ADARA

"You are estimating a delay of the Euros ship due to the shift of weather?"

"Yes, Captain Traye," the Storm Warden said in front of a noticeboard full of papers marked with ribbons, taking one off its corner to write names on the back before passing it off to the courier. "The recent surge will continue throughout the week — and any sailing outside the gulf will be delayed for about the same time at least. A fortnight at the least." One leg went over the other as they swirled their quill in their fingers. "As for the Euros bound vessel... that might shift depending on how the sea is between the gulf and the Euros archipelago."

I can't wait for him to blame me for that one. Adara leaned on her heels to check on the split staircases leading into the second landing of the Warden Lodge. As with the Azahama building, a door sat in the middle of the split and led into the records of the Storm Wardens of the area. Flat on her feet, she frowned when Yuven brushed his fingers down his nose with a soft, rippling hiss. He dragged her from the Warden and glared at her as they stood underneath the glass skylight, where waves spun around the gray dome. "I cannot summon storms, Yuven, so don't look at me like that."

Another brush of his nose, he swiped his hand through the air with a snarl of his pronounced canines, but not a hint of accusation for things out of her control — out of their control. Left alone with the abrasive mushroom of their pack, she folded her arms and waited for some sort of signal of release from the icy atmosphere Yuven brought with him in his intimidating stature. Clouds rolled in over the expanse of the day, but she savored the mouth-melting meal compared to the gruel she grew used to in Prunal. He shifted in the beam of light spinning a pale yellow colour in the yarn of moisture. One last quiet scoff left through his lips, and he brushed the line of his jaw. "Where is he?" His snow-flecked feathers caught the moisture with a flick, and he folded his arms. "I want to get to Euros as fast as possible. No hold ups."

"You want to sail into a storm?" she questioned. "Next you'll suggest we try and go past sirens."

"I thought I was the only siren here," he mumbled and sneered at her. It carved an artistic spread of unearthly beauty across the snow. Adara scowled in return, no longer fazed by his striking appearance when a mushroom was less sharp. "I won't disappoint, I'm sure I can sit on a rock and sing you to your death? Tell me." He came closer, then showed her his fangs, the truth underneath the beauty — a fierceness of a powerful being. "What strikes your heart? I want to say food. I can sing about food."

"I get it. You won't let me live my ignorance of the world down." Adara stepped out of the outer boundaries of a wyvern's reach of icy flames. "I know you're not a siren, Yuven. It was a prod. You wouldn't sing anyway..."

Harbor bells sounded outside, over the endless streams of musical drum beats. The doors groaned open, powered by air magick. Fenrer stepped through, where his deep brown locks weaved with the ocean wind of his home. He brushed the side of his head and tangled the small braid with the wolven pin through his fingers, his expression emptied out of the previous tight emotion from before. A softer smile touched the crystalline green spirals as he shuffled up to them with a slight acknowledgement of Yuven. "I'm back from talking with Heiise Reyn."

"And?" Yuven pressed.

His thumb traced his temple without a full response to Yuven's poke of a question. "Nothing of import, he wanted to talk to me about how our journey went and some other things," he replied in the threaded, smooth dance of the sea song ringing through his words. "Get any news about the boat to Euros?"

"It will be delayed due to a forming storm." Yuven shook his head. "Because of course, I should have expected as much. Kejha, we are stuck once again."

"This isn't in our control, Yuven," Fenrer pointed out, and Adara picked out the weariness underneath his words. "I told you it is storm season before we left Fallholt, and you told me you weren't so arrogant to think you could fight the weather." Fenrer's tongue slipped between his teeth, and he gave them both a bloodshot blink. "I say we take this time to recuperate from the trip. We've walked for weeks. We need not be on Euros for that." He rubbed his back with the quietest of scoffs as he waddled past them.

"Where are you going?" Yuven asked.

"I am going to try and get some shut-eye for a few bells," Fenrer mumbled and brushed the back of his neck. "Unless there's something you need me for before I do so?"

Adara recoiled at the cracked tension between the two Storm Wardens when Yuven's pupils thinned into vertical pinpricks of obvious irritation. "Blink," she mumbled under her breath, and on cue, both blinked once more. Magick found in words, she pointed out, "I might do the same."

"No."

