Tanya was running late. As always, she had splurged a bit at the spa, and was just about to leave for the svartalfar mission. Lukas was probably hanging around the bridge. It seemed like the only place he liked to frequent. But Zuken had suddenly asked her to pay a quick visit before she left, which felt a little strange since the man had hardly spoken a word to her ever since the meeting with the svartalfars.
“I know this mission is vital for our continued business with the svartalfars, but I have some orders. I’d like you to follow them.”
Tanya blinked. Zuken sounded so unusually serious that she was taken aback. She looked up to find him watching her with hard, brown eyes, none of his normally easygoing attitude to be found anywhere.
“Three rules. Number One, you and Aguilar return back safely. Rule Number Two, the svartalfars return back safely. The mission is third in priority. Whatever you need to ensure this, you do it. No matter what happens, do not hesitate. Do not hold back. Whatever comes in your path, let them die for their cause while you and Aguilar live for yours. Under no circumstances can you let anything happen to Aguilar. Understand?”
Tanya looked up at him with a piercing look. She knew Zuken was downright obsessive about Lukas’s secrets, but this felt a bit overboard. Even for him. It was almost like…
Like there was something he wanted, something he’d go to the very ends of the world to acquire, and only Lukas could give it to him.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have let him go for this mission in the first place…”
“If I could, I would have.” His expression was almost unreadable. “Unfortunately, Aguilar is a novelty. Apart from his excessive impulse-control issues, keeping him trapped would only hinder his growth, and that is counterintuitive.”
Translation. Lukas would rampage through Zuken’s manor and things would go out of hand. Given what she saw of him in the anomaly, it wasn’t too far off the list of possibilities.
“You want me to see what he can do. What he can really do.”
His eyes wrinkled at the corners. “Yes. I do.” His eyes lingered on her for an unnerving moment. “Is that acceptable?”
Tanya nodded. “And if we face a problem?”
“Then ditch the mission. Do whatever you need to get yourself and Aguilar out. Everything else, I’ll manage. I cannot stress it enough.”
…
…
Things had gone to hell.
This mission was supposed to be a private training montage for her companion. She was supposed to show him the do’s and don’ts of adventuring and get him accustomed to dealing with missions by himself. At the same time, she’d get to spend some time alone with him, which made her feel warm for more reasons than one, no matter how good he was at getting under her skin, or making her want to tear him to pieces.
Instead, she had left him to fend off her own. All because he had decided to be gallant, (or foolish, depending on how you looked at it) and hold the ground until she got them out of the kill-zone. She trusted him; well, a little more than she trusted anyone else, which was saying something, so despite her instincts and Zuken’s orders, she had followed through with the plan. Whatever happened, she’d have his back, and he was tough and smart.
And alone, whispered some doubting part of her. And vulnerable.
Shut up, me.
What the hell am I doing? She mentally hissed. Zuken clearly said—
“Slow down a little,” claimed Kradir, snapping her out of her inner tirade, “the terrain here is better. We will terraport from here.”
Tanya gritted her teeth. They had already covered three quarters of the distance. The golden flares in the sky were becoming more prominent. But she knew that the rescuers wouldn’t be leaving their ground to come for them. It was up to them to play catch-up. Which was why they were zooming towards their destination in her expanded wind-orb.
“Why?” she demanded. “Terraportation is slower. We still have miles to go.”
“I’d rather not spend another moment in the air if I can help it,” claimed the extractor.
Tanya wondered if the creature knew how close he had come to getting beheaded. She had no lasting love for svartalfars, and their finicky attitude didn’t help matters. But she needed them alive, or else all this would be for nothing.
“My friend is fighting to get us to safety back there, and you’re having mood swings?”
The orb zoomed faster.
“It’s not just that,” said Mori, her tone apologetic. “Our baggage. We’ve been employing terramancy constantly to keep them afloat against gravity. Weight nullification is very draining, exponentially so when we are not touching the ground.”
Tanya blinked.
Oh.
Oh.
She had never thought of it that way. She had imagined them to just do their svartalfar hocus-pocus and runecraft to balance the weight. That they were also constantly using terramancy to do it made a lot more sense.
“We do not give away secrets to Asukans.” Kradir snapped at Mori.
“We’re in a dangerous situation,” Mori said, her voice carrying a tone of wearily familiar annoyance. It was like listening to a husband and wife having an often-repeated quarrel. “The seidmadr made a stand for us. Allowances have to be made.”
