My body snaps together a moment before I crash into the snow. I’m already dropping too fast. There’s no way I’m pulling out of this dive. The only thing I can do is clamp down on my form and try to cool my exterior as much as I can without chilling the heat within. If I can keep all my heat inside, I should be fine.

I smash headfirst into the thick white cover and find myself buried deep. The layer of snow rises well over my short stature while in this form. I flail with my wings and drag myself on top of the white powder. Despite my best efforts, the snow melts around me. A sheen of water stings as it pulls energy out of my flames.

On top of the snow, I hold myself up with the tips of my wings. I try my best to keep my talons from sinking. My bag with Grímr has fallen fifty metres away. I need to get over there.

I try to minimise how much of my body is touching the snow, but even with only my talons and the tips of my wings, the speed at which it is melting is concerning. The longer I stay still, the greater the pain becomes. I scuttle along the surface while I look up; I need to find what attacked me. There’s no point taking to the sky again if I’m going to be hit with such intense force again.

With wings spread wide, a large bird glides through the air far above. My first thought is that the Titan has chased us down in the moment I stopped looking, but the plumage of differing shades of blue says otherwise. The Titan buzzard is still far away on the Alps.

The bird above has four long wings that allow it to twist through the air at incredible angles. The eagle curves up, flying upside down and in the opposite direction after an impossibly sharp turn. It doesn’t seem to have any more difficulty flying like that than it did upright. Angling its neck, the bird looks down at me before falling into a dive. Its beak appears more like an axe-head than something that should be on the head of an eagle.

It accelerates far faster than should be possible simply with the help of gravity. From hundreds of metres in the air, it takes barely a second for the four-winged bird to run its talons through me once more.

Five metres long and a wingspan nearing twenty, the eagle dwarfs me. Its talons run me through, but don’t split me apart like the last impact. I hold onto my physical form for as long as it takes for the bird to return to the air and away from the snow melting around me. I tear my body past the claws and I’m hit by a throbbing pain through my chest. My torso is far slower than it should be to pull together. There’s something more to the blades on its feet than a simple physical attack.

Before the bird can whip its head around to bite at me, I spread my flames wide and climb out of its reach. The intense wind catches at my wings as I try to climb up the leg of the eagle. As my flames spread to cover the bird’s entire body, I notice I can’t reach its feathers. Not only that, my flames intensify and burn brighter as we twist through the sky, leaving a trail of fire far behind us.

The eagle twists once more and brings its beak down to bite at me, but as it closes down on me, my flame explodes outward completely involuntarily. It blows me far out of the maw bearing down on me.

It takes a moment to adjust myself and catch the wind under my wings again, but I’m fortunate to have been blown toward my pack and Grímr.

I skim the snow and scoop up the bag as I pass by. As fast as I can, I fly toward the path left by the Titan. The mar on the landscape only a few hundred metres before me. With a twist of my neck, I monitor the eagle that seems to have gained an incredible amount of height in the moment I lost sight of it.

It twists its body and dives again. Even with almost five hundred metres between us, I don’t hesitate to throw the bag into the snow once more. I brace and force my body as intangible as I can.

The sharp axe-like beak slices through the right side of my body and dismembers my wing. I tumble through the air and crash into the snow once more. Agony jolts through my body. This isn’t something I’ve felt since I fought the general.

The flames of my wing don’t return and I’m forced to regrow it. Unlike my fight with the general, I don’t feel near as drained from the loss of a limb, but that doesn’t change the fact that without my wing, there’s no way I can reach the fissures beside the Titan’s path. No chance the bird leave me enough time to regenerate.

The bird is resetting itself for another dive. I don’t know how I’m going to deal with the next one. Without my wing, I can’t fly. All I can do is pull myself along the snow that melts below my fiery feathers.

A few minutes. That’s all I had to enjoy the freedom of the sky before it was taken from me again.

The air around the bird is just like that when I faced the general. If I don’t figure a way out of this, I might not survive. What can I do? My spear? No, that along with my bag and Grímr are too far to reach. Not to mention it’ll be hard to use without arms.

My flames have already shown to be ineffective. They can’t even touch its body. The strange bending of light around its feathers, while they seem to amplify my fire, completely blocks the bird from being damaged.

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The only option I can think of is to unleash. Burn everything in the surrounding air. It might not hurt the eagle, but there’s a chance it will scare it off. Doing so will almost certainly melt the snow around me and I’ll be left dealing with a pool of water, which is just as bad.

I don’t have the time to come up with anything better; the four-winged creature far above twists into a dive. I stumble toward my bag while a firestorm erupts from me. A twister of fire spins up toward the incoming projectile of a bird. In seconds, my flames meet the falling bird and leave no room to dodge the intense heat.

Instead of being scared off as I’d hoped, the eagle flaps its wings and my body is flattened against the ground. A gust of wind stronger than I’ve ever felt pins me to the earth. I stare in disbelief as my flames burst outward in every direction except where I intended. The intense wind blasts away not only my flames but also the surrounding snow.

