Page 42 of Zepharali: Lord of the East Winds (Lords of the Wind Book 3)

Lazaar

Lazaar clutched the bars of his enclosure tightly, watching the titans battle with his mother, that it flayed the skin from his palms.

His beloved and his brothers fought just as the storybooks described—graceful and fluid while launching seamless attacks—but his mother proved far more determined than they could handle.

She was on the ground, riddled with numerous wounds that were healing before their very eyes.

How in all the gods? What magic is this?

The words Dorema and his beloved told him shot to the forefront of his mind.

Embrace your darkness. The tribrid powers are your birthright. Don’t be afraid to harness them.

Lazaar had been praying to the wrong gods for help.

He fell to his knees and put his forehead to the ground, eyes to the Underworld, and prayed to Hades and all the evil deities who ruled with him.

His lips were pressed to the warm soil, his heart echoing through layers of darkness.

“Dark lords, I offer my body to receive your unholy powers, my mind as a receptacle to your corrupt wisdom.”

Smoky fog saturated the air around him, the scent of sulfur and death filling his nostrils.

“I am the forbidden tribrid. The prince of darkness. Grant me strength and power beyond all the worlds.”

Flames of hell flashed behind his eyelids, and instead of panicking, Lazaar prayed harder.

“I embrace your fiery shadow and pray that it consumes the darkest parts of my core.”

The gods of evil answered and began to whisper in a demonic language—spells of terror—into his mind.

Lazaar reached for it, welcoming it into the crevices of his soul not fused with his titan’s heart.

“My vampire soul offers a blood sacrifice, and may it bind me to the realm of the shadows.”

He reached for Myst’s talon and sliced it across his palm. He squeezed the wound and let his blood fall to the ground and seep into the depths of despair.

Lazaar barely had a chance to rise from his knees before the transformation surged through his body.

Adrenaline pulsed through him. He made sure to stay composed, knowing—as Elephaa swore—he could embrace and control it.

Fire boiled in his belly, and his eyelids snapped open.

Dark magic rippled under his skin and poured through his veins as his body transformed into a maelstrom of fire.

Lazaar had full consciousness. He could pinpoint every threat from the realm of the three suns to the edges of the worlds. He could sense his beloved in danger and its source.

His core told him the surrounding titans and titanesses were not his enemies.

“My love. Lazaar!” Zepharali yelled, but Lazaar didn’t respond. He was not his titan’s heart’s treasure at that moment.

He was the tribrid.

“No!” His mother thrashed.

“He is ascending, Lord Zepharali. Allow it to happen,” Theodor whispered.