Five leagues at speed.

The landscape blurred beneath them, white and gray and brown all bleeding together until distance became abstract. Kindle's breath came sharp and shallow, each inhalation pulling at broken ribs that ground against each other. Ember's shoulder throbbed where frost had bitten deep. Pyra's ears still rang from Vorthak's dying roar. Cinder ran silent, calculating odds they didn't want to hear.

The curse-headache built with each mile. Not unbearable yet. Just present, a passenger reminding them of debts coming due.

Force Beta's position appeared first as smoke rising black against pale sky. Then the sounds carried on wind—screams, the crash of steel on ice, the particular roar that meant dragon-fire but cold, freezing, killing.

They crested the final ridge and saw hell.

The valley floor was chaos. Six hundred soldiers fought in broken formations, their neat ranks shattered by something that wouldn't stay still long enough to fight properly. Bodies littered the ground, frozen mid-scream, ice coating them in crystalline shells that made them look like terrible sculptures.

Above it all, the dragon flew.

Syltharax wheeled through morning sky on wings that spanned sixty feet, blue-white scales catching sunlight and throwing it back in patterns that hurt to watch. Smaller than Vorthak, built for speed instead of endurance. His neck stretched long and serpentine, head darting with avian precision. Each pass across the battlefield left devastation in his wake.

"He's not landing." Cinder stated the obvious problem.

"Can't fight what we can't reach." Pyra watched the dragon strafe Force Beta's left flank. Frost breath washed over shields that offered no protection against cold that froze blood in veins. Soldiers fell, bodies hitting frozen earth with sounds like breaking glass.

Ember scanned the battlefield. Force Beta's commander had tried everything. Archers launched volleys that fell short or shattered against scales. Battlemages threw fire and lightning that the dragon dodged with contemptuous ease. Infantry held shields overhead in formations that did nothing against breath that killed through armor and flesh and bone.

"We go up," Kindle said it quiet, but her voice cut through their collective thoughts.

"With what?" Cinder's skepticism cut sharp. "We can't fly."

"Then we learn."

They descended the ridge at speed, hitting the valley floor and sprinting through carnage toward the command post. A hastily erected tent flew the coalition banner, its canvas walls shredded by ice shards from a strafing run.

Jorin Karska stood outside, scarred face set in grim lines. The former Erebosian ranger was built lean and hard, gray showing at his temples. He'd led Force Beta through a dozen skirmishes already and looked like a man who'd run out of good options.

"You're here." Relief bled through professional calm. "Good. We can't hold much longer."

"Casualties?" Ember asked.

"Seventy-three dead in the first twenty minutes. Another hundred wounded, most critical." His jaw worked. "Dragon won't engage on the ground. Every time we concentrate forces, he strafes and scatters us. The wards work against conversion but don't mean shit against ice that freezes your lungs solid."

Syltharax wheeled overhead, sunlight gleaming off scales. His head turned, tracking them. Recognition sparked in serpentine eyes.

"New prey," the dragon's voice carried like wind through canyons. "Mother said you'd come. Small things that think fire makes them fierce."

"We killed your brother!" Pyra shouted up at him.

"Vorthak was slow. Stupid. Built for standing still and dying slow." The dragon's wings beat once, twice, carrying him higher. "I'm neither."

He dove.

Coalition soldiers scattered, breaking formations, running for cover that didn't exist. The dragon's breath washed across their positions in a wave of killing cold. Men froze mid-stride. Shields shattered from thermal shock.

The earth itself cracked under the intense freeze.

Ember moved without thinking. Fire erupted from her hands in concentrated streams, not at the dragon but at the breath itself. Heat met cold in violent collision, turning frost to steam that rolled across the battlefield in choking clouds.

It saved maybe thirty soldiers. The rest died frozen.

"Can't keep doing that!" Cinder yelled through the steam. "We need to end him!"

Syltharax climbed again, wings beating powerful strokes that carried him beyond arrow range. He circled, surveying the battlefield like a raptor watching mice.

"You stopped my breath. Clever." His voice held amusement. "Try stopping this."

He dove again, faster this time, angling not for the soldiers but for them directly.

"Scatter!" Ember dove left. Pyra went right. Kindle and Cinder split opposite directions.

The dragon's claws raked empty ground where they'd stood, tearing furrows. He pulled up hard, wings snapping with sounds like sails catching wind. Ice creatures poured from his shadow—spiders, wolves, constructs that hit the ground running.

