REYN

Rain battered the windows behind the melted throne, a reminder of a crying dawn. The drumbeats of war in the storm tickled his ears. Each stream made a map alongside the tall window frames. In the centerpiece of the sun's fury, it created a trail of scorched paint. Metal grazed against his fingers, but he adjusted his bracers for comfort. Oak doors creaked open, and he turned to see a damp older brother named Gustul. Arms folded, he asked, "Gustul, where in the Infernal Hells have you been?"

"Why, at the Tipsy Dragon, baby brother. Miss me already?" Gustul waddled to him with a beaming grin, and Reyn shrank into his shoulders when his arm wrapped around them, and he loomed.

"Are you drunk?"

"Nope."

Right. Reyn slipped out of Gustul's grasp. "As long as you don't cause, or get into, trouble." He scoffed at the fact of the shared wetness Gustul dared to saddle onto him, putting a scorched distance between them. "You should go get dried off and get warm. This storm is going to get worse before it gets better." Reyn wrapped his outside raincloak around his shoulders. "I'm going to head up to the lighthouse until the next watch—" He gasped when Gustul pinched his cheeks.

"Aw, my baby brother cares about me," Gustul cooed. "Have you been standing here all alone in your own thoughts?" Reyn stumbled out of his grip, and he swayed. "Have you talked to Lady Valarma? I heard she was in the castle." His grin turned wild and mischievous, but Reyn rubbed his face of the squished soreness. "Maybe you should take it easy for once, Reyn. You'll give people the idea that you have a stick shoved up your—"

"I shall take your council as appropriate, Gustul," Reyn said and swiped the air to smack his words. "Ancients, you are drunk." He groaned and brushed the bridge of his nose. "Yes, I am aware Lady Valarma remained here until the storm passed, though she is resting and I don't want to bother her with further trifling matters. It was hard enough to gauge how much repair needed to be done on the Blackwater Bridge — and what with the unrest in the Goldwood, not that I can blame them considering the Desecration to the Stewards of Sungrove..." He chewed on his tongue, and tasted the blood of a wartorn past his father created and ruined loyalty. "I'm hoping that with the dawnblade returned to a Pyren, I can handle what comes next."

"You gave it back to little Fenrer?"

Reyn raised an eyebrow. "Calling me little is one thing, Gustul, but Fenrer is near your stature. Little is not how I would describe him."

"I can't help that I look over people, that hurts."

"I'll remember that when my foot meets your kneecap if you stumble drunk as a skunk without someone to make sure you don't hurt yourself," Reyn threatened, and Gustul pouted. "Just go to bed, Gustul. Sleep off the nausea that's going to come with the morn." Cloak clasped around his chest, he tasted the rainwater mixed with salt in the air. Lightning rippled at his fingertips, but the static shock stifled inside his soul. "Talk to Bryn if you need something from them. I'm going up." Not allowing Gustul to slip another word in on whether he had a stick shoved up somewhere it didn't belong or not, he crept through the wings of the castle. Black stone radiated and powered itself with the warmth of the sun and gathered in the sconces of white metal claws. Through the quarters for the Stewards. Most of the doors lodged open in trust, with the flags embedded into the small openings to denote who used the room.

Tyronai. Duchulun. He stopped at the kraken sigil and the one closed door among the long, curved corridor. Thunder groaned through the stone and rumbled his heart at the strike of lightning outside the windows, sending a flash of light at his feet. He sighed and continued on, leaving Lady Valarma to her rest.

Pyren.

The wolf sigil embedded in the door, but the last Pyren to step within the halls met his doom. Here I thought nothing could kill the sun. Dust collected on the floor, and he tasted the resentment of his powerlessness. I should get it cleaned instead of avoiding it. Maybe tomorrow. I'll talk to Fenrer about it before the boat arrives. He put the dawnblade back into his runesmith's attentive care for the time being, until the last Pyren of Sungrove was ready to take it back from him. His footsteps echoed against the tiled stone beneath him, in time with the thunder and lightning outside. It left blood on the grass and mud. Flickered flames of arrows lodged into collapsed buildings. A giant, fallen, pincushioned to death.

I'm sorry, Soren, that I could do nothing back then. But I can do something now. I'll keep trying. I'll be the man you saw in me back then... somehow. He traced the edge of his cheekbone to push out the exhaustion gathering underneath his eyes. Hazy memories gathered in long nightmares, but he dragged his feet to the center of the castle. A courtyard swept around the entrance into the towering lighthouse, where its own light flashed against the elements, to pull boats home through the storm. Arches latched around it from the battlements, and he stepped out into the rain. Jasmine flowers cried through their fluffy white petals to wet the dirt beneath them. It scattered the sweet, yet animalistic fragrance in the rain, but he opened the door to shut himself away from the intensity. He put his raincloak on the hook to let it dry, before stepping onto the runelift. Hand outwards, his glyph crackled with arcing energy when he swept it through the world, to follow the set path of the rune. Warmth oozed out of the stones to keep the watchmen of the lighthouse comfortable through the worst of storms. Up to the last point, he stepped off the lift to crawl up the steps into the beacon.

