Growing up, Zyryxa spent half of her waking hours either in conditioning or weapons training. She informed Lexyn of this as they rode toward the sea. To “keep Zyryxa sharp,” Lexyn agreed to help with evening weapons training and morning conditioning during their journey, hoping to continue their regiment at Riverwatch.

Lexyn’s technique showed promise. Her dragon warrior father had trained her well in the blade and spear, but left Zyryxa plenty of room to help her improve. The practice was going splendidly until Lexyn shrieked, her face turning ghostly pale as she dropped her sword and scrambled up a gelubor tree, her movements frantic as if the ground were ablaze and she were covered in oil.

Zyryxa didn’t remain puzzled for long. She twisted toward a scream. A pale boy with a blue mullet, clad in tattered furs, sprinted over they icy river, four sabretooths close on his heels. His long hair covered his forehead, but Zyryxa imagined a ritemark hidden beneath. He was unarmed.

“Help!” the boy cried.

Zyryxa gripped her axe. Without her help, the boy was doomed, but aiding him would make him Scaleless—a fate worse than death in her eyes. She glanced at Lexyn, who clung to the upper limbs of the gelubor, trembling and hyperventilating, while Dryxl guarded the trunk below.

“Help!” The boy’s desperate cry tore at Zyryxa’s resolve.

Protocol dictated that Qoryxa should judge whether he was fit. Yet, watching another die felt inherently wrong. Zyryxa hesitated, and the sabretooths closed in.

“Z-zyryxa!” Lexyn’s urgency pierced Zyryxa’s heart.

Springing into action, Zyryxa dashed forward with Zyrxl at her side. They closed the distance to the boy, but too late. A sabretooth lunged, tearing into his leg, and the others followed with a frenzy of claws and fangs amidst their feline growls. Blue blood sprayed, painting the air, as the screams of the boy echoed over the open tundra.

Zyrxl, spurred by the sight of blood, spat a cluster of ice rocks, killing one sabretooth before they arrived. Zyryxa hurled her throwing axes, splitting one beast’s skull and missing another as it repositioned to engage them. Zyryxa reached the boy first, her greataxe cleaving a sabretooth in half before it could pounce. The last beast fled, but Zyryxa’s qoryxite handaxe found its mark, embedding in its back. Zyrxl bounded after the whining creature, mauling it to death, then slurping up its blood.

Zyryxa pulled the dead sabretooths off the boy and suppressed the urge to retch; chunks of him were torn away, his entrails exposed. She retrieved her water skin and pushed his hair out of his eyes and off his forehead. When she saw the scars on his forehead, she dropped the skin on the ice. She had seen her mother carve dozens of foreheads like this one, yet the sight unsettled her and made her feel even more nauseous than the wounds.

“Water,” it rasped.

“You’re Scaleless.” Zyryxa shook away her astonishment. “The only thing I should offer you is a quickening to your end, a deed you should’ve done yourself the day you were scarred.”

“Qoryxa judge you!”

Zyryxa frowned at the irony. “She judges you!” Zyryxa rose, lifting Zyrthalla’s greataxe. “But our Goddess is compassionate and I am ever her champion. I can leave you torn apart and doomed to die slowly, or I can end your pain. Which would you have, Scaleless?”

“Such pride!” It coughed up blood, its entrails falling further out of its torn chest cavity.

“It is too bad you have none,” Zyryxa said, rendering Qoryxa’s judgment.

The sound of claws scraping over the ice roused her attention. Dryxl galloped toward the battle, late to the party again but eager to start lapping up sabretooth blood. Lexyn dashed forth, freezing to inspect each dead sabretooth from a distance. Once she finished, she dashed toward the Scaleless, opening her medica satchel.

“He is Scaleless,” Zyryxa warned.

Lexyn shot a glare so murderous that Zyryxa recoiled. When Lexyn knelt at its side, her lips quivered, and her eyes filled with tears. Her hand drifted away from her healing supplies and instead offered her water skin.

The Scaleless drank without pride, guzzling it down to the last drop.

Zyryxa puzzled at Lexyn’s kindness. They weren’t even supposed to speak to this creature, let alone offer it compassion. Zyryxa felt her mercy had already gone too far in offering to end its suffering.

“Why are you helping it?” Zyryxa asked, her voice tight with bewilderment and disdain.

“Him,” Lexyn corrected, anger flashing across her face like a lightning strike. She rummaged through her satchel, retrieving tufts of arctic poppy. The sight of the blue flower reminded Zyryxa that it was used to numb pain, not mend wounds. Lexyn mixed it with snow and helped the Scaleless drink.

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Zyryxa slung her greataxe over her shoulder, folding her arms across her chest. It pained her to witness this heresy. At least in Borz’s homestead, she could deny that Hemza and some of the others were Scaleless because she never saw their scars. But here, there would be no justifying this to Qoryxa. Zyrthalla would be ashamed. Qoryxa’s flaming eyes! Zyrthalla may have even been the one to scar its forehead.

Feeling an utter failure, Zyryxa remembered Lexyn’s glare, the disgust when she tried to correct her. She decided to let Lexyn waste her compassion and her arctic poppy, resolving to speak about this later when the girl wasn’t out of her divinedamned mind.

The Scaleless had the audacity to look at her. “You judge so swiftly, proud one,” it said, coughing up blood. Lexyn ran her fingers through its hair like it was her babe.

“You don’t know me,” the Scaleless said.

“I know you disgraced the Ice Tribe,” Zyryxa retorted, her voice unforgiving.

It snarled. “Perhaps the Ice Tribe failed me.”

