ADARA

—High above the canopy, underneath the sprinkled sunlight, a sword marked a mound. A solemn vow of their sacrifice — everything they loved and gave up for the world. Left in the woodland quiet as time continues on, and takes with it the sword to turn it into old rust, and the vow disappears until another rises from ashes of conflict, following the legends of the old—

Snowflakes hovered around the rafters when she walked the path of unjustified means. People shouted for their sense of the scales. Bells tolled for the death left in their wake. Keeper Blackwall's fur cloak billowed out behind him when he led her deeper into the palace. Misty energy wrapped around her, and she held on tight to the one protection Fenrer gave her. Konyiiu, his Aeoniir. Familiar. The Keeper stopped in front of a pair of giant, circular doors lined with runes. Hands upwards, he waved them from the start of his fingers. Light bounced across the doors, and Adara shivered at the hum of wind released from the confines when it opened. Phoenix fire gave her a blanket of protection against the endless cold, but she followed him inside. Huge bookcases lined the walls of every level, and her heart bounced at the thought of the tales within. Little blue lamps hung on the ends of the stacks, but she slowed when Blackwall pointed to the center of the palace library.

Desks reached around the circumference of a perfect, spherical crystal of thick clouds. "This is what we call a world sphere," Keeper Blackwall explained as he was a teacher, and her nothing more than a student. "It's a crystallized collection of time's memory. Even Aurus would struggle to peer into this — a huge Obscura Text." He opened up the small passage between the desks. "Anima magick is not bound by time, by our limited sight of the flow." He stood beside the desk. "You need not dispel all the clouds, a sliver is all that is required."

Adara walked past him and stood underneath the sphere. Wisps floated from its icy surface and fell around her in wrapped tendrils. Bells rang out, and a crimson dusk fluttered at the edge of her memory. Viscera squished underneath her boot at the orchard farmhouse, and trees wilted into red ash. Suffocation pressed onto her chest from the pressure around it, and she looked at him. Knowledge sought, she found it in stories, in fairytale lies. "You said you're doing this for knowledge, to find the truth of the world," she said. "Back then you told me the Keepers of Pyon seek and study these things."

"Some things are forever out of our reach," he explained. "None have the magick you do, Adara. We have studied old records, have a minute understanding of Anima potential, but I had not seen its power come forth in this age until the Summit in the twilight tempest." He closed the small door between the desks and left her trapped under the sphere's influence. "If you are afraid of harm, do not be. You are not an Aurus, it will not affect you the same way it will affect Lady Hayvala or I. Your magick will uncover a pathway of time. You will be the first in thousands of turns to bear witness of what this world sphere holds, but for that, you must focus on the spark inside you."

Internal instinct. External focus. "The foundation of all magick."

Keeper Blackwall nodded. "The foundation of all the world, the echoes, and the flow."

Silver light tore itself out of the wardstone and catapulted fireballs into the fields of torment and hungry beasts. Her own breath echoed through her ears on the rising chorus above her head. "If knowledge is so important to you, then I want some of my own. I want you to answer a question of mine — a question that I haven't been able to get an answer to, and then I'll touch this sphere and open your path into history," she said through the noisy reflection. "You are clearly a learned man, surely you can answer one little question for me."

Keeper Blackwall tucked his hands into his furs. "What shall you do if I refuse to answer?"

In through her nose. Out through her mouth. Adara uncurled her fingers and allowed the wildfire to burn at fingertips, growing into a wicked flame. "Then I will show you once again what happened at the Summit, and completely shatter this crystal and everything it contains. I wondered why it is hiding this from the world, maybe it should stay hidden." Energy coursed through her forearm, and the embers licked at the bottom axis. "From what I saw... I could if I put my back into it." Adara tickled her inner fire. "You have everything to gain from just answering my question, and I don't think you're willing to take that risk, even if I don't know how, I'll find a way."

He considered her. "What is your question?"

Flames wilted into her palm.

"I want to know something about elementia crystals," she said. "Back in Tebora, my memories were crystallized within them, with a sacrifice done to ward them. Everytime I saw a Derelict, I would forget, but the penance was my Guardian's failing eyesight. But for the life I would never live, it took my mother away from me." Pain collected in her throat and she hugged the crimson shawl. "But for that same release, it took someone into it. Is it possible to tear them out of the crystal even if they don't have a body? Would their soul still exist?"