Kradir made a quiet, disgusted sound.
Tanya slowly descended the wind orb downward, traveling down an invisible inclined plane. Too quick and she risked the orb shattering, which wouldn’t end nicely for anyone. Too slow, and they’d run the risk of the svartalfars failing to maintain their spells.
“There is no reason to hurry back,” said Kradir, “the pyromancer is dead.”
The tempest in her chest suddenly raged at his words. The casual disregard for his life, their sheer indifference brought Zuken’s words back to her.
“They are not your friends. Svaltalfars only care for their own kind.”
“He. Is. Alive.” She said, “and I’ll get back to him.”
“A fool’s errand,” Kradir scoffed, “Your companion was brave, I’ll give you that much. But no Asukan, even one as skilled as him, can brave the might of a muspel army and get away with it.
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“He’s alive,” she stressed, “I’m sure of it.”
“How?” asked Mori.
Because if he was dead, she’d have lost control. Because here she was, in a world where the Eternal Light did not penetrate, and yet the Frost’s impulses were all but absent. That had he did, the Frost would’ve taken over and these two would have been butchered before they could have uttered ‘protocol’. Because Lukas was no Asukan. Because not even Death could claim him. Because he was tutored by a freaking Goddess. Because he skirted the rules of the world like changing clothes. And no muspel army, no matter how strong, could kill him.
“Trust me,” she said, “I’d—” Tanya began, when the first explosion thudded through the air.
Everyone froze.
A column of flames rose into the air in the south-east, flaring out into the night. The shock wave from the explosion was tangible, even where they stood, and Tanya felt something push through her chest.
“Was that..?” She breathed.
Mori drew herself upright, a cold luminescence gathering around her form in a coronet of glittering motes that trailed a veil of tiny brown particles behind it. Both Tanya and Kradir turned to her, as the sensor lifted her face to the sky and spoke in a voice that did not so much rumble as resonate with a devastating finality.
“The Bylestyr have come. We must flee this place before it is too late.”
…
…
Tanya’s stomach did a nasty little flip.
“Who?”
“Bylestyr,” Kradir said, “The wielders of lightning. Most feared among the Muspel. Guardians of this realm.”
“We’ve known these lands for a long, long time,” said Mori. “Muspelheim is home to a lot of ores. But whenever a Bylestyr has taken note of our invasion, we’ve lost our kinsmen. Believe me, we have to leave. Now.”
“Lukas—”
“Is dead, or will be dead,” Kradir retorted. “Nothing you can do will change that fate. You can leave us right here if you wish. We can make the rest of our journey by ourselves. But be warned, it will change nothing except hastening your demise.”
Tanya took a deep breath, closed her eyes, exhaled and walled away the small ocean of fear that had begun rolling in her mind. Everything had gone to hell, no matter what she did. And she’d face it when it arrived. Compartmentalize and conquer.
Because right now, there was only one thing in her mind.
Get Lukas back.
“Wind-bender,” Mori called out, “I ask you to reconsider.”If you do this, you’ll perish.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do,” said Mori, “and soon, will you.”
“The Bylestyr are at the zenith of Level-3,” said Kradir. “You are skilled, but compared to the Bylestyr, you’re but an insect.”
As he spoke those words, a scream pierced through the air. One so sharp that it threatened to deafen her by sheer volume, but it was far, far more painful than that. Tanya could feel it press against the vaults of her mind, a raging emotion so violent and intense that it would tear her sanity apart if she let even a portion of it into her head.
The world suddenly went silent, as if reality had taken a deep breath and held it. There was a low quiver in the terrain beneath her feet, a hideous pressure in the air, and then, from the south, a column of red-white energy, pure power, erupted into the sky.
Level-3 Pyromancy. Amplified by several magnitudes inside this volcanic terrain.
Kradir was right. Lukas could not win against this kind of power. A Level-3 creature’s wrath was terrifying, capable of causing destruction of untold magnitude. Lukas might have Level-3 skills himself, but his control and experience was still stuck to a hair short of Level-2 at best. Nothing— not his lifeforce, not his skill with motion, and certainly not his pyromancy, could save him against this.
To defeat that, a power equal to its magnitude was required.
A power that she could conveniently pull up.
A power that would have been beyond her control if not for Lukas Aguilar.
