A duo of swarthy dragon warriors armored in white dragonscale pushed the gate of the Pridefort open.
A man dressed in soft, foreign finery grinned at the three dragon warrior aspirants. Zyryxa recognized the best-maintained goatee in Volqor and the elegant face framed by shoulder-length sapphire hair. She remembered the Festival of Melding, when his eyes met hers while he sang “Frozen Elegance,” the curve of his lips rising like the beating of her heart.
“Three tonight,” Dezoq said, his voice smooth as the silk he wore. He scanned their foreheads and nodded his approval with each faded ritemark. He lingered on Zyryxa. “An excellent yield.”
Her mother warned her of being sweet with the Champion’s consort. That did not stop Zyryxa’s stomach from dancing a merry tune to Dezoq’s notes. She held her head high and kept her lips flat, reminding herself that he was dragonless, that he belonged to the Champion, and, most importantly, he was a divinedamned bard.
Pelzyq strutted ahead, brushing past Dezoq and inviting himself into the fortress. “You have a future champion in your midst.”
“Thanks for announcing my arrival,” Zyryxa said.
Dezoq’s chuckle shattered Zyryxa’s icy expression. “If we are to have as many future champions as I have heard over the years, we will be out of dragons before the winter ends.” He exhaled. “That is, if the war does not cull them first.”
War. Divinedamned war.
The worry previously trapped in the ice broke free. Faxiq did not act alone nor was the duel of dragons merely Duilahir acting erratic without a knight’s bond to rein in her draconic nature. Suddenly, Zyryxa was a six-year-old crying up at the sky as fire and ice exploded above Loxzua, terrified that her mother might never kiss her goodnight again. The light seemed to drain from the dusky eve and Zyryxa froze, paralyzed by the news as if it were an axe to the spine.
“Beautiful. Pelzyq will claim the lives of many Fire Tribe warriors.”
Zyryxa glared at the big lout. “Fire and ice exploding in the sky above our frightened young in Loxzua. Homesteads of warriors who served their thirteen years, who spent decades building their home, reduced to ash in an instant. The only songs playing in the Frostmelt will be the cries of dying dragons, and instead of Ice and Fire Tribe warriors competing in glorious tournaments, their corpses will pile together in the shameful slaughter of war. If you think that is beautiful, then you are even uglier than I thought.”
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Pelzyq matched her glare with a vicious scowl. She tensed, her hands forming into fists at her side, ready for the brute to charge her. She hoped he did.
Instead, a gentle hand brushed her back. “Well said,” Lexyn mumbled.
Dezoq cleared his throat. “Wise men don’t want for war.”
Zyryxa lost the notes of Dezoq’s music, not even caring that the beautiful bard supported her. The gentle hand on her back, the soft voice, the compassion. Zyryxa smiled at Lexyn and, for a few moments, Lexyn smiled back.
“Sounds to me like the lot of you are divinedamned cowards,” Pelzyq said, his deep voice slurring the words before spittle shot out his mouth.
Zyryxa shivered, the sense of touch waning like the light dwindling from the darkening horizon. Dark thoughts swarmed around her, making it harder to breath. She kept her gaze forward, though they saw horrors instead of the qoryxite walls of the Pridefort. “There is a difference between being a coward and between fearing for the lives of people you have vowed to protect. Is there nobody that you care about? Nobody that you worry might have been taken from you this year?”
“Let the ice take them if they could not save themselves,” Pelzyq said.
Zyryxa folded her arms over her chest. Her mother was ice. Amongst the Ice Tribe, the only ones that could challenge Zyrthalla were Qorrix, Hatrox, and Vaztyma herself. Against the Fire, Zyryxa wanted to believe that Zyrthalla would triumph over any of them. Yet, Tantix, Faxiq, Bellax, and Syrixza all rode greater dragons too. If two of them caught Zyrthalla alone…
Dezoq gestured toward one of the warriors who pushed the gate open. The brawny man offered to tend to Dryxl. The darkscale snarled, but revealed his true loyalty when the warrior offered him a strip of yak jerky.
Dezoq led them deeper into the Pridefort, traversing over frostbitten ground free of snow. Beautiful walls of qoryxite with gelubor ladders and stairwells allowed the dragon warriors access to the parapets. Of those warriors, Zyryxa glimpsed no women and the men... Vaztyma had her type. Hopefully she kept Pelzyq. Of décor, Zyryxa saw only weapon racks at the outdoor armory and no sign of the works of the master artisans of Loxzua or Ozyeeq or even of distant ports from across the sea.
“You may be the last bearing a ritemark that does not know,” Dezoq said. He paused, Praedax’s great blue wings blasting them with a mighty gale as he landed in the inner courtyard. “The boy is Pelzyq.” Dezoq grinned. “What is your name wise one?”
She could not channel the enthusiasm to match his. Her name fell out of her lips, her mind remembering Ohenix falling into the sea, but now it was Qorzillux taking her mother down to the depths of the ocean.
The charming bard’s eyes widened before they shot down to the frostbitten earth. “Tonight, I will record and sing your names, welcoming you as my new brother and sisters. First,” he grinned at Pelzyq, “you must pass one final test to become dragon warriors of the Ice Tribe.”
Dezoq threw open a qoryxite gate. Beyond the opening, it seemed that the world was painted a blue so dark that the scales seemed to drink the night’s blackness. The ground shook as Praedax touched down and all four of them staggered, Lexyn falling to a knee. Dezoq spread his arms in front of him and went through the gateway, howling over the fluttering of enormous wings. “Champion Vaztyma! I present thee Pelzyq, Zyryxa, and,” Dezoq twisted toward Lexyn and grimaced, “and one other!”
Dezoq gestured to the doorway and stepped aside, offering them to the absolute and only law of southern Volqor.