ADARA

Notes on the wind screamed out isolation in the freeze of embers. Out of the warmth of Haneka and into hells of white, she kicked, thrashed when armored Sentinels grabbed her and Yuven from the Iceshards who nursed their wounds and battered pride with shuffled annoyance. Marble parapets held the massive opal studded gate that led to a city of gray peaks and dim lamps. Blackwall handed something to Master Mazril, who swiped it out of his fingers with a quick hiss and a dismissive wave to the rest of the Iceshards, who disappeared into the flurry without another word. Their boots scrunched in the layer of snow over the stone path, but she scuffed it out of reach and tried to scream out to the ashen blaze inside her. Her touch to the flow. It froze at her fingertips, a broken piece of glass.

"Let me go!" she gasped when they tugged her out of the frozen hells and inside a giant foyer to a crystal palace, though Blackwall remained outside with a curious twist to his lips before heading a different direction. Wyverns breathed out flames to the tops of the white pillars. Other Sentinels came close to restrain her, while one hauled Yuven from underneath his arms, a fog over the familiar violets of her traveling companion. Her heart lodged into her ribcage at the weight in her pocket. A carved wolf, deprived of its beautiful howl. "No!" Adara thrashed and drove her foot against their boots, metal tipped with skidded claws. "Why are you doing this? What have we done?" One more kick, and she hooked the scales across their armor, but they drove their fingers into her forearm. A single warning across tongues.

Yuven's silence chilled her. He, who scoffed at the Summit and demanded the return to reality against the shadows. The fight left him as his eyelids fluttered and a thin layer of mist breathed out his nose. Her fingers dug into the arms of the scaled knight, but it pricked her skin to try and grapple them. No! No! Adara whipped around, to try and reach Yuven, but they kept him out of reach and started to drag him down a separate corridor. Her promise. Her wish. Silver embers tickled, but the cold stifled it to nothing, stealing it of life.

I need to fight! I need my flames!

It died.

No... Weakness drained into her legs at Yuven's grief and fury over Fenrer's demise. No, it can't be real. This can't be real. Bled through the heart, a wedge of a thorn, she writhed and stifled a sob.

"Ne'ax!" a sharp, commanding voice echoed through the icy foyer.

Every scaled knight stopped and turned at the voice. Yuven slumped into the arms of his captor. Around his neck, the oath of the Storm Wardens, dim of the mixture of greens swallowed by icy whites. Adara winced when the scaled knights stood straighter at the approach of the newcomer — a new enemy.

"Leru'zila Hayvala," the knight who gripped her said in the same cold dialect, but the words fell at her feet when a woman of white came closer, brow furrowed in confusion and disbelief. Pearls hooked into the loops in her hair and around her long, beautiful white feathers. Her dress hid the rest of her body, wrapped in heavy furs as her feathers thinned when she swept over her and Yuven. Words bounced in the song of isolation, but the woman went quiet, eyes wide and the moonlit silver of her pupils twisting into the same draconic beads of Yuven's rage. A ferocious truth to beauty, and Adara took her chance in the silence.

"You have to let us go!" she begged, and the woman acknowledged her when none would. "We didn't do anything! We were supposed to go to Euros! Why did you attack Storm Wardens?"

Her brow furrowed further when the words continued, and Adara's shoulders sank when the knight shook his head at her. "Sorlu, Leru'zila. Zila'ken Navei'al."

Whatever the knight said to the woman of white created an instant effect of carved irritation in her lifted shoulders, a quieter hiss leaving a puff through her nose. Her slender fingers clenched, but she tucked them in her sleeves with a blank stare, before she stepped past them as if on a mission, going past Yuven and into a large corridor.

"Yuven!" Adara screeched when the divide grew larger. "You have to get up and fight! That's who you are! That's all you've been doing since I met you! Don't let these people win after what they did to Fenrer! Isn't that what you said?" Tears drifted down her cheeks at his smile and his distant seaborn voice, but the ocean showed no mercy to her children. "Let the world burn!" Another thrash, but the knight held her stiff in their arms and the distance expanded from the end of their journey, so close to their home. "You have to wake up!"

Away from the one person she dismissed out of hand, when he put his life on the line to get her to Euros, she drove her teeth into her lips when the knights restrained her the rest of the way and out of sight of the main foyer. A spiral staircase took them upwards, but she tried to trip them with each ascending step. Thin glass windows revealed the frozen wastelands over the massive walls around the city, unable to see past the veil of constant snow and the swirl of gray death in the sky. At the peak of the tower, Adara stumbled when the scaled knights pushed her into a modest-sized room whose fireplace provided none of the warmth to battle the frost on the window. The howl of her heart bled with the wolven carving as she slid her foot against the ground, and aimed for the nearest protected shins. Her heel slapped into the white wood, and runelocks tightened around the entire circumference of the frame.

