention to her. "I'll do what I must if the worst comes to pass," he said. "I'm still a Storm Warden. This is my duty." He sent a cold glance at Yuven, who drew back. "You may think this a mistake, but it wouldn't be the first time." He clicked his tongue, causing the horse to step forward to join Reyn's hunting party.

"What do you want us to do, Captain?" the Warden beside Yuven asked.

Yuven glared down at the ground, so Maria took up the mantle. "Keep up the patrols... we can adjust to keep an eye around the area they're leaving through," she ordered, but Adara found herself stuck at the sight of Yuven, whose feathers went at a downward angle when he lifted his head as the hunting party disappeared down the knolls and into the trees. Maria glanced at Yuven. "What are you going to do?" she asked as the Warden retreated.

"Let him make the mistake, that'll be punishment enough of disobeying a direct order. I can only hope that the mistake won't be paid in the price of blood... but I won't hold my breath after what we've seen and heard. I should know better than to not expect it. He feels like he has something to prove? He can feel free to show someone, it just won't be me." Yuven turned his back when the final horse vanished onto the dawn road. "I have my own duties to attend to. I can't be playing babysitter for Fenrer's random whims."

"This isn't random, Yuven," Adara whispered. "A random whim is him deciding to stop by to pick up a road statue and then head into a village after spotting dead cattle." The forest ahead yawned, though the sounds of the waves crashing against the cliffs sent shivers up her spine. "He'll be fine, he's just as capable as you are."

"I never said he wasn't." Yuven shuffled around Maria to head back into the city proper, disappearing into the crowds with a whisper of cold mist.

"Do you want to practice some firecore magick, Adara?" Maria broke the silence faster than it could fester in the air. "It'd be better than standing out here when the hunting party won't be back for a week at most — depending on if the hunting grounds favour them and their luck holds. Fenrer won't take the risk of extending it, no matter his difficulties with Yuv."

I hope so. Adara nodded at her, though before they passed underneath the portcullis, she looked back. A flimsy hope for Fenrer to change his mind. It's not too late. But... Adara sighed and continued to follow Maria through the thick, expansive streets of Sivaport, whose lamps remained dim until the late bells of evening. Fenrer... for better or for worse, doesn't change his mind easily once its fully set. He is like Yuven in that way. They're both stubborn. Adara kept out of the way of children playing with magick. I suppose one has to be in their work, and if I'm to be a Storm Warden, I need to be willing to... Her hands hooked into her belt, but she stopped when Maria stopped her in front of the Warden lodge with a hand against her shoulder. "Yes?"

"Do you know anything about medicinal magick?"

Adara considered the Warden chirurgeon. "I know the primordial core doesn't matter in the long run, though some cores will respond better to others. It depends on the person?"

Maria gave a firm nod and led the way up to the heavy, dark oak doors which closed off the outside from the inner foyer of the lodge. Her hands pressed against the runic divots. Embers followed the circuitry, and the doors opened with a rumble and a whisper of the ocean wind. A Warden sorted through the posting board, tacking on papers before filling the small scroll shelf with stamped scrolls. Past them all, they went through the doors between the split staircase, coming to another set, descending downwards, where the humidity took on a biting chill — which paled in comparison to the cold of Naveera. Maria took out a set of thick keys from her belt when they wandered to a stop in front of a thick, protected vault door. "I find the basics of healing magicks can provide a foundation for better control and focus in smaller amounts. I once told you our cores have the potential of great destruction and revitalization both. I taught you how to control the destruction of it. I'm going to teach you some basics of its revitalization side." The vault door opened with a hiss of miss, and Adara wrapped her shawl tighter around her when they entered.

Her stomach sank at the farthest wall with some open racks, but some closed tight. Maria looked through some of the cabinets before taking out a wood box. Elementia crystals shone when she cracked it open to set it on the slab between them. "The trick is to feel out other primordials without cracking the surface of the crystals," Maria instructed and waved her forwards. "Yes, even fire crystals. We'll start with that one." She picked up the gleaming orange one which pulsed with embers when it slipped into her palm, and Maria held it out to her. "I hope you didn't think I'd throw a cadaver at you and expect you to know what to do from the get go?"