He folded his arms in thought. "It is true elementia crystals take what they give and give what they take. If this person was spirited into the pocket of the crystal, yes, their soul could still conceivably exist. The body is another matter, it is what keeps us connected to this plane instead of say, the world of spirits, the world where Familiar's come from, through someone's connection of despair, they ride that current and reform their bond to the world. Our sole anchor to this echo. Eventually, it would be assimilated into the crystal, and there would be no distinction between this person you speak of and the living magick within it." He dropped his arms to his sides. "Is that answer satisfactory?"

Gods, no... what did Jisa do? Adara chewed on her lip, and Keeper Blackwall narrowed his eyes. "Is there really no way?"

"I promised you one question, Adara Sazaka. I think that question of yours is up to you to find out for yourself. Magick has a give and take, an absolute, unchanging fact with no loopholes. Even Anima cannot break this law with their power." He nodded his nose at the world sphere. "See for yourself. Do not panic. It will feel like ages pass you by, but in reality all this will take is a seconds to a minute at most."

Temptation.

Godsdammit.

Adara lifted her hand and reached out to the mysteries of time and space.

Blood pushed through her ears when her fingertips grazed the burning, freezing surface. Silver oozed into the world, a veil of truth. Into the abyss of light, the mirror cracked beneath her feet with the sharpness of a beak. Air embraced her. True flight. Along the white canvas, black worms wriggled and splattered colours across the emptiness. Clouds, shaped by pitch, roiling with agony and hunger. Teeth stretched out of the moisture, a deep moan of the dying world. Blood rain fell across the mountain peak she found herself on. Spiderwebs of silver cracked at her footsteps and spread to the sky above. It crackled and broke. Adara raced to the edge at the sounds of hellish war. Arrows whizzed through thick, boiling, toothy fogs rolling over a golden army. On the backlines, giant harpoons installed into the mountain face, launched themselves with white power into the clouds, tearing at the coat of Derelict smog which blocked the sky.

Bile rose up at her throat when one launched itself at the installation and shattered it in two. Shapes scattered along the cliffs. Blood stained the rock and the world. Gods, gods, they're losing. Adara blocked her mouth when vomit threatened to burn her teeth. Another wave of arrows launched from the outcrops and into the mass pushing itself towards the mountain range. Each explosion lit up crimson orbs within the amalgamation of beasts, or a single one. Teeth impaled any who stood in its way. Others chewed to their marrow. Limbs ripped apart. Innards exposed when it tore through the vanguard like a scythe through red wheat. Fireballs fell from the sky and slammed into both sides, and screams pierced the air.

An endless, depraved horde.

In her peripheral, the silver cracks gathered.

Hair, white as snow, gently waving in the terrifying wind. Grey feathers weaved into a flourishing curl, where their horns rose into tapered tips. Beside them, a beautiful silver crescent blade dug into the stone, where runes twirled around the metal. It glowed in icy flames. Purity radiated off the hook, a swirling mist of power. "Yuven?" she questioned and headed up to them. Wait, Yuven doesn't have horns.

The man held himself somber and melancholic from the sight below him. Instead of fierce violets, stormy blues thinned into vertical pupils, though his jawline softened the sharp features. Around his plated shoulders, the crest of the Storm Wardens, splashed with crimson across the wyvern's wings and dripped down the star. Adara knelt beside him, and waved her hand in front of his face. He remained immovable, though he raised a hand to his brow in prayer.

"Lasen. Avarelia. I hope safety keeps you within the cradle of the tundra," he whispered. "Atoran, forgive me, for I have sent you against an impossible foe. You have served me loyally, without fail, and I mean to repay you. I can only hope I haven't sent you to your doom, and hope I shall see you in the sky. I will catch you." He leaned over the edge and stared down at the endless fighting and bloodsoaked ravines. "Sylvia, my daughter... know that I will do everything in my power so you can live in a world without fear."

Twisted crimson teeth grew out of the nearest low-hanging cloud, a tornado of red hunger. Its low groan roared in her ears and sent a shiver up her spine when the man launched himself to his feet, gripping the silver blade in front of him with a plume of steam passing through his lips. He scowled, and his fangs revealed themselves. Moonlight sprinkled through the air when he raised the blade, and Adara stepped back from the whirlwind of his presence.

