ADARA

Every step she took, the snow caved in and went straight for her knees. White shadows shifted and created images in the flurries. On the wind-swept frozen plains, she wished for the ground to hold up below her, Yuven, and Fenrer. Teeth sharpened against the icy hail, and she slammed to a stop at the growl. "Yuven, I think there's a—"

Yuven shook his head in one wild motion. "No, Adara, whatever you're seeing is not there. You'd still smell the Derelict, it is this blizzard, it will play tricks with you to sway off course," he strained and tugged both her and Fenrer forward. "Come." He held out the frost compass in front of him, and Adara squished herself against Fenrer in support, with his arm hanging limp around her shoulders. "I am following this thing." He smacked his thumb against the glass. "I do not know if it is even working."

"It has to be," Adara gasped for air as they trudged and the muscles in her thighs screamed for another reprieve, but Yuven remained immovable and relentless, in constant motion compared to the icy kingdom frozen in time. Frustration expelled out of her fingers, and she gathered it all into a sphere of flames. Snow sliced through it, causing steam to ooze out of the holes it left. "I don't even know where we are," she said over the heightening howl. "Maybe we should stop?"

"We stopped long enough already," Yuven hissed. "We must keep moving as far as we can against this."

We're going to be encased in ice if we keep going. Adara tried to shake off the clumps on her pants, then checked on Fenrer, who slumped further with their movements, though he raised his gaze to her with a weak blink. And he's getting worse. Once the land flattened out, their pace quickened out of the dunes they trudged around. Broken ruins scattered across the immediate area, though the roaring mist blocked any hint of viable shelter, what with the snow burying straight into the cover the ruins would have provided. Adara clasped Fenrer's hand resting on her shoulder and hauled him along. His weight leaned further into her, and she came to a stop at the shift. "Yuven..."

He wasn't at Fenrer's side.

Yuven stood behind them, brushing his hand over his nose with a deepening squint. "Yuven?" Adara asked, a sense of dread slamming into her shoulders. "Talk to me." He swayed closer to them, his steps uneven against the wind, but Adara followed the instinctual terror to set Fenrer flat on the ground. "Yuven, sit down." Gods!

He collapsed and stiffened at her feet. Frost danced into the violet pupils. Adara acted against her own frozen terror when he convulsed and choked. Crimson drained into the snow when it squirted out of his lips, she set him on his side, stranded out in the middle of nowhere with both the Storm Wardens unable to move. I need to make shelter. I don't know how to do that! Adara clicked the top of the moonwatch before throwing her arms out for absolution from the blizzard. Silver lilies expanded outwards from her heels, and she longed for the cabin, the miniscule sense of safety Garren gave her though all the world saw her as nothing more than a blight on the land. Ice sliced into her skin when her glyph split upwards, a faint beacon reflecting off the falling crystals. Pain tore her ligaments asunder, but she dragged up the wind-sheared carapace and slammed it closed. Dusty particles fell from the force, and she sank to her knees, listening to Yuven choke.

"Okay..." Adara went to check on him, but stopped at movement from the other side of their shelter. Fenrer, with her crimson shawl still wrapped around his shoulders. Lips pale, he hauled himself into an ascent by his arms, flattening his palms against the ground. A bead of sweat slipped past his temple when he breathed deep, and the last thing she needed was him to get up. On her feet faster than he could move an inch, she raced for him and threw herself on top of him, forcing him back down to the ground below. "Fenrer, no, I can handle this." She patted his back when he winced. "Just don't move." Off his back, she examined him for further irregularities, but he twisted onto his back and said nothing, opening up his clenched fist to reveal a thick napkin, flicking his gaze in Yuven's direction.

Adara took it from him and returned to Yuven when the convulsions subsided. "Everything's alright," she said, to them and herself when Yuven coughed out the final dregs of coagulation. Blood drained out of her body when she handed the napkin to Yuven, who pressed it against his lips. "Do you know where you are?" His silence shook her to her core. "Yuven?"

He raised a finger, a momentary stop.

Adara checked on her timer.

A minute.

Yuven crawled out of the battlefield he left behind and nearly backed into her. "Out in the middle of nowhere," he answered. "I am Yuven Traye. I am a Storm Warden," he continued the questions she had yet to give. He nudged her out of his way, and slumped to his side. "Just need a couple minutes... we can get moving again." He wiped his brow with his free hand, dropping the crimson napkin to the snow. A feather slipped past his ear when he flicked it, whispering out of reach.

These two don't know when to quit, do they? Adara patted Yuven's shoulder, then once more checked on the other weakened Storm Warden, though her knees refused to stretch her upright. "Fen?" she rasped through her exhaustion and cupped his face with both hands. Her flames clashed with the fever raging over his skin as his breathing remained shallow. Eyes closed, he gave her no response to her prodding. Fear struck her heart when she left him to rest, with Yuven shivering on her other side. Oh, gods... we're not going to make it. Crystals formed over her lungs when she raked her fingers through her hair. Against the agony, she threw out the sparks of phoenix flames against the dome. It slithered through the snow and fell in heatwaves, but the cold chewed on it, bit by bit. No.

Out of breath and out of capability, she lowered herself to the ground and curled closer to herself. People jeered for a Magickae's death. Bells tolled for the swing of a headsman's axe. Beside the lake, she sat with Tara's shadow, too far out of her reach when she gave her a flower of silver lilies. Streams grew out of the pond and guided them along the cycle of life. It wilted into a torrent of flurries, the water freezing over in a slow crawl. "Adara," her name echoed around her, the pressure in her head insurmountable. "Adara."

Tara?

Tongues lolled out of the shadows. Corpses cracked their heads out of the lake. They cracked the ice when they trudged through it with their flesh hanging off their elbows, chewed to the bone. Her name raised on their lips of abandoned lives. "Adara."

