Heroes can fall in more ways than one.
Demigod Xaray is sent on a quest to kill after he massacred a whole town. Weakened by the strain, he falls prey to a haughty vampire and is cared for by a fellow prisoner, the nagi Vasa. Torn between his orders...
The gryphon wants to claim Esnina as a tasty snack. When they refuse, it keeps Estrad's box and they have to find a new plan.
Zaheria glanced at a few rocks stacked on top of each other against a steep hill. Part of her wondered if nature had done this, or if it was the gods or another powerful entity. When she saw the small mark on one of the rocks, she smiled. One of her half-siblings, a rock spirit, had done it.
She looked at Estrad, but the half-elf wasn't smiling. He was glaring at the rocks as if they'd stolen his dinner from under his nose. One of his hands was balled into a fist. "We're close now."
Instead of answering, she simply nodded. Something told her she didn't want to aggravate Estrad when he was in this state, even if she could smite him down with any one of her magics. The angry set of his jaw was far too similar to her step father's when he was in one of his moods.
They continued walking in silence. In the back of her mind, she wondered about the mass murderer she was supposed to hunt down. Had he struck again? There was no way of knowing now she was out here, on the surface. Would he have killed more women and children while she was prancing in the forest with a mortal?
A large feather on the ground caught her attention. She bent to pick it up, turning it back and forth to inspect it. It was large enough to have come from her own wing, but instead of being as black as an unlit cave, it was a dark brown. A little bit of soul was still attached to it, slowly leaking away.
Estrad stood still as a statue, looking back at her. His gaze was on the feather too, his lips thinning into a fine line. "That's a gryphon feather," he said, telling her what the remnant of soul already showed her.
She rolled the feather between her fingers so that it rotated. "We're almost at his den, then."
Estrad's eyes narrowed when she said 'his', but he didn't comment on it. Her wings fluttered when she realized the half-elf had no way of knowing if the creature was a male or a female. He would've had to track it with its tracks instead of its soul and all the information it held.
"Almost, yes." The half-elf continued walking, only to come to a stop about twenty steps later at the side of a hill so tall it might as well be a cliff face. Halfway up the precipice, above a pile of bones, a gaping hole was lined by smaller feathers.
"Of course. Gryphons have their den underground. This works in our favour." A smile returned to her face at the thought of returning underground. The underground was home, safely in Mafrel's domain.
Esnina growled softly, her eyes trained on the cave entrance and her wings half-opened. The wolpertinger was only held back by Estrad's hand on her back, keeping her on his shoulder. His expression hardened as something moved in the shadows of the den. His free hand edged towards his bow.