"For we are swords against the darkness, a shield of light against the obscurity of the inferno," he recited when the monstrous gale whipped closer. His snarl turned into a wide, Yuven-esque, wild grin. "Underestimate us at your own peril." Twisted claws latched onto the edge, and Adara screamed when he brought the crescent blade down on its nearling, lolling tongue. It expanded into a larger mirage, shed off the unseen moon. It carved a ravine through its face, and it screeched and split apart while teeth grew along the sinew.

Malignant wings formed out of the Derelict's back in its vain attempt to fly. Cascades of shadowy liquid fell from the opening the man created. Glaives of ice exploded from points within the army's heart. A giant ice wall formed to protect the wheat from the reaper's scythe. It spit globs of decay at the man, who dodged out of them and ran along the mountain paths. Adara found herself grappled by time and followed along his path as the Derelict dragged its malformed front across the mountain, scratching at the rock and devouring the world. He ran for the final edge, and Adara gasped, "Wait!"

He jumped. Glyphs caught him from landing into another Derelict's wide mouth, and the pressure sprung him off an ice spike which drove into the back of its throat. Adara held her ears at its quaking scream when the momentum of its wraith sent him upwards. One lone man against the fury of the sky.

"Atoran. Lasen. Avarelia. Sylvia. For all those I have sent to their deaths to stop their advance—" Adara shuddered at the familiar words when his descent began when his glyphs broke. "For I am Euron Traye — and I will not let the abyss swallow this world, and every life upon it!"

Distortion rippled through the world, and she gasped at his powerful voice and the force of his name.

White light cocooned him when he fell, but when a Derelict latched onto it, it shattered their teeth and broke the egg apart. Wings of feathered scales stretched out from the falling star. Horns pierced through their mandible when the creature born from the man drove itself upwards with its own singing, animalistic screech.

It can't be...

Equal to the Derelict, tearing talons drove into its lower jaw.

Yuven said that...

Wyverns long died out.

A song cried throughout history when it tore through the Derelict with a vicious lunge. It slammed it against the rock face, smearing its bloody shadows across the crags. Her heart pounded with true flight when the Derelict lunged with a second set of jaws.

The wyvern flashed out of existence.

A beautiful melody rang from the clouds. It nose-dived through the smog, allowing the night sky a breath. It opened its mouth, and the melody went into a sharp crescendo. Silver flames dripped from its maw, and it unleashed the inferno onto the fog below when the shield of ice angled itself upwards, and sent a concentrated dose of her very flames into the tempest of shadows.

Another shape ran across the mountain when the Derelict untangled itself, with the wyvern twisting around. Armor wrapped around their horns when they bounced onto the Derelict's muzzle, driving their glaive into its tongue, their clawed boots driving into the gums. It sprang, and the wyvern banked when the pressure of magick sent them upwards on their own momentum. They landed on one of the extended pikes along the wyvern, leaning against it.

Right beside them, Adara gaped when they patted the back of the wyvern. "It is almost time, my king," he whispered, hanging onto one of the spikes. "I wish you luck, I will hold the line, I swear. Ser Zamira has already put down the shield wall. We can give you time." The wyvern named Euron Traye blinked, and its gaze lowered. The armored figure balanced on one of the spikes and shook their head. " I know you worry, but you must trust me. I do not intend to die here."

The wyvern swooped, and the man jumped off into a trail of golden glyphs, rolling into a landing before rushing along the rock path. Adara held onto the wyvern, whose feathers tickled her skin. History rippled with untruths, and she held on tight when the world shifted into a teleport, a pure movement unlike Yuven's spatial distortion. Adara coughed at the waft of decay over hot desert sands. Twisted worms rose out of the ground, opening their jagged rows of teeth to crack into buildings dotted around the dunes.

The wyvern sighed and cast a shadow across the sand, eyeing what rested behind it, a long line of red crags. He continued his flight past the jaws of the horde inching its way around the star. Adara groaned when her vision blurred and became nothing more than static when he landed in a deep cavern. Wait, what?

"You had us worried for a second, Evyriaz. We're just waiting for the dawn."

