ADARA

—in the verdant ashes, the shadowed wings fluttered past the desolation and destruction. It screamed for salvation and burnt a spiral of orange smoke to obscure his path. Hark, the Dragon Knight, the last of his kind, the story told twofold. A promise made and kept. Wings of black scales shimmering with opalescent hues, he flew to the ends of the world, for his hope and ideal.

"For I am the last of my kind, holding their dreams upon my wings."

Tara smiled in her peripheral vision and closed the book, nothing more than a shade of history. Jisa always enjoyed the chapters of 'Dragon Knight' with her own rising ideals of the world unknown, behind the borders of Tebora where others shunned the shadowlands full of dangerous, corrupted magick. Undeterred by others thoughts, Jisa bounced right along with Tara's storytelling ability, and Adara listened closely, to carry the hopes and dreams with little sparks of defiance against the fate of all magickae in Tebora.

Tara gave her a rose when Jisa bounded off to return to the castle and her duties.

I'm going to prick my finger and bleed because of you, her complaint left a whisper on her lips, but the rose bloomed in deep reds as she thumbed the stem. I don't even have a vase for it. It's going to wilt away.

It bled not on her thumb, but her torn heart, a wilted rose drained of all its flow. Adara rubbed her fingers together as Fenrer helped Yuven pack their camp outside the confines of Wolford. Lamps hung out of the tall branches to guide them down the road through the underbrush, where the runes inside flickered for the arrival of dusk, powered by the sun when it drew its way around the world.

Don't get too close.

Blight. Tainted. Magick is a curse. Words said over and over by the Prunal residents, never knowing the truth in its beauty. It wound through the tree to tear out the shadows they thought it created — a soft, gentle light of emerald greens; a promise of duty against the dark. Her entire life, everything she loved, gone. Her power, never able to prevent the cracking of despair in her mind. Off the ground to rejoin them, she held onto the stories untold as Fenrer gazed at the distant path into the walls of Wolford, a small town hidden underneath the golden canopy. A lumber mill sat beside a branch from the main river, where the water wheel powered the building. One man pushed a log to join the pile, where a woman waved up to him with an axe in her hand.

"Fenrer," Yuven drawled at Fenrer's stillness. "What is it? Are we going to pass through or not?"

Don't get too close.

"We have to," Fenrer said. "But I wish to do something first before we ascend into the hills." Yuven's brow scrunched, but to her surprise, he said not a word to deter Fenrer from whatever he had planned. Fenrer tangled his finger around his wolf pin. "I can't help but think about what we overheard on the road," he admitted. "I wish to confirm a suspicion of mine. It should not take too much of our time, and it's on the way to getting an idea of what the roads are like through the goldwood seeing as it is storm season. We don't want to get caught in a mudslide." Fenrer smiled, brighter than the sun as he undid the pin and placed it in a pouch on his belt before fixing his hair, dragging his fingers through the dark brown locks. "Humour me, Yuven?"

"If I knew how to do that I'd have done it, but no, you don't laugh at my Ra'ik Ra'ik jokes. You don't want me to humour you; you want me to follow your random whim," Yuven shuffled with his leather armour to tug a hood over his head to hide his hair of snow, tucking his feathers deeper. "Fine, but I do not want to attract attention. We go in. Get information. Leave."

"What is the problem of following random whims, Traye? I say following the random whims has gotten things done." It set a spark alight in her throat with her snap. "We might learn something important. Hells, I might learn something important if you'd let me ask questions, but you berate me instead." Her boot dug into the dirt and longed to rip out the roots of her pain embedded in her heart. "We might be able to get stuff done in your desperate timely fashion if you stopped being a stubborn old nuglet."

His pupils thinned into beads, and the ears tucked in his hood twitched and lowered. "You ask pointless questions, is my problem—and what is a nuglet—?"

"Can we not do this here?" Fenrer asked and stepped between them. "It won't take too long, Yuven. Please?"

Yuven switched his violet-tinted eyes to her, then narrowed them at Fenrer. "I said fine," he dragged through his teeth. One more glance between them, he stomped through the underbrush to reach the road. Gone, a ghost in the flow at the shimmering ripple of his bloodline magick. It doused in the spring water of the silver mirror. Adara rubbed her nose at the gathering pain dancing along her brow. Cracks dug in her temples, and she tried to shake out the crinkling underneath her eyes.

"Are you well?"

