FENRER

Ancient marble stuck through parts of the rock face, where Neven guided them into the darkness, and his crescent blade shone a nascent gold. Yuven clung onto Fenrer's forearm, using him as a shield, as he promised to be.

"Just stay behind me," Neven said when they ventured further into the old parts of the citadel. "There must be a way out onto the mountain paths somewhere if we keep going." His feathers bounced along with the rainy wind they left behind.

Yuven hesitated on the edge of the shadows, and Fenrer gasped when Yuven tugged him back with a wild shake of his head. "Nex! Nex'gral d'lo!" Tears ran down his round cheeks and his poofy feathers fluffed out in alarm. Fenrer winced when he drove his fingers into his and trembled and a soft squeak left his next chirp of words, "Nex."

Neven stopped at the sound, his pointed ear flicking back to them before testing around with its movement. "D'lo crex du'lo. " He waved at the darkness then patted his crescent blade with a warm smile. "Zeh'se nex'fasz lohma."

His head spun at the exchange of Navei. "What's wrong?" Fenrer asked, though Yuven refused to answer when they followed the golden warrior deeper into the shadows. He shuffled forward and tugged on Neven's sleeve. "Is this an old part of the citadel?"

Neven spread magelights from his palm, a dance of sapphire crested glyphs. Yuven shrank closer to him at the light. "I'm certain it is." Neven limped on his ankle, where the hot aura formed jagged teeth. Winter's promise fought against the pain. Behind him, the icy maelstrom intensified.

"Yuven, it's going to be okay," Fenrer said and squeezed his forearm. "I promised I wouldn't let anything hurt you."

Neven quickened the pace into the shadows, and Yuven whimpered. One of the magelights returned to its owner, and he dropped the winter light into the abyss. It touched the bottom, and Fenrer sighed. At least it's not a big drop, like the ridge...

"I'll go first." It took Neven a small hop to get to the bottom. Fenrer winced when hot pressure centralized into a knife across his foot. It buckled his ankle, but Neven steadied himself on the rock. "Alright. Come here, you two." He outstretched his arms.

Fenrer let go of Yuven and took the offer of help Neven provided. On solid ground, he checked on Yuven, who loomed on the edge, though stepped away when Neven held out his hands.

"Nex'gral d'lo..." Yuven whispered a broken song of his iceborn voice. "U'lo nex'rue d'lo." His breath hitched and the crimson thorn dug deeper.

Exhaustion and frustration swept a flurry through the winter aura beside him. It disappeared in a light breeze. Neven kept his hands outstretched. "Nex'wut u'lo."

Whatever Neven spoke caused Yuven to climb down the rock himself, though he flinched when Neven went to assist him. He hugged the rockface, but he stopped when Neven flourished a magelight from the tips of his fingers and placed it in his palm, which spread light over his shadowed face. Golds illuminated the rest of the tunnel, and Fenrer took one side with Yuven on the other, closest to the glow. Cracked marble formed out of the molten carved tunnel. Neven eased his quick pace as he hobbled along against the pressure in his aura.

"You should watch where you step." Neven tested a tile with his good foot, where it cracked and sprinkled dust into the cavern below. "I doubt this place has seen upkeep for a long time. I'm going to have to tell Warden-Commander Faehariel about it." He pinched his chin and smiled down at him. "You know, if Kemal doesn't murder me first."

"Okay." Fenrer followed his exact steps.

So close to freedom, he stopped when Yuven sniffed and cried.

"We're almost there," Neven soothed in Common.

Yuven wiped his cheek with the cuff of his sleeve. Tears tore through the ice and melted it into goo. Fenrer wasted words, but kindness prevailed. He returned to Yuven's side, then wrapped him in an embrace. Pebbles clattered with his footsteps, and he ignored the slump of the mountain when it sagged at his heel. "It's okay," he whispered. "I promised—"

Quick footsteps and gold-scaled wings spread out around them, where a well of winter water spun into a weaved glyph. Fenrer gasped when the floor cracked and yawned into a steep slope. Worlds slowed when a beautiful ice glaive slammed into the glyph, and he found himself tangled into webs of snow with Yuven, though the ice glaive slid with the pebbles, it lodged into a break, and the golden wings fluttered, and Fenrer held his temples when a singing screech gasped through the air, and the golden wings disappeared with the crumble of a wooden platform. Clouds of dust answered the call of the several splintered cracks.

Knees burning, he whispered, "Yuven, was that you? Are you okay?" He tore off some of the webs, and Yuven shook his head with wide-eyed fear.

"No... Molvisaliz. It was Neven." Yuven indicated downwards.