Evyriaz? He said his name was Euron!

Adara twisted to Euron Traye when he transformed back into a man. Decaying flesh oozed out of the archways, with the sky above the same crimson smog. "He will come through," he whispered. "My Storm Wardens are doing all they can to stem the flow on the other side." His shoulders slacked. "Ojain, how is the tear?"

...Ojain?

A woman with long black hair formed into braids came from around the pillar, then nodded at the static ahead. "Ivara is there now, ready to bring forth evenfall," she said. "Pyon has left to gather some information, but I know we're out of time... there is one last thing I would do."

Adara followed the two Ancients, flanked by them as Yuven and Fenrer had done a long time ago, through the veil of static. On the edge of a massive ravine, the edge of the world, Ojain pointed. Ruins splattered crimson, where tumorous bulbs grew within the old cracks. Air rippled with energy around a split in the very world, lined with electric teeth. "Ivara!" Ojain called to another woman sitting against the edge, who stood up and raced for them. Her horns swirled with jewelry, and she sighed at their approach.

"Ojain," she whispered and clutched her hand. "I have been waiting, but it is growing larger. I need that opening to the sky."

Ojain. Ivara. Pyon... Euron? Or Evyriaz? What is history showing me?

Despair imprisoned her with the truth.

They're not deities.

They were the Anima.

"Adara," Blackwall said through the fog. "You must focus."

I don't want to watch anymore! I know what happens!

Corpses laid around her when she stood underneath the gaze of the Ancient's statues. Fenrer's memory. A quiet whimper brought her back to the cruel past when he hid himself in the wolven headdress, drowning in his own tears. "Fenrer..." she left history and reached out to him, one last comfort for an innocent soul.

The world popped.

Adara lifted her head when a beam of sunlight sliced through the smog and split it apart in a single, pressurized wave. "Ivara, you must!" Ojain gasped, clinging onto the other woman's arms whose eyes widened in horror. "You must trust me! You must fly! Bring back the cycle!"

Images broke apart history.

No!

A child hummed in the corner of a cell.

A small, white-haired boy sat on the edge of the bed, clutching onto a wyvern stuffy. He nuzzled its wings, and her heart turned to dust when their eyes opened to reveal violet irides. No... Adara sank to her knees when he raised the wyvern into the air with an innocent smile of wonder and awe as he continued to hum out the same song the wyvern sang through the clouds. His smile touched his eyes when he let it float back down into his hands, then hugged it close to his chest. Innocence against cruelty.

Fury lit up her flames when the boy looked up at her.

Yuven.

Flesh wrapped around the tear, with something pulling itself out.

Ojain stood in front of the expanding void, and all went silent.

A sigh left her chest, and she twisted around to face her. Starlight danced on the swirls of her irides. "I do not want this world to disappear," she said as the dawn rose on the horizon. "For those who have sacrificed their lives. For the next world we will never know. I will give myself to stem this tide, and have faith." Ojain walked closer to the gate when it yawned. "Protect them well. Protect this world and all who dwell upon it. Ivara, I'm sorry, and I love you."

Wicked tendrils inched out of the gate.

No!

Chains broke apart to the scream of the same phoenix from her dreams.

Something woke up.

"The Anima didn't cause the tear," Blackwall observed. "They gave us time against this apocalyptic foe. The idea of Ancients were born through their sacrifice, but... it's always easy to pin the blame on someone."

Adara choked out pain and fell to her knees beneath the sphere, back into the cold of Naveera.

"I thank you, Adara," he said, and it sounded so genuine. "We have a chance to rectify our mistakes. Let us return to the throne room so you can be with your companions once more."

Their faith is a lie... an illusion no one can remember.

Inside the throne room, she shook on her knees and held her throat. By the time Fenrer returned, she embraced him and stifled a sob when her fingers brushed through his fluffy dark hair.

"Adara?" he rasped.

"I'm just so happy you're still okay."

He returned her embrace, and in her peripheral, Hayvala stood by a pillar with a smile while King Laucan took his seat on the throne, heavy in the shoulders.

"Now," Fenrer said. "I want Yuven Traye."

"Here you are," Laucan said with a point at the doors, where armored footsteps echoed.

In the light of a lie, she swallowed the dark of a truth.