Arya's blood spilled red at the claws of the King.

Ivory claws. Copper eyes.

Scarlet, soaking into pale fur, silver under the moonlight.

Nagala didn't feel the damp dirt beneath her paws. The blood and rain that soaked her fur. The scent of copper hung around her, refusing to leave, as persistent as the rain that hounded upon her back. She didn't even bother to raise her wings from the mud.

She had lost track of the time spent in her beastial body. Her last reasonable thought before fleeing the walls of Atholos had been to shift. A lion's bulk held up far better amidst a storm than a human's fragile frame.

Yet even Arya's lioness body had seemed frail in death. The thick hide and dense muscles could do little against the claws and fangs of a fully grown male. In the end, even the powerful form of the beast could not protect against all.

No. Not dead. Can't be.

As powerful as these legs felt beneath her, they could not run fast enough to escape.

At least not for Arya.

Lightning flashed overhead, thunder cracking in her ears. The savanna clashed between light and dark. Dark clouds rolled, threatening to swallow the light. Lightning retaliated, snapping back like wild jackals. Something dark crashed through the clouds ahead-- perhaps a bird caught in the storm. Or perhaps a trick of the light. 

Perhaps it was a trick of the light.

Perhaps. Perhaps the King hadn't pounced on her cub. Hadn't pressed her body into the wet earth. Hadn't sank his ivory claws into her soft, pale throat. Hadn't let her blood run into the mud, copper mingling with the scent of petrichor.

It wasn't real. Couldn't be.

Arya had escaped. Run off into the savanna, lost in the torrential rains and tall grass.

I will find you, my daughter. I will find you and keep you safe.

I will find you, or let the Earth Spirit take me.

Her paws stumbled beneath her, something furry underfoot.

The smell of rain and earth and damp fur struck her. Such rich scents— they always seemed muted by a human nose. That last scent, however, was all that she cared about.

Nagala pushed herself out of the mud.

Before her, splayed across the wet earth, lay a lioness.

Silver as the moon, the lioness glowed with every flash of lightning. Her wings looked like they had been cut right from the dark stormclouds above.

"Arya." Nagala almost choked on the words. "Arya... I found you. I found you. My poor girl, trying to fly in the storms..." She shifted as she spoke, fur receding, bones and muscles twisting. Turning. Reforming. Soon she was kneeling beside the cold body, not caring as her beige skirts and tunic soaked through within seconds. She ran her hand over the soft, wet fur. Cold, and yet...

She pressed an ear to the young creature's powerful chest. A moment passed.

And then a heartbeat. Two.

Nagala's own heart jumped, and she sat up, stroking the lioness's beautiful face. "I've found you, my child," she assured. "I'll take you home. I'll take you home, and this will all just seem like a bad dream."

She gave the lioness one last stroke, then shifted back into her own beastial body. She would need the lion's strength to carry her child all the way back to Atholos.

"We're going home now, Arya," she said as she shimmied her daughter's limp form onto her back. I will face that copper-eyed King. Prove to him that you are innocent. That you can do no harm. You are no threat to the new king. You never will be. And for that, you will live.

The tempest has willed it.

My daughter of the storms.

*****

Welcome to the Storms! This book is an ongoing rewrite of an older novel that is currently being produced as a stage play. This version going to be very different from both its predecessor and the performance. I hope you all enjoy!

Please remember to comment and vote if you liked! I would love to hear what you all think of this first chapter (and prologue of sorts)!