“So,” Laze said, a packaged ration in one hand. “Somebody want to explain what in the burning Blaze just happened?”

El looked at her own ration, one of the few they all carried in the tight packs they wore on the small of their backs. The rations somehow fed off the Sparks in their chests, a single bar providing enough sustenance for days at a time. Sustain them, sure, but it didn’t offer the same comfort as a warm meal.

“We got our asses kicked,” Dayne said plainly, and popped the last mouthful of ration between his lips.

“Were those newts?” Nidina asked. “They sure didn’t look like any newts I read about.”

“Maybe the storm changed them?” Laze said. “I saw one of them breathing some kind of… ice breath… or something.”

“You think the storm did that?” Nidina asked back.

“The Stormbearer,” El corrected. When the others gave her a questioning look, she took the ration away from her mouth. Talking with her mouth full would just get crumbs on everything. “It’s something one of the lizards said. ‘The Stormbearer has come,’” she said in her best lizard voice. “Then something about no surrender and no mercy.”

“That thing in the armor, was it a person? A lizard? Was that the Stormbearer then?” Laze asked.

“Too small for a lizard,” Dayne said. “Has to be a person.”

“Could be a small newt?” Laze offered with a shrug.

“No tail.”

“Using it as a belt?”

“Whatever it was,” El interrupted. “I think it’s safe to assume it’s the Stormbearer. And that it’s the leader of that army.”

“Wait, you said a lizard told you this? I thought they didn’t speak our language?” Laze asked.

“This one sure did.”

“This isn’t what we signed up for,” Nidina vented. “We were told we were coming down here to hunt newts. Something our weapons could kill. That our armor could protect us from. Not… that…”

“Our weapons can kill them,” El said. “Just not easily.”

“Nidina has a point,” Dayne said. “We got bad intel. Very bad.”

“Speaking of intel, did anybody see Oril after he flew off into the storm?” El asked.

“What are you thinking, El?” Laze asked her.

“I’m not sure, but don’t you think it’s awfully convenient…”

“Guys,” Nidina interrupted. “We’ve got incoming.”

Everybody was on their feet in an instant.

“Where?” El asked.

“There,” Nidina said, pointing toward the sky, not the horizon.

El followed the gesture and quickly picked out the pair of flaming wings racing toward them. Wings meant Firestorm, not lizards. Another survivor!

Igniting her wings, El gently lifted a few feet off the ground. “Over here,” she said into the magic of her flame armor.

The flaming wings angled in her direction, and a voice crackled over her communicator. “Ugh, I should’ve known,” it said.

Oril.

“Awfully convenient, indeed,” Laze said without the magic, for their ears only.

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El nodded at her friend and dropped back to the ground as Oril landed in front of them, his face a mask of fury, and white snow powdering his wings and uniform.

Why wasn’t the snow melted?

“Burn it, what are you doing back here? Where are the others?” Oril demanded.

“Where were you?” El asked, instead of answering his questions.

“Got lost in the storm,” he half turned, but stopped when he noticed the snow on his wings. Without a word, his wings vanished, and the snow dropped unceremoniously to the ground. “What about you?”

El crossed her arms and stared at the man in front of her. It was his story that brought them to Helibak in the first place, and just when he vanished, that knight and an army of lizards showed up. Was there a connection?

“What did you see in the city when you got out of the storm?” she asked.

“See? Nothing. I was a couple miles east of Helibak when I finally got out of the snow, and I noticed your flames landing over here. So, I came to find out why you were going in the wrong direction,” Oril snapped back.

“Took you a long time to catch up to us,” Dayne said.

“Dayne’s right. We’ve been on the ground for a few minutes,” El said.

Oril glanced at the snow sitting on the ground. The snow that still hadn’t melted, despite riding all the way there on flaming wings and then sitting in a patch of sunlight on a warm day.

“The snow… dampens our magic. It was heavy on my wings. It’s why I left the storm at all, instead of trying to find my way home. I was worried that if I stayed in the storm much longer, my wings would completely fail on me,” Oril explained.

“Not only is the storm invisible unless you’re right next to it, but it also weakens our magic?” Nidina asked.

“I think we can assume it’s also responsible for blocking our communications,” El added.

“How could a storm do that?” Laze asked.

“It’s an attack, or an invasion, and we’re the target,” El said. “Think about it, the storm is negating all our greatest strengths. The weapons that made Pycrin’s expansion in the pursuit of collecting all the Embers possible, us, the Firestorm, are practically useless. Add in the army of blue newts and that knight…”

“Wait, what? Blue newts? What nonsense are you spouting?” Oril asked.

“You asked what we were doing back here,” El said. “We’re here because everybody else is dead. Wiped out by an army hiding within the storm. An army of blue lizards, led by something they call the Stormbearer.”

“And this is why I wanted real soldiers to come with me,” Oril spat. “Not you useless lot.”

“You think you would’ve done any better?” Nidina asked and stepped right up in front of Oril, her nose a hair’s breadth from his. “Huh, is that what you think?”

“I think you’ll be joining your useless friends if you don’t back up,” Oril hissed, not backing down.

“Stand down,” both of you, El said evenly.

“Not until he apologizes for what he said,” Nidina said.

“Don’t take orders from you,” Oril said at the same time.

El sighed and shook her head. “Either one of you takes this even an inch further and you will find my boot so far up your ass you’ll think the Pyre made it his new summer vacation spot.”

Nidina visibly gulped. She’d seen El spar, and been on the receiving end of a few of those bouts. Good.

Oril, on the other hand, glanced her way, obviously trying to figure out if she was bluffing. If he could beat Nexin even one time out of ten, did she have a chance against him if it came to a fight?

Burn it, fighting between themselves was the wrong thing to do, and here she was throwing fuel on the fire with her threats. Why was violence always the answer?

“I’m sorry,” El said. “I shouldn’t have threatened you. Look, the lizards, and that Stormbearer, are the enemy. We can’t lose sight of that. Nidina, I’m asking you, nicely. Please.”

Nidina ground her teeth and flared her nostrils as she stared Oril down, but she took a step back and nodded at El.

“As for you,” El said to Oril. “You’re right, you don’t have to take orders from me. You obviously ignored Esis’s orders. But, we’re going back to Balacin to warn them about what happened. You can come, or not. Your choice.”

“I’m the highest rank here,” Oril said. “We’re not far from Salid. That’s where we’re going.”

“Actually, we’re the same rank,” El pointed out.

“And she’s our commanding officer now, not you,” Laze added. “So, we’ll be following her.”

“Useless, and cowards to boot. Have the Firestorm standards dropped so low?” Oril asked.

“Says the deserter,” Nidina said. “Was it ’cause you didn’t want to take orders? Or just because you couldn’t cut it?”

Oril snapped his hand out to the side, his flaming saber igniting. “That’s it, I am going to…”

“Do nothing,” El shouted, and ignited her wings, their sudden appearance accentuating her words. “I told you, we’re leaving.”

She gently rose a foot off the ground and hovered there, waiting for the other three from her squad to follow. Their wings ignited two seconds later, and they rose into the air to join her.

“You coming?” El asked.

“The generals will hear about your cowardice,” Oril said, but didn’t follow.

“I’ll be happy to tell them myself,” El said, then launched into sky and turned north. Three sets of wings followed in her peripheral vision. Would sure make things easier if Oril stayed behind, but a fourth set of wings took to the sky and followed behind fifteen seconds later.

“We’ll fly until just after dark,” El said just for the three members of her wing. “But we’ll set a watch in pairs for any dangers.”

“Newts or…?” Laze asked.

“Any dangers,” El reiterated.

It was going to be a long trip back home.