Belavar appeared at noon.

The city squatted in a valley surrounded by mountains, their peaks lost in clouds. Walls rose a hundred feet high, ice so thick it looked blue in fading light. Towers stretched skyward like frozen fingers, crystalline surfaces catching last sun and throwing it back cold. The streets showed movement—servitors maintaining the dragon's domain, soldiers manning the battlements.

And above it all, Nethysara.

She perched on the highest tower, her bulk making the structure look small despite its size.

Blue-white scales caught the noonday light, her bulk making the structure look small despite its size. Blue-white scales caught fading light and threw it back cold as winter stars. Her wings, folded now, could span buildings when spread.

Her head turned slowly, tracking the approaching army's progression along the ridge. Her mental pressure built the closer the coalition marched, becoming something tangible, oppressive.

When she spoke, her voice carried across the valley without need for shouting. Magic or projection or simply the weight of ancient things speaking to temporary ones.

"You've come far. Killed much. Proven yourselves more capable than I anticipated." The dragon's head tilted, almost curious. "But it changes nothing. You've won battles. I offer peace. We are not the same."

The coalition army stopped a mile from the city walls. Too far for dragon breath to reach them, close enough to show they meant business. Formations locked tight, shields raised, mages prepared. Every soldier who'd survived twelve battles now faced the architect of them all.

Valerian stood at the army's head, his command staff surrounding him. The five joined them, flames low but ready.

"Thirteen dragons dead," Valerian called up to Nethysara, his voice carrying through magecraft amplification. "Your army broken. Your conquest ended. Surrender Belavar, and we'll discuss terms."

"Terms." The dragon's laugh rolled like an avalanche. "You think this is a negotiation? I offer evolution. You offer death. We are not equals at this table."

"Then we fight." Thale's voice carried soldier's certainty, the conviction of a man who'd survived too much to fear what came next. "And you die like your children died."

"Perhaps." Nethysara stretched, wings unfurling to catch chill winds. The span was massive, blotting out clouds and sun, casting a cold shadow across the assembled armies. "Or perhaps you die learning that killing children and killing the mother are very different lessons."

She launched from her tower, wings beating once, twice, carrying her into the sky above her frozen city. Her shadow spread across the valley, a cold darkness; her roar shattered ice crystals across snowfields below.

Ember felt the soldiers' courage waver. Nethysara was huge. Nethysara was old. And Nethysara was going to fight, not hide behind walls and armies. The realization was carved in the expressions of every coalition soldier watching the dragon rise higher, become colder.

Nethysara breathed. A massive cone of frost erupted, engulfed a full battalion, and kept going. Snow swirled in its wake, blizzard birthed by dragon breath. Where it passed, only statues remained. Men and women frozen so fast they stayed standing, locked in postures of momentary terror.

Valerian threw his hands up, and mage light flared between him and the archmages, shield spell coalescing to meet the dragon's onrushing fury. Ice smashed against the magical barrier. The barrier cracked but held.

Nethysara wheeled in midair, turned to dive across the battlefield. Breath weapon recharging, frost-blue building in her gaping maw, ready to unleash ruin on the waiting armies.

With no mages, there would be no magic. Without magic, there would be no victory. The first strike would determine everything.

Thale bellowed, "Archers!"

Arrows flew from the coalition's rear ranks. Flaming shafts arced into the sky, burning and fading like fireflies. Nethysara's wings eclipsed the sun and clouds, frost falling with every beat. The dragon looked invincible.

Invincible needed to change.

"Ready?" Cinder called to Ember.

"Go."

The five leaped, flames igniting in the air around them. No subtlety. No careful plans. Just fire rushing to meet cold.

Every other challenge they'd faced was nothing compared to what came next.

They hit Nethysara like thrown stars, five trails of fire streaking upward to meet descending cold.

Ember struck first, flames trailing behind her in white-hot ribbons. Her fist connected with scales the size of dinner plates, and the impact sent shockwaves through her arm.

