ADARA

Cyan light flickered on the metal sconces attached to the underground of the alchemist's house. Permafrost cast a layer of eternal ice over the carved stones, a foundation of cracked truth and the torment outside. Hayvala's words rang out to her, a subtle warning of the fate of most Avaerilians — buried underneath miles upon miles of snow, creating white mounds of graves out of huge cities. Shadows danced underneath the firelight of magick, and the chill persisted in the air and dragged its teeth across her skin when she found what the alchemist attempted to point out to her through a chirp of Navei. A metal studded door curved across the opening it hid, and she tugged at the two handles. Inside, a row of partitions hugged against the wall with small cubbies meant for clothes. On one rack, undergarments with taped Navei writing on top of them. Towels hooked on the racks, and her head spun trying to decipher the language. Footsteps dragged her out of her confused stupor, and Yuven Traye strode around the corner.

"Adara," he said, then cast his gaze around the room.

"I thought you were with Fenrer — how is he?" Struck by alarm when Yuven held his hands out, her mother's crimson shawl draped over his arms, she waited for the dread which followed her life.

"He's alive," he said and took a strange interest in the corner by the door. "He wanted you to have it back."

"I gave it to him because it was all I had that could keep him warm." Adara folded it and frowned at the marked racks.

"Dirty clothes go there," Yuven pointed at the one hidden behind a screen. "I am not going to be a messenger between you two. You can go try and convince him to keep hold of it if he's awake, but I doubt." He waved his hand in dismissal.

"What are we going to do until then — what does that say?" Adara pointed at the undergarment section.

"Sauna robes — and the only thing we can do," Yuven answered with a deep, weary sigh. "I once told Fenrer I was not so arrogant to think that I can do battle with the Hanekan weather, I am less so here. When our only option is to move, to continue moving so we do not freeze to death — you don't get your pick of fatality out here, at least you can see the Hanekan weather change." He folded his arms at her when she sorted through the robes, and she half-expected an irritated quip of time wasting to leave his lips when his fangs slipped over his lips, but he stood there in silence. His feathers fluffed out, and he added, "As such... we aren't leaving, not with Fenrer in the condition he is in. He was barely coherent when we briefly spoke. So, if you intend on visiting him, do try to keep your voice down."

"I'm not that loud," Adara muttered. "I have experience keeping my mouth shut, Yuven." She slid open one of the partitions with her free hand. "I'm going to try and get our clothes laundered, dry, and warm for when we do leave." Though I don't even know where their washboards are or... whatever they use up here to do their laundry. Adara chewed on her tongue, and Yuven raised an eyebrow. "You don't think you could ask them if I could use their washboards?" Though considering this environment, I have to wonder how they even get water and any soap suds to not freeze instantly.

Yuven drew his attention over the supports along the walls, and Adara frowned when he shoved himself into her chosen partition to rub his hands against the panels. He dug his fingers into a small lever, then tugged out a long rack, then dug through the small hatch beneath it. Adara blinked when he pulled up a string of carved pebbles and hooked it on each section of the rack. "Ai... lern'forasz..." Glyphs sparked across the runes on the stones, bouncing their way down the thin line.

"What in the hells is that?"

"Your washboard." Yuven sniffed and pushed his glyphs into the hatch below. Steam fluttered out of the vents he closed. "Try not to take much time. I am going to try and get us supplies ready while we are waiting for Fenrer to recover." Adara tried to peer into the section of the wall he pulled out the rack as if it was a rabbit in a hat, but he waddled out of her way. "You stick your clothes on line and push them in. It will do the rest." He fixed his sleeves and stomped out of the room, shutting the door behind him with an eerie groan of metal against stone.

Adara closed the partition and stared at the strange, definitely not a washboard. Frost-bitten clothes torn off, she pinched them onto the rack as the steam hissed with her touch, taking care to extend her mother's shawl for a deep clean and every little bit of steam and warmth it could hold at once. Air swept across her bareskin, and she wrapped herself in the robes, tucking the creases closer and adjusted the long skirt across her thighs and made sure everything was covered from the elements oozing inside the half-buried house. Washing rack pushed back into the wall, the lever snapped into place and the runes along the panel shone bright whites. Her finger traced the top rune, and silver light tore through the edges and locked the bottom. Weird. Adara left the privacy partition and headed to the next door, opening it into a small room. Benches rounded a centerpiece of runes, and small faucets peeked out from the rocks, aimed at the small divots in the floor.