"Let me out, you shite-faced nuglets!" Adara screeched at the wood, though the scaled steps drew away and down the stairs, but she followed the drumbeat with her fist when she punched the door, her flames enraged, but stifled in the cruel icy stone around her. Her fingers clawed the air with her groaning squeal as she aimed her kicks at the desk. Parchments fell to the ground, a whisper on the wind. Flames crackled, but when she tried to pull it into the flow, it shattered into a thin veil of snow-covered glass. Her scream's echo died on her tongue as she raised her hand to her rusty lips before inching for the window to test her luck of the fall. Worlds spun at the distance, the gap to reach with no snowbank to save her from the cruelty of the ground. Gods...

In slow motion, Fenrer and the Iceshard careened over the edge though Yuven sent his own sheet of ice to stick her to safety. Metal tore from eroded rock, but Fenrer caught himself, but then they stole her out of view the moment Yuven divided his attention, and then the scream pierced the air with explosive force. Over waves, deep in the blue abyss, her heart faltered, fettered, and failed. Knees against the floor in front of the dying fireplace. Pale embers choked with no power to rise into a world-ending inferno, a spittle of warmth. Her fingers grasped inside her pocket and traced wood fractures. An expression of companionship. The wolf sat in her hands, devoid of true life in the wood. Deft and light, he returned the shavings to the dirt and paid tribute to the world.

"For what one takes... one must give in equal measure," Garren whispered the truth of his and Mother's conviction.

"My power is spent, but I must pay the toll your companion, Jisa, returned unto me with her own."

Her thumb brushed the ears when she brought it closer to her smoldering heart.

And you said to me that you believed. Adara rested her shaking hand into his warm, steady ones at the edge of her despair, the pressure on her mind nothing more than a blockage in a great river. You believed and refused to step aside. Is this the truth of my power? In what I take from the flow, I must also lose? Cross-legged, she hugged the little wooden wolf for an answer to the dissipated light. I don't understand why this is happening. Adara held the wolf to stare into its shaped eyes.

His last smile of faith.

A groan escaped past her lips as she tucked it tighter into her palm and fought off the tension on her brow. Time escaped her when she sat there with her hands in her lap and the wolf shielded in what flimsy strength she had inside her — strength she couldn't even use to save herself, or Fenrer, or Yuven. Steps measured across the dusk of pain, Fenrer stood up. Grass whispered in the moonlight when he faced down his father, long-sword at the ready, a firm stance into a fiery battle to heal.

The way he smiled behind the mask he wore and commented on her own haphazard one, guessing a raven.

The way he touched death and brought a tree of promised fruit back to life when Derelicts sought to consume all the world.

But... now that I think back, that smile never really did fully touch your eyes. You were carrying something — Sungrove? Adara put the wolf back into her pocket and dropped her head into her hands. And Yuven and I were too much in our own heads to... truly ask if you were okay. You never said a word. You never snapped until it got too much.

You avoided it.

Were you scared of something?

Questions unanswered, her shoulders sagged underneath the ice, but she twisted around at new, lighter footsteps. Ready to fight for her life, for Yuven's life and Fenrer's faith, she braced her legs and held her ground. It broke apart at who entered.

The beautiful woman in white, whose eyes spiralled in the same way Fenrer's had, but instead of a deep green, hers was a brilliant moon-touched blue.

A different scaled knight stood behind her, but then bowed in deference to her cold authority before closing the door. Mind thrown at the ethereal grace the woman held herself with, she forced out, "What do you people want?"

The woman in white released a plume of white smoke. "Often the world freezes before it burns," she whispered with a slight curtsy in her direction. "I am... truly sorry for this situation, for what it is worth, I do not seek to harm you or cause you further distress." Adara stiffened when she slipped a small package out of her sleeve to hold it out to her. "Are you hungry?"

"Who are you?" Adara demanded.

"Ah, forgive my lack of decorum, things have... put pressure on it," she said, then her feathers straightened to their tallest white peaks. "I am Princess Hayvala." One more light bow of submission not meant for one who possessed the cold authority she lacked, Hayvala stretched out her spine and frowned at her. "You are Adara Sazaka."