The dragon's hide didn't crack. Didn't even char. Just absorbed the blow like stone accepting rain.

Cinder came from the left, her cutting flame carving a line across the dragon's flank. She got deeper, but the result was the same—white-hot damage that didn't break the scales beneath it.

Pyra hit from above, her hands together like a spear, driving downward in a concentrated explosion of heat. That should have burned through, but didn't. Scales the size of shields turned the blast, redirected the momentum. Pyra bounced away, cursing, flipping in the air.

Kindle and Ash struck together, targeting the joints where wing met body. They erupted in simultaneous detonations of fire, concussive force hammering home. But the scales there were as impervious as those across the rest of the dragon. Their assault scorched and seared, but did not burn through.

The dragon's tail whipped around, forcing both to scatter. Ash dove under, flames trailing in a dancing ribbon. Kindle cartwheeled to avoid the spikes.

Below, the coalition engaged. Mages launched coordinated strikes—lightning, fire, force—all hitting simultaneously at different points along Nethysara's bulk. Light flared. Thunder rolled.

Valerian himself stepped forward, his hands weaving patterns that made the air scream. Three mages served as anchors for him, their staffs flaring bright as they funneled magic into his attack.

The air screamed, the sky shrieked, and raw mage light erupted from his upraised hand, lashing across the sky in a whip of pure arcane destruction.

Magic struck home with the sound of a collapsing mountain, shaking snow from nearby peaks. It smashed against the dragon's scales and seared flesh underneath, leaving a blackened streak in its wake.

For just a moment, triumph flared across the battlefield.

Then Nethysara landed on Belavar's outer wall, the impact cracking ice fortifications, and the wound along her flank began to close. Flesh regrew. Muscle wove itself together. Damaged scale fell away, fresh ones pushing outward like growing crystals.

In three breaths, all that remained was white scar where Valerian's spell had hit, surrounded by pristine azure scales.

Fear rippled through the armies. A tremor of realization that ran soldier-to-soldier and mage-to-mage.

"Again!" Thale's shout boomed across the battlefield. "Mages, ready second volley. Archers, nock. Infantry, prepare to charge on my signal!"

"Enough games." The dragon's voice shook soldiers from their formations. "You've earned a proper response."

She inhaled, throat glowing with gathering power. Not the quick bursts she'd been using—this was something else. Something bigger. The ground vibrated, like the air itself strained to deliver enough cold to fill her lungs.

Ice creatures erupted from the ground around her. Hundreds of them. Frost wolves the size of horses. Spiders with legs like crystalline spears. And behind them, ice elementals towering tall, their massive bodies crackling as they broke free of frozen soil.

The ice creatures charged the coalition lines. Infantry braced shields. Cavalry wheeled to meet flanking assaults. Mages threw fire and lightning and wind into the onrushing tide. Officers barked orders, and battle lines flexed but held.

"Even Valerian can't wound her seriously," Ash said, landing beside Ember. "We need more power."

"We need to integrate," Ember finished.

Around them, coalition soldiers died. A frost giant's club crushed three men in one swing. Ice spiders dragged screaming soldiers away from the formation's edges. The wolves circled and harried, forcing the infantry to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously.

Thale's voice rose above the carnage, rallying his forces. Knights charged the giants, their enchanted weapons hacking through crystalline flesh. Adventurers formed kill-teams, picking off stragglers while the main force engaged.

"Down to three," Ember said. "It's the only way."

"Now?" Kindle's protest came reflexively. "In the middle of—"

"SCATTER!" Cinder's scream came simultaneously with the warning along their link.

Nethysara's eyes flared, and ice erupted from the ground beneath them, jagged spears shattering earth as they lanced toward the five.

Ember threw herself sideways. Pyra rolled clear. Ash flickered away in a burst of flame.

But Cinder and Kindle were too close to the epicenter.

The ice caught Kindle mid-dodge, impaled her side, and carried her skyward. Her scream cut off almost immediately. Blood stained the crystal below her. Her flames guttered, flickered, died.

