No dragon was truly small. Thus, when Zyryxa beheld the smallest dragon she’d ever seen—smaller even than the white wyrm—it was with the utmost respect for its grandiosity. Fire dragons came in many colors and forms, but this one was pure red fire, with spots of orange dotted along its smooth, spikeless body. It was beautiful—beyond all doubt—and powerful despite its relative litheness. Unfortunately, it was in the heart of southern Volqor, deep within Ice Tribe lands, during a war. It couldn’t be tolerated.
Feeling more excited than afraid, Zyryxa didn’t hesitate to do her duty. Ironic, considering that the tiny woman three strides from her had terrified her far more than this firebreathing behemoth.
“Rivux!” Matyxal announced, rousing fastest of them all. “He’s the other dragon knight in the Flames of Renewal. If he prepares to assault you, use the callsign, ‘The fire is out.’ That will get him to stand down.”
Zyryxa wielded Zyrthalla’s greataxe, called to Zyrxl, and mounted. The other warriors were slower to rise, with Lexyn being particularly sluggish. Whether from drink or fear, Zyryxa knew not. Regardless, she felt Qoryxa-called to lead the charge.
“Well, look at that,” Matyxal said, “Seraxa, shield his flame. Qoryxa, grant her wise judgment.”
Though a fainter dot in the distant skies toward Monzqora, Praedax’s dark blue was unmistakable. Champion Vaztyma pursued. If they battled, slaughter was the only outcome.
“Listen!” Matyxal yelled, her ethereal voice resounding with power. “Rivux is among the most powerful allies we’re going to have in ending the war. Preserve him. Please!”
“Pelzyq, you keep watch on Matyxal, but bring her close to this Rivux to see if she can stop unnecessary battle,” Natazia ordered. He grunted, a hungover acknowledgement for the light work.
“Zyryxa,” Natazia continued, “pursue, and try to wound a wing if it gets close enough. I’ll draw its attention and work the opposite wing. Lexyn. If it attacks us, aim for its eyes. Stay atop Dryxl, and keep out of range of its breath. Let’s disable this red and deliver Vaztyma the Flames of Renewal!”
Zyryxa chafed at being ordered around, but kept her silence as she agreed the orders were no different than she’d have given. Natazia was the most experienced of them. Let her assume command. For now. If only to keep the newfound peace. Zyryxa was determined to prove herself the mightiest warrior in her brood, to prove to Vaztyma that she was ready for the Rite of the Dragon Knight. Wounding a wing with the Ice Champion as audience, would get her closer to her own dragon, to Saevah, and further from Hatrox. Without neither word nor grunt, she stirred Zyrxl into motion. Her heart drummed hard, eager for a worthy battle. Her soul sang; these were the moments that made life worth living.
Tromping over flat snow-covered plains broken by dense patches of crystalline gelubor, Zyryxa anticipated the paths of the two dragons. Above, Praedax continued to close the gap. While the large blue was faster, the little red had substantially better mobility. Rivux twisted in the air each time Vaztyma closed the gap, his adjustments buying him precious moments before the larger dragon could redirect its flight. Several times, they repeated this dance, Rivux proving himself an exceptionally skilled dragonrider.
Zyryxa knew that for all his beautiful maneuvers, Rivux’s flight was doomed. Praedax was too much faster, and she personally knew the force of the dark blue dragon’s breath. It was almost tragic, that such artful flight couldn’t go on forever. Inevitably, Rivux and his little red would miss a step, and the dance would end.
Across several miles of the icy plains, passing a homestead, and several swaths of gelubor, they flew. Zyryxa was a shadow beneath the two dragons, pushing Zyrxl to keep up. The whole time, her eyes marveled at the crafty flight of the red and took in Praedax’s power with awe. Someday, she would perform maneuvers that put Rivux to shame upon a dragon possessing might that transcended Praedax. Still, she felt a girlish wonder as she beheld the magic of Volqor. It only made her hungrier for her own glory, wanting to steal a fragment of the triumph from Vaztyma and Rivux this day.
Rivux could only sustain flawlessness for so long. In the end, Praedax’s icy breath burst from its giant maw, filling the sky with a blizzard of white, and, at last, the little red couldn’t veer away in time. Swallowed in the frost, the red released a pained roar, sounding like a child being thrashed by an angry mother. Rivux ordered his bond down, crashing to the ground to escape Praedax’s breath.
This was it. Zyryxa felt her moment rising in her chest. Glory awaited. She howled, kicking Zyrxl into full gallop, aiming toward the exposed flank. As the beast struggled, to unbind its wing, Zyryxa gripped the greataxe, feeling her mother riding with her, Zyrthalla’s roars echoing hers. Starved for glory, desperate to make her mother proud, needing to feel victorious, Zyryxa lost all rationality. She didn’t balk at the intense heat emanating off the dragon. One-mindedly she charged toward the wing as if it were Saevah’s pretty neck.
