Daylight was fading. Lexyn’s heart pounded as she stared at the distant smoke rising from the homestead, the horizon still void of the homestead itself. I’m going to be too late, she thought. Even if I’m not, even if they have what we need, I won’t be able to convince them to help. She sighed, overwhelmed by her sense of inadequacy. She was going to let Zyryxa down. Maybe then, if Zyryxa survived, she would finally stop expecting Lexyn to be more than she was.
Lexyn’s fingers brushed the handle of her sword, a cold reminder of her shortcomings. If it came to it, she knew she’d fail to wield it. She’d failed yesterday when the goora attacked, leaving Pelzyq to wrestle the monster right after regaining consciousness.
As Dryxl carried her down into the valley, Lexyn reminded herself of her past actions—how she’d shot the wyrm’s eye to give Zyryxa a chance to escape. Yeah, but it was Zyryxa who risked her life to protect me and it was Zyryxa who defeated the wyrm.
She’d tended to Zyryxa and Pelzyq, keeping them from dying of exposure. Yeah, but Zyryxa might still die, and Pelzyq had already saved them despite his condition.
Lexyn slumped on Dryxl’s back, overwhelmed by guilt and grief. Hyzqar wouldn’t have needed to rely on Pelzyq. He would have roused Zyryxa already. The familiar agony stabbed at her chest. Hyzqar should’ve been the one to live. She could still see the sabretooths tearing him apart while she cowered in the upper branches of a gelubor tree, helpless and ashamed.
She wished her parents had taken the family to her mother’s native Meridian, where her brother could’ve lived a long life, where she wouldn’t need to live up to the expectations of the Ice Tribe or to trudge through this frozen hellscape to protect the people she cared about. Still, Lexyn urged Dryxl forward. She had to try.
She wasn’t fit enough in body or mind. She couldn’t do the things Zyryxa or Pelzyq could, nor did she want to. They saw Qoryxa as a champion of might, like Gidi, when Lexyn saw the Goddess of Ice and Beauty as a compassionate defender of the weak, who judged those with strength who chose to harm or ignore the struggles of those “beneath them.” Though Lexyn would never tell anyone, even Zyryxa, Qoryxa was second in her heart to Leverith. The Leverian Goddess and her teachings that one should seek to understand rather than destroy, that it is better to love your enemy than fight them, were incompatible with every facet of Volqori society. Lexyn might be half-Volqori and half-Leverian by ancestry, but her spirits belonged across the sea.
Yet here she was, trying to help the perfect Ice Tribe warrior, someone she could never hope to emulate.
As the sunlight faded, Lexyn wallowed in a mire of inadequacy. The homestead still eluded her, the smoke a mirage on the horizon of her despair. She tried to convince herself that she could be a dragon, but in truth, she was a little mouse. Even if she managed to reach her destination, she would squeak out a few words and be dismissed.
Heart heavy, Lexyn pressed on, clinging to a fragile threat of hope. Cresting another hill, she finally saw the homestead. Hope turned to ash and movement to paralysis as fires raged in the valley, screams piercing the night air.
She froze, the scene below a nightmare made real. Red drakes spewed flame at the homestead’s white palisades while men with fiery hair cut down blue-haired folk attempting to flee their homes. She managed to dismount and shrink into the snow, making herself small. Dryxl lay down beside her, his acute sense of smell likely taking in the smoke and burning flesh more powerfully than Lexyn’s own nostrils. She suppressed the urge to retch, her eyes unable to look away from the slaughter.
How could she remain true to the tenet of loving your enemy when that enemy would burn her alive and cut her down without mercy? The laughter of the Fire Tribe raiders echoed in the valley, and Lexyn felt no love for them, no desire to understand their hearts and minds. Qoryxa would demand she judge these raiders with her depleted quiver or even her blade, but fear paralyzed her, keeping her from moving closer as the flames consumed the homestead.
Lexyn felt like she was failing Qoryxa, Leverith, and Zyryxa. If Zyryxa were here, she’d have charged down the hill and fought off the raiders with ruthless efficiency.
Lexyn’s attention was drawn to a rallying cry from the Ice Tribe. A blue-haired woman shouted into the night, rousing the homesteaders. Lexyn watched as this warrior became a whirling blizzard, cutting through the Fire Tribe with her spear. Despite her remarkable prowess, her allies were falling back.
An Ice Tribe woman wielded an axe in one hand while protecting a bundle in the other—a crying babe. An arrow struck the woman’s side, and a blade flashed toward the child. The woman intercepted the blow, her arm and the babe tumbled into the snow, its cries one more horrible noise in the chaos.
Lexyn had faced powerlessness many times, but witnessing a red-haired man crush a child’s skull while the babe’s mother howled beside the corpse was among the worst. Her hearted pounded with a mix of fear and fury as she crept down the hill, gripping her bow tightly. The sounds of battle—clashing metal, hissing flames, desperate cries, and mocking laughter—echoing in the valley. She drew an arrow and took position outside the homestead’s gate, overwhelmed by the carnage. When the twins Qoryxa and Seraxa feuded, only Zamael triumphed. Corpses lay scattered, as orange and blue bled alike into the snow.
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Fire Tribe men held down two homestead women, including the one who’d tried to protect the babe. The blue-haired warrior fought valiantly, her spear piercing the heart of an axe-wielding raider before she threw it through the throat of another attacker. Her last companion’s head rolled in the snow. “Oxa!” The woman’s anguished cry pierced Lexyn’s heart. Her knees buckled, and her hands trembled so violently that she couldn’t steady her bow. She froze, feeling powerless again.