Cinder spun toward her sister-self, fire building for a counter-attack that never came. A second spear took her through the chest, the impact so violent it pinned her to the collapsed wall behind. Her eyes went wide—surprise rather than pain—then glazed over. Her flames flickered briefly, dimmed, and vanished.

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The connection severed.

Not the gentle dissolution of planned integration. Not the temporary dispersal of Harmonic technique. Sudden and savage cleaving of shared essence.

The backlash sent Ember staggering, head ringing with the shock of disconnection.

Cinder and Kindle's bodies dispersed in clouds of glowing sparks, leaving only ice spikes stained red with blood. Their essence rushed across the battlefield, flowing toward Ember, Pyra, and Ash in tides of light and heat.

The connection reformed, rebuilt, and reknit itself with the surviving selves. Woven tighter now. Stronger. Sharper. The backlash faded. Strength flowed into them. The curse's pressure intensified.

"NOW!" Pyra screamed. She shot into the air, flames spiraling around her in a pillar of rage.

Ash followed, the shadowy edge of her pyrokinesis adding an eerie counterpoint to Pyra's brightness, contrast enhancing each other's fury.

Ember rose last. Cinder's strategic mind and Kindle's exuberance filtered through her, amplifying her abilities, deepening her resolve.

Nethysara's head turned to follow their movement. Her wings beat, lifting her into the sky once more, ready for aerial combat. Glaciers might as well have been moving, her bulk so massive it seemed impossible that wings could lift her.

Pyra struck first. No fancy maneuvering or clever angle of attack, just a blazing comet that smashed against the dragon's face. Scales scorched and buckled under the impact, and Nethysara's head snapped sideways.

Ash followed, flickering in close from the opposite direction. Her dark flames ate at the damaged scales, burning deeper, closer to living flesh beneath.

Ember launched herself at the dragon's exposed flank, speed amplified by integrated essence. She crossed the distance in heartbeats and drove both fists into scales that had absorbed every previous attack.

This time was different.

Her fire punched through. Not deep, maybe an inch into flesh beneath, but enough to draw blood that hissed and steamed where it met flame.

Nethysara's head whipped around, teeth snapping at the figure on her back. But the dragon's size worked against her, made her movements clumsy. Ember threw herself clear, dodged the attack, then swung back in to strike again.

Pyra hit from the opposite side, her flames concentrated into a cutting edge that carved a smoking line across the dragon's neck.

Ash circled in a flickering blur, striking and disengaging in rapid succession.

They were hurting her now. Actually hurting her.

But not enough.

Nethysara's tail swept around, shattered an ice tower in its passage, and nearly swatted Ash from the air. Pyra dove to dodge it, almost slammed into an outcrop of jagged stone, and barely corrected in time. Ember dodged, but the wind from its passage sent her tumbling through the air until she caught herself with a burst of flame.

Around them, the coalition fought for survival. Infantry formations held against frost elementals, but casualties mounted with each clash.

Mage spells carved chunks from the monsters, but their icy flesh reformed as quickly as it broke apart. Cavalry struck and retreated in hit-and-run attacks, while adventurers and mercenaries ran interference, taking out spiders and frost wolves when they harried the main force.

Valerian stood at the center of a ritual circle, six mages channeling power through him. He wove a massive spell—the only attack that had done any real damage so far—but he moved slowly.

Ash's analytical mind calculated odds, trajectories, optimal solutions. Her thoughts bled across their shared consciousness.

We're still not strong enough. Even at three, we're too weak to break her. The coalition is being overwhelmed. Valerian's spell will help, but won't be decisive. We need to go down to two.

Ember felt the conclusion settle through her awareness like ice water. Felt Pyra's reluctant agreement.

Who?

Me. Ash's response came without hesitation, without emotion. Pure tactical assessment.

She didn't wait for the argument. Didn't ask permission.

Ash angled herself toward Nethysara's right wing, flames building not for heat but for propulsion. Speed was what mattered now. Speed and momentum, and one perfect strike at a structural weakness.

