FENRER

Silver smoke brushed against his nose when the saucer floated in the essence, a glimmer of liquid magick. Violets. Ambers. Azures. Each one mixed within the confines of creation, underneath the shadows of the Ancients. Hold the Gate closed against the obscurity. He knelt at Ojain's paws, hands over his eyes. As I seek the strength of the Traveller for the journey ahead, take the piece and hold it closed. He mouthed out the last part as he sat in the castle's large shrine. Aqueducts flowed underneath thin glass, a main purifier of the hallowed dome. Smoke furthered the burn in his lungs, but he remained there, grasping his starlit connection into the icy maelstrom. Bells clinked against the ocean breeze which slipped through the carefully placed holes in the walls. Hands in his lap, he observed the silver aurora's dance across the auric flow.

"Does Bryn know you're out here?"

Fenrer glanced at the visitor, whereas Yuven announced his presence long before he entered, Reyn held a steady quiet, where his auric storm flashed with light. "I needed to clear my head," he admitted his deception. "So... no, they don't." He rubbed the back of his neck when Reyn came to his side, then knelt down on the floor with him. "Your Grace... I can't stay here. I have to go find Yuven and Adara."

"Bryn said you haven't recovered yet," Reyn pointed out, and Fenrer chewed on his cheek as the king of Haneka pushed, "I know it is difficult, but in your condition you wouldn't get very far. If they are in Naveera—"

"All the more reason I must go," Fenrer argued, then steadied his breathing when it sliced his chest. "Let us not argue in the shrine. The Ancients need to hear the prayers of Aztryxer. I have taken too much time already." Up on his feet, he swayed with the bile itching the back of his throat, but he waved off Reyn's proffer of a hand. Out of the shrine and into the large courtyard, the lighthouse' shadow avoided the movement of the heavens, a sundial with Sivaport castle as the clock, shaped across the cliffs into a connected circle, where all things began and all things ended.

"Shall we argue out here, then?" Reyn grinned, and Fenrer sat on a bench among the jasmine flowers. He scowled deeper when his chest burned, resting his hand over his heart and leaning forward. Reyn's smile faltered, and he came closer. "I cannot insist more than I already have, Pyren. But it's not me you should worry about holding you down kicking and screaming. It is Bryn. I advise you to take your ease, if only until Bryn is confident that you've healed enough for any sort of journey into Naveera. You and yours have walked all this way, I can only hope you rested."

Fenrer scoffed, then shook his head. "He just wanted to go home. I once found myself... irritated at Yuven's incessant need to move, but I myself have made things difficult for us." He rubbed his side and pressed his back against the bench and took in the bright clouds above. Gulls cawed over the harbor and swung themselves through the rising current. "I didn't tell you the entire truth, Your Grace, when you tried to hand me the dawnblade, and I refused it." Tears pricked at his eyes, born of frustration and grief. "We ran into Keeper Kalla in Wolford, and when she told me she had luck finding the dawnblade, I went to Sungrove to confirm what you had told me. I needed some sense of closure, and... I made a foolish mistake."

Reyn's expression remained tough as stone, but his aura betrayed emotion. Thunder breathed out its energetic unease. Gray clouds squeezed out droplets of blue rain. "And what you found there made you not want to take the dawnblade, as is your right as a Pyren?"

"Not a what, Reyn."

"What?"

Fenrer shook his head at his stupidity. "Not a what," he repeated. "You told me you buried them, yes? You gave them every funeral rite so they can move on for Velteraiia? Auric Priests sanctified the tombs?"

"Yes."

His necrotic snarl haunted his flaming nightmares. Arrows whizzed, but he stood there with bony fingers. "I am afraid the desecration of the dawnblade awoke the Stewards of Sungrove," Fenrer drew out. "Not just any. The last. Such was his pain so intense, it prevented him from crossing over." And I killed him a second time. He tasted the truth and faced it head-on. "Lord Soren Pyren was kept from his rest, and in turn became a haugbui."

Stone cracked across Reyn's cheeks. "He was wandering?"