Adara jolted at Yuven's bluntness. "No?"

"We need to work on the next step of your training, since you claim to be so good at primordial shifting," Yuven pointed out. "You have catching up to do. Primordial Shifting was the start, Sazaka. I want you to create a glyph with what you've learned."

"I can't even have a moment to myself?" she asked.

"No."

A laugh built in her throat at his stubborn insistence, but Fenrer slipping a hand onto his brow caused her to falter. Strands of dark brown whisked through his fingers when he brushed it with a softer breath of exhaustion. Adara chewed on her tongue and the magick of phoenix fire inside her. "Please?" she asked. "At least let me study up on glyphs for a while before we start."

Yuven's nostrils flared, but Fenrer's stiff silence sent him to the library at the center of the lodge. Adara stood there with Fenrer and resisted the urge to hold his shoulder when he swayed with the waves outside. He came back with a leatherbound book with a giant rune on the cover, spiralling a rainbow of colours out to the edges. For a mercy, it wasn't a monolith like the one which took up most of her bag on their journey. Her head spun with all the information inside it, but he pushed the smaller book into her hands with a sniff. "Read this for two bells, that is all I'm giving you. I will come retrieve you when your time is up. Molvisaliz—"

Fenrer waddled for the staircase to crawl up them without another shared word.

Yuven scowled, and stomped for the doors.

"And what are you going to do?" she asked.

"I am going to try and find a suitable place to train," he said. "Go study, Sazaka. You'll find that book much more digestible than the measly five-hundred pages I gave you before. If I'm lucky, it might stick in your head long enough for me to be able to teach you something." He waved his hand in dismissal, and bustled out of the lodge and into the rising light of noon. Awkward tension gripped her elbows as Storm Wardens edged past her, but gave her no mind as they went about their duties for the world. Each one, with the star around their shoulders. Jolted to life at the sense of loneliness draped over her shawl, she rushed up the steps to see Fenrer's heavy frame heading for an open door.

"Fenrer?" she asked and hurried to him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just tired," he whispered with the same hand on his brow. "I'll feel better after I have a few extra bells of sleep." He dropped his hand to his side. "I'll talk to you both after. If you're looking for a quiet place to study, any of these rooms will do. Just make sure to close the runelock on the other side if you don't want to get walked in on." His steps stole him into a room at the end of the corridor, where he closed it with a gentle touch, and a green runelock spread throughout the handle.

Adara observed the actions, then picked a room off to the side before pressing her palm against the rune. Fear tore through her heart when silver flames chewed at the edges, but it took her magick in stride and blocked her from any white-haired intruders. I don't think doors can stop Yuven if he's motivated. A smile dug into her cheeks at the memory of Fallholt and Yuven barging in without care in the world, or the decency to knock. Though, I wonder if he forgets that doors even exist... Adara fell into the bed, where the mattress squeaked underneath her body. Soreness tingled out of her limbs when she rested her head against the fluffed pillow, and she relished in the sense of peace and serenity with the caw of gulls. Ocean whispered in her ears as she settled herself closer into the cocoon. Time to get started. At least this book isn't as bad as...

As it turned out, she should've known better when it came to Yuven.

Covers were deceiving, and she groaned at the complicated matrix glyphs and small passages beside them to denote the focal points and the concentrations for Primordial Magick. Pages fluttered against her fingertips when she tried to find a non-complicated explanation in the index, but she groaned when it gave her no help for her confusion. "I hate you," she growled and returned to the first page. Let's see... focus on the points within the flow to bring out primordial elements... Information blended between her temples and she tried to find a different page. Express the idea on the flow and let it ignite— Adara stopped as the blinds whispered with the wind, and she scowled up at the roof, where small bulbs of light danced in the hanging lamps.

I think I preferred reading those damned five-hundred pages. Adara snapped the book shut to set it on her chest.

Glyphs of ice and mist, swirling, curling with the unseen breeze. Sharp, but with a hint of softness as the twists created a shield of white when Soren's warhammer went for her jaw. Yuven protected her. It carved through the flow and stopped his advance. Guilt dug into her stomach at Yuven's blank expression when she accused him of sending those to die for a fleeting chance of a reprieve. Gamble taken, Yuven ignored her and called for the advance of fodder. Stubborn as thick ice, but ever-twisting to the situation as water.

