Fragmented Flames [Portal Fantasy, Adventure, Comedy]

A/N: I've made some heavy revisions last chapter. I recommend reading through it again for the updated context. I apologize in advance.

The courtyard stones cracked beneath Ember's feet as she launched herself at Cryax again, her flames carving shallow furrows across his snout. The dragon reeled back, more annoyed than hurt, hissing as her sister-selves attacked from all sides with coordinated strikes.

"Still trying?" Cryax's voice rumbled with amusement. "Your pretty flames tickle, nothing more."

Behind her, Ember felt Ash and Kindle moving through the chaos, gathering the wounded to carry them from the battlefield. Frost wolves harried their retreat, but their speed and flames made short work of the ice creatures that came too close.

Almost there, Kindle's thoughts whispered through their connection. Four more wounded, then we're clear.

Cinder rolled beneath a sweep of Cryax's tail, her flames erupting in controlled bursts that forced ice spiders to scatter. "Any brilliant ideas beyond 'hit him harder'?"

"Working on it," Ember replied through gritted teeth.

The truth hung between them, unspoken but understood. They'd mapped the distances during their retreat, calculated the minimum safe zone for what came next. Kindle and Ash needed another few minutes to get the survivors far enough away. After that, it wouldn't matter.

After that, collateral damage was the least of their problems.

"Honestly, I expected more from you," the dragon continued, his breath weapon erupting in concentrated streams that sent all five sister-selves scattering for cover. "This desperation is almost embarrassing."

A frost wolf bounded forward to snap at Pyra's legs. She dodged aside, her fire flaring to surround the beast in a burning cocoon. When the flames died, only frozen mist remained. "You know, for an ancient predator, you're remarkably chatty!"

"Conversation passes the time while watching prey exhaust itself." Cryax lowered his massive head, studying them like a cat observing cornered mice. "It's interesting to watch such pointless fury."

Clear, Ash's mental voice reported, an image of their position flickering across the shared consciousness. We're far enough away, and nothing followed. Kindle agrees—do it now.

Ember met her remaining sisters' eyes. No words needed. They'd discussed this possibility during their time with the Mnemosynes, understood the theory even if they'd hoped to avoid testing it under combat conditions.

"One last thing," Ember called to Cryax, backing toward the courtyard's center where Cinder and Pyra had already gathered. "We're not prey."

The dragon's laughter shook loose stones from the damaged walls. "Such defiance. Mother will find you amusing before she—"

His words cut off as a haze of orange-gold light surrounded the three in the courtyard's center.

Ember's fire flared to brilliant white, engulfing her in a pillar of superheated air. Around the courtyard, the other's fires did the same.

Miles away, beyond the keep's shattered walls and the reach of dragon sight, Ash and Kindle stood among the exhausted survivors. The wounded leaned against each other, some barely conscious, all bearing testament to Cryax's cruel game.

"Keep them moving," Ash told Corwin, who supported a defender with a shattered leg. "Don't stop until you reach the ridge."

"What about you?" The enchanter's eyes widened as both women began to shimmer, their edges blurring like heat mirages.

"We'll catch up," Kindle said, though her smile held sadness. "Take care of them."

The dissolution began—not the violent dispersal of death but a deliberate unraveling. Where their deaths had always been sharp discontinuity, this felt like silk scarves pulled through fingers, consciousness choosing to flow rather than being torn away.

Ash went first, her form dissipating into wisps of smoke that held together just long enough for her to speak. "Tell them we'll be back."

Kindle followed, her cheerful determination transforming into ribbons of flame that danced on wind that shouldn't exist. The evacuating survivors stumbled back from the display, some making warding gestures, others simply staring.

"What are they?" Captain Morse whispered.

"Exactly what we appear to be," Theron replied, though his own expression held fresh uncertainty. "Move. Now."

The dispersed consciousness of two sisters flowed across the miles like invisible fire, following the connection that had always existed between the five. Where death had thrown their essence like shrapnel, this traveled with purpose, aimed and intentional.

In the courtyard, Ember gasped as the integration hit.