Propelled by Zyrxl’s velocity, powered by her own mighty arms, the axe ripped through wing, parting it from the red’s long torso. The wing fell to the ice, gouts of fire spouting in orange streams from the wound. A man’s voice cried out, dwarfed only by the screeching howls of the red dragon that would never fly again.
Vaztyma was on the red in an instant. The beast flailed, fighting to free its neck from Praedax’s maw. The dark blue’s claws brought the red’s body down, and the red rider spilled to the ice.
Rivux sprang to his feet, built long and agile instead of thick and powerful, not unlike his red. He let out a battle cry, drew his dragonbone longsword, and charged toward Praedax’s head. “Infyriux!”
Infyriux lashed out with his tail, blocking Rivux’s rush, even as Praedax raked the red’s scales off with its claws.
“No!” the red rider cried. “Vaztyma! I come in peace!”
“You brought a fire dragon into the heart of my domain,” Vaztyma roared, over the sound of Praedax thrashing Infyriux, and the weak cries of the little red dragon who looked so small beneath the greater dragon. “Do not speak to me of peace only now when you’ve already lost. Face your judgment!”
Rivux cried out the name of the being that shared his mind, begging the Ice Champion for mercy. His pain etched itself into Zyryxa’s heart, compassion stoking within her. “Please, Vaztyma,” she called, “spare them. Hear him out.”
Vaztyma glared across the ice. “Last I knew, Vaztyma was Champion of the Ice Tribe. Prove yourself, daughter. Bring down the Red Rider. Make him submit to you, as all of Fire will submit to Ice!”
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Praedax’s teeth ripped through Infyriux’s neck, and fire spouted from the wounds, gushing out at the dark blue. Vaztyma’s dragon recoiled, letting out a cry far deeper than the one poor Infyriux emitted. The little red, despite its lost wing and torn throat, bleeding fire from a hundred places where Praedax’s claws raked through scale and carapace, rose to its feet. Zyryxa knew not what thoughts passed through the telepathic bond shared by Rivux and Infyriux, only that it was clear the dragon would die to preserve his rider based on Rivux’s objections.
The little red charged, ramming its head into Praedax’s chest, clawing out desperately, lashing with tail and exhaling flames toward the Champion’s dragon.
Such love, such devotion, left Zyryxa’s heart heavy. Rivux cried out for his dragon, tears streaming down his face. Infyriux roared, for a few moments holding his own against the far more powerful enemy, fighting to give his rider life. “I will honor you, my brother,” Rivux said before letting out an agonizing cry that cut through Zyryxa as sharply as any tooth ever had.
Rivux ran toward a nearby gelubor forest.
“Pursue him, daughters!” Vaztyma roared. She dismounted, leaping from Praedax’s back, drawing her ice and fire dragonbone blades during the forty-foot descent. One-winged Infyriux wouldn’t be long for this world, facing both Praedax and the Champion.
Natazia huffed from exertion but set off after Rivux with a quick nod at Zyryxa. Zyrxl was too exhausted from the earlier pursuit to give an honest chase. Zyryxa ordered her coldscale to find Lexyn and Dryxl, before she set off in pursuit.
Years of training, particularly during her Rite of the Dragon Warrior, left Zyryxa feeling one with the land. Snowy terrain that often surprised you by sinking you to your thigh, open plains where endless sprinting was broken only by the ice’s attempts to steal your footing, thick patches of gelubor where you needed to crash through the trees to make your own openings, were the trials that had made her one with the ice. Her athleticism was supreme, and her oneness with the ice should’ve made her impossible to escape. Zyryxa couldn’t fathom how a man born in the north where everything was sweltering heat, pools of steaming water, humid jungles, and rivers of fire, could flee her in the cold snows of the south. For all that, Rivux ran like the ice was his.
Rivux was fast, faster even than Zyryxa, she was loathe to admit. She’d never seen someone so fleet of foot. His long legs pumped like streaks of lightning across the plains. He leapt over snowdrifts. Instead of slipping on ice, he slipped through gelubor like water through cracked pottery. Rivux scaled cliffsides like his hands were draconic. And he weaved through the environment, never letting Zyryxa predict where he would go next.
Met by one who could match her, Zyryxa only grew more determined to catch him. Natazia, already winded from chasing the dragons on foot, was left in their wake. The sun rose higher. The miles of ice and gelubor stretched behind Zyryxa as she struggled to keep up with Rivux. The long-legged man never stopped, never slowed, and Zyryxa’s pride refused to let her lose a step to catch her breath. Heat burned within her chest, not from exertion alone. To be challenged awoke fires within her soul. Zyryxa didn’t know if she wanted to thrash Rivux or mount him. She only knew that she would not surrender.
