They rode north along the Everice for two days. Lexyn growing comfortable in Dryxl’s saddle while Zyryxa bonded with her wild coldscale. Lexyn’s herbs and medica proved invaluable, preventing infection, reducing pain, and binding the myriad wounds from Zyrxl’s spiked tail during their first encounter. She even mended the gashes in Zyryxa’s snowsuit, revealing her skill with a needle and solving the mystery of how her original clothes from the rite had been so well-maintained.

During the day, they made great progress. Zyrxl and Zyryxa ran down aggressors with the wyrmbone lance while Lexyn practiced launching arrows from drakeback. But the nights were harder. The cold bit at Lexyn’s slender, half-Leverian frame, and she grew skittish in the dark. Zyryxa, noticing her shivers, offered to could huddle together, but even then, Lexyn trembled through the night.

On the second evening of riding, as the sun dimmed behind clouds, Zyryxa spotted a smoke stack climbing into the sky. Lexyn’s eyes sparkled with yearning, though she never uttered her desires.

“Hey, Lex, I wonder if those homesteaders need help. Maybe they could shelter us for the night too.”

Lexyn suppressed a wide smile. She nodded. “I’m game.”

“Lexyn,” Zyryxa said, her lip curling, “stop telling me you’re game; you’re so much more to me than a piece of meat.”

Shaking her head, Lexyn grinned at Zyryxa’s sorry excuse of a joke.

Their smiles vanished as they approached the homestead. The palisade was cracked, with a broken gate left ajar. Zyrxl and Dryxl pressed their noses to the snow, lapping up viscous puddles of blue blood that trailed from the open gate. Direwolf prints in the snow told a tragic tale. There were dead to avenge. Zyryxa’s grip tightened on the wyrmbone lance. Her eyes traced the tracks, judging them to be about half a day old, their numbers to be around a dozen, heading northeast into the tundra. With Zyrxl, she could hunt them before dawn.

“They might have wounded,” Lexyn muttered.

“Halt!” An old woman’s upper half emerged over the white palisade, a readied longbow in her hands. Her hair was graying with bangs hiding whether she had a warriormark or was Scaleless. Zyryxa assumed the latter; no one with pride would hide the dragon on their forehead. “Leave now or find an arrow in ye. Yer choice.”

Zyryxa bit her lip and took a breath. Her mother had taught her to reserve judgment until hearing the whole story. Zyryxa dismounted, set the lance down, and took a step toward the homestead. “We are dragon warriors in service to the Ice Champion Vaztyma, journeying to Riverwatch. We’re willing to offer our services.”

The woman drew her bow. “We don’t want ye!”

“Lower your arrow, Hemza.” A grizzled, gray-haired warrior with a burnt face stepped through the palisade opening. Though his hideous face could use some concealment, he at least showed his warriormark.

“We can’t trust em, Borz!”

“I say whether we ken trust em or not!” Borz snapped. He offered a half-hearted smile. “We’ve had hard times, warriors. Direwolves attacked before dawn, wounded one and…” He swallowed, staving off tears. “You wouldn’t happen to have a surgeon among ye?”

Lexyn’s lips parted and quivered, no words emerging. Zyryxa gestured to her mounted companion. “Lexyn is a trained medican and herbalist. I’ve never met one better.”

“Bless Qoryxa,” Borz cried. “Please, we can shelter ye as long as ye need if ye can help Eiryn.”

Lexyn nodded, urging Dryxl forward. Zyryxa never took her gaze off the Scaleless on the scaffolding. The woman lowered her aim and looked away, but kept her arrow nocked.

Inside the homestead, four small huts surrounded a pavilion. Several scaffolds served as makeshift ramparts, a stack of gelubor lumber leaning against one hut. Faces peered from the openings with more than a few with bangs or headbands over their forehead. Zyryxa dared not disturb their melancholy silence. Two direwolves hung in the pavilion where a boy near rite age tended a huge kettle. The direwolves were hacked apart, their heads were displayed on spikes. A yak lay dead, ripped apart by fang and claw, and more puddles of blood trailed from one of the huts. Borz led them there.

He paused outside, lowering his voice. “Eiryn tried to ward off the direwolves, tried to protect her Eiral.” His lips quivered as he studied Lexyn. “I already gotta bury a little girl. I dunno know if I ken watch her mother return to the ice too.”