She accelerated. Faster than Ember had seen her move before, pushing their shared abilities to their absolute limit.

Nethysara's head turned, tracking the approach, but too slow. Too late.

Ash hit the wing joint with everything she had. Not fire as a weapon but fire as explosive force, concentrated into a point no larger than her fist. She erupted in a concussive explosion of kinetic energy, hammering the dragon's right wing at its weakest point.

Scales shattered. Tendons snapped.

Nethysara's wing folded wrong. The dragon's balance failed. She twisted in the air, trying to compensate, but one good wing couldn't carry the load. She fell.

The dragon crashed down onto Belavar's wall. Her body shattered the battlements, and her flailing bulk tore ice-and-stone buildings loose in her descent.

And Ash... was gone.

Disintegrated by the impact. Dispersed in a shower of sparks that cascaded over Ember and Pyra, burning with the last embers of her essence.

The curse hit like being set on fire from the inside. Ember's vision blurred red. Her hands shook. Every nerve ending screamed protest at a configuration the curse was actively fighting.

But the power—

Heat roared around her in a blazing corona, hotter than any forge. Brighter than the noonday sun. Frost in the air evaporated in rippling waves.

Pyra's presence echoed at her back. Together, they turned to look at Nethysara's fallen form. The dragon rolled to her feet, pushing rubble aside, broken stones falling away from azure scales. Her right wing hung awkwardly, and her movements carried pain, but the damage was less than it should have been.

Ember's senses picked up hints of rapid regeneration. Even the damage they'd done before was repairing itself. In a few minutes, the fight would reset. They'd end up right back where they'd been moments ago.

Across the battlefield, Valerian's spell completed.

A lance of pure arcane force erupted from the ritual circle, white-silver light that made the sun look dim by comparison. It crossed the distance to Nethysara in an instant and struck her center mass.

The dragon's roar became a shriek. The spell punched through scales, burned through muscle, kept going until it emerged from her opposite side, trailing smoke and blood.

For three seconds, the coalition dared to hope.

Then Nethysara pushed herself upright, her damaged wing hanging useless, but her body already beginning to heal. The massive wound Valerian had inflicted closed at visible speed, flesh knitting itself together, scales regenerating like watching crystals grow in fast-forward.

"Enough." The dragon's voice carried a new quality. Not anger. Something colder. "You've earned escalation."

She planted her feet, lowered her head, and pulled.

The land groaned.

Ice elementals stopped attacking. Their bodies crumbled into frost and wind, sucked into Nethysara's presence like water down a whirlpool. Ice spiders, frost wolves, and jagged constructs that hadn't even entered the battle yet followed, devoured as if they'd never been anything other than snow waiting to melt.

Power flowed into the dragon.

Elemental energy swelled her already monstrous form larger. Ice crystals formed at the edge of her damaged scales, building new ones that were even thicker. Jagged spikes protruded from her shoulders, her tail, the joints where wings met her back. The broken one stretched into place, whole again, the wound erased completely.

Ember and Pyra charged.

In the same moment, Nethysara launched herself from the city walls. Their collision lit the sky, flames colliding with frost, heat crashing against cold.

The earth shook. Clouds roiled. Ember's power resonated with Pyra's to amplify each attack into apocalyptic explosions of fire and fury.

Detonations split the sky, concussive waves hammering out across the valley below. Soldiers retreated or were blown from their feet, their weapons and armor rattling against each other or the ground. Blinding-bright light illuminated the landscape.

Ember leaped away, dodged a claw, and dove in again. Her fist hit scales, shattered them to flying shards that caught the midday sun, and then her fire pushed deeper.

Pyra landed on Nethysara's back, grabbed one of the dragon's newly grown spines, and ripped. Her flames melted the icy protrusion, and when it broke away, she drove the jagged end down, turning it into a makeshift weapon to stab repeatedly at her target's shoulder joint.

Nethysara spun in the air, twisted, and bucked. Pyra lost her grip, slid sideways, and tumbled through the sky, flipping end over end. The dragon followed her descent, her maw opened to unleash a gout of frost-breath.

