The city below had been set aflame. A vast circle of stone walls, like a fire pit, held the flames within, trapped and angry. The initial waves of crimson flame had been replaced by the dull orange of burning wood. A plume of smoke, like a leaning black pillar, grew up into the cloud layers above. This violent upward motion created updrafts and violent currents in the wind. Felix felt his aircraft rattle and flutter in the cold air. The craft was fighting him, and he was fighting the wind. He found himself kicking the rudder often.

The heat from the two crimson streams did a good job of clearing the frost and ice from the wings. Periodic blasts of draconic flame ahead of the craft heated the air, warming the propeller and preventing ice buildup there. However, it was unseasonably cold outside. Deep winder did not begin for another two months, but the weather had gone mad. The geomancers needed to work constantly to clear the ice from the runways on the plateau outside Black River. The Teeth of the Red Dragon, once red crystal spires, had become sheathed in white hoarfrost. For several days it had been too foggy to safely navigate. A lucky break in the clouds provided an opportunity to fly across the border in force and attack the closest city.

The city would be ash soon, in spite of the wintery weather. Hundreds of officers in the Quarian Air Force swarmed around below. Squadrons of four raked the city in draconic flame. It was an intentional razing of an entire city, and the first mission using new mass-produced airplanes.

Felix blasted the air in front of his craft, creating a corridor of hot air. It passed over his craft, melting the ice buildup. However, the pitot tube, which fed the new airship-style airspeed indicator, was still frozen, and the gauge in the cabin read zero. He wondered how many pilots would survive this flight.

Landing had become much easier, thanks to the new "flaps" that had been added. The new control surfaces were closer to the body than the ailerons were. They could be deployed down only, unlike the ailerons which could move up or down. They changed the shape of the wing and reduced the stall speed at low airspeeds, like those expected when landing. It helped a lot, but the first flight fatality rate was still too high.

This mission had been a mistake, he realized. Even with thousands of soldiers to choose from, there were medical requirements to consider. Good eyesight was required, and no history of epilepsy was allowed. Unfortunately, the Elementals turned away potential pilots sometimes, and they refused to explain why. Nobody questioned the mission. Indeed, the pilots seemed eager to fly.

Well, no sense in making the situation worse, Felix thought. He pointed his nose down to intercept a nearby squadron. He amplified his voice, which was tricky, because it required dampening the sound of the propeller at the same time. "Abort the mission. I repeat, abort the mission. All units return to the Teeth." They rocked their wings in acknowledgement.

As he wrangled the other pilots in, occasionally he would catch faint glimpses of a ghostly white shape, like the leading edge of a massive dragon's wing, or perhaps the undulations of spine sails rolling by. He blinked his eyes, and the impression would be gone. It must be the fog, he thought. It is tricking my mind into seeing familiar shapes.

A tunnel-shaped clearing appeared in the fog to the west. Felix caught a glimpse of the mountaintops in a nearby range. There was a strange blue light, bright like the sun, glowing at the very peak of the highest mountain. Some sort of Rilnese magic? Felix wondered. Perhaps the unnatural cold was caused by some foul sorcery? He reasoned then that if he destroyed the source of the magic, the weather might improve, and then the missions to the south could resume.

Felix approached the last of the squadrons. "The mission is aborted, all units return to the Teeth. I will remain and investigate the light to the west." The four craft rocked their wings and then split off to the north. Felix brought the bright blue light into the center of his propeller fan. The flat snowfields below were replaced by snowclad forests and finally foothills. There was less moisture building up on the airframe, but the wind was still violent. He found himself being battered around in all directions. The corrections were a constant demand on his attention.

The temperature seemed to be dropping. His breath was beginning to freeze on the inside of the cabin. The leather casing on the stick felt slick with ice. The windshield was beginning to frost over, however that bright blue light was not too far away, and Felix decided to continue the flight. Suddenly the clouds shifted, narrowing the gap between the clouds. In all directions the clouds conspired to trap him, and the gap was growing smaller and smaller. Felix lost sight of that blue light, and his vision was replaced with dark, shifting gray.