Lexyn lowered her eyes, her hands trembling.

“She will do her best,” Zyryxa said, “and her best is divinedamned good.”

Borz nodded and pushed open the door.

Inside, a man in his thirties sat beside a woman covered in blankets by the hearth. He didn’t look up as they entered, his gaze fixed on the woman. A small lump lay covered beside the unconscious woman. Eiral.

The girl couldn’t have been more than a few years old. Live in the homesteads was hard, such was the Volqori way. But this was a death Zyryxa couldn’t abide. Her fingers tingled, yearning to take her axe to these direwolves. The butchery outside hadn’t gone far enough.

“Varrex,” Borz said softly, “this warrior is a surgeon.”

Varrex didn’t look up. He took Eiryn’s hand. “Eiryn. Don’t go yet. We’ve brought help. You’re gonna be okay.” He glanced toward the covered body. “You’ve gotta be.”

Zyryxa nudged Lexyn forward. “My broodsister here is better with her needle than her bow, and I’ve never seen a better shot with a bow. She will do whatever anyone can for Eiryn.”

Varrex gazed at Lexyn, his eyes ringed with red. “You’ll save her?”

Lexyn retracted the blankets covering Eiryn. Zyryxa had a strong stomach, but she nearly vomited. More than a dozen bites, swaths of yellowed flesh leaking putrid pus, ugly sutures binding her together … Zyryxa had to avert her gaze. Unless Lexyn was secretly a cognitive-affectomancer, Eiryn lay in her deathbed.

“Can you help?” Borz asked, his head turned away from the injuries.

Lexyn, to her credit, didn’t look away from her patient. “I-I ... maybe.”

“Maybe?” Varrex moaned. “Maybe?” He staggered to his feet, tipping an empty flagon over. The big man loomed over Lexyn. “I thought you were the best?”

Lexyn’s eyes drifted back to her feet. “I n-n-need to open the w-w-wound and cl-clean it. I will d-do m-my b-b-b-best, b-but—

“But Eiryn’s body needs to win this fight,” Zyryxa finished. “Lexyn is the best at what she does. If anyone can give Eiryn a chance, Qoryxa has brought her here.”

Varrex clenched his jaw and gave a curt nod. “Eiryn is a helluva fighter. Damn direwolves went for…” He shook his head and stepped aside.

Lexyn opened her satchel and produced tools and herbs. She took out a bowl, mixed an orange herb with snow, and spread the concoction gently over Eiryn’s wounds. Like magic, the wounds bubbled, and the stitching dissolved. Eiryn moaned weakly.

Varrex stepped toward his mate. “You’re hurting her!”

Lexyn flinched. Her hands shook, and she kept her head down.

Zyryxa stepped between them. “Are you Ice Tribe!” Varrex clenched his jaw and nodded. “Is that a warriormark on your forehead!” His eyes narrowed, but he nodded again. Zyryxa pointed to Eiryn. “Do you love her!”

“Aye!”

She pointed toward the covered body of Eiral. “And her!”

Tears fell from his eyes. “Aye.”

Zyryxa gripped his shoulders. “Then your battle is not in this room, brother Varrex. Retrieve your weapons. We have direwolves to slay.”

Varrex stood taller. “Aye!”

Zyryxa set her forearm in front of his. Varrex followed suit, pressing his forearm against hers from elbow to wrist as she had seen thousands of times amongst her mother’s warriors. “Let’s go, sister.”

He rushed from the hut, greataxe in hand.

Zyryxa watched Borz, the definitive patriarch of this homestead. The grizzled old man could’ve taken issue with her seizing command. Instead, he grunted his approval. “I will gather Herrax, and the four of us will put these beasts to death.”

Zyryxa nodded, letting the man leave the hut.

“Thank you,” Lexyn mumbled.

“Does Eiryn have a chance?” Zyryxa asked, her voice steady but her eyes betraying her concern.

“I’ve seen few recoveries more miraculous,” Lexyn said, her hands still trembling. “And those were in a sanitary clinic stocked with supplies and medicans more experienced than I.”

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“Don’t discount yourself, Lexyn. We are all she needs.” Zyryxa smiled, trying to impart some of her confidence into her anxious sister. “You will do your part, and I’ll do mine. The God of Death will have his due. The lives of every direwolf in the pack for Eiryn; not even Zamael would call that a poorly balanced trade.”

