Phoenix reared up and climbed over Leopold. The merchant sighed with relief, the fear for his life and his wife draining away. He turned only when the sight of feathers and fire overhead vanished. The creature charged Y’edda, a torrent of claws and caws and rage.

“Get out of there Duffy!” Power swelled his voice and a ring of purple energy rocked the Ice Henge.

Duffy, still duelling the Thayne cocked his head and hesitated. Y’edda turned mid strike and brought her blades up to block the advance of a new opponent. As she did so, she swatted the bard with an unarmed arm and knocked him across the clearing. He smashed into Eagle’s shrine and ploughed through its point. Shards of ice sprayed out across the tundra.

“Pitiful. You’d have the world burn just to save the family that abandoned you?” The Thayne spoke with sullen truths, her mind’s eye focussing on Ruby’s past and her vicious streak pulling at the strands of fate that carried the spell singer from birth to death.

“I’d burn a thousand worlds to ensure my family survives.”

Phoenix’s words burnt into Y’edda’s mind, scouring clean any rebuke or lies she could muster. Claws raked the lithe form of the goddess, and a beak snuck through her guard and dug deep into her chest. Strands of glowing bursts burst out from the wound and she stumbled back.

Leopold felt helpless as he watched. The gods fought tooth and nail and every time Phoenix struck a blow, Y’edda began to fall apart. He winced every time a sword tip sliced away feathers and tore into his wife’s divine form. Fire and fame and tale and flame spiralled upwards, forming a metaphorical fire of old and new.

“Wound up, can’t sleep, can’t do anything right.” Leopold began to sing. On his knees, trembling, and with hope fading he remembered the song he used to sing to Ruby when they found one another again. War and time and destiny had kept them apart, yet she remembered. She smiled. “Oh, since I set my eyes on you I tell you the truth, twisting like a flame in a slow dance.” He stood on unsteady feet. “Come on, fire woman, come on!”

The flames rising from Phoenix intensified, red to gold, yellow to amber. From within her godly cage Ruby could hear a faint whisper of hope. She cried out and the Ice Henge shook. As history began to repeat itself she closed in on Y’edda and leapt, wings beating like drums and dug in her claws. She closed her wings around the Thayne and let lose all the rage and fury and heat within.

“Fire, smoke she is a rising fire, yeah smoke on the horizon! Fire, smoke she is a rising fire, oh smoke stack lightning, smoke stack lightning!”

Both gods screamed, half rage, half desperate realisation that the end was near. The flare turned into a beacon and the beacon turned into a roaring pyre. Phoenix disappeared into the centre of her power, and Y’edda dissipated, leaving nothing but a forest of blades protruding from the Ice Henge’s heart. Embers danced overhead, new stars in the night sky and vespers of smoke and ash vanished into the headwinds. Silence. Sudden sense of loneliness. Leopold wandered to the ruination left in their wake numb and solemn.