Ember leaped across the gap, her legs driving her through empty air as if she'd been shot from a catapult. Flames roared from her hands and feet, propelling her into the dragon's path.

Her fire and Nethysara's frost met in midair. Steam billowed. Pressure waves expanded outward, shoving both Ember and Pyra away, clearing the clouds in the immediate vicinity.

They landed on the ground below, skidding to a halt. Around them, the coalition's soldiers scrambled for cover.

Ember's body shook. Her temples throbbed. Everything burned. Every cell in her body felt like it had been set ablaze, then frozen and shattered, then flung back together by hurricane winds.

Two was too much.

But two seemed only barely enough.

Above, Nethysara circled before landing back on Belavar's outer wall. Her wounds had already closed. Even the damage to her scales had been mended.

The sky above Nethysara darkened. Clouds gathered with unnatural speed, swirling into a vortex centered on the dragon. Lightning flickered within, crackling blue-white discharge that left frost in its wake.

"Fall back!" Thale's bellow carried across the battlefield. "Mages, shields! Everyone else, MOVE!"

The storm broke.

Ice fell like artillery. Not snow or hail but crystalline spears the size of javelins, each one guided by malevolent intelligence toward living targets. They fell in waves, hundreds at a time, moving too fast to dodge and too many to block.

The coalition's shield spells strained, flickered, failed. Ice punched through magical barriers and kept going, impaling soldiers, crushing mages, shattering equipment. Formation lines disintegrated into scrambling retreats, every person seeking shelter.

Horses panicked and fled, the bravest warhorses following their riders while others abandoned their posts. Adventurers and mercenaries died side by side with knights and archers.

Nethysara watched from her perch on the ruined wall, her healing complete, her storm maintaining itself with casual ease. When she spoke, her voice cut through the chaos like a blade through silk.

"You fought well. Killed much. But power without wisdom is just noise. And I am ancient."

The storm picked up speed and intensity. Ice shafts fell faster, harder. Coalition forces scattered across the valley floor, making themselves even more vulnerable.

"We're not doing enough damage," Ember gasped, scanning the devastation around them. "She heals as fast as we hurt her."

"You're seeing that, too." Pyra grimaced. "We're dead even, which is bad news. We'll break before she does."

"I know." Ember's hands trembled, fire dancing between fingers that could barely hold their shape. The curse was killing them. Slowly but certainly, burning them from the inside out.

"One," Pyra said simply. "We go to one, or everyone dies."

Down to one. Down to Abigail.

The goal that they all strove toward, yet silently dreaded.

Even now, as two, Ember could feel their personalities bleeding together. Feel the barriers that made her uniquely 'her' crumbling away. Feel the curse eating at the distinctions that made them separate people.

Pyra was as much 'herself' as Ember now, and vice-versa.

And she was afraid, too.

"Don't want to disappear," they both muttered simultaneously. The synchronicity drove home the looming truth.

One of them had to integrate. It didn't matter who.

Pyra stepped close, her hands finding Ember's. "See you on the other side."

Ember nodded, squeezing Pyra's hand back.

Then Pyra let go of herself and flowed across the bond into Ember, her body dissolving in a swirling cloud of glowing particles.

Ember opened herself to receive it all.

The power slammed into her with force that drove her to her knees. Heat beyond anything she'd contained before. Speed that made the previous velocity seem glacial.

And underneath it all, personality and memory and the fundamental self that had been Pyra settling into place alongside four others.

The curse pain exploded into something beyond agony. Her body rejected this configuration, screamed that it was wrong, demanded she split immediately or face catastrophic consequences. Cracks appeared on her skin, light bleeding through like she was breaking apart from within.

But she held on. Gritted her teeth and endured the pain and used it to fuel the fire.

Eventually, the curse-pain vanished.

For one perfect moment, there was no pressure, no demand, no feeling of being pulled in five directions—just clarity, unity, completeness.

Then Abigail opened her eyes, and the world burned.

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