Fenrer chuckled through hot pain in his chest. "Wandering? No. Hunting. I failed to notice his presence, but ignored Yuven's warning when he tried to tell me that something was wrong. Because... I thought as an Aurus, I would have seen it, but I was wrong and foolish. I put Yuven and Adara in danger." He left the confines of the bench. Bile swirled in his stomach, but he stood in the encroaching sunlight. "I elicited a challenge to him, the right of stewardship over Sungrove, to the death. He accepted." He fought his tears. "I won."

Reyn raised a hand to his lips. "I am so sorry, Fenrer, I did not think that the funeral rites were not sufficient."

"It was not your funeral rites, Your Grace. It was just pure despair." Fenrer stretched out his arms and accepted the present. "I must thank you nonetheless. You showed grace and respect to those who died during the Desecration. He would be touched. So... I will accept the dawnblade in due time, as is my right, but I cannot accept it until Yuven and Adara are safe." He faced King Reyn. "I am a Storm Warden first and foremost. My oath is to no king, or queen, or monarch, or reigning government," he said. "It is unto the world, and it is to the world alone that I give my all. So, I appreciate your insistence of my rest, but I must decline. You are a king of a kingdom, a leader, but you don't have the same authority over me."

King Reyn frowned. "Fenrer, how do you plan on getting to Naveera? Tell me what you intend, and I will not press the matter."

Backed into a corner, Fenrer sighed. "I don't know."

"I might have a way—"

A crack of lightning struck from his temples, and his muscles stiffened. Stars flickered across the black stone, and Reyn's voice faded out of existence. Auras swallowed him. Maelstroms of colours. Reyn lunged forward with a noiseless snap, his name read on his lips. Echoes rang out with the myriad of screams. Derelicts howled. Claws raked against his skin as he gasped for air and drowned in water. Flames fell across the overturned horizon of the sea, fallen stars into the inky abyss. Crimson orbs floated through it, flashing blood-splattered teeth. Tendrils of light tugged him deeper. Terror swallowed his lungs, and Reyn long disappeared to the expansion of white alabaster and a bubble of death.

In the heart of the strange city, Yuven.

Leashes of crimson flayed into his skin and stretched out as he drove his fingers into his cheeks with a piercing shriek. Red orbs swallowed the violets and bled the icy maelstrom into twisted obscurity. Frozen in ice, Fenrer tasted tormented agony. No! This can't be happening now! He tried to move, but the pressure crushed his bones. His own voice refused to call out to his Oathbound.

"Fenrer!"

A blink through realities.

Reyn knelt in front of him.

Another blink, back into Yuven's head as he writhed and sobbed.

Back again to Reyn, who reached out.

Fenrer lost himself in the blizzard.

One step across the broken stone, against the raging current of life. On the starlit bridge between them, he came closer when Yuven collapsed onto his knees with the Husk chewing him from the inside out. Blood splattered his boots when Yuven choked against an alert expulsion flash. Shadows disappeared without a sun, and Yuven lifted his head to him. Fear salted his tongue, and Fenrer gripped the crescent blade in his hands.

"Finish me," Yuven begged.

You? No. This twisted nightmare?

Gladly.

Fenrer fought a different urge for the truth of his mind. He forced his hand upwards, gathering all the auras on the tips of his fingers, squishing them between his thumb and middle finger. Teeth crashed against his wrist. Into the obscure flow, he stared at Yuven, his best friend.

"What are you doing?" Yuven drove his fangs into his bloody lips and red tears fell from his eyes.

Pressure exploded in his lungs, but Fenrer held himself tall. "You must look upon the horizon, look upon this life," he whispered to the echo around Yuven. "Look upon it. You have to. I can still help you."

As long as the connection stands, whatever is plaguing your mind, I can cease this.

Fatalism gathered and chewed the air around his hand when he lifted it further. The red bubble of death screeched into a magick singularity. Against the pressure, he snapped his fingers and cut every connection. In a swept instant, the city crumbled into the twilight sea. In another, it broke in his hands.

One more blink.