A massive blaze crackled in an opalescent, crystallized sphere of perfect quality, tapered onto the axis at both ends to guide the light through the haze of rainy mist. Windows kept the rain out from dousing the constant ball hidden inside the crystal, so he took a seat on the chair and let the white light wrap around his shoulders and chest. Each pulse brought the promise of dawn behind the furious black clouds outside. One moment of peace when surrounded by matters of state, to let his mind wander and clear out of the fog, guided by the beams swaying across the city. Curtains fell from the storm core, and he rested his cheek in his palm, savoring the warmth.

Emeralds cracked.

He sat up from his seat at the distant cliff paths, shrouded in icy mist as the mist exploded outwards to careen into the cliff rocks below, though he struggled to spot the weakness. Infernal Hells... I'm glad I sent out that alert to not take the cliff paths tonight. I'm going to need to have stonemasons check on it. Back against the chair, he studied the mist when it coiled and curled into the hungry waves of the sea. The lighthouse beacon purred with an unearthly whisper of embers, and he leaned deeper into the curling heatwaves to dry off his shoulders.

A silver spark in long minutes.

Reyn lifted his head when it shone against the rain, tugged onto a centralized point. Out of the chair, he opened the glass door and into the thunder to try and garner a closer view of the silver fog. Strikes of the light coalesced around the breaking singularity, and he leaned against the wet railing.

Lightning itself held its breath.

It sparked, and exploded upwards into an aurora to bleed the clouds. It whispered, but chewed the thunder. Reyn blinked out the belief, a second beacon through the world. Silver fireballs to smash into golden fields once more, another hazy memory, but focused straight into the storm. Saphir.

"Yes, little dragon, I sense it."

Reyn checked his small metal daggers behind his leather straps. I need you to fly me over there. Suspicion carved his heart as mist collected around the flow, and he vaulted over the railing when it formed into a dragon of opal-shaped scales and wings to carry him to where he was needed the most. Caught on the back of his Familiar, she took flight through the rain. It smashed against his cheeks, but he threw a glyph into his own face to return his sight to him. Energy crackled where his skin met Saphir's scales, their sole connection. Saphir glided on the wings of the storm, and the silver aurora scattered into rainy mist.

Saphir landed at the beacon's singularity, over the walls of Sivaport, but nothing remained save for a couple of bodies, with one impaled through the head by a magick glaive made of ice and singing with powerful silver. He rushed to their side, and tugged it out of their head. Blood poured out of the shattered mask, and he sighed. He overturned the glaive burning with power at his fingertips. Solid magick brought through sheer force of will. He flicked water and blood off it, then brushed his fingers across the misty ribbons of white tapered silver.

"Hm." He hummed with the thunder in the clouds.

He headed for the cliff path to investigate the damage himself. Rocks slid into the entrances, and he set a hand on his hip to overlook the raging ocean. Waves smashed against the pebbled slope to the beach, and coursed around the sharpened rocks weathered by time.

Another beacon glimmered at the edge of the gulf when he went to investigate the bodies.

A slow rise.

Pyren's statue lit up at the peak of his palms, out to carry the sun he brought to the world. Strings followed it into the water, and Reyn lurched when it curled into a sun. Leashes spread out from the water to coil around the ocean waves in desperation. It lit up the walls with its basking radiance. On cue, the watchtowers blazed to life across them. Reyn rushed to the edge once more to observe the return of the dawn. It continued to feed into the growing blaze in the gulf. Glyphs carved and curled with solar storms, a deep, forceful rumble shivering his lightning, urging him to leap into the center. What in the Hells—?

It curled around his fists, and he frowned at the disobedience of his inner lightning.

"Reyn," Saphir said beside him.

Somehow, he knew.

It glowed across the foam, the dawn opening its curled teeth to call out to the horizon, breaking apart in the supercell, a flare in the night to turn it to day.

"You need to get me down there!" he snapped and jumped onto her back.

Saphir took flight into the daylight storm, though it soon faded when he flew across the cliffs. Houses lit up from the jarring shift in the world, but he ignored it to guide Saphir to where his lightning called him. Wind blasted into his face, and rain struck at his skin in sharp daggers.

"Reyn, the storm is too much."

Reyn stood up when she glided out of reach of the waves, the last tendrils of the sun gasping for air in boiling bubbles. How much time can I give myself? With the sea enraged like it is... He spun a glyph of the same water seeking to flay his skin, to push it into his own mouth and breathe deeper of the sea.

He dove into the jaws of the ocean, a son of the sea.

