“Halt.” He raised his hand to stop the rest of his party.

There was protest from the horses that momentarily filled the clearing.

Ethan, from the rival clan, was with his men, chasing down the princess who had been captured by a gruesome mystical beast.

Ethan sniffed the air, and his nose scrunched up. “Anything, Chief?” his second asked, already scanning the clearing.

“You smell that? Priverto flowers with a hint of pine and the faint smell of rotten swamp.” He threw a spit to the side.

“It’s close. Let’s—” Just as Ethan held onto his reins to charge, a roar shook the earth, and a reverting force slammed against him, knocking him off his horse into a rough roll on the grass.

Jagged stones and sticks tore across his flesh before he hit the base of an enormous tree with a sickening thud. Chaotics cries filled the air from his men.

Ethan smelled him before he saw him and rolled away just as a giant hand landed where his head had been.

Ignoring the throbbing in his back, he dodged the next attack, narrowly missing.

“Chief!” his second roared and charged at the imposing stone beast covered in slimy moss. Just as his axe hit the beast’s stone leg, he was swatted away like a fly and disappeared into the waterfall.

Ethan spat out the blood in his mouth, his being filling with rage. The monster roared at him, the eerie, illuminated eyes in its rock head burning bright.

Ethan started chanting under his breath at the monster—the song that put them to rest as they fell apart. He dodged again, a low swing, stumbling with the speed.

His hand dug into the soft grass as he stared back fiercely at it. Just then, his eyes locked onto the princess’s wild red locks as she struggled and pounded her fists against the stone prison of its clenched fist.

A spitfire she was. Achikalä—His.

With a monstrous roar that tore at his throat and strained his veins, he charged at the monster in the clearing of the forest all clans had feared since the dawn of time.__

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