Adara peeked over her fingers to Fenrer, who hooked his on the leather strap across his chest. Don't get too close? I must be cursed. "Just a headache," she mumbled, losing the story. "You wouldn't happen to be able to get rid of those?" His gaze swept up and down. Her aura. Adara longed to see the world and what she projected across the flow unseen — to believe the power she held inside her heart; the way Fenrer viewed it, instead of the wave of silver wildfire beset upon the Summit and the golden fields turned to ash. "Unless it's that obvious from the face you're making."

"You are upset, that much is plain."

I was never good at keeping a straight face... no wonder Tara never let me play cards. Her name left a thorn in her mind, a sense of dread covering it with the same words of never getting close to tear it out. "I just have a lot on my mind. We should head into Wolford before Yuven gets more unbearable than he already is."

Fenrer closed his eyes. "Thoughts buzz, or scream, or try to untangle through the mess," he muttered, then opened them to tip his head. "If there is anything I can do to help, you need only ask. I can't remove headaches at the snap of my fingers, but I am practised in unweaving the mess of thoughts when they bunch and clog the river of emotions."

Adara found herself smiling, a defiance against the isolation of Prunal — where the world bent to the shadows too easily, and no hero with a gleaming sword pierced the contagion in their hearts born of hatred from the refusal to learn and understand. "You wouldn't happen to be able to just remove thoughts completely? Empty my head, that sort of thing?"

"No." He laughed, warm. "It would be useful, but I can't do that. More would just take their place, anyway. Come on." He bounded through the undergrowth to rejoin Yuven on the road, but the words weighed down her soles when she went to follow him, his whim with purpose, if his interest in the argument on the road was any indication; whatever it was they spoke of.

No, it's not random. Fenrer has a specific reason for this.

Orbs danced in glass runelamps on the edges of the inward curling roof edges. Brown and black shingles gave off the appearance of scales to the building's architecture. Tough stone foundations held up the pristine planks of wood forming into homes along the valley edge and downwards where the river fell into a misty cascade. Dusk set the droplets aflame and set a glittering texture in the air of Wolford. Fenrer stopped them both with a point to the largest, two-story building. Music swung to a tempo, and Adara smiled at the revelry of those who sat outside, drinking from heavy tankards and bursting into laughter at their companion's words. Through the dregs of the misery Derelicts left behind, she slumped her shoulders forward at the one familiar thing out of her journey.

It's a tavern.

"You two hungry?" Fenrer asked. "We can restock."

Yuven folded his arms. "Fenrer, you know how I feel about these places."

"The best place for gossip is in a place where people congregate," Adara said and raised a finger into her knowledge. "And that, Traye, would be a tavern. People talk. And, sometimes they talk more when they're in their cups."

A lot. The amount of times she listened in on drunken rants within Prunal's tavern would've filled up her coinpurse more if they paid her by the word. Though, it left a sense of draining energy over her hometown. No one smiled. No one laughed. People ate and often tried to go on their way; or else to gossip about the latest suspected magickae. Wolford bounced with passion and joyful spirits when surrounded by the mud of Derelicts. Adara set her hands on her belt and grinned at the two Storm Wardens at her side.

"This is not my idea. I don't care for whatever gossip they have. Do what you will, Molvisaliz." Yuven tucked deeper into his hood and his feathers disappeared into the casted shadow. "You seem to think this will get us to Sivaport faster, but I hold fast to the fact we have legs for such things."

"I'll take that as a yes." Fenrer turned to her. "I will warn you nonetheless. This might be a bit overwhelming compared to what you're used to in Prunal."

"How so?"

"I'm afraid that I might've been holding back when we first met," Fenrer pointed out with a smile. "I didn't want to cause a scene and possibly make things more difficult for you, so I'm just bracing you for what you're going to see when we go in there. If anything, it'll be the best place for us to discuss things." He swung on his heel and headed straight for the double story tavern. Windows glowed to reveal the inn rooms over the main area. To her surprise, Yuven kept silent when they drew closer, and the distant laughter turned into raucous shouts to rattle her eardrums. Boisterous Hanekan's wriggled to the music in a stupor. At one table, a woman shook her head at the two in front of her when they continuously clinked their mugs together without drinking from them.

"They seem happy," Adara muttered as Fenrer pressed both hands into the double doors.

The outside never compared to the inside.

People stood at the upper railings and observed the constant commotion below. In the middle, a massive cooking pit. A spit hung meat over the flames, hooked to both ends of the protective stone barrier around it. Tables filled the area, with some sitting at the bar in deep conversation. One woman tucked her black cloak around her and drank from her own mug, with her flaming hair of red tied into a spiralling ponytail. Adara jumped when Fenrer tapped her shoulder, waving them to a quieter corner nearest a pair throwing daggers into a counting board on the wall. One knife slammed into the center, and Adara smiled when a friendly fist flew into a shoulder with a barking scoff and a good-natured smile.

