Dawn broke gray over Ardleby Keep, painting the ancient stones the color of old bone. No warmth touched the light—just the promise of another day where breath turned to ice and metal burned the skin.

Pyra bounced on her toes at the keep's main gate, flames dancing around her fingers in cheerful spirals that cast orange shadows on frost-rimed walls. "Ready to see some frozen horror?"

"Your enthusiasm for impending doom never ceases to amaze." Cinder adjusted her pack straps again. The fifth time. The cold didn't touch them, but leather and buckles still needed settling, and the ritual gave her hands something to do besides form fists.

"I can't help it!" Pyra spun on one heel, melting a perfect circle in the accumulated snow. Steam rose where her boots touched. "It's... this is what I was made for!"

"Finding things and burning them?"

"I meant infiltration and reconnaissance. But if someone wanted me to find something and burn it afterward..." Her grin stretched wide. "I'm game."

Activity churned around them—couriers with wax-sealed orders, servants hauling supplies, soldiers checking weapons with the particular focus of those who knew they'd need them soon. A line of knights rode past, their white armor bearing House Brightblade's crest. Some smiled. Some stared ahead at nothing. The volunteers had different eyes than those ordered to march.

"Where's our battlemage escorts?" Kindle asked, watching a crew of carpenters nail together a support tower.

"Thale said they'd be here. Something about the mages insisting on making their own preparations." Ember frowned, trying to remember the command briefing amidst the avalanche of names and facts.

Footsteps crunched through frost with measured authority. The man who emerged from pre-dawn shadows moved with the economy of someone who'd learned that wasted movement meant death. Tall, lean, gray threading through a brown beard. His hands bore strange marks—twisted patterns where flesh had melted and healed wrong. The staff across his back hummed—not sound but sensation, the feeling of wasps about to swarm.

"Ladies." His breath formed clouds. Theirs didn't. His eyes tracked the absence, filed it somewhere behind dark eyes. "Mage-Captain Theron Aldiss. My team's ready."

Four figures emerged from the keep's interior depths. The first woman moved with controlled steps, each placement deliberate. Red hair braided tight against her skull, leather armor marked with runes that glowed faint orange in the dim light. She stopped ten feet away—close enough for conversation, far enough to react.

Behind her, a pale-eyed woman drifted more than walked, her fingers tracing patterns against empty air. Silver threads wove through dark hair—not age, Ember realized, but something else. The woman's gaze slid past them, past the keep walls, focused on something none of them could see.

The third filled the doorway before stepping through. Shoulders that could carry siege engines, hands marked by old violence. His pack bristled with crystalline devices that caught light wrong, bending it in ways that made the eye water.

The last hung back where shadows gathered thickest. All sharp angles and careful distance, watching them watch his companions. His fingers moved in small, constant gestures—nervous habit or something more deliberate, Ember couldn't tell.

The red-haired woman stepped forward. "Lysa Blair. Pyromancer. I'll be keeping the rest of us warm." She held out a hand, palm up. A small flame bloomed there, steady as a brazier. "The dragon's domain operates on principles we barely understand—not just cold, but the negation of warmth itself. I've studied the theoretical foundations."

"Theoretical." Cinder's tone could have cut glass.

"Experience comes after survival," Lysa replied without heat. "Until someone lives through direct exposure to ancient dragon magic, theory's all we have."

"We'll manage the living part," Kindle declared with a grin that belonged to someone who'd never met consequences. "You handle the understanding."

Pyra's whole body perked up, flames flashing in her golden eyes. "Nice! A fellow pyro! I'm going to like you." Her own fist ignited in a blazing flare of joy.

The pale-eyed woman blinked, her attention snapping back to the present with visible effort. "Senna Myers. Diviner." Her voice came hollow, distant, the words of someone speaking from the bottom of a well. "The sight goes dark three leagues north. Complete severance. Whatever she's done to that land..." She blinked again, pupils dilating as she returned from wherever her mind had wandered. "I've never felt anything like it."

"What does it feel like?" Ash tilted her head, studying Senna with that quiet curiosity so often mistaken for disinterest.

"The blizzard stares back."

The mountain of a man shifted his pack, crystals singing against each other. "Daven Gallegos. Abjurer. I break things that shouldn't be broken." He patted the devices. "Brought every ward-breaker I could carry. If there's a way through her barriers, we'll find it."

"And you?" Ember addressed the angular man who hadn't moved from his position by the door.