"Uh... yes," Adara admitted.

"Unless you express interest in such things, I wouldn't do that to you. Some don't have the stomach for it, and that's fine. It's one thing to fight Derelicts... another to see the destruction they wrought, and how bad it can get. You're no stranger to that — it just never gets easier for some," Maria warned and pushed the crystal into her hands. "Now, what I want you to do is what we've taught you. Confidence and ingenuity. Internal instinct and External focus. The give and the take of magick." Maria took another fire crystal tino her palm, letting it float over it as orange tangles wrapped around it, pushing itself into the crystal and out the tips. "Understanding the flow between the world is key. Try. If it cracks, we've got plenty more training crystals."

Phoenix fire wrapped around the crystal when it floated over her palm. Sharp barbs leashed around it, and a crack started to form. She let out a breath to pulse the silver flames. It seared into the crack she left, a white scar when it continued to sweep over the crystal.

"A lot goes into healing magick," Maria instructed. "It can only go so far, magick. There's a couple of vital rules for it. One... it cannot undo mortal wounds by itself — if at all. There is no amount of healing, both magical and practical, that can reverse death itself. Two, it can't bring the dead back to true life, to pluck their soul from the Otherworld. Three, there is such a thing as overdoing it. The act of healing magick requires stamina both from you and the person you're healing. It's why we're given education on anatomy, both of the body, the soul, and the flow in Magickae. Most magickae can do surface-level healing."

"What about blood magick?" Adara whispered as the crystal dropped into her hand, scarred and flayed.

Maria shook her head. "Magick requires a give and take. There's been plenty of theories of resurrection, but it is a taboo art. It is dark magick. Any attempts have left grotesque sacks of meat or... nothing at all. And attract the hunger of Derelicts and when it inevitably goes wrong, creates an infestation, pus from the flow to let them through from the Echo Obscura." Her gaze drifted to the left. "And sometimes the dead don't like being dragged from their rest. If you think draugr, or haugbui are terrifying undead... you haven't seen the worst of it. Pray that you never get to see the consequences of trying to upset a natural order" A sigh left her lips and she took out another crystal, a misty blue before handing it to her. "Now we'll try 'fire's' opposite primordial. Ice."

Adara took it into her hand. Its chilly touch bit into her skin with frost, but she repeated the process. Silver roots dug deep, and several other cracks oozed out gray goo. "You brought Yuven back from the dead."

"I didn't." Adara raised her head to Maria. Maria rolled another ice crystal over her palms. "It was several turns of research and preparation to do what most thought impossible," she remarked. "Several Turns of testing out old theories, scrubbing them clean of misinformation. Using blood magick to test my limits and its affects on the corrupted core. It was not bringing Yuven back from the dead. I was committing him to the door... but I wasn't going to let him walk past it. The Corruption... is unique in that manner, and it's hard to explain in layman's terms. Yuven had a minimal chance of survival." Maria clasped her fist over the ice crystal. "But it wasn't zero. Many Corruptors lose their will to live... Yuven never did."

"It was still miraculous, no?" Adara pressed as goo slipped between her fingers, neither cold nor superheated to the touch, some of it twisting to ashes off her fingers.

"Miraculous? Maybe, I'm sure some people think that," Maria admitted. "I don't think so, though. I think it was a mix of things. Skill. Luck. The assistance Yuven had that some other Corruptors didn't." Her lips pursed. "Many times I took up reports involving Corruptors, to further my understanding and research... but it never got any easier. Whether it be someone who reached their time limit, but instead of dying in a pool of tainted blood, they went out on their own terms before I could even try anything to soothe their suffering, or children who never stood a chance. Yuven was an anomaly, corrupted as a child, and against all odds survived it." Maria released a heavy sigh. "For the one person I did save... there were many I couldn't."

Adara tasted the weight of her words. "And now we know it's possible."

"On the backs of the dead," Maria finished, then smiled at her. "Most things are written in blood, Adara... and will continue to do so before we find an end to the Derelicts."