Power flooded through her, through all three of them, like dam gates thrown wide. Her flames, already blue-white with heat, erupted into something beyond normal fire. The stones beneath her feet began to crack, then melt, turning the courtyard into a treacherous field of lava.

Cinder's flames spread across the walls and keep, her control allowing her to direct the flow of superheated air toward the remaining constructs. Ice spiders evaporated where they stood, their bodies flash-boiling in the inferno.

Pyra's pyrokinesis became a living storm. Jets of pure white flame shot from her hands to cut furrows in the walls around them. They hadn't practiced using this power since the early tests, but Ember's subconscious didn't question the phenomenon. The theoretical possibility had always been there, and now it had become tactical necessity.

Cryax's amusement died as the temperature in the courtyard spiked beyond even a dragon's comfort. "What—"

He never finished the sentence. Pyra moved first, her speed now approaching something beyond even their usual superhuman limits. She crossed the courtyard in an eyeblink, flames concentrated into a cutting edge that carved a deep furrow across Cryax's chest scales.

The dragon reeled back, genuinely surprised by the speed and intensity of the attack. His surprise cost him—Cinder struck from the opposite side, her precision amplified by Ash's integrated analytical mind. Her fire found the gap where his foreleg met his body, burning deep into tissue that had never known such heat.

Cryax's scream shattered stone.

"Impossible," he snarled, frost breath erupting in a desperate sweep. But the enhanced trio simply burned through it, their combined heat creating a corridor of safety through the killing cold. "You cannot have this much magic!"

"Magic has nothing to do with it." Cinder's voice carried over the crackling of flames, her words clipped with a diction that mirrored the missing sister. "We are who we've always been. You're just seeing us in higher resolution."

Ember charged, blue-white flames surrounding her in an incandescent corona. Cryax tried to bring his talons to bear, but her fire cut through their bone density like a hot needle through snow.

She hit the dragon's leg in an impact that sent shockwaves through his ancient frame. Cracks spiderwebbed through armored flesh, and she heard bones break in multiple places beneath the scales.

Cryax screamed again, his other leg buckling under him. He toppled onto his side with a thud that shook the ground, wings flapping uselessly as he struggled to right himself. But Cinder's burning attacks continued to find the gaps in his armored hide, and Pyra carved pieces from his opposite flank, slowly stripping him of mass.

"HOW?" Cryax's shriek echoed with draconic pride turned to desperate rage. "You're HUMAN. Weak, soft, PATHETIC."

His eyes—those ancient, arrogant orbs—finally showed what Ember had been waiting for.

Fear.

The dragon gathered himself, muscles bunching beneath scarred scales. His wings spread wide despite the damage Cinder had inflicted, and with a roar that shook the keep's foundations, he launched himself skyward.

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"Oh no you don't!" Pyra shouted, grinning with savage joy.

She crouched, flames gathering beneath her in a concentrated inferno. The propulsion launched her upward like a meteor in reverse, trailing blue fire across the afternoon sky. Cinder and Ember followed, twin plumes of destruction that left contrails in their wake.

Pyra reached him first, latching onto his tail with hands that burned through dragonscale. Cryax shrieked, attempting to shake her off, but she held firm even as his thrashing threatened to tear her apart.

"Get off!" The dragon's frost breath washed over Pyra, ice that should have frozen her solid in an instant.

The ice sublimated to steam on contact. Pyra laughed as she climbed hand over hand toward his spine. "You'll have to do better than that!"

Ember caught up to them, burning a deep furrow through the dragon's right wing that set him tumbling out of control. She twisted through the sky to avoid his flailing, timing her approach for when he passed through another arc of his chaotic path.

Her fist struck his jaw like a sledgehammer, breaking teeth that were the size of her forearm. The blow knocked his head sideways, and Ember followed up with another punch—this time to his eye.

The eye burst in a spray of viscera and frozen blood, and now Cryax's shrieks rose to new heights of terror.

Cinder struck from below, flames focused into cutting edges that carved through wing joints. Cryax's flight became a barely controlled plummet, all four combatants tumbling through the air in a tangle of fire, ice, and fury.