Fenrer gasped, and tried to untangle himself from the cradle. Water dripped onto his face from the melting ice glaive, but he flinched when white glyphs spread out from Yuven's hands and rolled down the wall. Caught on a small platform when the glaive dissipated, Yuven held onto him when it followed the tracks Yuven created.

Both of them landed and Yuven's platform cracked with his friend's startled cry at the force. "Neven!" Fenrer called and scrambled to his feet with Yuven, who sped into the dark without the fear of before. Wooden supports broke against the ground, sprinkled with golden dust. Among the ruins, Neven Lotayrin, a shell of golden scales as he laid on his side, eyes closed.

Shells.

Fenrer searched for life within the snowy murk. Yuven approached Neven with a soft cry, and he latched onto his shoulder. "Touvo'jo..."

Air tightened in his lungs and the tunnel constricted as shame filled the icy maelstrom. He suffocated on its torment and it bled his heart.

Neven remained still as death.

Fire blasted into the shrines. Arrows whizzed through the smoke and carried a message of cruelty. No! Fenrer grabbed onto his temples as Dad cupped his cheeks and made a promise, though prickles of pain swept up his massive spine. No! We just fell! We fell! I've fallen down a ridge before and I didn't turn into a shell! No! Why are his eyes closed? Why isn't he responding? Emerald leashes drove into the splinters of the construction platform, and Yuven turned to him with confused concern. We're fine! But why isn't he awake?

He lost himself in the burning world, where Dad stood in front of him with his dying aura. "I'll come back, son, the dawn must always return."

It wasted away with his emerald power, and Father never came back for him or for Mother, and Neven never roused.

It breathed with colour, and he stilled when Neven groaned and brushed dust off his face then hauled himself to his knees, feathers sprayed in haphazard directions. Jade claws died off the wood splinters as Fenrer dragged his fingers down his cheeks, following the salt trail of his tears.

Yuven crept closer to Neven when he rubbed the top of his head with a wince, fangs bared in frustration. "Why?" he cried. "Why do that?"

Confusion and disorientation swirled winter. Neven's fangs slipped back behind his lips when he raked his fingers through his pale-blonde hair, wincing when it touched a hotter spot in his aura. He brushed it further, then whispered, "Are you two alright?" He gazed at him, then frowned deeper. "Fenrer?"

Shells.

He sat there until winter smothered the flames of crimson summer when Neven scooted for him. "Oh, Molvei'saliz. It is okay. Look at me." Neven's shadow engulfed him, a giant in his own right. A wyvern. Yuven scrambled next to him. Fenrer forced himself out of the path of the arrows and raised his attention to the sapphire abyss. "I am sorry for scaring you two."

Fenrer reached out and hugged Neven and colors filled the dead shells. Yuven widened his eyes, then copied his motion of an embrace, pressing his cheek into Neven's arm. Neven looked between them with a blink of his vertical pupils of confusion, then wrapped his arms around them both. Yuven released a soft sob, digging further.

"And that is why I don't rock climb," Neven joked and held them tighter. "I'm okay. I just hit my head a little too hard... and all of me."

Discomfort rippled winter, but Neven stood against it and hauled all three of them onto their feet.

I want to go back to the garden. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want the flames to keep following me. Fenrer held on tight to Neven when he dragged them both, and it took too long to reach the light. Fenrer laughed against his trembled tears when they wandered outside, through an entrance of lichen. Rain drizzled across the air, with the storm making its way past the mountain.

"Excellent." Neven rubbed his head. "Stick close. I can find my way from here."

"But you're hurt..." Fenrer grabbed his arm.

"I'm okay," Neven repeated. "Let's just get you two out of here."

Yuven went silent as they stuck close to the Storm Warden. Lamps lifted across a familiar mountain path, to the monuments of wyverns and hippogryphs.

"Nev!" Fenrer lifted his head at the voice. Magelight in hand, Kemal glared down at them. Annoyance and worry flashed through his dark, genuine aura. "Ancients, do I even want to know?"

"I know you will, anyway..." Neven stumbled, and Kemal steadied him with a scoff.

Fenrer stopped when Yuven dove behind him as Warden-Commander Faehariel raced for them across the green fields.

"I found them, Commander," Neven mumbled. He held on tighter to Kemal and pushed his hand over his eyes. "... opened up an old tunnel..."

"I understand, Lotayrin," Warden-Commander Faehariel said. "Tyronai, you should take him to the infirmary. I'll come talk to you after I've talked to Fenrer and Yuven."

"Sure." Kemal hauled Neven up when his knees buckled. "Yuo is going to have so much fun with you."

Fenrer planted himself in front of Yuven, a shield as Kemal and Neven hobbled off in sync.

"Miss," he said to the tall Elvkin. "It's not his fault."