Lexyn managed a wobbly smile. “Perhaps not.”

Zyryxa gently tapped her on the shoulder. “Love you, Lex. You’ve got this.”

Zyryxa took in the scene one last time. A mother who fought like a dragon to defend her little girl. Qoryxa’s flaming eyes! Zyryxa’s own icy eyes stung with unshed tears.

“I love you too, Zyryxa,” Lexyn murmured as Zyryxa left the hut.

The tears shed themselves now. It’d been one year and three days since she heard those words. Zyryxa wiped the tears away, breathed in the icy air, and drew her mother’s greataxe.

Outside, Varrex, Borz, and the pre-rite boy who had tended the pavilion fire stood at the broken gate, weapons in hand. Their faces were set with grim determination.

Zyryxa lifted her greataxe high, her voice ringing with fierce resolve that would make her mother proud. “Brothers! By the will of Qoryxa, our blades shall strike true, and Ice’s judgment will be delivered until every last direwolf is returned to the ice! For Eiral!”

“For Eiral!” they echoed, their voices a powerful chorus of vengeance.

Zyryxa summoned Zyrxl and Dryxl, and the six of them bounded after the direwolves, the cold air filled with the promise of retribution.

*************

Zyryxa fulfilled her end of her bargain with the Divine of Death. Under the blue light of the full moon, eleven dead direwolves lay scattered on the Everice. Zyryxa had slain eight; Zyrxl, Varrex, and Borz accounted for one each.

“Qoryxa’s flaming eyes!” Borz roared. “You woke the dragon!”

Zyryxa beheaded the pack’s mother, an enormous beast felled in one hit from a mounted lance. Atop Zyrxl, she had taken three more direwolves before vaulting from the drake and to slay two more with her greataxe. When Verrax, Borz, and Borz’s son arrived, the direwolves scattered. Zyrxl slowed two by spraying rocks, then ripped one apart while Borz gutted the other. Dryxl wrestled with one until Verrax split it in two. The last two shouldn’t have run in a straight line; Zyryxa’s qoryxite throwing axes made quick, gruesome work of them.

Holding the mother direwolf’s head aloft, Zyryxa felt a surge of exultation. Yet, she craved more, like a starving soul only given a taste. She imagined the head of a beautiful golden woman, red hair and blue eyes, orange blood flowing from her neck. But Saevah roamed free, flying over Volqor, while Zyrthalla was returned to the ice. The empty trophy felt meaningless. Zyryxa hurled it to Varrex.

“For Eiral!” Varrex spat on the head, then repeatedly slammed it against the ice. This was his vengeance, not hers. Zyryxa felt teased, deprived, hollowed out with rage pulsing in her heart. She helped Borz and Herrax gather the direwolves, lifting the four-hundred-pound carcasses over her head and tossing them into a pile. All the while, she wished she were throwing Saevah around like a divinedamned doll before tearing her limb from limb and ripping her head from her fucking neck. Zamael had his due, but Zyryxa did not have hers.

Zyrxl and Dryxl licked up blood across the battlefield, their feast punctuated by draconic howls at the full moon. Zyryxa found herself staring up at the great shimmering orb, wondering how Saevah could see the same sight and know nothing of her pain.

Borz strode up beside her. “The Dark Brother takes his due when the moon is big and blue.”

“Death comes at any time. Keep your axe sharp and put stock in that instead of superstition.”

Borz frowned, his hideously burnt face contorting. “I’ve seen a few more Zamael Waxings than you, proud warrior. Death comes more often on nights like this.” He gestured to the carcass pile. “Just ask them.”

Verrax approached, his voice urgent. “We need to get moving. It’ll be damn near dawn by the time we get back to the stead.”

“No,” Borz said firmly. “It’s too late, and the stead is too far. Last thing we need is to get ambushed in the dark and leave Eiryn without her mate.”

Verrax loomed over Borz. “I’m going with or without you.”

Drakeheaded men. Zyryxa sighed, the distraction from her vengeance ironically calming her.

“I get it,” Borz said, “You know I’ve buried a mate. That’s why I’m trying to make sure Eiryn keeps hers.”

Verrax glared at Borz, gesturing to the pre-rite boy. “And yet you don’t know shit about losing your own kid.”

“I know more than you think.”

“Not the same, old man. Not the same at all!”

