Lilith liked quiet places.
The echoing halls of Zephyra's sky palace were never truly still. Windchimes hummed like lullabies, and breeze-sculpted curtains danced like spirits. But Lilith had her favorites—high ledges, garden corners, and the small shrine of windstone hidden behind her mother's greenhouse.
Today, the sky was overcast. The wind whispered secrets she didn't understand.
She tilted her head and smiled.
"I hear you," she whispered back.
Inside the palace, King Cassel paced beside the guards, reviewing shifts for a coastal festival.
"Where is she?" he asked.
"Still in the garden, Your Majesty," the servant said. "We're watching from the tower."
"The tower isn't the wind," Cassel murmured. "She listens better than any of us."
In the garden, Lilith crouched to fix a paper bird torn from one of her hanging mobiles.
Then she heard it.
Not the breeze.
A step.
Then a snap of wood.
She turned—and saw a man in dark robes standing beyond the wall. Not a palace guard. Not a servant.
He saw her. And he moved.
Fast.
"Lili!" someone cried from a window above.
The robed man was already leaping down the path. A knife glinted in his sleeve.
Lilith froze.
But the wind didn't.
It surged.
A burst of air knocked the man sideways—he staggered, arms flailing. Leaves spiraled around him like blades.
Another gust howled—sharper, faster. His cloak shredded. Thin cuts opened along his arms and legs.
He screamed. He fell back.
And Lilith?
She rose.
A faint shimmer danced around her leg as she floated—the wind lifting the edge of her robe to reveal a soft, glowing mark on her right leg. It shimmered in pale silver light, shaped like an airy spiral with feathered wings at each tip—the mark of Zephyra.
The wind lifted her gently off the garden path, cradling her like invisible arms. She floated backward—up to the stone terrace, where guards now rushed to intercept.
King Cassel reached her first.
She was barefoot. Unharmed.
Still smiling.
"Papa," she said, touching his face, "I told you the wind talks to me."
He held her tightly, heart pounding.
"I believe you now."
The robed man groaned, pinned to the earth by spiraling gusts.
The soldiers surrounded him, eyes wide—not with fear, but awe.
They had seen it.
So had the Queen.
So had the sky.
Far above the tower, the clouds opened slightly—just enough for a shaft of light to fall onto the palace.
And from the edge of the forest, a cloaked figure watched silently.
He did not approach.
Not yet.
But the wind circled his boots.
And his hand rested on a staff carved with Zephyrian runes.