The ice warrior drew a second spear and hurled it into the chest of her friend’s killer. Unarmed and surrounded by six men, she dodged their attacks, slipped through their circle, vaulted over one raider, and disarmed another charging at her with a spear. The weapon flashed as it burst through the face of its previous wielder and out the back of his head. She wrenched the spear free and crouched, ready for the next attack.
The raiders hesitated, outnumbering the ice warrior five-to-one. One of them called out, “Enough of this, Matyxal! How many of us will you let die while you stand by!”
A cloaked figure emerged from the burning homestead, moving through the fire unscathed. A woman with a mane of orange-red hair, smaller than Lexyn but exuding power, walked forward with a lute on her back and a sword at her hip. Her voice was haunting, sending shivers through Lexyn’s body. “Stand down, Natazia. Qoryxa is proud of you, but she does not yet want you to return to the ice.”
Natazia growled defiantly, “Make me, bitch.”
Matyxal sighed and drew her blade, a masterwork of dragon bone that burst into flames as it was unsheathed. “If I must.”
The homestead burning around them like a scene out of Zamael’s Hells, the two women assumed fighting stances. Roaring, Natazia charged at Matyxal. The fiery woman evaded with ease, as fluidly as fire consumes gelubor. Lexyn lost count of Natazia’s frantic attempts to strike the smaller woman. At last, Matyxal’s blade flashed, severing the top half of Natazia’s spear. Natazia thrust the now-pointless weapon at Matyxal’s throat. Matyxal stepped into the attack, parrying the blow and sending the spear flying. She advanced, seized Natazia by the throat, and slammed her to the ground.
Lexyn watched, shivering in the cold, relieved she hadn’t released an arrow. She was even more grateful that Zyryxa wasn’t here to face this Fire Tribe demon. Matyxal pinned Natazia with a single-handed grip, and the ice warrior’s struggles seemed increasingly futile.
“It is over, Natazia,” Matyxal’s voice, smooth and otherworldly, said softly as flames ate the walls of the homestead and the Fire Tribe roared triumphantly.
“No!” Natazia shrieked, her voice breaking. “Freeze you!”
With a sigh, Matyxal turned to her allies, her freckled face illuminated by the flames. “Take her prisoner.”
The largest of the red-haired raiders, the one Lexyn watched crush the babe, objected. “That blue bitch took out eight of our men! She is too dangerous to keep alive!”
“Afraid of a bound woman, Taxim?” Matyxal’s voice was laced with disdain.
Taxim snarled. “Faxiq gave me the command! Me! I see no reason to spare her!”
Natazia hammered at Matyxal’s arm, her efforts failing to inconvenience Matyxal. “She is a pretty one and she used to be Hatrox’s pet.”
Natazia’s pleas grew more frantic. “No! Kill me! KILL ME!” Her cries were raw and desperate, and Lexyn wished she could do something—anything—to help. One arrow to Taxim’s throat and then she’d flee on Dryxl. She shook, her heart pounding, her hands slick with sweat. The raiders had drakes, and they were growling at each other over the blood of the fallen. Lexyn wouldn’t even get up the hill before they were on her. If she did, she’d only lead this red woman to Zyryxa and Pelzyq. The fantasy of heroism crumbled beneath the weight of brutal reality. If she was to have any chance of helping Natazia, and the other two women, it was with Zyryxa and Pelzyq.
“I already have two,” Taxim said, “but three is better than two. Bind the bitch! I want that rope to cut into her ankles and wrists. I want one tied around her neck so tight she struggles to breathe!” He seized a captive, who screamed for help and cried out a name—“Bax!”
Taxim’s fist slammed into her gut. “Shut up or I’ll use you until you’re a bloody, used-up piece of meat for the fucking drakes!”
The woman sobbed, silenced by fear. Natazia’s screams wrenched Lexyn’s heart as the ropes bound her ankles, wrists, and throat.
Lexyn’s fists clenched as tears of rage streamed down her cheeks. She felt like a worthless little mouse, powerless to protect those she loved, just as she had felt when she watched her brother get ripped apart by sabretooths. She was a failure, in the eyes of both the Divine and mortals. She had to escape, to get back to Zyryxa, but was paralyzed.
Taxim ordered the dead to be burned and the captives taken back to their base. Matyxal sheathed her blazing sword and held her lute as the men dragged their captives by their leashes, Natazia screaming for them to kill her instead. The freckled woman stood amidst the flames where the homesteaders once gathered and played a haunting tune on her lute. A hut collapsed into the inferno as burnt flesh filled the air, and Matyxal’s song wove through the devastation.
Each note Matyxal played struck Lexyn’s nerves like thunder, reverberating through her soul. The music’s shifting tones—somber, then angry, then somber again—created a haunting performance unlike anything Lexyn had ever heard. Matyxal’s ethereal voice intertwined with the crackling flames, leaving a melody that lingered long after the last notes faded:
The flames burn through my shattered soul,
While ice numbs the warmth we knew.
Our love, once a blazing, radiant whole
Now lies in ruins, cold and blue
The joy we built has turned to dust,
In fire and frost, our dreams combust.
All we cherished lies destroyed,
In the blaze and freeze, hope is void.
When war has claimed both mind and heart,
How do we find a place to start?
As the rest of the Fire Tribe departed, Matyxal lowered her lute and wiped her eyes. “Look at what has become of our world, my loves. I sing to an audience of ash and blood, instead of you.” The unstoppable bard lowered her head into her hands and wept.
Dryxl crooned mournfully, and Matyxal’s teary gaze turned upon Lexyn. Lexyn froze beneath her fiery gaze, urine running down her thighs.