They hit the ground outside Ravenshollow's walls hard enough to create a crater. Cryax tried to rise, but Ember was already there, driving a spear of concentrated flame through the joint of his right leg. Pyra cut through tendons on the opposite side, leaving the crippled dragon howling as he struggled to crawl away.

"Mother... will not forgive..." Cryax's voice held true desperation now, the fear of death from an apex creature finally seeing his end.

"Your mother won't be a problem," Cinder said, flames flickering around her in the aftermath of the impact. "She'll be right behind you."

The trio charged in unison, coordinated even in their amplified state. Cryax could only writhe as his body burned from the inside and out, his cries drowned out by the roar of their flames.

Cinder cut him apart, piece by deliberate piece. Pyra pummeled him with repeated strikes, each blow accompanied by a burst of pyrokinesis that charred his insides. Ember ripped him open, incinerating frozen flesh until only a quivering mass of shattered bone and seared meat remained.

When there was nothing left to kill, they paused, looking down at what remained of their opponent. The heat still radiated from all three of them, visible in shimmering air and a distant memory of fiery hair.

The power thrumming through their shared consciousness felt infinite, intoxicating, divine—

Pain lanced through Ember's skull like a white-hot needle.

"Ah!" She staggered, one hand flying to her temple. Beside her, Cinder and Pyra showed similar distress, the confident victory of moments before crumbling under an assault from within.

"The curse," Cinder gasped through gritted teeth. "Ugh! This smarts."

They'd known this would happen. The Mnemosynes' training had prepared them for the consequences of maintaining fewer than five forms. But knowing and enduring were different experiences. Sweat broke out on all three faces as they grappled with the agony building in their minds and bodies.

"Come on," Ember groaned through clenched jaws. "It's just a bad migraine and fever. We can last until we get out of the duchy. Let's meet up with the others and get moving."

Neither Cinder nor Pyra wasted breath on responses. They simply set out, each step an effort against the rising tide of discomfort. Their speed made the journey swift, but by the time they reached the forest's edge where Ash and Kindle had evacuated the survivors, sweat poured from their brows, and their steps had the stagger of drunkards.

Through vision blurred by pain, Ember saw Captain Morse approaching.

"You did it." Morse stared at all three with something between reverence and shock. "I thought... when you all split up and left, I thought we were going to die. But you went and..."

"Stay back!" Ember commanded, her voice carrying despite the agony. Heat rolled off all three of them in waves, turning falling snow to steam before it could touch the ground. "We're unstable like this. It's not safe to be near us."

Theron appeared at the crowd's edge, Corwin leaning heavily on his shoulder. The Mind Mage looked barely conscious, but he'd survived. That was what mattered.

"What's happening to them?" someone whispered—one of the rescued defenders whose false memories were probably struggling to incorporate what they'd just witnessed.

"They're burning up," another replied, awe and fear mingling in the words.

Not burning up, Ember thought grimly. Burning out. The curse demanded five, and having only three was like trying to force a river through a pipe too small for its flow. The power had to go somewhere, and their bodies were rapidly running out of capacity to contain it.

"We need distance," she told Theron, holding his gaze as her vision blurred again. "You all go ahead of us. Make sure you keep at least fifty paces away. We'll follow and keep anything from attacking while you escape."

"We'll set up a perimeter," Theron promised. "Give you the space you need. Can you make it back to the keep?"

"We'll manage." Ember forced herself upright through sheer will. Cinder and Pyra did the same.

***

The journey back to Ardleby Keep stretched into a torture of minutes that felt like hours. They stayed well behind the main group, following in a world blurred by heat shimmer and exhaustion, pain and determination blending into a single force that drove them forward against their body's desperate pleas to stop.

"How long?" Cinder asked at one point, wiping sweat from her eyes with a shaking hand.

"You should already know. Six hours. Why are you even asking?" Ember's response held impatience and discomfort in equal measure.

"Just... checking," Cinder replied, her steps wavering once more.

"The pain's building faster than last time." Pyra's perpetual smile had gone rigid. "Like the curse knows we're pushing boundaries."