Borz shook his head. “No, it’s worse. You weren’t there when yours needed you. I,” Borz swallowed hard, “I turned mine away.”

“She wasn’t yours no more.”

Borz gripped the bigger man’s furs. “They never stop being yours! Don’t matter if ye can’t call em yours no more.”

Verrax pushed Borz off, then the older man rushed him. They grappled, Borz pushing Verrax back while Verrax tried to throw him. Borz kept his feet moving and brought Verrax down beside the carcass pile. Verrax twisted on top of Borz, who threw a punch and kicked Verrax in the groin. The younger man spilled into the snow, howling as he gripped his loins.

“Had enough!” Borz yelled.

Roaring, Verrax surged to his feet. They charged each other again like rutting tarandruxes.

“Stop!” the boy hollered.

Invisible and mute, like most pre-rite children, his input was ignored. He readied to rush into the fray, but Zyryxa put a hand on his chest. “I’ve got this.” She gripped Verrax’s shoulders and flung him into a snowbank, then shoved Borz onto the ice. “Enough!”

Verrax staggered to his feet, inhaling like an enraged drake, but stepped back from the fight, arms folded over his chest.

Borz stomped toward Verrax, only to be knocked back down by Zyryxa.

“You done?” Zyryxa asked Borz. The burnt man nodded. “Then let us remember that we are friends.”

Both opened their mouths to protest. Zyrxl and Dryxl stood beside Zyryxa, growling, and the men fell silent. Zyryxa scrambled for a plan, her heart wanting to keep moving but her mind knowing that could be disastrous. She looked at Verrax. “I’m not going to stop you,” then she gestured to the boy, “but I’m not leaving a pre-rite youth behind. I suggest you trust in Eiryn and do what she would want you to do.”

“You know what she’d say,” Borz interjected.

Verrax’s scowl sagged and he hid his eyes behind his hand. “Fine. But only because Eiral’s avenger is staying.”

“Get some wood, boy,” Borz told his son.

Zyryxa wanted to escape these two but dared not leave them alone yet. The boy glanced at her, a twinkle in his eye as his lips curled up. “I could use a hand.”

She twisted her head and turned her back to him. He was handsome, and she’d seen him haul direwolf carcasses. Still, pre-rite youth were forbidden partners. The only exceptions were when vile dragon champions took youth for themselves, and the bards did not speak well of them. For once, Zyryxa sided with the bards. It was best to pretend he didn’t exist. She didn’t even want to know him as anything more than “boy.”

“That slaughter worked up my appetite,” Zyryxa said. “I’m going to carve us some direwolf.”

“I’ll give ye a hand,” Verrax told the boy.

“Thanks, Verrax,” Borz said. “I’ll help the warrior with the wolf.”

Zyryxa and Borz skinned the hide and then carved the prime meat on the wolf’s back. The four spoke little, communicating only what was needed to get their tasks done well.

Zyryxa had been too many firesides, but never one as somber as this one. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the spitting of the meat. The scent of the roast took her far away and long ago, up the Frostrise and onto the Frostmelt. Her fa… Abbaz strummed his lute and told stories of legends like Dual Champion Fortyzma, Queen Alexia Leveria, and the twin divinities, Qoryxa and Seraxa. Syrixza and Qorrix would sit with them, their daughter Syra stealing glances with Zyryxa as they kept quiet. Often, Matyxal, the bard of the partnered Fire and Ice dragon knights, would join Abbaz in song with her inhumanely beautiful voice that could haunt or move you to tears with just a few notes.

Memories of peace were disrupted when she recalled that Saevah had shared their fire more than once or twice. She felt a cold the fire couldn’t touch. How long would it take to feel warm again? How long until she stopped crying herself to sleep? Would she feel whole again once Saevah was dead? She glanced at Verrax. His vacant stares into the fire did little to convince her that he felt better now that Eiral’s killers were returned to the ice.

Zyryxa startled when the boy offered her a strip of meat. “Did you grow up in the homesteads?” he asked.

Zyryxa kept her eyes away from him, not savoring the feeling of being rude. “I was raised in Loxzua.”

“Ah, a pampered princess.”

“This pampered princess killed eight direwolves.” She met his gaze. “How many did you kill?”

The boy averted his eyes, his pale cheeks flushing. Borz hollered with laughter, and Zyryxa’s lips twitched. “Leave her be, my boy. I’d bet the rest of my unburnt flesh that you’ll be calling this princess ‘Champion’ when you get your warriormark.”