"We have to ground him!" Kindle burned through three ice spiders, her flames guttering with exhaustion. "Can't fight air!"

"Then we don't fight air." Pyra looked up at the circling dragon, at the way he banked and turned. "We go to him."

She crouched, flames building around her legs. Not wild fire but controlled, concentrated. Thrust. When she released it, the propulsion launched her upward in a burning arc.

The flight lasted maybe three seconds before gravity reasserted itself. She hit the ground hard enough to crack permafrost, rolled, came up spitting mud.

"That," Cinder observed, "was terrible."

"Your turn then!"

Cinder tried. Her launch was more controlled, aimed better, but the result looked similar—a brief upward trajectory ending in a crash that left her groaning.

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Ember studied the problem with Ash's analytical nature threading through her thoughts. Fire as propulsion. Not enough thrust, too much wasted energy. The angle was wrong. The timing worse.

"Together," she said. "Coordinate the burns. Continuous thrust, not single bursts."

Kindle nodded despite obvious pain. "Like we're running. But up."

They tried again. Failed again. The crashes hurt.

Syltharax watched from above, his laughter carrying like breaking ice. "Adorable. Mother's new pets learning tricks."

"Shut up and come down here!" Pyra's frustration bled through.

"Why would I? You're dying so well from up here."

More strafing runs. More ice breath. Force Beta lost ground, broke into pockets, and reformed again, bleeding from a hundred cuts they couldn't stitch. Mages exhausted themselves, and archers ran out of arrows.

Jorin called orders, voice hoarse. He fought on the front lines, sword gleaming, leading from the ground with shields on their backs but not above, taking ice hits meant for soldiers who couldn't afford them.

Ember tried again. Fire from hands and feet, controlled burns, continuous thrust. She rose fifteen feet before losing control and tumbling.

Pyra caught her before she hit. "Getting better."

"Not fast enough."

But they kept trying. Burning, rising, falling, learning. Each attempt taught something. Too much fire meant spinning out of control. Too little meant dropping like stones. The balance lived somewhere between.

Kindle found it first. Her flames roared from hands and feet in measured streams, lifting her twenty feet, thirty, holding steady before she killed the thrust and dropped controlled to earth.

"Like that!" She gasped through broken ribs. "Feel the balance!"

They tried together. Four bodies, four sets of flames, rising in stuttering flight that looked more like controlled falling than anything graceful. But it worked.

Syltharax noticed. His circling tightened. "Interesting. But flight doesn't make you dragons."

He dove at them, claws extended, frost billowing from his jaws.

Ember launched up to meet him. The dragon's speed made hers look slow. His claw swept through where she'd been, would have torn her apart if she hadn't killed her thrust and dropped. The claw passed overhead close enough to feel wind from its passage.

Pyra and Cinder attacked from opposite sides, flames streaming behind them as they rose. Syltharax rolled mid-flight, serpentine grace that put him above them both. His tail whipped around, caught Pyra across the chest, sent her spinning toward the ground.

She recovered ten feet from impact, thrust flaring, pulling out of the dive. Blood ran from her mouth where she'd bitten her tongue.

Kindle rose behind the dragon, aiming for his tail. Got close enough to touch before his wing swept back and batted her away like an insect. She tumbled, flames wild, hit the ground and didn't get up.

"Can't even fly properly!" Syltharax's mockery stung worse than his claws. "Mother was wrong. You're not dangerous. Just annoying."

Ember's vision narrowed. The curse-headache pulsed with each heartbeat but rage burned hotter. She launched again, faster this time, angling not where the dragon was but where he'd be.

Her trajectory intersected his flight path. She slammed into his neck, grabbed scales with both hands, fire erupting where flesh met flesh. The dragon's scales cracked under sustained heat.

Syltharax shrieked and rolled, trying to shake her loose. Ember held on, burning deeper, feeling scales part and flesh beneath cook.

Cinder hit from below, driving into his exposed belly. Her flames concentrated on a single point, cutting through scale like heated wire through wax. Blood steamed where it leaked, black and thick.

The dragon's shriek became a roar. He bucked, twisted, climbed straight up with powerful wing-beats. The g-forces tried to peel Ember off. She burned her handholds deeper, using his own flesh as anchor points.

Pyra recovered and launched again. This time she grabbed his tail, the damaged section Kindle had wounded. Fire poured into the injury, widening it, burning through layers of muscle toward bone.

