Under the Dawn's Light (Book 5)

Chapter 13

HAYVALA

Once upon a time, music rang over the tundra fields. Snowroses bounced along and carried the names within the notes. An idyllic, long forgotten dream in the hands of a single man with silver hair and a cursed name who refused to let it die in a doomed refrain. Snowflakes fell across the window as Kazmira tied up her dress sleeves and fixed any wrinkles within the fur. Days upon days of the ruined tones as her people gathered and the memory fluttered in her mind. Yokonei Traye swept into the mob without fear to scoop herself and Laucan out of harm's way. An Ice Knight, tried and true. It weighed against her wrists as the chorus grew louder and full of rage at the failures of the recent time and their family line. Unleashed from her duty, she walked outside to join the other castle staff, some of the Lords who chose to stay through the long night, Lord Vlasiz among them, and His Wyvern Grace, Laucan Travon. Everyone gave him a wide berth and refused to look upon him for propriety, and her moreso. Silver hair. Violet eyes.

"It's just like all those Turns ago," Laucan mumbled when she made the approach to his side, as Queen Regent and older sister both. "How many of our people suffered that day? How many people died?" He overturned his face to the empty skies of thick, snow filled clouds, boiling with their venom. He adjusted the earmuffs attached to his hat and let out a plume of mist from his nose, so small among those much wiser and older than he. Dark shadows brought her baby brother further into the darkness of their own hearts.

Will we ever learn? You had so much faith that we could, Yokonei, my Ice Knight. Hayvala brought a hand up to her heart and sent a prayer upwards on the wings of Evyriaz. The shadows of the mob stained his wings, and she frowned at a surge in movement. "Laucan, can you please create focal glyphs for me?" she instructed, and Laucan switched his attention to her at her command. He opened his palms, and Hayvala took a step forward when a wispy glyph fluttered and spun into focus as to what laid beneath them. It grew louder in her ears as they tugged a chained figure with pale-blonde tangles closer to the stocks.

Laucan took his own peek. "Who is that? I don't recognize them..."

Two Iceshards dragged the pale-haired figure up onto the platform and pushed him into its chains. Wheat-spun feathers frayed into his wavy locks, he trembled with weakness and torturous pain as the mob hurled clumps of snow at him, an innocent soul, another Avaerilian. He's... familiar, but from where? Where do I know this aura? Hayvala tried to adjust her angle with Laucan providing the focusing glass of his glyph. In the overlooking circle, she caught sight of his eyes. Sapphire-studded and beaded as he looked over the crowd and mouthed words unheard by their cruelty. Her heart crushed against her ribcage when he pressed his brow against the platform and cold glyphs created ice blocks over him. Winter spread out around him in golden fields of warmth underneath endless cold apathy, drained into the dark.

"They're not going to humiliate him," Lord Vlasiz said with his own glyph. "... they're executing him, Your Grace. By way of the water and leave him to freeze solid."

"They don't have the jurisdiction!" another Lord bit. "This is just a farce, a threat! They're trying to undermine us!"

"And yet... they're doing it anyway," Lord Vlasiz said with a soft scoff. "I daresay if any of us try to intervene, we'll either be ripped apart where we stood or would join him."

"Neven Lotayrin! Any last words you wish to state before the blizzard?" the Loyalist asked through Laucan's glyph, causing her little brother to flinch.

"Lotayrin?" another Lord spluttered. "I thought they were dead!"

Lord Lazron folded his arms from off to the side. "They were loyal to the Traye's to the bitter end, I say good riddance."