Spirits lifted, Zyryxa gnawed at the meat. Tough and gamey, she worked harder to chew the meat than she did to kill the direwolf.

“What’s your name?”

She met Varrex’s somber gaze. “Zyryxa.”

“When you become a knight, Zyryxa, I promise Eiryn and I will join your swarm.”

She forced a grin and nodded. The sounds of jaws struggling with meat joined the crackle of burning gelubor. Zyryxa kept avoiding the boy’s gaze, and his father did nothing to make him stop. Zyrxl and Dryxl tussled over scraps of inedible or uncooked steak. Zyryxa kept thinking of Saevah, her low-pitched laugh after one of her mother’s jokes. Zyryxa couldn’t remember what her mom said, but she couldn’t seem to forget that awful laugh.

“Verrax?”

“Zyryxa?”

“Does it feel any better?”

“When I cut through one of them, when I was thrashing the pack mother’s head, I felt like I had power again.” Tears formed in his azure eyes. “But it didn’t last. Now I live in a world with thirteen dead direwolves but still no Eiral. Eiryn still fights Zamael, and I am miles away, powerless to do anything to help her.” He put his head in his hands and wept.

Zyryxa strode from the fire and into the nearest gelubor copse. She wept for little Eiral, taken years before she could become herself. She wept for Eiryn, who fought for her life because she tried to give her daughter a future. She wept for Varrex, who avenged them but found nothing but emptiness in a world without the people that made his world whole. She wept for Lexyn, who carried Varrex’s prayers and held so much of her own pain in her quiet heart. She wept for Zyrthalla, who lived well and died poorly. She wept for herself, who would never live in a world with Zyrthalla again, no matter if she killed Saevah.

She wept, wiping at her eyes, looking up at the full moon, praying that Zamael held his end of the bargain.

*************

Cheers erupted from the homesteaders as Zyryxa’s hunting party returned, laden with as much of the direwolves as they could carry.

“Eiryn!” Verrax shouted, eyes fixed on his hut. Lexyn appeared in the doorway, smiling, as the homesteaders rushed to share news of Eiryn’s recovery.

Zyryxa exhaled the anxiety and breathed in sweet relief. Lexyn, you beautiful miracle.

With tears in his eyes and a broad smile spreading across his face, Varrex pushed through the throng of homesteaders. “Eiryn! Eiryn!”

Lexyn stepped aside, a little victorious grin on her precious face. Zyryxa gave her a patented semi-stoic nod. Lexyn mimicked the motion adequately. Both laughed and Zyryxa embraced her broodsister. “You saved her.”

Lexyn closed her arms around Zyryxa. “She saved herself.”

Zyryxa pulled back, keeping her hands on the smaller warrior’s arms. “Give yourself some credit for once, Lex.”

Lexyn looked down at her feet.

Crushing a sigh, Zyryxa let it go. For now. Someday this girl would see herself for what she was. Until then, Zyryxa would work double to see her as the worthwhile person she was.

The homesteaders flowed into the hut to witness the reunion, their infectious cheer lifting Zyryxa’s spirits. She frowned, realizing the joy wouldn’t last once they put Eiral back into the ice.

Lexyn’s voice broke through Zyryxa’s thoughts. “Ready to go?”

“You don’t want to be the subject of their gratitude, do you?”

Lexyn’s silence spoke for her.

“Very well,” Zyryxa said, clapping her broodsister on the back. “On to Riverwatch.”

They made their way to the drakes, Dryxl’s tail wagging as he rushed to lick Lexyn’s hand.

Borz took stock of their direwolf haul near the broken gate, the haggard Scaleless Hemza beside him. “Leaving so soon?” Borz asked.

“We’re needed on the frontlines of the war,” Zyryxa said.

Borz touched his face, what little the fire had left of it. “Qoryxa bless you both and leave you unburnt.” He set his jaw. “Ride high, Zyryxa, and you too, Lexyn. You’ll always be welcome in our steading.”

“Thank you, Borz.” Zyryxa looked at the Scaleless woman, and felt the unspoken understanding in her wary expression. The woman had failed to pass the Rite of the Dragon Warrior without accepting help, marking her as a shameful disgrace to the Ice Tribe. Zyryxa met her stare, gave her nod, and left the homestead behind.