Syltharax's flight became erratic. He rolled, dove, climbed, trying everything to shake them. Coalition forces below watched four burning figures cling to the dragon like parasites, holding on through pure determination while he thrashed through the sky.

"Get off!" The dragon's mental pressure slammed against them. No conversion attempt—just raw telekinetic force trying to pry them loose.

It didn't work. Their minds were their own. Always had been.

Ember climbed toward his head, burning handholds as she went. Each scale she touched became slag. Blood ran in rivers down his neck, steaming in cold air. She reached his skull, drove fire into the base where spine met brain.

The dragon screamed.

His flight failed. Wings forgot their rhythm. They fell together, dragon and four burning women, tumbling through morning sky toward frozen earth.

Ember released at fifty feet, thrust blazing, trying to control her descent. Hit hard anyway, bones jarring, but alive. Rolled to her feet as Syltharax crashed beside her with impact that shook the ground.

The dragon struggled to rise. His left wing was broken, bent wrong, useless. Blood poured from wounds that covered his body. But he wasn't dead.

Cinder landed hard, one leg buckling. She ignored it, limping toward the dragon's head. Pyra hit the ground rolling, came up running despite blood covering her face from a cut over her eye.

Kindle still hadn't moved from where Syltharax's wing had batted her.

Coalition forces charged. The ice creatures had shattered when the dragon fell, leaving only the dragon himself. Soldiers swarmed with spears and swords, stabbing anything they could reach. Battlemages threw fire and lightning from exhausted reserves.

Syltharax's tail swept through them. Bodies flew. The dragon's jaws snapped, catching a soldier in his teeth, biting down. The scream cut off wet.

"Eyes!" Ember shouted. She drove fire into the dragon's right eye, concentrating everything she had. The eye burst in spray of fluid and blood. Syltharax shrieked, head thrashing blind.

Cinder took the left eye with a cutting stream that carved through the socket and kept going into brain. The dragon's shriek became a gurgle.

Pyra climbed his neck from behind, burning through already damaged flesh. She reached his spine, drove both hands into the wound Ember had started, and poured fire directly into his central nervous system.

Syltharax convulsed. His body seized, limbs jerking in patterns that had nothing to do with intent. Then he went still.

Silence spread like frost.

Ember walked to where Kindle lay. Her sister-self breathed shallow, ribs definitely worse than before. Blood leaked from her mouth. But her eyes opened.

"We win?"

"We win."

"Good." Kindle tried to sit up, gasped, and stayed down. "Feels worse this time."

It was worse. Ember looked at the battlefield, at bodies frozen and broken and torn. At soldiers sitting in mud and blood, too tired to celebrate. At the medics moving between wounded with supplies running low.

Jorin approached, favoring his left leg. Frostbite flared red along his cheek and neck where armor hadn't protected. His voice was a ruin of its usual boom, but the command still carried.

"Force Beta will reorganize and secure the valley." He gestured at his officers. "Get the wounded to safe positions. I want patrols on the periphery to keep the area locked down. Someone get me a damage report."

Cinder studied the dragon's corpse. Her face showed none of their exhaustion, but the blood in her hair betrayed she hadn't escaped the fight unscathed.

"Commander!" A runner sprinted up, breathing hard. "Signal from the next engagement! Dragon Morfex engaged Force Gamma thirty minutes ago! They're requesting support!"

Ember checked the sun's position. Morning was nearly finished.

Two dragons dead, ten remaining. But each battle took longer than planned. The math was turning against them.

"How far to Force Gamma?" Cinder asked through obvious pain.

"Twelve leagues northwest." The runner pointed.

Twelve leagues. At their speed, maybe twelve minutes.

But they'd used more energy than the plan accounted for. Ember's curse-headache pulsed, demanding she pay back the borrowed time soon. Cinder's jaw clenched against the same pain. Pyra's hands shook. Kindle still couldn't stand without help.

But none of that changed what they had to do. No choice. No option. Keep moving, keep killing, or everything was lost.

The Fragmented Flame took a moment. Ember leaned against Cinder. Cinder braced Kindle. Pyra stood a little apart, eyes on the corpses, mouth set tight against words she'd say later.

"Run it is, then," Ember said, because someone had to. They started slow, found their rhythm, and accelerated until fire trailed behind like comet-tails. They left Force Beta behind, bleeding and dying, but victorious.

Two dragons down. Ten to go.

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