"And me?" The thin man finally spoke, showing teeth in what might charitably be called a smile. "Corwin Vex. Enchanter and Conjurer. I study minds—how they work, how they break, how they're broken by others." His gaze swept across the five sisters, lingering. "I'm here to figure out what the dragon's done to their minds and devise a countermeasure for the army. The reports describe conversion, but conversion to what? Automatons? Willing servants? Something else?"

The air between them sharpened. Ember felt her sisters' attention focus—the psychological aspect mattered more than these battlemages understood. If the servitors retained awareness, retained self, then every death became murder wearing the mask of mercy.

"Mount up," Theron commanded, then caught himself, uncertainty flickering across his features. "Or... whatever it is you do."

"We run," Kindle said, matter-of-fact. "Fast enough to keep up with your spells."

The battlemages exchanged glances—quick, professional assessment tinged with doubt.

Ember caught Theron's gaze, held it steady. "Trust your intel. We'll perform."

"Movement speed?" No condescension in the question. Just a commander gathering tactical data. "Serious question."

"Fast enough." Blue flames crawled along Cinder's body, and the red-haired woman—Lysa—took an involuntary step back despite claiming to be a fellow pyromancer. "Question is whether you can keep up."

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"Enhancement magic provides—"

"We've seen enhancement magic." Kindle's interruption came gentle but firm. "This isn't that."

To demonstrate, Pyra took off at a sprint. Her fire-accented figure tore through the snow until she reached an outcropping, then blurred—becoming a streak of flame that looped back to rejoin the group. "We'll take it slow for you."

Theron opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed whatever protest or question had risen.

"Appreciated," he said finally. "Formation will adjust to accommodate enhanced mobility assets."

"Enhanced mobility assets," Ash repeated, amusement threading through contemplation. "That's what we're calling ourselves now?"

"Better than 'the weird fire girls,'" Ember said. "Which is what half the soldiers were whispering yesterday."

"I heard 'demon-touched' from that noble's retinue." Daven's tone held no judgment, just fact. "Though they shut up quick when Quartermaster Grehm started redistributing their ceremonial armor."

Senna raised one hand. Silver threads in her hair began glowing, casting her face in ethereal light. "Divination suggests optimal departure... now. Weather patterns favorable for the next four hours, then deteriorating."

"Move out." Theron's enhancement runes flared to life, geometric patterns of light racing across his skin. "Maintain communication until border contact. After that..."

"After that, we're all blind," Corwin finished. His mental shields flickered visible for a moment, geometric patterns of light that framed his skull like an arcane halo. "The Dragon's power interferes with all forms of remote observation."

"How exactly are you all gonna keep up?" Kindle asked while stretching her legs a bit.

Lysa answered with action. Fire magic twisted in her hands, reshaping from destruction into motion. Flames erupted beneath her boots—not wild but controlled, focused thrust that lifted her off the ground. She moved forward in a rush that left heat-warped air shimmering in her wake.

Daven chose earth over air. Magic poured into the ground beneath him, and the stone responded. Each step carried him ten feet as rock and soil formed temporary platforms that crumbled to dust behind him.

Senna vanished. Gone between one blink and the next, reappearing a hundred feet ahead in a spray of displaced snow.

Corwin conjured a spectral horse from nothing, leaping onto its back without hesitation. The construct galloped across the snow, hooves kicking powder into fine white plumes.

Theron combined approaches. Sigils flared along his arms and legs while weak levitation kept his feet from quite touching ground. He moved smooth and steady, watching his team with the attention of someone ready to catch whoever fell first.

"Show-offs," Pyra muttered. Then louder: "Race you to the ridge!"

They ran.

Not their usual blazing sprint—that would have left the battlemages behind in seconds—but still fast enough to cover ground faster than a racehorse could sprint.

Hoarfrost crunched beneath their boots. Snow began and ended half-melted in passing. Clouds hung low and iron-gray, promising nothing comfortable. The terrain alternated between scrubby trees and frozen bog. Each breath tasted of dead leaves and old stone.

The battlemages kept pace. Lysa's fire, Corwin's summoned steed, and Daven's stone-shaping techniques were matched by Theron's multi-pronged approach. Senna stayed ahead, teleporting just far enough to remain visible—always, Ember observed, just on the edge of where line-of-sight vanished.