They were. Every step sent fresh spikes through Ember's skull, and she could feel the others experiencing the same. Their shared consciousness, normally a comfort, now meant experiencing their suffering in triplicate.

Worse was the compulsion. Fire wanted out—not the controlled flames they'd learned to master but raw, undirected destruction. Every few minutes, one of them would have to discharge energy, sending gouts of flame into the empty air just to relieve the pressure.

It would have been easy, so easy, to give in—to simply burn until the pressure stopped. But the knowledge of what that would do to the surrounding landscape kept Ember holding on. That and the presence of the other's minds alongside hers.

"Keep moving," Ember growled, mostly to herself.

The march continued through the afternoon, their strange procession winding through valleys and over ridges as they retreated from dragon territory.

As the sun began its descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of amber and rose, the familiar walls of Ardleby Keep finally came into view. The defenders on the walls had seen them coming, and horns announced their approach with notes that held both welcome and warning.

"Get the wounded inside," Theron ordered as they approached the gates. "Full medical assessment, then debrief." He turned to the three sisters, who had stopped well short of the walls. "You can't enter like that."

He was right. The heat they generated would turn the keep's interior into an oven, and the compulsion to release fire grew stronger with each passing minute. Already Ember felt her control slipping, flames wanting to leap from her skin toward anything that would burn.

"We need distance," she managed. "Somewhere isolated."

"There's a valley two miles south," one of the scouts offered. "Bare rock, no vegetation. We use it for magical weapons testing."

"Perfect." Ember turned to Theron, fighting to keep her voice steady as another wave of pain crashed through her skull. "We'll reconstitute there. Give us three hours."

"Will you be alright?"

"We'll manage," Cinder said, though her rigid posture suggested otherwise.

They left without further ceremony, three figures wreathed in flame moving into the gathering dusk.

The valley proved ideal—a natural bowl carved from stone by some ancient force, its walls high enough to contain what came next. They descended to its center, no longer bothering to contain the fire that leaked from their forms.

"That was incredibly stupid," Cinder said as they settled into a rough triangle formation.

"Also incredibly awesome," Pyra added, though her grin held edges sharp as glass. "Did you see his face when we started flying?"

"Focus," Ember commanded. The pressure had built to levels that made thought difficult, and she could feel the curse's resistance grinding against their configuration like misaligned gears. "We need to discharge before we attempt reconstitution."

They'd learned this through painful experience—attempting to resurrect while holding too much power led to explosive results. Better to burn it off safely than risk the alternative.

As one, they raised their hands skyward.

The pillar of flame that erupted from their combined effort turned night to day for miles around. It rose hundreds of feet, a controlled tower of destruction that transformed air to plasma and made the very stones beneath them sing with sympathetic heat. They held it for long minutes, pouring out power that had nowhere else to go.

When it finally died, they collapsed to their knees, temporarily drained but finally able to think clearly.

"Never gets easier," Pyra gasped.

"Ready?" Ember asked, already knowing the answer.

They formed their circle, hands clasped despite skin that still glowed with residual heat. The process had become familiar through repetition—reaching into the well of their combined essence, finding the pieces that had been Ash and Kindle, giving them form once more.

Twin columns of flame erupted in the circle's center, growing and shaping and solidifying until two familiar forms stepped out, naked and shivering despite the ambient heat.

"That," Ash said, accepting the spare clothes they'd thought to bring, "was educational."

"Educational?" Kindle pulled her tunic over her head, movements still shaky from reconstitution. "Did you even see what we did to that dragon? Boom! Splat! Hiss! That was so much better than 'educational.'"

"Agreed!" Pyra chimed in, her normal enthusiasm already returning as their configuration stabilized. "We actually killed a dragon! A real, ancient, magical dragon!"

"We killed one of thirteen," Ember corrected quietly. "And alerted the rest that we're more than we appear."

The somber tone drew their attention. Even Pyra lost her smile. The giddiness of their impossible feat couldn't withstand the knowledge of what lay ahead.

"Tomorrow's problem," Cinder decided, standing with only slight unsteadiness. "Tonight, we report back, eat something that isn't travel rations, and try not to think about what comes next."