Chapter 24: She’ll Be Part Of My Harem
One month later.
February 23.
Snow still covered Mount Kiran with a white blanket.
The sun rose in the sky, casting golden rays that crashed against the whiteness, creating blinding flashes and elongated shadows that twisted across the frozen ground.
The cold winter breeze snaked through the skeletal bushes and bare trees, whistling as it vibrated through the branches. Wild animals, iron-horned boars, iron-coated boars, advanced in compact herds, their snouts emitting clouds of steam with each breath.
The birds. Their sharp chirps pierced the silence, giving the landscape a wild, rhythmic quality. Beneath the frozen rivers and waterfalls, water still flowed in its hidden veins, and silver-shadowed fish navigated between cracks in the ice.
Then death came.
A pack of wolves, gray fur, amber eyes, blocked the path of a group of distracted wild boars. Black crows with red eyes circled the sky in perfect circles, cawing commands that only the wolves understood.
The attack was brutal: fangs tearing throats, claws ripping bellies, beaks gouging eyes. The snow was stained scarlet, and the air filled with the smell of hot iron and beastly breath.
The blood in the snow still burned in the wind when, miles away, the steam from the city’s street stalls rose, oblivious to the savagery.
The cobbled streets still breathed the cold, but there was a different tingle in the air.