Fenrer tried to move for Reyn when he reappeared through the cloudy shadows, but he fell into the abyss instead. Jaws dragged him deeper with someone's distant sobs. A hearth flickered and drowned out the ringing of the tormented flow, and he winced when someone pressed on his brow.

"What happened?" Bryn's voice asked through bubbles.

"I don't know," Reyn replied. "It was an Auric Trance, I'm assuming."

Yuven? Fenrer called out across the darkness of the mind.

The lack of response unsettled him, but he held on tight to the starbound tangle around him. Buried in warmth, he breathed deep of the silver candle, a singular light in the dark; a moon in the endless night. He tore himself through the veil, and found himself back in the Pyren chamber. Fresh runes danced along the grate, and he frowned at the outside. Stars glittered across the border of the echoes. Huh? Fenrer threw the blankets off his body, and rubbed his face. On the endtable, a steaming bowl of honey carrot soup invited him for a taste, but he found rust destroyed his sense of smell when he followed the ravenous urge. He sipped at the spoon, and lifted his head when the door opened.

Reyn shook his head at the threshold. "I am even less inclined to let you leave."

"And I'm even more inclined to do so," Fenrer whispered when Reyn took a seat in the chair. "What happened?"

"After you dropped like a sack of logs?" Reyn questioned. "I was hoping you could tell me. Why were you in a Trance? Bryn thought it was because your condition made it harder for you to block out the sensory overload."

"Mm." He hummed into the spoon. "You won't understand if I tell you, all you need to know is I must leave. If not now, then soon. And if you are not to help me, then I will figure out a way." He placed the bowl in his lap, where it spread warmth through his legs. "It was not the auras of Sivaport. It was Yuven. I am hoping it is not what I think it is, but I don't have time to rest. I am fine, Your Grace. I had to cut off our connection to the echoes."

"You slept Yuven Traye and yourself?" Reyn asked, flummoxed.

Fenrer groaned. "I can't do that to myself, Reyn, I had to rebound my own magick through our Oathbound connection." He rolled his shoulders. "Are you here to try and convince me otherwise? As I said, I'm a Storm Warden, there is not one individual who holds more authority over my oath."

Reyn leaned against the huge seat, then pulled out the necklace of the Storm Wardens, the wyvern with its wings wrapped around a star. "You are right. I don't have authority over you," he said, and Fenrer took the necklace back with his own trembling fingers. "So, against my better judgment and my own hide, I won't stop you. Before the Trance, I was going to explain about the Summit and the Trade Deal I made with King Laucan." He settled himself with a huff. "If there is a chance he had something to do with this, I was hesitant to send my diplomats. I doubted our ability to reconcile our differences, and wondered if I could even provide you a way in."

"You must commit to this deal, Reyn."

Reyn eyed him. "Why?"

"Because this is a Storm Warden problem, and the world doesn't need more war," Fenrer pointed out. "You must continue this deal. Create a connection. Send the diplomats with your terms." He drew his shoulders up. "I shall go with them, not as a Storm Warden, but a carrier of your message."

Reyn's eyes widened. "Quite... pragmatic of you, to use me thus."

"You were going to offer." Fenrer smiled at his old friend.

"Bryn is going to tan my hide, Pyren," Reyn said, then hauled himself out of the chair. "If you are truly so resolved... then that is out of my hands. I don't know what you saw during your Trance. I will not ask. If this is important to you, then I can only wish for your continuing health, and ask you to not let it deteriorate." He clapped his shoulder. "If you are to go as a carrier of my message to King Laucan, then I would only ask one thing of you, not as a king, but a family friend. Rest until my diplomats are ready. I shall have your armor and weapons fashioned and repaired by Mikean. If there is anything you need, you can grab it from the armory. I shall not miss it."

Fenrer hopped to his feet. "Thank you, Reyn."

His brow furrowed. "I wouldn't thank me, Pyren, I think letting you go may be a mistake of mine that may lead to your death all the same." He sighed. "Thank Bryn when you can, but I advise not mentioning this to them. If you think I am insistent, they are downright forceful."

Oath clasped around his neck, he held it close to his nose and shivered with Yuven's terror. Don't worry. I'm coming.

I promised.