She may have never caught him if Rivux hadn’t stumbled into a pack of ice sprites. They swirled around him, a dozen or so, slowing him in their field of cold. Rivux’s sword hacked through them in quick order, demonstrating a proficiency that only further excited Zyryxa. Not that ice sprites were a worthy foe. The fiery man sheathed his blade and dashed through the dense gelubor forest, breaking free before she could tackle him.
Zyryxa stumbled after him, smiling, hungry. Her body was burning, from exertion, from the feelings stirred by the chase. Rivux rushed down a hillside, heading toward a ravine. She read the terrain, determined his likely course, and cut through a thicker patch of gelubor, smashing through the trees to beat him to the opening in the ravine. Rivux raced through the longer, but easier path, unsuspecting of the dragon warrior that dashed along the high ground, forcing her way through the harder terrain, refusing to be denied.
She emerged on the ridge just above him. He looked back, his eyes growing wide as she leapt from high.
They collided. Rivux and Zyryxa tumbled into the ice, rolling through the snow. She clung to him, trying to overpower her taller, but lankier foe. After several dizzying spirals, Zyryxa landed on top. She pinned him to the ice, though she didn’t need to bind him with force. The resistance drained from him as he took in her face. His mouth fell open. A smile spread across his features. Breathing heavy, Zyryxa admired her captured quarry, yearning to find something beautiful in one who had lit this fierce inferno within her core.
Rivux’s face was strikingly distinct. His refined bone structure exuded elegance. Angular jawline, high cheekbones, sculpted as if by Qoryxa herself. Yet, he was marked by Seraxa as one of hers, spattered with faint freckles, making him look almost innocent and boyish. His tousled hair had some brown tint to it as well as red, and his orange eyes shimmered with warmth. Beautiful, Zyryxa thought.
“The fire is out,” she said, uttering the callsign.
“But it burns anew,” Rivux answered.
His open, smiling mouth could only be an invitation. The fire was too hot to contain, melting away any restraints Zyryxa possessed. Rivux must’ve shared the feeling, for their lips collided with the force of enough pent-up passion to make two storms colliding look tame. She unleashed an avalanche of kisses, sloppy with inexperience and urgency; forceful without a care for anything else in the world. Rivux answered, his warm breath and hot tongue thawing any ice she felt toward him. Zyryxa felt the heat of desire fuse with her compassion for this skilled rider who ran through ice like it was his, for this man who presumably also wanted war to end, to live in a world where ice and fire fused together to create something more beautiful than either. She grinded her pelvis into his, rising and falling with an intensity that would have shattered the hips of a feebler man. She despised her furs, hating the barrier that kept her from truly mounting her consort.
Rivux thrust upward, and she felt him taking shape despite the thick layers between them. She wanted more than this but lacked the patience to hold back the avalanche of passion rushing out of her.
Rivux ran his fingers down her cheek. “What is your name, goddess?”
She nibbled his ear and tenderly brushed against him. “Zyryxa.”
He breathed into her ear, the heat making her quiver. She felt herself nearing the peak of pleasure, his voice more satisfying than any carefully placed touch she ever felt alone in her Loxzua bedroom. “Two-thirds Qoryxa’s name. It only makes sense that you’d possess four-thirds her beauty.”
Zyryxa knew it was tacky, but his reverence sent her into a passion overdrive. She escalated, grinding up and down the length of him, separated by divinedamned furs, slamming herself at him with every iota of emotion her body could contain. Their hands explored their bodies. Zyryxa cupped his pretty face as Rivux’s hands squeezed at her breasts. She rode him with little grace, darting down this wild, frenetic path toward the destination. Her body lost control, convulsing without her guidance, but certainly not without her blessing. Rivux throbbed beneath her, and she felt a wetness far warmer than snow seep into her furs. They were not quiet as they shared in the wonder of each other.
Nor did it remain quiet when they finished, Zyryxa falling into him, nudging his face with her nose tenderly, breathing like this had been the hardest part of her pursuit.
The unmistakable sound of applause echoed on the little ridge above them. Matyxal stared down at them, her legs hanging over the ridge, the widest grin on her freckled face.
“How long have you—” Zyryxa couldn’t bring herself to finish the question. She was grateful that she couldn’t see her own reflection now, for she must have blushed enough to make either of these Fire Tribe look pale.
“Long enough for me to get excited,” Matyxal answered, resting her chin on her interlocked hands.
It was then, her eyes focusing on Matyxal’s hands, that the blinders of lust were ripped off Zyryxa. She was alone in the wilderness with two powerful Fire Tribe warriors. And Matyxal’s restraints were gone.