The Taming of a Beast

Chapter 11

A/N: Enjoy!

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The carrier hawk flew speedily into the cloudless night. Since it was the middle of the night, hardly anyone was awake at the ungodly hour. But as the carrier hawk flew, it found the wind suddenly disobedient as it was before. The hawk squawked but the shrill sound was lost in the wind as the bird seemed to fly but never moved from the same position in the sky. The wind was preventing it from moving forward.

Now the wind was untying the string on its leg, and the letter attached to the hawk's talon slipped away and flew to the waiting hand of the wind mage hidden in the depths of land below.

Zeph scanned the message and sent it back to the hawk. The wind tied the letter again. Once finished, the messenger hawk, still flapping its wings and suspended in the sky, went to its destination.

Zeph pursed his lips as he processed the message in his mind. The King of Galvador wanted his uncle's help in locating the Beast, Galvador's notoriously strongest water mage knight, and an unknown witch. But it was the details of the witch that had caught Zeph's attention.

Black hair and pink eyes. Of course, all witches had rose pink hairs. But Zeph had secretly hunted down all mentions of witches throughout the kingdom of Galvador, even considering going to other countries to search for the whereabouts of his sister.

He had followed a lot of leads that lead to nowhere. But every lead he would follow. Zeph narrowed his eyes. He had decided to join the search for the Beast and the witch. If Uncle Reginald accomplished this task, then surely the King would reward the temporary head of the magic tower. It would be even harder to topple his uncle from his position. Then it would be impossible for Zeph to find out what had happened to Evelina.

"Wait for me, Evelina," Zeph whispered.

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When Adrian woke up in the morning, he was unaccustomed to the small weight on his shoulder. He was still leaning against the tree with the blanket wrapped securely around him. The fire had already died down to low embers, but he was warm with the addition of a smaller form next to him, emanating body heat and warmth. Nearby, Eclipse was still curled with her tail tucked neatly by her paws.

His icy blue eyes softened as she slept peacefully beside him. Adrian blinked the rest of the sleep out of his eyes as he surveyed the surroundings. The wall of thorny bushes was still there, helping to camouflage the three.

It was still early. Adrian's body was used to waking up early naturally for training. He carefully extricated himself from Evelina and placed her sleeping gently on her side before tucking the blanket tightly around her.

By the time Evelina woke up, Adrian was already warming up the leftovers from last night as breakfast.

"Where do we go from here?" Evelina questioned after brushing the crumbs off her hands.

The "we" Evelina mentioned did not go unnoticed by Adrian.

"Hmm. Should we go look for your brother?" Adrian suggested.

He still needed time to recover his powers fully before he could take on Neer and effectively, his father. 

They spent two days carefully treading the woods, before they encountered human life in a nearby town tucked into the outskirts of the woods. Adrian and Evelina wore hooded cloaks as they entered the town with Eclipse tucked securely in Evelina's basket. They had come to this town to replenish their supplies and get a sense of direction of where they were.