"T-Thyra?" Verano recoiled as he saw his dear friend, Waterbending teacher and former enemy fall to the ground. She had sacrificed himself for the boy. Her chest bled. Hagen's ice spear pierced through her. "I will..." The boy groaned. His pain disappeared and his peaceful air was gone. "I will kill you!" He shouted as he yanked a sword from Marzia's waist and jolted from the ground.

"Verano, wait!" Screamed Marzia. "Your injuries--"

Verano could not reach Hagen. He felt as if all his bones were water. He collapsed on his knees, agonizing. Hagen mocked the boy while sitting on the rocky beach:

"I just wanted to get my revenge on the White Wolf, but I'll take that sloppy second..."

"Stay right there, cane!" (Dog!) Said Arnaud. His sword kissed the Northman's throat. "My bro spares your life and this is how you repay him?" Arnaud snorted.

"Put that sword down, fatty. You're shaming yourself." Smirked Hagen. "There is nothing I can do anymore." He spoke the truth. His body had taken too many wounds. Words were his only means to hurt Verano.

"Then don't test my patience--"

"A Northman only takes offense in the mercy of others, fatty. Especially yours. And besides," he chuckled at Verano, "I've done all that had to be done." He jerked his chin at the scene as if he guided Arnaud's attention to his brother.

Verano sobbed like a toddler. He leaned over Thyra's ax so that he would remain standing. He had no energy anymore.

"Thyra..." He sobbed as he faced the Queen's fallen body. Her words and hopes echoed in his mind:

"All I have are expectations that I can never live up to." Confessed Thyra, morose."They called me a Queen when I was thirteen and expected me to avenge my father like he died trying to avenge his. But I'm just one girl. I'm alone."

Rage boiled inside him as he recalled his now failed promise to Thyra:

"Give me a chance," he offered his hand for her to stand up, "a chance to prove that saving my life was not a mistake. That you were not a mistake."

Thyra's blood touched the boy's knees. He felt his sanity fleeing away from him. Verano rose his frown and saw the cave where the girl told him the tale of her people:

"One day, the cries of despair from my ancestors awakened the Spirits of the Deep. They comforted what remained of our tribe. They gave news of our fallen. They said they hadn't died. Instead, they rested in Val-Hella and waited for the End Times when they will join us in the final battle. They taught us that heroes never die and those words never left our tribe."

"Was it your father that taught you those words?" Asked Verano.

She nodded, revealing a smile that was rarer than a ruby.

Marzia held her brother's shoulder. Her voice awakened him from his reverie:

"Verano, it's enough!" She kneaded his shoulder, worried. "Arnaud and I can deal with that scoundrel. Be careful."

The girl was not the first to appeal to him. He recalled the last moment that he had with Thyra before he departed to the Black Hills:

Thyra’s heart tightened as she saw the boy leaving the room. Her emotions spoke louder than her pride for once:

"And Verano..." She rose her voice. A blush reddened her pale face. “Please be careful."

"Don't worry," he shyly replied, "I-I will take care of myself! I'll be your dumb fire scum for as long as it takes!”

Verano snapped. His eyes flashed red as he grasped the hilt of Marzia's blade and threw the sword at Hagen.

"V-Verano?" Recoiled the girl as the boy collapsed on the ground, agonizing.

"So this is how the Age of the Northmen ends..." Resigned Hagen as he saw his face in the blade's reflection. He closed his eyes and accepted his fate.

Yet a fist knocked the weapon against the ground.

Verano rose his sights and saw Thyra's reflection in the fallen blade.

"T-Thyra?"

"Stop sobbing all over my land, dumb Fire scum..." She glanced at him. Her usual angry scowl concealed the tears on her cheeks. "Hagen is my enemy and as far as I remember, you can't die here..." He clenched her right fist and revealed that she wore Hagen's Ring of Nibel. "Didn't fire scum keep their promises?" A bright cyan aura engulfed the wound that Hagen's water spear had opened in her chest. The Ring mended her injuries.