“The only failure here is you!” Zyryxa yelled, unable to bear this foul being’s sacrilege.

“Stop being so cruel!” Lexyn roared, her entire being shaking with rage.

“Stop being so kind! It is Scaleless!”

Lexyn stomped toward Zyryxa, nostrils flared. “Then stop being kind to me because I should be Scaleless.”

Zyryxa’s arms fell to her side, her mouth agaoe in confusion. “What?”

The fury on Lexyn’s face was like a tempest, and even Zyryxa felt a shiver of fear. “Hyzqar didn’t die on his rite. He was made Scaleless for failing, and rather than take his own life, he waited until I was branded with the ritemark. Scarred, tongueless, he followed me into the wilds.” Tears flooded down her face, her voice cracking with anguish. “He died protecting me from…” Her voice faltered, and she pointed a trembling finger at one of the fallen sabretooths. She swallowed heavy and shook her head, jaw clenched. “That Scaleless should be me!”

Zyryxa’s knees gave way, and she collapsed onto the ice, her gaze locked on Lexyn but seeing nothing. Her mind spiraled into chaos as Lexyn nursed the Scaleless boy. Lexyn’s soft words barely registered with Zyryxa as she eased his passing. The boy’s final words hung in the frigid air.

“I pray for you,” he whispered, blood flecking his lips. “I pray that you never have to choose between certain death and your precious pride.”

The wind howled, blasting snow into Zyryxa’s face as she sat in the deafening silence left behind by the Scaleless. Zyrxl licked her cheek, the scent of blood strong on her breath. Lexyn’s sobs reached her ears, mingling with the wind’s mournful wail. Darkness enveloped them, and only the blue light of the waning moon illuminated the Everice. None of it felt real. How could any of this be true? Lexyn couldn’t be Scaleless?

“It can’t be,” Zyryxa gasped, choking on her sobs. Yet, it was. Zyrthalla would demand she carve the scars into Lexyn’s forehead herself. But how could she do that to this girl who had shown her nothing but love, this girl that she loved more than her own sister?

Zyryxa wished they never encountered this Scaleless boy, wished Lexyn never revealed her secret. Zyryxa tried to unhear it, but the truth had been unleashed and couldn’t be forgotten.

She could leave her instead of scarring her. Zyryxa would be the only witness, and if she never saw Lexyn again, she could live with the secret. All she had to do was break her promise and abandon the best friend she had ever had.

Zyryxa sobbed, torn between betraying Qoryxa and breaking her promise to Lexyn. She sought a way to justify Lexyn’s exoneration. Her breach of tradition had to be an exception. There had to be some justification. Lexyn couldn’t be Scaleless.

Desperately, Zyryxa searched for the loophole, while Lexyn wept quietly, hugging herself against the howling winds. If Scaleless weren’t Ice Tribe, and Hyzqar was Scaleless, then Lexyn had never truly received help. Zyryxa clung to this reasoning, refusing to examine it too closely.

“Are you … going to … l-leave me?” Lexyn asked between sobs.

Zyryxa moved to sit beside her, her own tears freezing on her cheeks. She wrapped an arm around Lexyn’s shoulders and shook her head. “No. We are brood.”

“But I should be Scaleless!” Lexyn’s voice cracked with despair.

Zyryxa shook her head again, more firmly this time. “We’re going to change things, Lexyn. You are no more Scaleless than Hyzqar should have been.”

Lexyn collapsed into Zyryxa’s shoulder, her sobs wracking her body. “I watched it. I watched the sabretooths tear him apart. He died while I hid.” She clung tighter to Zyryxa. “It should have been me!”

Zyryxa held Lexyn tightly, her own tears falling as she understood the true grief in Lexyn’s words had little to do with the boy in the ice beside them. “It shouldn’t have been any of you.”

“B-b-but he’s gone, and I’m here.”

Zyryxa gently rubbed Lexyn’s back. “And so am I. And I’m grateful you are here with me.”

“I’ll let you down. I know I will!”

Zyryxa squeezed her tighter, a fierce determination in her voice. “Then you’ll just have to help me rise again.” She ran her fingers through Lexyn’s hair, trying to soothe her. “I’m not going anywhere, Lex, so you better get used to me.”

Lexyn let out a small, broken laugh before her tears continued to flow. She lifted her gaze to meet Zyryxa’s, the blue moon casting a soft glow over them. Blizzard winds whipped snow around them, and their drakes sat on their haunches, watching with quiet interest. Beneath them, one of the world’s largest rivers lay forever trapped in ice. “You’ll stay, even after I yelled at you?”

Zyryxa grinned through her own tears. “That was more of a roar. If anything, I’m more attached than ever before.” Lexyn wiped at her eyes, her smile returning, wide and beautiful. “Besides,” Zyryxa continued, her voice catching in her throat, “I think I might’ve deserved it.”

Lexyn reached up to wipe the tears from Zyryxa’s face, her touch gentle. Zyryxa cherished that deceptively sweet smirk. “You definitely did.”

“I didn’t,” Zyryxa paused, taking a breath for dramatic effect, “I couldn’t have,” she swallowed hard, “reminded you of Pelzyq?”

Lexyn smiled and shrugged. “I’ll just say that for a moment, I thought I saw your eyes drooping.”

“My eyes! My perfect ice crystals! Never! Perhaps it was your eyes drooping which led you to see such phantoms!”

They both giggled uncontrollably, their laughter mingling with the wind. Despite everything, Zyryxa felt closer to Lexyn than ever before. She knew it would take far more than this secret to break the bond between them.