Page 9 of Zepharali: Lord of the East Winds (Lords of the Wind Book 3)

Zepharali

The village was quiet after the Wardens of the Wall issued an immediate lockdown until Zepharali could investigate the situation.

Zepharali had been in deep contemplation during the journey. He was concerned not only about the many lives he’d brought with him but his eldest heirs accompanying him.

No words were spoken as they approached the peaks of the Kipmis.

“Listen,” Dorema whispered.

Her wife paused, then answered, “I hear nothing.”

“Precisely.”

Zepharali had been thinking the same thing but hadn’t voiced it.

The forests of Scáthanna were usually alive with their own pulse and heartbeat.

Animals of various natures were abundant and thrived here. So for them not to hear the pitter-pats of bushy-tailed tree reeks or the sweet songs of the sifus, not even the flutters of fairy wings, was another sign something bad was lurking.

“Do you smell that, Father?” Dorema asked with one hand over her nose. “It’s rank.”

Zepharali could only nod, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

He detected the putrid smell of smoke as they got closer to the summit, but after they crested the last bend, something delicious made his cock jerk hard enough to startle him.

He was glad his daughter and soldiers were too busy surveying the grounds to notice him clenching his teeth.

Dorema used her scope to scout a few miles ahead. “Perhaps we should’ve brought the Nero wolves for additional tracking help.”

Aoide tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear. “It’s too late for that now, my lovely.”

Lieutenant Aoide raised one fist, bringing the unit to an abrupt halt.

They leapt from their stallions in the location where Zepharali had sent his heat-seeking rays that had been shot back at him.

“This is where I felt them.”

His daughter and her wife ordered a couple of elves to join them where they stood on scorched earth.

“Look here, lord. There are two sets of footprints and…”

“Gods…what creature makes claw marks this deep?” Zepharali knelt.

“None, my lord,” the senior elf noted. “Those are talon indentions.”

“Talons?”

“Yes. Very large, deadly talons.”

Dorema knelt beside him. “They’re no imprints from any realm I know of.”

They followed the tracks and the scent of ash until all traces disappeared. There was only a hazy air that should not exist in his world.

Unless the two individuals had vanished into thin air along with the large-taloned beast, nothing around them made sense, nor did the concentrated smell of delicious strawguana berries beneath the camouflage of smoky fumes.

Zepharali rotated his hands in a clockwise motion, conjuring a hot breeze of waves from the last traces of his setting suns, and hurled the force of nature into the forest.

The gust moved across the mountaintop before it was launched back at him hard enough to make his daughters dive to the ground.

“By the gods!” Dorema gasped, leaping to her feet with her spear raised. “Who’s there? Reveal yourself, or we will retaliate with deadly force!”

After being met with disturbing silence, his eldest nodded for him to seek again.

Zepharali took a calming breath, then sent his wind howling through the maze of trees and shrubbery, watching in despair as it returned again without result.

Zepharali’s heat waves were weakest at sunset. The mysterious mist had now turned to a thicker, ghostly fog that his powers should still be able to dissipate…unless…

It’s a dark lord, perhaps one of royalty.

“Father, what’s—”

“Take the infantry back to command now.” Zepharali was already mounting Fire Breath. “Tell the Sergeant of the Wall to block off all paths to Kipmis and continue to enforce the lockdown until I return.”

“Where are you going?” Dorema hurried after him.

“I’m going to Tir an Amárach, to my brother Boraleashe’s Arctic World. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”