“Y-You are…”

Hagen interrupted them:

"How pathetic..." He recoiled in disgust at Thyra. "First you fail your people and then betray your kin for a Fire Knight. You are the reason why this tribe will die--"

Her ice imprisoned the man. Thyra's Ring of Nibel flashed.

"Fatty, Princess Snob..." She rose her voice at the Sforza siblings.

"Hey!" Protested Marzia.

"Take Verano to Ness." Ordered Thyra as she glared at Hagen's frozen body. "I'll finish this mutiny."

Water sprouted from the ground and from the North Sea. The tides switched as the woman combined her power with the Ring of Nibel. Yet Marzia's anger blinded her to the growing danger:

"I'm not Princess Snob! I can do this--"

"Shut up and run!" Shouted Arnaud grabbing his sister like a bag and rushing to Ness, Verano's Sea Serpent.

Thyra smirked. She was finally alone with her foe.

"Vi är ensamma nu." (It's only the two of us now) She said. "Oroa dig inte för doden. Jag har något värre än döden för dig." (Don't worry, you won't die. I have something worse than death awaiting you)

Hagen's eyes widened as he saw a mountain of waters raising from the North Sea to crush him like an ant.

This power... He thought as his sights laid on the Ring that once belonged to him. Why are the Spirits of the Deep forsaking me?

The waves fell from the skies and carried Hagen with them. The waters advanced to the plains of the Black Hills where the man's Warband fought against the Fire Knights and Thyra's Northmen.

"Look!" Shouted Adelhard, the son of the deceased Count Wenceslaus, as he pointed at the approaching tsunami that flooded all in its path. He laid on the grass amidst the heat of battle, hurt:

"Is that--"

A typhoon surrounded Thyra's legs and propelled her over the tsunami. The Ring of Nibel shined in her right hand for all the Northmen to see that she had the favor of the Spirits of the Deep. The cloudy sky opened and revealed that the Northern Lights returned to Alba.

"Thyra succeeded..." Remarked Duke Arnaud de Sforza as he pummeled a flame to the skies. "Retreat!" He shouted the order to his men.

Candorra, who fought in the host of the Empire the Holy Flame alongside Giovanni, giggled in excitement:

"It's over! Verano did it!" She spoke nonchalantly as she stood in the shadow of the approaching tsunami. "This deserves a song!"

"No!" Intervened Giovanni as he grabbed her by the pulse. "We must get away!"

The Fire Knights panicked and routed. They fled to the hill where their encampments were. Yet joy paraded on the faces of Thyra's Northmen. The reflection of her glimmering Ring brought light to their dim eyes.

"Vår drottning har återvänt." (Our Queen has Returned) Said a Northman with tears in his eyes. More wounds than skin covered his armor. He watched as his leader's tsunami descended from heavens and crushed Hagen's fleeing Warband. Thyra controlled more than water: she brought with her the certainty of a future for orphan Western Tribe of the North Sea.

The North Sea swallowed the Black Hills and brought an end to the bloody battle.

****

King Heinrich of Aarchen watched the scene from a hill with a host of Knights from his kingdom beneath him.

“Absurd…” He sighed.

Johann Martel, Heinrich's spymaster and Firebending teacher to Verano, failed to hide his chuckle at the King’s indignation.

"My liège," began Count Otto, Heinrich's bald second-in-command who often disrespected Verano, "did Marshal Duke Arnaud de Sforza succeed at the skirmish? Any chance of a breakthrough for us to seize the opportunity and attack Edïm as I've planned?"

King Heinrich of Aarchen clenched his fists as he saw the swamp that Thyra's tsunami left behind. Bodies from Hagen's Warband littered the ruined soil. He looked back at the host that he had rallied and saw fear in the faces of all his men. He envied her power.

"I’m afraid there won't be a breakthrough, commander," remarked Heinrich as he petted Lavine, his lion-tigress, "if what the Duke has reported to us is true, Verano might have just cuckolded me of a victory by saving that impenitent Queen of the Northmen. Now let's go see the Duke," he heaved a loud sigh, "I'll need every grain of my acting skills to pretend I'm happy about all this."