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For a fraction a second, he could see white hoarfrost rapidly form on the wings, before the windshield was completely consumed by crystals, blurring his vision. The engine stopped spinning, filled with liquid and frozen solid a few seconds later, resisting even the heat of draconic flames. The wings began to rapidly flutter, and then finally Felix heard a massive snap. The aircraft dropped immediately, spinning to the left.

Felix no longer knew which way was up. At an abstract level, Felix understood in that moment that he was a dead man. He had seen hundreds of drakes lose a wing and plummet out of the sky in an unstable spin. He knew that the ground was going to rise up and hit him. The thought of death in that moment felt like a mercy, relative to the cold. There was an intent in that cold, a seeping, exploring cold, searching for a way inside.

Felix blasted the interior of the glass canopy with flames, partially to heat the glass enough to free himself from the deathtrap, and partially just to negate that seeping cold. He kicked, smashing the canopy free, exposing his body to the air outside. He flung himself away, and he saw the derelict craft for one moment before it was lost in the fog. The aircraft was a solid mass of snow. Then Felix, to add one final insult to his unfortunate situation, fell out of the bottom of the clouds, which gave him a clear view of the doom that was rapidly ascending to crush him. His eyes had not frozen over to spare him the sight.

White lines, a faint, ghostly outline of a drake's claws. No, not a drake, Felix realized. A Dragon.

A magenta flash almost blinded Felix. The claws surrounded him, falling at nearly the same speeds, and he slammed against hard purple scales. It knocked the wind out of him, but it was better than hitting the ground. And it was warm. Very, very warm. The warmth that radiated from the palm of the Purple Dragon counteracted the seeping cold with its own intent. Felix knew what would happen next, and a glance between the claws confirmed his instincts. The main wings stretched, the tail wings configured into a nose-dive with a rapid recovery into a glide, and each motion created lightning in the clouds all around. The arm holding him swung down, slamming him once again against the net of claws that grasped him. It made him feel dizzy, but that warmth made him forget his worries.

The Purple Dragon landed on the top of the mountain. Within a bubble of protective sorcery, Astrid behind Brigid, and a twenty-foot tall Water Elemental, glowing with bright blue light. The claw reached into the bubble and dumped Felix on the ground. He saw Astrid looking down on him, with an amused grin. Elvira craned her massive neck overhead, creating bolts of lightning that struck the mountainside as she moved, illuminating her immaculate purple scales. With a blinding flash of magenta light Elvira vanished to the other side, to the dark world she haunted, leaving behind the ghostly impression of her outline, which faded rapidly.

"Do you know what I find amusing?" Astrid asked.

Felix said nothing as he clambered to his feet to stand beside the Purple Dragon. Then he just shook his head.

"I find it amusing that Ashe did not include such antics in her prohibitions. We are free to teach important lessons so long as we make flying more difficult. Isn't that remarkable?"

"So you are trying to teach me a lesson?" Felix asked.

"I am trying to be efficient," Astrid replied.

She gestured toward the massive High Daughter standing nearby, who was blasting the sky with waves of blue light. The High Daughter looked similar to the Water Elemental that Felix had seen in the Realm of Water, but scaled up to a massive height, her body made of surging tides and coral-like structures of pure water.

Astrid continued: "Brigid is helping me bring about an early winter on this continent. It will serve to slow your armies, to give time for the south to recover from their losses. It is fortuitous that you decided to kill yourself by flying into the fog."

"Lesson learned," Felix growled.

"Necromancy is somewhat less efficient when the body is broken apart all over the place." Astrid shrugged, then she brought one arm up and rested her chin on her palm. "Never in a thousand years, did I think that I would begin to care about you fledgling pilots. Brother, is this the lesson you foresaw for me? Have I changed?"

She seemed to consider this for a moment in silence. Felix did not interrupt her contemplations.

"Either way, Felix, please remember to thank Elvira the next time you see her. She very rarely leaves the Plane of Spirits outside the safety of our spires. She could have let you fall to your doom, after all."

"I will thank her," Felix promised. "In the meantime, I need to get back to the others. They will wonder about my fate, they might even send soldiers into the fog to search for me."

"Excellent point. Brigid, let us return to our spire for now. We shall resume our weather control tomorrow."

"As you say, my Princess," Brigid said. She waved her hand and the High Daughter vanished.