ADARA

He was so close in the distant horizon, the spirit's future untold. As his voice reflected through its ancient wisdom and became clearer on the journeyed path. Her fingers drifted across his palm. Lost in the waves and the bloodied thorn in her heart, she smiled at a singular passage, a story unfolding right in front of her. He led her in the steps of the dance around them until it ended all too soon, and he bowed to her. His mask's feathers weaved with the motion of his body, while everyone else's stiffened in awkward tension with their partners, seeking an ulterior meaning for the closeness. Fenrer had become the same ethereal Avaerilian she first saw with Yuven, a wyvern in humanoid form. Nobles whispered, with the Hanekan diplomats slipping out of the doors with the largest one sending a quiet word to Hayvala, who nodded. Fenrer held out his arm, and Adara took it and hungered for explanations to her burned questions.

Adara hesitated at a harsher chirp of Navei from the crowd of older men who loomed on the sidelines. Distaste narrowed their pupils when they gazed at Fenrer and the departing Hanekans. Hayvala's contented expression twisted into one of irritation, her own fangs slipping past her lips when she left her partner's side with a firmer tone, causing the older noble to twist his nose to her. He motioned at Fenrer with a singing scoff, and Adara frowned when Fenrer's arm slipped out of her grasp.

"What's going on?" she whispered and feared for their escape and sense of safety.

Fenrer's attention drifted between Hayvala and the older noble, who sneered at him with an uttered word. In an instant, Fenrer's brow furrowed and he nudged her out of his reach. "Leru'zila Hayvala," he replied with a wave at her, and she stopped, though the older noble widened his eyes at Fenrer's Navei. People scrambled to the sides when Fenrer came to a stop in the middle of the dance floor, and he whisepred something in the song of the Avaerilians, with a single name uttered on his lips. King Reyn. He glanced upwards, and Adara jumped when Hayvala slid over to her.

"What's going on?" Adara pleaded.

"I bid him make an impression, and that is what he's going to do, by way of the Wyvern Flight, a very old dance that not many know anymore, is what he told me. I can only hope he meant it when he said he knew how to dance to our song, I almost couldn't believe it when he said it," Hayvala whispered with a concerned crease to her brow. "For King Reyn, he still needs to play the part of one of his diplomats. He's going to make my people see that the sunlands are not what they have been told or believe. I do not think he will convince the eldest among us, but the young might see it with clearer vision." Sadness lowered her feathers against her ears. "I wish for this Trade Deal to work. Just watch. You'll understand."

Adara watched and wanted to understand.

The Wyvern Flight?

Wind hushed through the single crystal chandelier when Fenrer raised his hands out and closed his eyes. Snow fell around him in a swirl of patterns. Glyphs bloomed from the thin layer of ice on the ballroom floor. One of the musicians tipped their head in startled confusion at his motion, then eyed Hayvala, who nodded. Hesitation crawled through their expression when they brought their lips to the iceborn flute. The others followed their lead, staring at Fenrer in disbelief.

"Why are they looking at him like that?" Adara questioned.

"You'll see."

Notes sprang out into the air, and serenity fell upon her mind when she swayed to the tempo of the flute-player, joined by the chorus of lutes and violins. Hayvala rested a hand on her shoulder as added support. Fenrer's eyes opened, and the green swirls responded to the light as he tugged out an icy glaive from a rising glyph. Wings shaped its shaft when he shattered the glyph it came out of with a single, clean swipe. Magick hummed through the instruments of the Avaerilian people. It set embers alight underneath her skin, a prickle of energy against the lulling tug of sleep, not entranced by the music, but by Fenrer's tempo matching it.

As he had done in the field of the dead, he repeated among the ice. He flowed with the glyphs spinning around him, spinning out of one when it burst into a puff of icicles, avoiding every one from tearing into his skin. Memories pierced the head of an Iceshard when Yuven's mirage echoed the reality of Fenrer, the ice glaive leaving his hands to parry another one falling out of a glyph. Both shattered into snow. It gathered around him and created the same wyvern mist which came to her rescue and birthed Yuven Traye. Flurries burst across his field.

The Naveeran's stared at him in disbelief.

In her peripheral, Hayvala brought a hand to her mouth and tears danced in the moonswept pearls. In an eternal loop, Fenrer spun across the snow's flow, carried by the icy melody. In a swept instant, the two ice glaives reformed, the final imbalance. He slid into them with a glance downwards when the glyphs they sprang from drove their focal points into the shaft. Two misty chakrams slipped into his hands when he flipped backwards, slamming both into the two glaives before landing on both feet without a single hint of fear. He rose into a flourish, tearing the ice glaive to their wings, which sent a veil across the ballroom. He came to a stop, then dropped the misty chakrams out of his hands with a smile at the older lords, and the music twinkled to an eternal sleep. He rolled his neck and bowed to them.

Hayvala's hand drifted down her chin.

"Wow," Adara whispered. "That was amazing."

He's amazing.

The Naveerans around her turned to statues, entranced by Fenrer who straightened himself out. His chest heaved with exertion, but Adara frowned when Hayvala cupped her elbow.

"Go to the gardens by the embassies I showed you," she instructed. "He will be right with you, but you will not have a lot of time. We have one last thing to do."

Yuven. I'll get these two home.

Adara rushed out at the distraction and through the palace courtyard. It swirled against her ears and she drew her furs closer to her face. Warm prickles attacked her cheeks, and she questioned the endless mirage. Snowroses bounced in their plots against the wind when she came closer to the small square of embassies, with one of the braziers shining through the gray fog. Confusion spun her around and almost made her knees buckle. I thought... he was dead... Yuven said he was dead.

