Anon Frost's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The dragon climbed north, and Anon ran under it. Snow dragged at his boots. His crown glowed against his chest, pulled toward the light in the dragon's jaws. Behind him, Azura kept pace. He heard her breath. He heard her spear hiss where its flames melted the snow. The debt bound her to him. Wherever the source waited, she would reach it too. He could not lose her. He had one thing left to try. Anon stopped and turned. Azura halted ten steps away. Her blue-flame hair moved though there was no wind. She leveled the spear, its four elements bright along the shaft. "You will lead me to the source," she said. "Then you will burn there instead of at a gate. It ends the same." "Then let it end now," Anon said. He lifted the crown high. "You want the tree answered for. Chase me, and the tree dies alone while I forge. But strike me here, and the crown breaks in the snow. No source. No answer. You lose everything." Her eyes moved to the crown. For the first time she did not step forward. "You would break it," she said. Not a question. "I would." His arm shook from the cold. "So stop following. Wait at the border like the others. Or lose the one thing that pays your debt." Azura was silent. The dragon's light faded over the ridge. She lowered the spear a hand's width. Then she smiled, and the smile frightened him more than her anger. "You think the debt is mine to call off," she said. "It is not. The Pyre is dying. Every soul it holds goes dark. Your tree was one thread of that fire. The debt does not follow my will. It follows you." She raised the spear again. "You cannot bargain with a thread. You can only tie it or cut it. Break the crown, and you cut nothing. You still owe. And I will still stand where you stand." Anon's plan died in his hand. The threat was empty. Breaking the crown freed neither of them. He had gambled the one card he held, and it meant nothing to her. He pulled the crown back to his chest. His only move now was speed. Reach the source before she could stop the forging. He turned and ran after the dragon. Azura did not wait at any border. She ran with him, spear ready, one pace behind. The ridge rose ahead. Beyond it, light spilled up from a valley he could not yet see. The source. He had learned the truth too late. There was no threat that moved her. No door out but the one he refused. And now she would be beside him at the source itself, close enough to strike the moment he stopped to forge.