Vine-wrapped focal points burst into grounded reality and bloomed into warm love and the power of nature. It cracked through the spine of the Derelict; the self-same vines embracing a tree and returning it to life at his whispered plea. Until it danced into the twilight sea and sent stars to their rest across the flow. Steadfast. Strong. Unwavering belief.

Signatures of their magick. The reality of their shared existence.

Adara held her hand, and focused on the matrix of her soul; her inner fire.

Silver auroras.

It pulsed and bloomed across the crimson teeth of the Goliath. In her scream, the flow answered her pain. An inferno swallowed fields of gold. Curse. Blight. A beacon in the dark. Her heart pounded when it surrounded her. Flames inched across the black tendrils of the Derelict and turned them into ashen stone. Too much. Too fast. Memories swelled at the bank of the lake and burnt the lilies. A hand wrapped around her wrist as she knelt underneath an unforgiving crystal of empty white. It pierced through Fenrer's swirls with the aurora as he held on tight, and she gasped at the past when it rippled across the air around him, swallowed into his body as he winced with the spirit's future untold.

Into a flash of white.

Adara snapped up from the covers, and the book clattered to the floor.

Some of the bulbs burst into her flames, and she sighed when the room went dim with the disappearance of the sun and left the clouds a furious grey. It pounded with the drum of her heart when she dug both fingers into her temples to pry it out. Ugh... is that Fenrer's mind weave... unravelling? Adara traced her own palm to check herself for the immolation in her memory. He... I thought it was just because my magick exploded, but no... No, he grabbed me and did something... In the dance of the dawn's flames as Fenrer dodged and the sprinkles of dying magick swirled around his body, only to explode outwards with fantastic force into the bones of the dead.

His bloodline magick.

Adara tucked her knees against her chest and sighed with the rumble of a distant storm. Her magick refused to obey at the worst of times, and unleashed the inferno at friend and foe. Yuven's words haunted her. Don't get too close, but I was apparently like this since I was born. Garren said I had too much of it. If I can't control this magick... Out of the comfort of the bed, she put the book on the end-table and left the room after cracking the lock apart.

I have some rotten judgement. I don't learn... Adara headed down the steps, where Yuven tapped his boot as he talked low to another Warden. His vertical pupils snapped to her, and he folded his arms when she rejoined him, and the Warden bustled out of view.

"You took longer to study then I wanted you to. It is in the eve and now it's going to storm."

Agitation bit on her spine, but she let it go with the rumble of waves. "Should we wait for Fenrer?" she asked.

"I doubt he is awake." Yuven's eyes went upwards with a roll. "You can feel free to see if he will come."

"Why don't you do it?"

"If you haven't noticed, Adara, he is mad at me." His feathers dropped against his ears, but he snubbed her. "For whatever reason, he's been more responsive to you, but if he's asleep, let him have that. I shall wait outside."

He didn't... Confusion coiled the agitation into a wound spring. I thought he didn't want me to get too close to Fenrer. Blades drove deeper into her memories and Tara's warm hands wrapped around her shaking ones. I don't understand. I want to know what happened — or do I? Adara shook her head as she stomped up the steps once more. Gods, why can't I remember things? Her own mind unraveled in front of her and stole the reflections Garren took into his own eyes. She knocked on the door he disappeared behind. "Fenrer? Are you awake?"

The green runelock broke with ease at her silver might.

His eyes, swallowed in flames.

Adara slipped through and sighed at Fenrer's slumbering shape. Floorboards creaked in the harmony of her footsteps, and she stopped at his bedside. He curled over the covers and buried his nose into the pillow. "Fenrer, Yuven's taking me to train," she said, rather stupidly as he wasn't awake to hear her words.

"Hm..." He hummed and snuggled closer into the blankets beneath him. "Illiaer..." His voice rumbled into a faint purr. It struck her own chest, and she stepped back to put distance between her and his rest.

"We shouldn't be too long... hopefully," she strained out. But you're so out of it I don't even think you're hearing or understanding a word I'm saying. "Have a nice rest."

Don't get too close. You know what happens. Everyone you love left, disappeared, or died... for you.

Adara followed the scream inside her mind to push out of his room, and never got too close to the unburnt world.