Ryn, against his better judgment, found himself explaining everything. The pull he felt, the spirit in the forest, the ancient frost essence inside him tugging him toward the northern peaks. To her credit, Sylphie listened with rapt attention, her wings twitching with excitement, her eyes wide as saucers.
"...and the Fox spirit says there's a fragment of her power out there, in the Glacial Spire," Ryn finished, feeling strangely unburdened. "I need to find it. For answers. For… control."
Sylphie was silent for a whole three seconds, processing. Then, her face lit up with an incandescent joy that could have rivaled the sun.
"A quest!" she squealed, grabbing both of his hands and spinning them around in a little circle on the rooftop, forcing him to stumble along. "A real, proper, ancient-spirit-quest! This is a thousand times better than trade negotiations! This is what legends are made of!"
"Hey, easy! It's a secret, potentially suicidal quest!" Ryn protested, trying to extract his hands from her surprisingly strong grip.
"Exactly! The best kind!" she declared, stopping her spinning and looking him dead in the eye, her expression turning uncharacteristically serious. "Okay. Here's the deal. I, Princess Sylphie of the Wind Empire, hereby vow on the zephyrs that carry me: I will help you find your frozen relic-thingy."
Ryn blinked. "You… will?"
"I will!" she confirmed, her seriousness melting back into a mischievous grin. "And in return… you show me your face."
The world seemed to tilt. "What? No! That wasn't the deal! There was no deal!"
"There is now! I just made it! A royal vow! You can't un-vow a vow!" she said, her logic as airy and unshakeable as a hurricane. "I help you complete your super-important, continent-altering quest, and you give me one little peek. It's the fairest trade in the history of ever!"
Before he could form a coherent protest, she had his hand again. "Okay, let's go!"
"Go? Go where?!"
"To the Glacial Spire, silly! The northern mountains! No time to waste!" With a powerful beat of her wings, she launched them both off the rooftop. The ground dropped away at a nauseating speed, the wind roaring in Ryn's ears as the frozen capital of Cryalis shrunk to a glittering mosaic below.
"This wind-child is insane!" the Ice Fox's voice was a sharp crack of alarm in his mind. "She acts without thought, without strategy! We are at the mercy of a gale!"
"You're telling me!" Ryn yelled into the rushing air, clinging to Sylphie for dear life.
She laughed, the sound swept away by the wind. "Don't worry! I'm an excellent flier! We'll be there in no time!"
They soared over frozen forests and across vast, snow-covered plains, the jagged teeth of the northern mountains growing larger on the horizon. The air grew thinner and even colder, each breath a knife in Ryn's lungs. Sylphie, however, seemed to thrive, drawing energy from the rushing currents.
It was then that the wind around them changed. It wasn't just the natural, biting gale of the high altitudes. This wind had a presence. It coalesced, swirled, and began to hum with a power that made the very air vibrate. The clouds ahead tore apart, and from the heart of the vortex, a colossal form emerged.
It was a serpentine dragon, its body long and sleek, woven from mist and thunderhead. Its scales shimmered with the silver of a stormy sky, and vast, semi-transparent wings, wider than a ship's sails, beat with a sound like a gathering tempest. Its eyes were twin whirlpools, ancient and intelligent. Zephyra, the Sky Serpent, the Wind Dragon.
Sylphie gasped, her flight faltering for a moment. "Grandmother!" she called out, her voice full of both reverence and excitement.
The dragon's whirlpool eyes didn't even glance at its bearer. They were fixed solely on Ryn. A voice, not heard but felt as a pressure in the mind, echoed around them, composed of howling gales and the calm at the eye of a storm.
"You," the voice of Zephyra boomed. "You carry the scent of the void. The silence that came before the first wind. The Frost-That-Consumed-Stars."
"Oh, shut up, you overgrown gust," the Ice Fox spirit snarled internally, her voice laced with a venomous hatred Ryn had never felt from her before. "Your posturing bores me."
"You linger, a ghost in a mortal shell," Zephyra's voice thrummed, the air growing tense. "A stain on the tapestry of the Six. You should have stayed dead."
The wind around them began to spin faster, forming a cage of cutting air. "I will scour you from this vessel, remnant. I will purify this imbalance. Face me, Ancient Enemy! Or is the mighty Ice Fox now a coward who hides behind children?"
Ryn felt a surge of power within him, a bitter, raging cold that wanted to lash out. But it was met with a wall of debilitating weakness.
"No!" the Fox spirit hissed, her voice strained. "I am not whole! I am a shadow, a memory! To fight her now, even a half of her, would be to extinguish us both! I cannot… I do not have the strength!"
The admission was torn from her, filled with a humiliation that burned as cold as her essence. The primordial spirit, the being that made dragons tremble, was admitting she was too weak to fight.
"Hey! Grandma Zephyra!" Sylphie shouted, steering them hard to avoid a lash of condensed wind. "What are you doing? He's with me! We're on a quest!"
"The mortal's quest is irrelevant," the dragon's voice was a dismissive roar. "This is a matter between spirits. Stand aside, child."
"No!" Sylphie yelled, her small form positioning itself between Ryn and the colossal serpent. "You're being a grumpy old storm cloud! He's my friend, and you're not going to blow him to pieces! A vow is a vow!"
The Wind Dragon paused, the whirlpools of its eyes narrowing. The gale lessened by a fraction, the dragon's attention finally, for the first time, shifting to its chosen bearer. A flicker of something—not quite respect, but perhaps a weary acknowledgment of her bearer's stubborn will—passed through its ancient gaze.
Ryn clung to Sylphie, his heart hammering. He was caught between a vengeful dragon and a weakened, furious ancient spirit, with only the most unpredictable princess in the world standing between him and oblivion. The quest for power had suddenly become a desperate struggle for survival.