At least I don’t have to worry about water now. I try to move my wing and talons, but the wind is too strong. Somehow, even while incorporeal, I’m still pushed back. As tightly as I can, I grasp at the flames still spreading with the gust and pull it back. It’s the only option I have left. The eagle is closing in faster than I react.

My flames won’t be enough. The firestorm burning through the air rushes back towards us, but it won’t reach in time. There’s nothing left I can do.

Seriously, I struggle for months to get back to the surface and I get taken out by the first beast I come across out here. If the Eternal Inferno wasn’t an apathetic existence, I’d assume it was messing with me. No one else could be this unlucky, right?

What will Grímr do without me? I can’t imagine it’ll be easy to find a new body by himself.

The eagle bursts through what little flame I could put up in the time I had. It doesn’t even blink. My greatest strength, nothing more than a slight annoyance.

I notice movement in my peripheral, but I can’t look away from my death as it speeds down to me.

What am I thinking? Am I just going to lie here and accept what’s coming? Of course not! There’s one thing I can do. It’ll hurt, but pain is better than death.

I mix the fire of my body with my inner flame and push it out the side of my body. The agony is as unbearable as losing my wing, but I achieve my goal. I rocket off to the side. My small falcon body is flung out of the way of the eagle’s path.

It hurts as much as it does because I’m essentially cutting off my body to do this. I haven’t been able to make my inner flame solid yet, but using the mass of my body, I’m able to push myself out of the way.

The eagle screeches, sounding like it is in pain. I’m not sure how. Did I hurt it somehow? Did the firestorm break through its defences when it slammed back together? No, I can still feel my flames burning around it. The bird’s defences haven’t been breached… so why?

It continues to shriek and I turn my head to watch it fly to a high altitude once more.

What just happened?

Before I can question further, I feel a hand wrap around my neck. I’m pulled to the rough, furry side of my captor and the land blurs around me.

I focus on the one holding me and realise it’s a merminea. They run along with three legs while holding me and my pack with the other.

I’m extremely uncomfortable in its grasp, but I hold myself off from squirming. For whatever reason, one of my enemies wants me enough to jump in the giant eagle's way. I’ll do everything I can to stop it from keeping me captive like its race is my team, but until we are away from the bird, I can hold myself back.

The merminea dashes around, showing incredible speed that none in my team could come close to beating… except Jav after being flung. It digs its claws into the hard earth and cuts near all our momentum. In a moment, we slam down into a tight crevice I hadn’t even noticed.

I fall out of the speedy creature’s grasp and fall to the ground as the merminea digs its legs into either side of the fissure and stares to the sky. The eagle passes over our haven.

While the merminea holds still to the walls above, I open my pack to make sure Grímr is alright. He moves to climb out the moment he sees my missing wing, but I shake my head and push him back inside. I do not want the person above to know Grímr is here.

The fact that the merminea didn’t hold on to me any longer than needed is a good sign, but it is still a part of the race holding my team captive. I don’t know what it wants, but I’m not trapped here yet.

“You are intelligent, yes?” the merminea twists its head to face me while clinging to the walls above.

There’s no more sign that the eagle is coming for us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is still in the air above, just waiting for me to rise to the air once more.

My wing regrows outward from my chest, but I’ll have to wait a few minutes before it’ll be usable at all. For now, I’m stuck with this merminea.

“Yes.”

At my confirmation, he drops to the ground beside me. I scramble back slightly, putting myself in front of the pack as I observe him. His eyes are a cloudy grey with a slight glow that dims with each second. So that merminea I saw turn Bunny’s weapon to dust a while back isn’t the only one. Assuming the glowing grey eyes actually represent that power.

He stops a few paces from me, looking down at my regrowing limb.

“You are from the beyond, yes? Your friends came here before you?” he asks with his shrill, male voice.

I warily nod. He knows of my team that is held captive. Will he try to make me join them? If so, I’m not about to let him take me. Flames churn within me, ready to burn him should he try anything.

Thankfully, he keeps his distance. On his hind legs, he stands far more still than I thought possible for a living creature. His foggy eyes inspect me with an unreadable expression.

“You and your friends, I want to ask of your assistance.”

I tilt my head in confusion. The merminea already have them captive. Why is he coming to me to ask for help?

“You people already hold them prisoner. Why ask me?”

The merminea doesn’t shake his head, keeping still despite the furrowing of his brows. “No. Not those ones. Your strong friends.”

“The people you hold are the only people I know.” Who is he talking about if not for the three of my team?

“Not me. Traitors. They doom all mermineae with their blasphemy.”

So he’s not a part of the group that holds my team? Maybe we can work something out. He might help Grímr and I free the others.

“What do you need help with?” I’m not sure who these ‘other friends’ are, but if I can do what he needs, we should be able to come to an agreement.

“Stop them fleeing. Mermineae cannot leave the plains. Divine wrath will punish all for their cowardice.”