On the peak of the strange pillar, a small brazier. She closed the door and investigated the contraption. Embers rose off her fingertips when she held it over the brazier. Auroras fell in sheets of mist and filled the runes within, and she jolted when it burst to life in the same flaming silver lilies. On her ass when the faucets burst out water and hit the lower pebbles, she leaned against the bench when steam filled the room. As she waited for the ice to escape, she sighed and crawled higher for the taste of heat against her firebitten skin. Humidity stuck across her brow and she breathed deep for her own energy. Hand unfurled, she focused on her internal heartbeat. It coursed through her ears and blood, the call of the twilight phoenix rippling the umbral mirror of stars. One more exhale, she drew it closer on a focal point, and a glyph birthed from her dreams at the final, blooming finish of a silver flower. Tangles of flames wrapped around each other. Another inhale; magic tightened in her lungs. I am an Anima... surely this blizzard can't stifle all of my inferno.

Another added breath, and she stretched out her fingers. Ash fell in waterfalls from her glyph, a sputtering attempt against the stagnation in the air. Shoulders loose, body relaxed, she continued counting her internal heartbeat, and allowed the flames to flourish. Her glyph sparked, and swept into a ball of flames, bouncing across the dark stone of the sauna. Work unfinished, she held Fenrer's magelight in her hands, and it sparkled across the last remains of her glyph, and she followed its cry across the expanse of evenfall when it crystallized into her own magelight.

It floated out of her hand and stuck itself to the candelabra on the ceiling.

Don't let anything stifle it, Adara set her hand on the bench and gazed into its glassy surface of windsheared fire and exhaustion pressured her temples. There is something in the air here, but I don't know how to describe it... It's sort of like magick itself is stagnant here. Her head pounded when the humidity intensified with another hiss of the pebbles, and ice melted away from her soul. Laucan's desperation for another world stuck to her in Jisa's voice.

Prunal can't be all there is to this world, she pointed out scratched names out on an incomplete map.

And I don't think the world out there is as scary as people here want to believe, Tara finished and held tight her storybooks of heroes and dragon knights. Legs tucked, she held on tight to their voices — the last reprieve she gave them for her own abandonment of their dreams. Her one escape.

This world isn't fair to people who don't deserve it. Adara sent another ember into the peak and observed the glistening sparkles between the pebbles, all the way down in a cascade of love. The silk robes stuck to her damp skin, and she listened to the hissing hum of Naveera itself. Wyverns in humanoid, fae-like shapes. Stories of the ice fae and their mighty icebark trees, resolute against the coldest of climates with their strange fruits of sweetener tastes, down to the tiniest snowrose, blooming still against the blankets of frost.

Darkness hung over the world when she glared down at her knees, and when the sparkle dimmed and the flames died, she got out of the small room and kept walking through the blizzard. Into the partition, she undid the clasps and checked on her clothes. Steam burst off the fabric, but when she followed the woven trail, she buried her face into the fresh, dry fumes. Robes folded, she placed them to the side and returned to her regular clothes, but found herself unable to return to the comfort of her crimson shawl. Her fingers traced the fluffy hem, but she nudged the washer back into the wall before putting the silk robes in the dirty rack Yuven pointed out to her.

Energized with the fires of life, she headed back into the main house, past the double doors to the storefront. Orange lamps swung outside the hastening snowfall, where shapes rushed to and from buildings with their heads buried in thick bonnets or eared hats. She went for the single closed door, and opened it.

Yuven sat beside Fenrer, mouth buried in his knuckle as he studied him. His gaze drew over to her.

"I'm done," she said.

"I can see that. Good to know you can figure out how to use old-fashioned cleaners." Yuven returned his attention to Fenrer's sleeping shape. "I had a talk with the alchemist, and they directed me to some places where I could get some supplies." He leaned back when Adara pushed her coin pouch into his hands. "What?"

"I don't know if it'll help, but use that money to get us supplies," she insisted. "I'm not going to be using it."

"You do realise I am not broke?" Yuven hauled out his own coin pouch, tied with the sigil of the Storm Wardens. "I can pay for supplies."

"Just in case."

A soft, irritated puff left his nose when he took her coin pouch and dumped what she had into his. "I want us to be more prepared," he mumbled and got out of the chair. "Stay here and keep an eye on him, I will be right back. Upstairs they set beds for us."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

Yuven peered at her. "So you can stand there while I haggle with stubborn Avaerilians and have no idea what we're talking about?"

"... noted." Adara took his seat. "Good luck."

