Njord's water slid down and encased my hands, glowing blue.
The chill that followed wasn't imaginary.
It seeped into my bones. Into the air. Into the puddles of melted ice around Muir.
I swallowed. "H–how?"
Revik's eyes snapped to me. "Lyra?"
I ignored him.
How? I asked back, inside, on that thread that had opened when the relic melted into me. What do I have to do? He's—
I looked at Muir. Pale. Lips blue at the edges. Breath shallow, hitching every few seconds like it didn't quite remember how to keep going. Ice clung to his chest and ribs in uneven plates, holding everything closed more by will than structure.
"We have healers," one of the Air women said quietly from the edge of the tent. Her voice shook. "We did all we could. The ice is all that's stopping him from… from…"
"She knows," Muir rasped.
"Shut up, save your energy," Revik said without looking at him.
Tadewi had entered the tent at some point and watched from the entrance, arms folded, eyes old and unreadable.
Njord's voice came again, steady and deep.
I am the god of waters, Lyra. Of rivers that carve mountains. Of tides that shape coasts. All living things are made up of water. Life moves in my veins as surely as death lives in Mortimer. If you open the stream, I can push life force through him.
"It's…" I whispered.
Revik frowned. "What?"
I tried to ignore the way the stone dug into skin already bruised from Raiden's throw.
"But how do I even do that?" I asked Njord, out loud and down the threaded bridge.
There was a pause. Not hesitation.
Measurement.
You are a bridge, he said softly. Not a vessel. To move what I am giving you will hurt. Water that carves mountains is not gentle, little one. It will strip you, as it strips stone. It will take before it gives. It's not always clear how much it will take before it decides to give.
"Take what?" I asked.
Silence.
Kagutsuchi's voice cut in, sharp as a blade dragged across flint.
"Your strength. Your reserves. Perhaps pieces of the self you have not yet grown into. It will drain you until there is nothing left to draw from. If you misjudge, you both die."
"Encouraging," I muttered.
The old, weary voice of the moonlight lady stirred like a tired wind.
"It is your choice, child. Life is always paid for. But if he falls now… it will break more than a heart."
My gaze flicked to Revik.
He wasn't touching Muir—not quite. His hand hovered over the ice, fingers flexing helplessly, jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping.
He wouldn't look at me.
"Do you trust me?" I asked Muir instead. My voice shook.
He tried to smirk. It almost worked. "I trust you with my l-life, Lyra, little left that there is."
His eyes met mine, and for the first time since I'd met him, there was no joke behind them. No mischief. Just tired acceptance.
"It hurts," he admitted. Quietly. "I'm very good at pretending it doesn't. But it does."
A single tear fell down his cheek.
My choice was made.
I couldn't lose him too.
Not after Raiden. Not after watching him drown in shadow because of me. Not after Kaelith. Not after every girl in that snow. Not again. Not anyone else.
I was the Primal Dragon.
What was the point of any of this if I couldn't even save the people who stood beside me?
"I'll do it," I said.
Tadewi stepped forward. "Lyra—"
"I said I'll do it. I can't expect anyone to risk their lives for me if I'm not willing to do the same."
Revik's head finally lifted, eyes burning. "What are you doing?"
"Fixing it," I said, even though I had no idea how. I reached for the relic's stream inside me—the one that had healed my wing, my bones, my bruised soul after the yeti. It pulsed faintly in my chest—a cool, steady rhythm under everything else.
Njord's voice flowed through it.
Lie them back. Clear space. No one touches the circle but you.
"Tadewi," I said hoarsely. "I… I need room."
She studied me for a heartbeat that felt like an hour.
Then she nodded.
With a single snap of her fingers, wind burst through the tent flap in a controlled rush, shoving bystanders back a few strides. People stumbled, voices rising in protest. Tadewi silenced them with one look.
"Move," she ordered in the Old Sky-tongue. "Make way for the Primal."
They obeyed.
Revik glared. "Primal or not, if you get yourself killed—"
"I'm not dying," I said. I hoped. I knelt closer, hovering my shaking hands over Muir's chest. "Take off the outer ice."
Muir stared at me. "That's a terrible idea."
"I need to see," I said.
After a second, he swallowed and lifted his hand. The outer layer of frost peeled away in flakes, revealing the deeper plates fused directly over the wounds. Blood seeped at the edges, sluggish and dark.
The gashes were bad.
Four ragged parallel tears, angling across his chest and abdomen. And a huge gaping hole, too deep. Too wide. The kind you didn't walk away from.
"This is a bad idea," Revik repeated through his teeth.
"That's never stopped us before," Muir muttered. "Let her try. Or would you rather I die less dramatically?"
Revik's jaw flexed.
He stepped back.
Just a pace. Just enough.
I sucked in a breath, trying to steady my hands.
"How do I start?" I whispered inside.
Njord's presence swelled, cool and vast, spreading out behind my ribs like a deep ocean unfurling.
You already have, he said.
Blue light began to pulse under my skin.