Adara jolted. "How—"

"My brother, the king, told me about you when I went to... discuss this turn of events," the last words slithered out of her tongue, and the draconic fury returned "Though his role in all of this is what I am still trying to figure out," Hayvala said without hesitation. "You are an Anima, reborn out of the ashes of the Void Era, among other things that he deigned not to reveal to me." Her hand stretched out to put the package on the desk. "It is just a poundcake from the palace kitchens. Now." Adara withered with her strong, but gentle steps when Hayvala studied the window of frost. "I wish for you to disclose to me what happened."

"Why do you care? If he's the king—"

Hayvala's shoulders slacked, but the slight motion silenced her. "I care because though my baby brother is foolish... it does not explain several things."

Her heart fumbled, and she chewed on her tongue. "I don't know why either. I wish I knew."

"I might be able to give some answers if you tell me."

Adara traced her wispy figure, then tried to shake out the confusion in her mind. "Why should I trust you? Any of you? You abducted us."

"I do not ask for your trust, I ask for the details," Hayvala said. "Adara, do you know where you are?"

"The Frozen Hells?"

Hayvala giggled, the sound a ringing comfort and soothed the fire left in her limbs. "No, but I understand why you would think such a thing. You are in Volaris, the current capital city... or should I say, the last remaining great city, of Naveera, the final bastion of our song." Her smile faltered, and the warm laughter died. "Your sadness permeates the air."

"You're an Aurus."

"I am."

Adara found the band on her forearm, then frowned. "I don't know what I could tell you that you might not already know already."

"Tell me anyway."

Princess Hayvala's insistence threw her for an uncertain loop, and she shuffled closer to the fireplace. "We were attacked while waiting for the boat to Euros, the home of the Storm Wardens," she whispered. "Yu—" His name froze her tongue. Adara pushed without it, "The man captured with me called our attackers 'Iceshards', though I have no idea what that means or who they are—"

"Iceshards?" Hayvala interrupted.

"Yes."

Hayvala's lips thinned as she tucked her hands back into her furred sleeves. "What else?"

"Blackwall mentioned that he needed the two of us alive." Hayvala's nostrils flared, but she gave no further reaction to the name, so Adara spilled out her bleeding heart. "We weren't—" Her tears cracked across her face. "It wasn't just us. There was another Warden with us." Adara dug her fingers into the ridges of her cheekbones. "They chased us in the storm, and an Iceshard froze the ground and—" Her voice wavered. "He fell, but then I got grabbed and I didn't see what happened to him after." Bile drove behind her teeth, so she blocked her mouth to not spew vomit. "He wasn't lying, was he?"

"Who?"

"The man that was captured with me."

Hayvala studied her, then said, "Tell me his name."

"Why?"

"You have hesitated speaking the name multiple times now," Hayvala pointed out. "A song breached. You are in a dangerous place, Adara, though I cannot ask for your trust, I am the only one who can figure out answers you cannot retrieve on your own. You are on a battlefield, thus, I must know every piece to this." Words firm, Hayvala's brow furrowed. "On my inner song, under the blizzard's curse, neither of you will come to harm from me or those who follow my word above all else."

Her voice, resolute. Her stature, unwavering.

"Yuven Traye."

Hayvala's passive mask broke. "Yuven Traye?"

It dawned on her, one piece of the answer.

Hayvala's hand brushed her white bangs back against the loops around her ears. "Ai, Boro'mal, fuxhun..." A sigh left her lips. "Yes, and that gives me a better picture. I thank you, Adara. If there is anything you require that is in my power to give, I shall also be leaving one of my Sentinels to stand closeby."

"In your power to give? You're a princess, shouldn't you just..." Her words faltered. "You should be able to just release us, can't you? Can't you do that?" She begged for an answer to the pain.

Deep sadness filled the blue moons. "I... I do not have that power as I stand, but I will do what I can to get you both released, but Adara Sazaka, heed my warning. There are dangers inside these walls. A sharp song of a game played by those with the power they'll never let us have. You must find your footing and keep yourself on the thin ice ahead of you, do not let anyone deviate you from the dance." Irritation curled Hayvala's lips into her fangs. "Think upon my offer. I shall come check on you to make sure you are cared for." Her wispy figure floated past her and back to the door, and the Sentinel opened it for her.

Left alone again, Adara headed to the package Hayvala left on the desk.

Warm at her fingertips, a poundcake sat in her palm. Jelly squeezed out of the top, but her tears continued to fall down her cheeks when she fell to the ground, on her knees, in the endless cold to stifle her powerful inferno into nothing.