When Ardent opened her eyes the world was silent not a single sound was heard.
The fire was gone. The sky once torn by flames and storm now hung still and colorless, as if the dawn itself had forgotten how to rise. She lays upon a cracked earth, her armor cooled too ash gray metal, smoke coiling faintly from the seams.
For a long moment she didn't breathe.
Didn't move.
Didn't dare to.
Only the faint rhythm pf her heart reminded her she was still alive, though the pulse of it felt strange, heavier like something ancient was moving beneath her skin.
Then she heard it.
A breath.
Soft and Close.
"Lyra..."
The mage laying a few paces away, her silver hair streaked with soot, her robes torn and rimed with frost. She was unconscious but alive. The air around her shimmered faintly the last remnants of her magic still protecting her. Ardent's gauntlet trembled as she reached out, fingertips brushing Lyra's cheek. Warm, Real. A thousand things she couldn't say burned at the back of her throat.
Then a whisper. Not from Lyra but from within.
"Do you hear it, child of fire? The Bond has been forged" The voice was deep, resonant like molten stone shifting in the dark. Ardent's vision blurred with heat. The mark on her forearm glowed faintly through the metal, crimson and alive.
"What did I do..." she murmured, staring at her trembling hand. "What did I become?"
Before she could rise the ground beneath her shuddered once, then twice. From the horizon a low rumble rolled through the plains, the scent of scorched air returned.
The dragon.
The same one that had descended upon Valenhold. It's silhouette rose in the distance, wings outstretched like burning sails but it didn't strike. It bowed.
The earth cracked where it knelt, its molten eyes fixed on Ardent.
"You carry my flame now and her frost. Two halves bound in one soul." the voice echoed again.
Ardent staggered to her feet, confusion and fear twisting inside her.
"What are you saying?" she shouted into the ashen wind. "That I'm-" before she could finish, she heard the voice again.
"The first of the Ashen Pact. The bridge between fire and frost." Silence followed. Only the sound of Lyra's soft breathing remined her she wasn't dreaming.
Ardent looked down at the unconscious mage the one she should have hated, should have slain and instead felt a pull she couldn't name. Something beyond magic. Beyond choice.
She sheathed her sword with metallic sigh, knelt down beside Lyra and whispered "Then if our fates are bound... I'll carry both fires yours and mine."
As the first flakes of gray ash fell from the sky, Ardent lifted Lyra into her arms and began the long walk towards the horizon, unaware that the world itself had felt their union and that both flame and frost had begun to stir once more.
(should the next chapter where Ardent and Lyra awaken in a shattered border village and begin to uncover what the Ashen Pact truly means or focus where they show their first real conversation after awakening?)