Get Lukas safe. That was her goal. Her motto. Protect him at all costs. For Zuken, and for herself.
The Frost had always been a deadly tool. Something that always sought to kill, to savor, to tear lifeforce and life out of its victim. But for the first time, she was calling upon its cold, wintry heart for the exact opposite.
To save.
To protect.
And Winter answered.
Her eyes burned an icy blue.
The first thing that was noticeable was the white spreading over the red terrain. Jagged lines, cracking and spreading in all directions, akin to a world of glass that had suddenly shattered. The lines did not stop, and instead, raced away from each other, rushing to escape Tanya who stood at the center, a wall of mist and wintry plume acting as a defensive wall against the furious fiery winds that rushed in her direction.
And Tanya spoke.
“Ice is my soul.”
The voice that came sounded like a peal of thunder, ragged with inhuman malice, buffeting him with its rolling depth. Thick spears of frost formed on the surface.
Her eyes turned white.
“Everfrost!”
As if on cue, the plumes exploded, changing from mere white lines to genuine sheets of ice. The freeze extended, stretching between each of the previous lines and thickening, coating everything in near inch-thick sheets of frozen shelling. The ice erupted in spots, forming enormous teeth-like stalagmites, swelling and erupting with violent force. Anyone else would have questioned how she, despite being an Aeromancer, was conjuring ice of all things in this environment, but Tanya couldn’t care less.
In a few seconds, a veritable ice age stood amidst the frothing lava.
“What….” whispered Mori from behind her.
Tanya turned and stared at Mo— pReY—ri, a thin sliver of ice forming in her hands almost unconsciously, before the burning terrain reminded her where she was.
“Your protector, should you run away, and predator, should you choose to stay,” she murmured. “Get to the portal. I’ll get Lukas and join you.”
Her icy gaze turned to Kradir and—
“I…. I did not know..”
Tanya blinked, the white haze flickering inside her mind, trying to catch up to the confusion. Kradir was on the ground, on his knees, palms open, head held up, like a prisoner ready to embrace his death, or—
—Or a worshiper genuflecting before his God.
“...forgive me. Forgive me, I did not… I did not know….”
She blinked, shaking her head to dispel the confusion. It didn’t help, so, so she just looked away. Frost surged within her, its need to consume everything strangely tempered, leaving the wheels to her rational mind. A veritable miracle, if she said so herself.
She turned towards the south, where the massive pillar of fire had joined the earth and the sky.
Ever since that calamitous moment of her father’s demise, Tanya had always felt her kami inside her, and held it back. She had felt the primal drives that were its power, the need to hunt, to fight, to kill and destroy. Its nature was beautiful violence, stark clarity, the most feral needs and animalistic desire pitted against the furious wind — the will and desire to shatter all boundaries.
She had fought against that drive, repressed it, and held it at bay. That savagery was never meant for a world of grocery stores and beauty salons and spas. It was meant for times like this.
So she let it out, and everything changed.
Her weariness vanished. Not because her body was no longer weary, but because it was no longer important. She had become an extension of a greater entity, a manifestation of the primal force of wind. Her fear vanished too. Fear was for prey. Fear was for the things she was about to hunt.
Her doubts vanished as well. Doubt was for things that did not know their purpose, and she knew hers. This was a war, and there were beasts in front of her.
Beasts that needed their throats ripped.
A fire that needed to be extinguished.
Tanya’s body soared up into the air, an ethereal darkness wrapping her body. Her hands spread out on either side, a thrumming black mist enveloping them, before ejecting out from her back into massive wingspans of liquid darkness. Wind and shadow and frost crawled all over her body forming a scale mail.
Tanya the spiritist was gone.
What stood in her place, floating in the air was a warrior angel. A bird of prey. A Queen of Air and Frost and Darkness. Wind buffeted her body, a raging conflagration that made the world less just by existing in it. An unstoppable tide that controlled the very air itself.
A behemoth that was no longer shackled, free to act at last.
She raised both hands forward, and a sphere of pure devastation was born. An orb of nigh infinite pressure, held in place by a madness just as devastating. A core of pure wind that could destroy anything upon impact. A man. A mountain. Whatever.
Aeromancy amplifying her vision, she saw a giant beast soar into the air, with a speck of what looked faintly like a man rising further and further upwards, out of its reach.
Tanya smiled.
WIND SHEAR!”