"I won't." Yuven grabbed a cloak off the hanger within the room and swung it around his shoulders, tucking his face into the hood and tied the inside scarf around his face. He cast one last look at her and Fenrer, then closed the door behind him with a click of the bronze lock.

Adara smoothed out her shawl across her lap and listened to Fenrer's deepened breathing. She scooted her chair closer until her elbows sat on the edge of the bed, and set her arms across each other. On the edge of his ice carved glyphs, onto a dance along the oceanic waves, she cursed her bled-out heart. The flower Tara handed to her lodged its thorns into it, and she rested her brow on the heel of her palm, poking Fenrer's sleeve. I dreamed of this, but they wanted this so much, pushing me to take that one leap — while I was just trying to get by and survive. Sinew tore off of shoulders with the thunk of an axe, and she sucked in her lips. Shawl in her hands, she got out of the chair to lean over Fenrer, who gave no response to her approach. Hand on his shoulder, she slipped the shawl around his shoulders once more, tying it close to him, but she froze when his eyes drew open. Jade crystalline fluttered on a galaxy of stars when his pupils expanded and he looked her in the eye.

"You don't have to do this," he muttered. "I know what it means to you."

"I know, but that's why I'm doing it. It kept me warm... so maybe it'll do the same for you," Adara said and tied it, then sat down with her fingers drifting on the hems. "Yuven went out to get some supplies. But how are you feeling?"

Fenrer squirmed, then frowned. "I am okay..."

"Fenrer."

"Strange how you two but heads but sound so alike sometimes." He smiled. "Very well, I feel less like I am standing on the bridge of death, but..." He placed his hand on his chest. "The alchemist also left to grab me something for sleep... though I don't know how long ago that was. Time is slipping past me again." He squinted, then dropped his hand back to his side. "I am sorry if I concerned you both and to have ignored Reyn's words."

"What did he say?"

"To not overexert myself."

"Yeah." Adara stifled a laugh. "I don't think dancing was the best idea."

"It was fun." Fenrer sighed. "I resent myself a little for saying that."

"Why?"

"Because of what Yuven was bearing through while we did that," Fenrer said and shivered into the shawl. "I know I had to play an act to not arouse too much suspicion, but it still felt wrong."

I... know what that feels like. Adara scooted closer, and dared to touch the strands of his hair stuck to his brow. "You did what you had to do — more than enough, if you want my opinion." She rested her lips against her fingers and felt the betrayal of the warmth. Even if I feel like I'm the one who went too far.

Fenrer mumbled without much reaction to her touch, "It will never feel like enough, but thank you for your words, Adara, it does help a little."

"That's what I'm here for." Adara lifted her hand then hauled herself out and tasted the outline of a connection. "I'm going to let you sleep. I'm tired myself. Yuven said once you are recovered we'll get moving again." On the edge of the abyss, she tucked her hands closer to her belt, then whispered, "Fenrer?"

He glanced at her.

"I did have fun," she admitted. "It was nice... to forget for a moment. Honestly, I should be thanking you and Yuven for a lot."

"We should be equally thanking you," Fenrer said. "At least, I should thank you — for listening back in Sungrove." He laced his own fingers together. "Maybe it was foolish of me, but... you helped me."

"How?"

"You reminded me of our own words," he murmured. "Of the heralded dawn. I..." He went quiet, then shuddered on an exhale, a sense of weakness digging into his brow. "I needed it." He toyed with the tie of the shawl. "This, as well. I appreciate it, and I intend on returning it to you when we are out of Naveera and back where we ended."

Adara beamed. "Just get better. I'll consider that thanks enough."

He shook with an inaudible chuckle. "As you wish... I'll consider it thanks enough if you just hold onto that compassion you have. It's rare enough in this world, Adara. You still need to tell me a Teboran tale."

Against her blood-soaked heart and gripping uncertainty, she inched closer, then nuzzled his cheek and rested her lips against it. One second too long, she drew back and ignored the flaming screeching in her own face when Fenrer tipped his head at her. "And you still need to tell me that Hanekan love story."

"It's not as happy as I think you are expecting it."

"It's probably better than whatever Garren told me."

"We'll see. I'll tell you when I give this back, how about that?"

"Then I'll share a Teboran tale when that time comes," Adara said through her screaming flames. "Just get some rest, or Yuven will kill me."

"He gave me experience pretending to sleep, you have no need to worry."

Adara smiled at him, then left the room to give him his peace and serenity, while a raging inferno burnt at the thorn which refused to tug itself out.