Yet, sinking deeper still, the golden shaped crescent with the oath necklace made of jade disappearing into the abyss. Twilight stars lapped at her knees when she sat in the puddle as the corpses came closer, and the Derelict bones snapped into place with their reformation.

"Adara."

Adara slammed out of the nightmare when someone shook her. Yuven loomed over her, his eyebrow raised. "I'm up," she gasped and dragged herself upward. "How long was I out?"

"I don't know," Yuven mumbled and wiped his brow again. "But we've stayed still for too long."

"Yuven, are you sure—"

"I'll be fine. I think I have most of my faculties. Help me with him." Yuven waddled over to Fenrer and latched onto one arm. "I know you're tired, Sazaka, but we have to go."

Adara hauled herself past her swallowing weakness and grabbed his other arm. By his shoulders, they pulled him up with a bit of effort against his deadweight. Arm hooked underneath his, she straightened him out with Yuven's help. "Yuven, he's—"

"The more you repeat it, the more I'm not going to be able to move thinking about it," Yuven hissed through a corner of his lips and wrapped Fenrer's arm around his shoulders. "I know, Adara." He stiffened, then a shake went through his knees. "I feel his weakness more keenly than you do." A groan left his lips, but he broke her hut with one well-placed kick, which scattered the snow outwards. Some slipped from the attempt at a frozen burial, and they backed Fenrer out of its reach. "Let's just..." He waved his hand at the gray abyss. "Keep moving that way and hope we hit shelter, that's all we can do."

On they walked through the frozen ocean. Weariness tugged at her brow, but frowned at Fenrer when he lagged in their arms, a quiver slamming through his legs and chest. "I know, Molvisaliz." Yuven dug his hand around Fenrer's waist, but Adara planted her feet and tightened her grip on his other side, causing Yuven to stumble. "Adara, we can't stop."

"We are pushing him too hard, and you're also pushing yourself too hard," she argued when Yuven inched backwards to keep their squished sandwich of bodies symmetrical. Adara swung around for any sort of reprieve, but the mountains carved and disappeared into the mist. Rocky outcrops hung out of the snow, but not enough for shelter. Shapes untangled through the mixing current of wind, and she winced and drove the corpses out of her mind. "There has to be something."

"There isn't anything that you'll find out here that will help us," a soft plea left Yuven's lips. "I don't want to be doing this to him, Adara, but we have no other option." He heaved Fenrer's arm closer around his neck, and nodded before continuing through the sloping path. Her heart burned with the faltering fire deep inside her chest, forced to follow along. Shallow breaths danced between them, with Fenrer wheezing between them. Yuven mouthed something with a scowl of despair, hooking his hand into the back of Fenrer's collar. Darkness fluttered into a cocoon along her eyesight, but she pushed through it. A white glyph shimmered in front of them, but Yuven groaned and snow blasted back into their eyes.

Flames refused to answer once more.

Nausea swam in her temples and spun the world into a drain, but she shut her eyes tight and put one foot in front of the other. This isn't going to end. This isn't going to stop. Her hand found the shawl, and she gripped it tight with the urge to fly out of the gilded golden cage. Wings stiff, the rocks in her boots grew heavier the longer they walked. Steps faltering on the edge of freedom, she frowned when Yuven brought his hand to squeeze Fenrer's cheeks when he slumped forward.

"Come on, Molvisaliz," he urged and pressed once more, and the green spirals fluttered to life, a mixture of stars. His lips parted with weary confusion when cold mist left them. "You have to stay with us. Come." Yuven slammed to a stop and brought his other arm around him when Fenrer's eyes disappeared with his soft sigh. "Nex."

Snow crunched and hissed underneath her heel. "Yuven."

He ignored her and the quickening issue beneath their feet.

"Yuven."

"What?" he asked from his prodding.

Pebbles of ice rolled across the slope.

"Oh, Kah—!"

Adara gasped when the slope gave out beneath them. In a drain of white, prickled spines dug into her spine when she found herself. Bile rose into her throat when she tried to catch herself, but she slipped further and rolled to a stop on white cobbled stone.

Wait... stone?

Trails of snow skittered across the path. Faint orange lamps bloomed, mere wisps against the current. "Yuven?" she rasped, twisting around to find the two Storm Wardens. "Fenrer?"

Her heart stopped at the crumbled shape nearest her. Out of reach of the worst of the snowfall, he rested on his side and fear tore through her at the stillness of his body. "Oh, no." Numbness swept through her elbows when she tried to get up as the orange wisps taunted them with closing in curiosity.

Yuven pulled his head out of the snow drift and flattened himself on his stomach.

One of the orange lamps came closer, flickering with the wind. It grew into a humanoid shape, and the figure came to a complete stop at the tip of the road they fell on. Fur cloak wrapped around their shoulders, they tugged their hood closer to their face and moved between them. Yuven slammed upwards with a low, rumbling hiss of Navei, but they moved on to her.

An Avaerilian.

A question came out of their lips, their feathers spiked out.

"No, I'm fine!" she pleaded, then pointed at Fenrer with fast pokes into the air. "He needs help, please."

Though the language barrier kept them apart, the Avaerilian appeared to get her message. Gloves peeked out of their long sleeves when they headed for Fenrer, leaning closer to him as Yuven crawled his way to her and Fenrer.

The Avaerilian cupped Fenrer's face, then glanced up when Yuven bit out a sharp Navei word, though their response softened the pressurized atmosphere. "What are you two saying?" she rasped through her exhaustion, but the darkness swallowed her with the hungry smile of the Derelict hanging onto Rosa's roof, pointing at her with a single, unspoken word.