It started at my palms—a faint glow, like moonlight on water. Then it traveled up my wrists, crawling under the skin in delicate lines that looked eerily like the runes on the Lock. Faint sigils coiled around my forearms, swirling up toward my elbows.
My heart stuttered.
"Lyra," Revik said warily. "Your eyes…"
"They're beautiful," Muir croaked. "Remind me to flirt with you again if I live."
"Shut up," I whispered, throat tight. "Please."
The glow intensified.
Cool flooded my veins—not like ice, not like numbness. Like a river in flood, pressing against its banks, carving a new path whether the stone liked it or not.
I placed both hands flat over the worst of Muir's wounds.
His breath hitched in pain. "Okay, that—that's cold."
Hold on to him, Njord said. And do not fight the flow. Guide it. Do not leash it.
Easy for a god to say.
The stream surged.
For one horrible moment, I felt everything inside Muir.
The sluggish pulse of his faltering heart. The slow seep of blood trying to escape a body that couldn't hold it. The screaming shock of torn flesh, shredded muscle, nicked bone.
It almost knocked me backward.
I gritted my teeth and held on.
Violet and gold fire wanted to rise in answer—my default. My first power. Kagutsuchi's thread flared, hot and eager.
"Stay out of this," I hissed under my breath.
"You're welcome," he muttered, but the heat withdrew a step, sullen.
Njord's current roared through me.
Pain lanced up my arms as the power forced its way out of my palms and into Muir. My fingers curled, nails digging into his skin.
Muir arched with a strangled cry.
Revik lunged instinctively, reaching for my wrist. Tadewi grabbed him, fingers digging into his shoulder hard enough to bruise.
"Don't," she said. "You break the bridge, you kill them both."
"What is she doing to him?" he demanded.
"Healing," Tadewi said quietly. "If she can survive it."
The tent shook.
Water rose from everywhere—out of bowls, out of cracks in the stone, out of the very air. Fine mist thickened into visible streams, all of them pulling inward, converging on us. Droplets beaded along the edges of the tent fabric, then ran down in rivulets, forming small channels in the dirt that snaked their way toward Muir's pallet.
I couldn't see any of that.
I saw the inside.
Njord pushed through me, through the relic's open stream in my chest, through my hands and into Muir's torn body.
It was like holding on to a waterfall with bare fingers.
The force of it tore at me—my muscles trembled, teeth grinding. Spots danced across my vision as if my brain couldn't decide whether to black out or burn brighter.
Muir screamed again, then clamped his jaw, tears streaking sideways into his hair.
"Talk to me," I gasped. "Muir—stay with me—say something—"
"N-never—" he choked. "Thought your hands would be this cold—"
Good.
He was still there.
The water hit the wounds.
I felt tissue knit under my palms—not smoothly, not cleanly. It was wild, desperate growth, fibers connecting to fibers, veins finding old paths, bone edges sealing shut with a hiss like quenched metal.
But it wasn't just flesh.
For a heartbeat—two—I brushed his soul.
It flickered at the edges, dimmed by pain and fear, tethered to his body by threads that were fraying.
Njord's power reached for those threads, wrapping them in calmer currents, reinforcing them.
Stay, the god of waters murmured, not just to Muir, but to everything that made him him. Your river runs further yet, little prince.
Somewhere far above all this, I heard other voices.
Kagutsuchi, sharp and annoyed: "If he dies now, I'm not listening to your whining for the next century. Do your job properly, girl."
The moonlight voice spoke, weary and soft: "Easy. Don't drown in him, child. Remember where you end."
"I don't—know where I end—" I hissed.
Because for those moments, I really didn't.
Our lives overlapped—memories brushing memories. A flash of him as a boy, laughing in snow. A tiny, stolen moment of him watching Revik watch the sky. His first dragon flight. The terror he never admitted. The pride. The loneliness.
Tears leaked out of my own eyes.
They weren't mine.
Or maybe they were.
"I can't hold this," I gasped.
You can, Njord said, quiet but implacable. You already are. But the stream is not bottomless. Choose how much you give.
"How?" I choked. "Everything hurts."
Then give until you break, Kagutsuchi snapped. Or stop and let him die. Those are the choices. Mortals and their illusions of middle ground.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I pushed.
The water surging through me intensified one more time.
My whole body shook.
Sigils blazed up my arms—intricate water-runes burning a bright, icy blue beneath my skin, winding around bone, weaving into muscle. They climbed past my elbows, curling along my biceps, snaking over my shoulders like living ink.
My vision blurred.
Blue light flooded it.
For a second, everything went white-blue, color stripped away, replaced by the faint outlines of currents—air currents, blood currents, magic currents. The world became a map of flow.
I saw Muir's heart finally beating strong. His lungs pulling air without catching. The wounds pulling together, now sealed, no longer leaking life away.
I saw my own body.
The stream inside me that had once been blazing bright was now a thin trickle.
Almost empty.
Enough, Njord said. His voice was softer now. Almost gentle. Release, little one.
I exhaled.
The power snapped back so fast it made me choke.
The runes under my skin dimmed, then settled—not gone. Faintly glowing. Claiming me.
I ripped my hands away from Muir's chest.