"Adara."

The world turned her around.

He headed up to her and tore his mask off with a quiet huff. "I'm not dreaming," she rasped. "Fenrer." Against the thorn trapped through her heart, she wandered over to him and squeezed his forearms. "Gods! You must tell me what happened." It exploded in her chest when she brought her hands closer to his warm cheeks. "What happened to you? Why are you here?" she stammered out her multitude of questions when he rested his hand on her forearm. "Yuven told me you—"

"It's a very long story, but I came here for you two," he replied. "I would have your side as well. First, we need to talk about Yuven and the situation, and what Queen Regent Hayvala thinks is the best course of action." Harried desperation filled his face, twisting his cheeks. "I haven't been here for very long, but we must make sure Blackwall does not—"

The thorn bled out her pain at the loss of those she loved the most, their names once on her lips. Cracked against the walls of an old citadel, and his voice drew her out of the despair of another long gone to their endless fight. Compassion drove her through the stories of cruelty. Her lips pressed against his, wanting to taste the relief and hoped for its reality gone too soon. Warmth traced against her when she drifted off his, and he went dead quiet. Her mind slammed straight into her body, and she let go of him. "Gods! I am so sorry!" she rasped. "I'm just—I'm so happy you were alive and I thought you were dead and—" Adara waved her hands through the air and chewed on her frazzled nerves before they came out of her fingertips in screaming flames, and Fenrer raised his own. She rested her face in her hands and cursed the burn of the love in an inferno.

"It is fine," Fenrer said, and she frowned at the wheeze on his voice, though she found it difficult to tell if it was from laughter he fought to hold down, though from the alarmed expression on his face, it wasn't. "I am happy you are well." He hesitated, then shivered and muttered, "Can we talk closer to the brazier?"

"You have to tell me what happened first," she begged for the closure she would never get from Tara when they came into reach of the brazier's flimsy warmth, with Fenrer leaning his shoulder against it. Dark circles rested under his eyes, and Adara came closer. "Are you okay?"

"I don't recall too much so you are going to have to forgive me if I miss details," he whispered, and he drew his tongue over his lips. "When that Iceshard stole you out of sight, Yuven tried to get me up, but I knew that for us to have a chance, he needed to get to you. They... did something to stilt my magick when they sliced me. You were our charge, and at least I failed to do that one thing. Protect you. But what I could do is give Yuven the ability to see it through, but I had to make sure he couldn't be followed. We were getting pincered on both sides of the cliffs." His breathing tightened and came out thick mist through his nose when he tucked his shoulders into his neck. "I let go."

"You what?" Adara rasped.

"I let go," Fenrer explained. "I can only assume I fell into the ocean. I thank the Ancients that the sea wasn't so merciless as to pummel me against the rocks below."

Bile swirled into her throat. "Gods, how are you alive?"

Fenrer squinted when a flurry whispered across the path. "I don't know, Adara, it's all nothingness to me. Last thing I recall clearly was Yuven screaming my name, and then waking up in Sivaport, not knowing how much time passed since. King Reyn saved me though," he admitted. "And now I'm okay, I'm alive and I'm here now. We need to get to Yuven, have you seen him?"

"Hayvala was going to bring me to him after the dance," Adara whispered.

"Good. You must do that. Tell him I'm here and I'm sorry," he said through a rasp when Kazmira's shape crept closer.

Adara stopped him by his forearm. "Are you sure you're well?"

"Yes." He shivered. "Just need to get warm by the hearth, and then we're getting out of here. Together. All three of us." He trembled, then smiled through a struggled inhale scattering across his chest. "It's going to be okay. We're going to get back to where we left..." Adara touched his shoulder, and he gazed at her. The twilight plume of the phoenix whispered through her fingertips when she tightened her grip on his collar. It tickled at the weave of fabric, and she pushed out the cold with her fiery tempest. His attention drifted over her face, and he said with a little less trembling, "You are getting better at control."

"Not enough, I can barely procure a spark in this air," she whispered.

Fenrer winced. "Yes, there is something about the flow here that is... stagnant."

"Fenrer—"

"Adara—"

Both of them sucked in their lips.

"We can talk more once we have Yuven and are out of here," Adara steadied herself on the ever-shifting current of her life. Out of Prunal, forced to hide her magick from those who feared it. Into Dyrin, where the true horrors long revealed themselves and their depravity.

"Yes."

Adara twisted to Kazmira when she waved.

Pain replaced the taste of relief on her lips, while Fenrer's parted as if he longed to say something. "Get inside," she said. "Hang onto my magick... just don't let it knock you out."

He smiled, brighter than the sun above the thick clouds full of snow. "I am properly braced for it this time around. You have no need to worry about me. Just get ready to leave on a moment's notice." He nodded at Kazmira. "And get my message to Yuven."

"Of course." Hesitation clasped her legs, but she pushed through it and left him beside the brazier, curling into his shoulders when he disappeared through the low-hanging fog.

Adara held out her hand where a silver spark gasped for life, and she crushed it in her fist. His warmth twisted into something draining and cruel. You were burning up... I could feel it through my magick when I touched your skin. I didn't notice it until... Embarrassment slammed her thoughts into an endless spiral and she slapped her hands into her cheeks as Kazmira guided her back into the palace. Gods, I'm a mess! I can't believe I did that!

Yuven was going to kill her.