A Shield of Faith (BOOK 4)

Chapter 17

YUVEN

'Imagine for a minute, a creature who casts a shadow over the land, a silent hunter despite its huge size. Those are wyverns, Yuven, the beings we come from, the beings which gave rise to us when they danced with the faefolk of the icy caps, whose souls we still carry. Up to the last moment, their prey remained ignorant to the chase, for the wyverns were patient, intelligent, and although solitary, communed with their own with ease, without fear and sang instead of thrashed. Between their scales, feathers, muffling the sound of their beating wings. Graceful at any height, able to strike through the clouds and fly free.'

Fairytales; nothing more than an allegory for naive children. Wyverns long died out, with their remnants passed onto the Avaerilians, who shoved their heads into snow dunes, and lacking wings, they used their boots to stomp their useless pride, and the closest stretch of their vaunted ancestors came through one man's voice. Yuven held on tight to the spike, his knee against one of the larger scales covered with feathers. It crinkled against the wind, the barbs splitting at the slight breeze. Ice slipped through his lungs, and came out his nose as a powerful mist to equalize the temperature within, with Adara shivering against another spike, her hands shoved between the opposite sides for warmth.

Euron Traye. Fenrer's faith. He dug his padded fingers against the spike and choked it, before bringing a hand up to his chest when the rust stained the air he tried to breathe in. He made it look so simple... of course, why did I not think of choking it up, surely I haven't tried that before. It's not as if that's all I do. Yuven drove his fangs against his jaw and dragged his fingers down the tough bone. And I'm not a damned wyvern, Neven.

Sapphire capped glyphs flowed through the horns of stone and brought it to live as a construct, and Neven walked with someone else's heavy, false shoes. Wings billowed around their carved armor and glaive sharpened with magick. Fumes left the wyvern's nostrils in golden clouds with the thunder of crushing boots, and Neven brought himself up to a wyvern's eyes and faced it without fear of its mangled teeth, wrought with decay. And that's where Fenrer disappeared to, he was waiting... he knew all about Neven's plans. Hurt dribbled down his ribcage, but he let out the tension through his lungs with one last plume, twisting to Adara, whose words rocked with Fenrer's borrowed wisdom. So, she can listen, but that means naught if she can't put it into practice. He adjusted his knee when the white wyvern flew through the thick clouds and came closer to the beacons Neven set off right under his nose. He leaned against the spike when Euron, or Evyriaz, angled his wings into a slowing stop, before he landed on the bridge in near silence, barely cracking the old stone with his claws. His neck craned up the wall, to the multitude of ruined spires and broken lives, with the only hints of life being sputtered fires the Wardens set up all across the city for relief from the cold through the debris.

But what can I say?

Euron withdrew his neck and kept himself low to the ground. "I truly am in a different era." He pressed his muzzle against the ground, which gave them a slide down to the ground. His boots smacked against the bridge, and he rolled out his shoulders of the icy stiffness the flight caused, a trickle of odd familiarity dancing across his back. Adara joined him, and he scowled at her when she bumped into him with a small oof. Tix'snuv clambered down with a quiet coo, shaking out his feathers and tail.

"What are you going to do now?" Adara asked what he was reluctant to speak out, and Yuven bit on his inability for words.

"Return to the mausoleum and continue my vigil." Euron's tail swung over the side. "I must make sure the crystal was unaffected by the Obscura."

"Wait, crystal?" Yuven lunged for the wyvern. "There's a crystal down there? Is it an elementia crystal?" Adara's eyes widened in realization and she swung her head upwards at Euron when he lifted himself higher, revealing the gateway into Irimount.