A valley opened up ahead. Snow lay piled halfway up the slopes like pillowy frosting on a chocolate cake. Scrubby trees waved good riddance to the runners with stiff branches. Far in the distance, jagged black mountains promised unkind welcome.

An hour later, Senna stumbled.

She'd been mid-teleport, silver light gathering around her form. Then nothing. She materialized half-buried in a snowbank, limbs tangled, silver hair dark with meltwater.

Lysa's flame-propulsion died mid-leap. She hit the ground hard, rolling through snow that hissed to steam around her. When she stood, her fire magic guttered—candle flames where there should have been bonfires.

"Something's interfering with elemental draw. The fire wants to go out."

Daven's earth-stride faltered, each step fighting him now. "Walking through tar. Everything ten times heavier than it should be."

"What about your enhancement magic?" Cinder's flames burned steady, untouched by whatever pressed against the others.

"Struggling." Sweat beaded Theron's forehead despite air cold enough to freeze spit before it hit ground. "Sigil feedback's making my teeth ache."

Corwin sat slumped on his spectral steed, which plodded in jerking fits. It looked tired. "Can't maintain the conjuration much longer. Mental resistance keeps getting worse. We're still too far out. This shouldn't be happening."

Theron called a halt beside a cluster of standing stones—ancient markers for a border no one remembered. The battlemages huddled close, their magical auras dim and unstable. Corwin's shields sparked and reformed, sparked and reformed, holding back something that pressed against them with patient hunger.

"Distance to border?" Theron kept his voice level through obvious effort.

Daven consulted his ward-detection crystals. The devices couldn't agree on anything—readings jumped between impossible density and absolute void with no middle ground. "Three leagues. Maybe four. Hard to tell—the boundary isn't fixed."

"What does that mean?" Kindle moved closer to the crystals, watching numbers that made no sense.

"It means," Corwin said, each word careful and considered, "that whatever she's done to claim this territory, it's expanding. Slowly, but steadily."

"An infection," Lysa whispered. Flames ignited around her hands again—small at first, then larger as she redoubled focus. "Ugh. How are we supposed to operate in there if our magic isn't reliable?"

"You adapt." Cinder's tone held no sympathy. "Walk. Run. Use your legs instead of spells."

"Easy for you to say. Your flames work fine."

"Because we're not drawing power from somewhere else." Ash crouched in the snow, studying frost patterns spreading across bare rock. "We generate our own. You're trying to pull fire from elemental planes that... the dragon's influencing. Polluting, maybe. Definitely interrupting the connection."

Senna sat heavily on a fallen stone that might have been altar or marker. The silver threads in her hair had gone dark as old iron. "The divination networks are completely severed. It's not just interference—it's active rejection. The land itself refuses to be seen."

"So we go in blind," Ember said. Not a question.

"It is for us." Theron's hands clenched and unclenched, enhancement runes flickering with each motion. "We're used to magical superiority. Eyes in the sky, communication with command, protective wards..." He gestured at his team's failing magic. "This levels the field."

"Tilts it against us," Daven corrected. He'd given up on magical movement entirely, stamping his feet to keep blood flowing. "The dragon knows we're coming. Probably has known since we crossed her boundaries. Meanwhile, we can't even look over hills without putting eyeballs there."

"Then we put eyeballs there." Pyra's enthusiasm hadn't dimmed despite the growing sense of wrongness. "Let's be eyeballs!"

"Not exactly a well-thought-out plan." Cinder scowled.

"You're just grumpy because you don't get to punch anyone yet."

"I could punch you."

"But you won't because you like me."

"Wish I could argue that," Cinder grumbled. But something in her eased—an old habit asserting itself, the familiar bickering settling tension they couldn't quite acknowledge.

Theron cleared his throat, jerking a thumb at the trail ahead. "She's right. If we're going in blind, we might as well get going while the weather's still holding. Best bet—push forward, make what distance we can before her influence really starts crushing our spells. Then hunker down, wait it out, see what we can accomplish with limited magic after that." He paused. "Not looking for a fight. I want us in and out as fast as possible without losing anyone. Got it?"

"Yes," Ember said, meeting his eyes steady and calm. "We understand. Limited engagement."

"Stay together, move fast, gather data." Theron nodded. "Stick to those principles and we might make it back alive."

Corwin swung awkwardly back onto his spectral horse. "You realize that's what doomed every failed reconnaissance before us."

"Yes," Theron said. "But we've got these five. I'm betting on that making the difference."

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