He collapsed back onto the pallet, gasping, sweat slick on his forehead. The ice that had been clinging to his skin melted and ran off in clean, clear streams.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then his hand twitched.
"Muir?" Revik whispered.
Muir groaned. "Why… does everything hurt… worse… and better?"
Revik made a sound like a laugh strangled halfway into a sob. "Because you're an idiot."
He dropped to his knees and bowed his head over Muir's shoulder, shaking.
Muir's hand lifted clumsily, fingers tangling weakly in Revik's hair. "Still here?"
"Unfortunately," Revik said. "You're stuck with me."
"Tragic," Muir muttered, eyes sliding closed again—but his breathing was steady now. Not shallow. Not stuttering.
Alive.
I sagged backward, the world tilting under me.
Strong hands caught my shoulders from behind.
Tadewi.
"Easy," she murmured.
"I'm fine," I lied.
"No you're not," she replied.
Then my legs gave out completely.
She guided me down to sit on the stone, back resting against a support pole. My head lolled forward. I was so tired I felt hollow. Like someone had taken a chisel to my insides and shaved off everything that wasn't strictly necessary.
Revik looked up, eyes red-rimmed.
"Lyra," he said, voice rough.
I managed a small, shaky shrug. "Told you. Fixing it."
He stared at me for a second, then nodded once. Just once.
"Thank you," he said.
Kagutsuchi snorted in the back of my head. "He better thank you. That nearly killed you."
I tried to roll my eyes. Didn't quite manage it.
A soft murmur rippled through the tent. People were staring. At Muir. At me. At the faint blue glow still tracing my arms.
"Your eyes," one of the Air women whispered. "They… changed."
I forced my lids open and looked at one of the metal bowls on the floor.
The world was clearer and dimmer all at once. Colors sharper. Movement in the air more obvious. A faint reflection in the metal showed my own gaze:
Still violet.
But now ringed with a thin band of luminous blue around the iris, moving slowly like a tide.
I looked down.
Pale, water-like sigils curled along my forearms in delicate patterns, glowing faintly under the skin. They pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
"You've been marked," Tadewi said quietly. Not afraid. Just knowing. "Water has claimed you as its own."
"Great," I croaked. "Add that to the list."
The exhaustion hit fully then.
Not just physical.
Whatever Njord had taken, he'd been honest—it was more than strength. I felt… lighter in the wrong ways. Like some of the weight that made me me had been scooped out. Not memories. Those were all still there. But a buffer. A layer of protection.
The world felt too close.
Too loud.
Njord hummed quietly along the inside of my veins.
Rest, he said. The stream is low. It will refill, if you live long enough. But even rivers need time.
"Is he really safe?" I whispered, staring at Muir.
"For now," the moonlight voice murmured. "You bought him a future. What he does with it… is his own burden."
Tadewi crouched in front of me, studying my face as if looking for cracks.
"You will not be fighting for a while," she said. It wasn't a question.
"I don't think I can stand," I admitted.
"Then you will sit," she replied. "And breathe. And let your gods hum in your bones while the rest of us decide what we do next."
There were soot smudges along her jaw. Tiny cuts on her hands. Her eyes were tired—but steady.
I looked over at Muir again.
He'd fallen asleep—or passed out. Either way, his chest rose and fell rhythmically, his color already less gray.
Revik sat beside him, one hand still resting lightly against his arm, like he couldn't quite believe the warmth was real.
My throat burned.
We were all breaking in different ways.
Raiden, most of all.
My eyes stung.
"Don't you dare," Kagutsuchi muttered in my skull. "You're already leaking from everywhere. Tears are a waste of water."
"Shut up," I whispered. But there wasn't much bite to it.
Njord's voice flowed over his, calm and cool.
You have done well, little one. Better than any Primal before you at this age. Do not let grief convince you that saving one life is not enough.
I closed my eyes.
Raiden's face burned behind them—smiling, scowling, calling me thief, telling me he loved me, eyes red as he wrapped his hands around my throat.
"I promised," I whispered. "I told him I would… I would love him always and forever."
No one answered that.
Not the gods.
Not Tadewi.
Not even myself.
The tent buzzed softly with movement as people drifted away, back to their fires, their makeshift cots, their fragile pockets of peace.
When I finally dragged my eyes open again, I saw sky.
It took me a moment to realize I wasn't where I'd been before. Someone must have moved me in my sleep—closer to the cliff-mouth, where the cold air bit sharper and my body thanked them for it. The sky had shifted from bruised gray to thin, cold blue.
Dawn.
A new day.
I felt drained, marked, and more deeply tired than I'd ever been.
But I knew three things.
Muir was breathing.
Revik was holding his hand.
And somewhere out there, under a sky that still connected us, Raiden was still alive.
Corrupted.
Lost.
But alive.
My new, blue-ringed eyes stung with cold fire.
"Hold on," I breathed, so faint it barely stirred the air. "Please. Just… hold on."
Rivers carve through stone.
So I will carve through this darkness. I will reach you—somehow. Some way. I will.
Mortimer will not choose the fate of this world.
Or the fate of us.