"Here." Fenrer sat them down in a booth with a view to the cascade outside.

"So... do they just... cook in the middle?" Adara nodded to the large cooking spit.

"That's for big dinners," Fenrer explained as Yuven curled into the corner with a jutted out lip. "Or when the cooks are overwhelmed. It's a shared space."

Adara studied the amount of people. "Ah, people cook their own food the way they want it if they don't want to wait for it."

Fenrer gave one large nod.

Prunal was never this busy... A little spark of defiance. Adara touched the flames when she cooked the daily breakfast for those starting their day, to feel the truth under her skin — to accept it into herself. It refused her. It rejected her. Painful irritation swept up her arms, and she tucked them against her sides. "I am a little hungry," she admitted and shuffled for her coin pouch.

Fenrer raised his hand to her with a glance at Yuven. "More than likely they won't make us pay."

Adara locked her pouch back on her belt to rest it behind the frog of the dagger Garren gifted her. Another slam of wood made her jump in her seat, and the man at the game board snapped his fingers underneath his friend's nose with a curling grin to rival Yuven's devious one. Fenrer rested his chin in his palm and studied a group around the fire with pointed interest.

Adara straightened her shoulders when a tavern worker pushed through the gaggle to head for them, a smile on their face. Their gaze drew to Fenrer's crescent blade, and the light in their dark eyes brightened. "Storm Wardens," they said with a bow. "We don't get many of you going out this way recently. Do you three need some food, or rest? We might have a room free for you if you need the night."

"Just food," Fenrer said. "As well as some information, if you can give it."

"Kiian, what are you wanting?" they questioned and put tankards in front of them.

"How are the roads lately?"

"Quiet, for a mercy," the tavern worker responded, then eyed the loudest group in the center. "Well, as quiet as it's going to be, Warden. An odd Derelict or two, but the walls keep them at bay. Most of them are drawn to the hills more recently, if you're looking for a hunt. It's forced some of the king's knights to come through here instead... but our men don't like them stomping around the area, so." Their shoulders drew into a shrug and they tugged out a piece of paper.

Fenrer's eyes narrowed. "The hills."

Not a question, an observation.

"Yes." A sense of sadness carved ridges into their brow. "Not surprising, considering what happened thirteen turns ago. Anyway, what can I get you?"

Yuven shook his head.

Adara jolted when Fenrer glanced at her.

"Bread," she blurted out.

"Just bread? Nothing with it? We have an assortment of jams if you're not feeling up to..." Their nose flared when the shouting intensified at the cooking spit. "Hold a moment. I will give you time to think."

Adara tasted embarrassment, and she grasped for any sort of familiar foodstuff to comfort her for the road ahead, but she twisted around to check on them, a sense of concern filling her stomach at the boisterous energy too much for one person to handle. Her concern washed away into shock when the tavern worker bounced their fist off the side of one of their heads, catching their startled attention as they snapped in sharp Hanekan. Some bustled out of the way and took their conversation back to their tables. In her side eye, Fenrer grinned as the worker returned to them with an unfailing smile. "Sorry about that."

Adara blinked as they shuffled for a feathered pen hooked inside their apron. "Does that happen often?" she asked.

"What, that? Yeah, they get excited. No worries," they said and tapped the pen on the paper. "So, bread was it?"

Fenrer's attention returned to the scolded group, but Adara found her voice, "I'll also take jerky if you have it."

"We do." Another tap of the feathered pen.

It's a little familiar.

Orders taken, Yuven huffed when the worker turned and walked to the back pantry.

"I don't know what you're expecting to find here, Fenrer," he mumbled in his dark corner, his boots pressed against the edge of the table forced into the flooring to prevent any movement. "We could've figured out the state of the roads for ourselves without being told."

Fenrer set his hands back against the table with a nod at the group he focused so much on, the last ones who remained at the fireplace, and contrasting the happy energy, their faces contorted in irritation. "I've already found it."

"Of course..." Yuven swiped the mug into his hands.

"What is it?" Adara asked.

"I came here because I want to know the reason they aren't allowing the king's people through," Fenrer admitted. "Their auras ripple. A spark of flames to swallow a forest, charged by a bitter taste to send the inferno into the air." His smile died, and his brow furrowed. "They won't contain themselves if the argument continues. All we need to do is listen."

Adara listened for the biting flames, and it came out in harsh Hanekan as the fire pressed against the barrier with a touch of silver might.