Mist gathered around him, Saphir's soft sigh warning him of his time limit. He broke the surface of water, and he winced when a rogue wave blasted into his hair. One more glyph, then it's time. Cascades of water wrapped around his fingers, and he dragged it down his nose to drive the cold deeper underneath his skin, before diving underneath the tempest. Lungs pulsed with the water against air, but he found the little pieces to keep himself under, facing himself towards the surface to create a glyph of orientation.

The surface rumbled with the patterned rain, and he pushed himself off the orientation glyph to glide on the wings of the current and swam deeper, away from the energy of the storm where it grew calmer. Knives pushed against his lungs, but he focused on the breath of the sea inside him. One. Two. A dance. One. Two.

A crack almost made him lose focus. Bubbles streamed out of his lips, but he caught himself into the swaying dance. Focus, Reyn. Focus. Find that source... but I know.

He treaded the water, over old wrecks lost to time. Weeds curled around them. One pulse near the base of the cliffs, he tried to fight through the blurry field.

A star.

Metal floated, pulsed, and a body sank deeper.

It continued to pulse out a dying hope, but he swam closer to find a grip. Dammit. How long has he been under? Damned! Reyn oriented himself behind them before they drifted further into the cruel grip of the sea. He hooked his arms underneath theirs, and he winced when bubbles slipped past both their lips.

A wolven pin.

Ancients forfend. This is bad. Reyn wrapped one arm around their middle, and another to keep them against him. Saphir... I can't pull us both up. He drove his jaw into his teeth when the current dragged them closer to the bottom, farther out of reach of air. Pinpricks opened his lungs, and he stifled the water longing to swallow into his body as it had before.

Claws latched onto his shoulders, and battled the current of the sea, a pyrrhic victory when his glyph broke apart, and the misty shape tugged them closer to a slope of pebbles. Air popped his ears and the noise dwindled with the pass of the storm. He fumbled to his own feet, to tug the dead-weight in his arms out of the foam. Water moved past his lips when he released his magick from his lungs, and he coughed before fighting his exhaustion. Until his knees gave out from under him, and he dropped the body.

Fenrer Pyren, sprawled across the pebbles, his oath necklace slicked against his neck. His dark hair drenched and stuck to his brow.

"Fuck!" Reyn gasped, and crept closer to his side. It bled into his heart when he wrapped a hand around Fenrer's wrist, and when it refused to beat with precious life, he pushed it against the side of his neck for confirmation. Too faint. Too separate. Never consistent. "No, Pyren!" He withdrew his hand and grabbed Fenrer's collar to remove the necklace and pocket it, to free Fenrer's throat of any disturbance. Water streamed past his slightly parted, pale lips. Fuck. He pressed his finger onto Fenrer's ribs. His glyph spun into a small bubble, but the water engulfed it.

Oh no...

"You can't die here, Pyren," Reyn hissed and swept air over his face. It sparked to life with sharp edges to catch the wind and return it to the dying Storm Warden at his knees. Air glyph set to follow his direction, Reyn laced his fingers together and set it on Fenrer's still chest. I won't fail you this time. Elbows straight, he ignored the weight of water as he drove his hands into Fenrer's chest with the timing of a heartbeat. Each one left Fenrer unresponsive, but the air whisked into his nose, ventilation against the current.

"Come on," Reyn hissed, fighting his exhaustion with each pass.

I need to see you breathe.

His arms complained at the pressure he put on them, but he refused to bend for anything but his people. Droplets slicked off strands of his own hair as he tried to bring Fenrer Pyren back to life. "Come on," he begged, and snarled. "Come on." Repetition to the heartbeat. "Get that damned water out..." Tension threatened to freeze his muscles, but he let the air pass through the glyph.

He remained unresponsive.

Just choke it out! Breathe!

Pain cracked his face, but he continued until he heard water crack.

It bubbled on the edge, and Reyn waited the vital second when it spluttered past Fenrer's lips with his hesitant choke, but not enough. Never enough. Reyn waited for it to subside before continuing the airy compressions. "You're not done yet, Fenrer," he soothed the half-dead Storm Warden. "You're almost there." It bubbled underneath his hands, the push of water. I need to see you breathe.

His arms burned.

Come on. Press. Come on. Press. Come back to life, Pyren.

One more into his chest, to the call of Haneka.

Water splattered out with Fenrer's gasp as he latched onto his weak forearms. He coughed, choked, and twisted onto his side with his assistance. Reyn kept him steady when he shuddered, then heaved out unpleasant globs of brine. "Ancients," Reyn whispered to them, his own body shaking from the exertion when Fenrer stopped throwing up. "Fenrer?"

"Need to get to them..." Fenrer rasped, a foggy gloom in the spirals as tears, or rainwater, dampened his cheeks, and he went to stand.

Reyn scrambled to stop his immediate descent when Fenrer fell to the pebbles.

He breathed, but the test remained.

I need to get him to the castle.