"I only wish to know what happened, nothing more." Faehariel examined him. "You both need rest. Fenrer, go on ahead, I'll bring Yuven to you once I'm done getting the information from him, okay?"

Fenrer checked with Yuven, who let go of him and nodded.

"It'll be alright," he reminded him. "I promise."

Fenrer rushed out of earshot, but glanced back. Faehariel knelt in front of Yuven when he hugged himself. He tore himself through his unease and raced into the citadel, but hesitated outside the infirmary, but continued on to leave Neven to his own rest. He shut the bedroom door behind him, and waited, then waited some more. Shells broke into pieces at his fingertips, and he paced around the flames.

He stopped when someone opened his door.

Warden-Commander Faehariel stood there, but not alone.

Yuven kept his gaze trained on the ground, a more annoyed expression twisting his cheeks.

"Fenrer," Faehariel said and nudged Yuven into the room. "Yuven's going to stay with you while I have a long discussion with the Trainee's."

"Okay." Fenrer headed for Yuven when Faehariel left them. "What did she say?"

Yuven ignored him to stare at the tapestries in the room. His nose scrunched when he opened up his Navei notebook, rifling through the pages. A noise of complaint slipped through his fangs when he whipped around and held the notebook open. "Solisequn? Suns of queens? Nex, Molvisaliz! Nex! Nex!" He tapped the passage, and Fenrer jumped when he pushed the offending page into his face. "Solise'qen! Solise'qen! Queen of the sun, Molvisaliz! Not suns of queens, no sense!"

Fenrer puffed his cheeks and pushed the paper off his nose. "I told you I was still learning! Neven was helping me!"

Yuven did a little stomp hop with a hissing huff through his nose as he rifled through the rest of the pages. He tapped a different passage with a scowl. Energy flowed through the maelstrom once more, and Fenrer smiled at Yuven's attempt at returning to the connection Fenrer tried to create. He raised his hand out, but Yuven stopped mid-tirade. Walls of ice grew around his aura when he placed the notebook on the desk, then hugged himself.

"Why follow?" Yuven lowered his head. "You almost fell... into ocean. Neven, he—" He whimpered. "He slammed into that platform harder than he admitted, and... It should've been me, Fenrer," he rasped. "... He protected me, like he said he would..."

"I told you Neven was good," Fenrer insisted. "You're already in pain enough, there's a thorn in you."

Confusion settled across the violets. "Thorn?"

"Yes." Fenrer nodded. "It's crimson, and it's lodged deep, but I think if I can get stronger, I can pull it out."

Yuven raised his hand to his throat with a soft noise of realization. "You... don't know?" He pointed at himself and his thoughts stained the blizzard crimson. Shadows hissed and writhed in the shadows. "You don't know... what I am?"

"What do you mean?" Fenrer asked. "I'd say you're a Naveeran about my age. Small, but you're super powerful, like a flare in the night."

Reyn's aura was the same way, but Yuven's is on another level.

The icy maelstrom relaxed into a gentle flurry. "Corruptor," it was the same word which left the Trainee's mouth. "You don't know?"

"...No?"

Towering spires built on the foundations of Yuven's pearly thoughts, crushed into crimson dust. "Derelict took over me," he admitted and hugged himself. "Monsters twisted... from myself and my magick." One single flash of opalescent flames, and the shadows screeched and burned into golden dust. "It was ripped out of me... it was only way."

Derelicts...

Crimson eyes of relentless hunger for a feast. Its tongue licked across the dirt and spread the abyssal taint of the Echo Obscura. Then Neven's flight into the jaws of danger, crescent blade in hand. Golden stars fell along the world when he sliced through the monster without hesitation, without terror.

"You're still in pain."

"I... I am a monster."

"No. You're not." Fenrer came closer. "The Derelict, yes, but you are not. You are you. You are not the Derelict."

Fenrer jolted when Yuven burst into tears. "Stupid Molvisaliz!" He cried, and then embraced him. "Stupid Neven! Why? Why protect me? Why are you so nice?"

"My mom once told me kindness would always win above cruelty," Fenrer said and returned his hug. "True strength comes from compassion, not physical force, she told me. Not hurting others."

"People not like you, no one..." Yuven shook front he shadowed beings turned into light when Fenrer sorted through the pearls.

"I am a Pyren," Fenrer whispered with the weighted meaning of his family name. "Our family was born of the dawn, and the carriers of wolven loyalty. My ancestor was the Wolf of the Silver Dawn. He split the crimson sky in half with the blade forged from the molten light of the sun."

The dawnblade that Father showed me in that crypt, but seeing it... was it truly capable of that? It just looked like a... nice sword...

Yuven eyed him. "That sounds like a story."

Fenrer beamed. "Silver light heralds the dawn."

The dawn must always come. It must always return.