Under the Dawn's Light (Book 5)

Chapter 21

ADARA

So... it's really come, hasn't it? Right when Yuven Traye has decided to abandon me. Right when he's decided to shove his head in the sand. Adara held the neat scrawl of the Elder Convocation's judgment for her right to exist within the magickae world. Fenrer kept a hand on her wrist as she read over it, a horrible invitation to prove the worth of her silver phoenix fire buried in her blood, her soul. Her fireward broke apart when Fenrer came to her instead of the other way around, a tight expression on his face with the thick parchment in his hands. It's come and Gods... I'm not ready for this, not so soon. Notebooks scattered across several, hundred of pages monoliths to try and memorize the contents and replace the fairytales for her wanderlust. "I've barely mastered the fireward," she said and choked on old terror. "I can barely keep it up for longer than what... five seconds if I'm being generous? And I'm expected to pass whatever test without any mistakes?" Her fingers pinched the edges and dug into her skin. "I don't even know what these tests will entail."

"I know, but I have faith you can do it," Fenrer insisted, though his own tormented concern licked down his oceanic accent. "They'll give you a couple days to prepare once we're in Azahama. You'll have a contingent of Storm Wardens around you at all times — Adara, we aren't going to let anything happen to you,' his voice came out strained when he squeezed both her hands with his own. "No matter what the Convocation decides, you are the Order's charge. They made a mistake a hundred turns ago, and the Storm Wardens want to make it right. I have faith that you'll prove to them, and yourself, that your magick is not a curse, not a blight or a plague or whatever you think it is." He shook his head in one wild motion and refused to say the words to himself most of all. "We still have a few days before we have to head for Sivaport to take the Umbral Gate. You'll be okay." He held onto her face as her lungs refused to intake air. "I'll be there, Adara."

"What about Yuven?" she rasped, and his Oathbound's name scrunched his brow. "He's the one that's been teaching me this whole time. He's the one that—"

"Yuven's made his choice, it shouldn't dictate yours," Fenrer said with a sharp edge to the wave. "He made the choice to take himself off the contingent. He made the choice to let you fumble your way through when he was supposed to guide you through this." He lowered his hands to her shoulders. "I can teach you some more things in the few days of preparation that should serve as support if what Yuven's taught you doesn't stick with them." Her panic etched in the galactic swirls of jadeite meadows. "The Warden's will outfit you with some gear to protect yourself. Just remember what we talked about." Fenrer let go of her to stack up the books which failed to give her any comfort behind an Avaerilian's steady, cold tone against cruel odds. Indifference to others' judgment.

"You'll be there?"

"Yes."

Pain bounced in her skull when she shook it. "Fenrer, listen," she began, and a wall formed stone over his sun-kissed features. "I know you and Yuven are having a rough time of it, but I'll tell you what I told him. You need to talk to each-other. I am not—" Adara approached him when he took a step back and dug his fingers into the black velveteen band with Haneka's sigil stamped upon it. "I will never justify what he said to you — what I have always heard in my life due to something I can't control. It wasn't right and just like that Law, is not fair." Her exhale came out tight when she pointed at his forearm.

"The law exists for a reason," Fenrer parroted Yuven.

"Does not make it any less stupid," she bit back. "Or any less cruel. Blackwall did that to him, not you! I want—need you both there. Not one or the other. Both. You two were the ones who spirited me out of Prunal. Finish it."

Fenrer curled his lips in irritation. "Is my faith not enough for you either?"

Not when it's a lie and I'm a giant hypocrite! Adara swung her arms out at the shockwave gathering in her knees for swift kicks into the maw of the void. "You know I did not mean it like that, Fen," she snapped and drowned in the pressure the measly letter created. "The Storm Warden contingent doesn't matter to me. Whoever the Echelon puts in charge of me, do you think they'll have any real idea how it feels when you two do? When you two are the ones who were at my side up until this point? Who almost died for me?" Agitation smacked her spine forward when Fenrer folded his arms in the same, until the fight in his expression died in an instant with the same, defeated haze Yuven created.