The strike on the unfinished abbey was swift and merciless.
Under cover of darkness, small teams slipped through the weaknesses Elara had seen in the mirrors: the flooded lower camps, the exploded powder magazine, the abbot's tent set ablaze with his own forbidden texts. By dawn, the Church forces were scattered, their half-built walls crumbling, and the pass into Ashen Hollow secured for good.
The Crimson Thorn returned victorious, dragging captured supplies and a handful of prisoners who had thrown down their weapons and begged for mercy. Rowan granted it to most—common soldiers conscripted against their will—but the inquisitor who had led the construction was bound and held for questioning.
Elara oversaw the interrogation herself, using the same subtle thread of Crimson Lust she had woven into Merrick. Truths spilled quickly: the Church's high command was gathering a larger force in the capital, but it would take months to march north. They had time—precious time—to build, train, and plan.
For a fortnight, peace settled over the valley.
Then the winds came.
They began as a whisper—a cold, unnatural breeze that swept down from the highest peaks, carrying voices on the air. At first the rebels thought it was Vyrath's wings, but the dragon was seen soaring far to the east, hunting. The winds grew stronger, howling through the passes, plucking at tents and extinguishing watchfires.
On the third night, the storm struck in earnest.
Gales tore across the valley, driving rain sideways, uprooting young trees. Sentries were forced indoors. Children huddled in fear as the wind screamed like a living thing.
Elara stood on the hill above the camp, cloak whipping around her legs. Thorne gripped her arm, shouting over the roar. "This isn't natural! It's elemental—air spirits roused by all the magic we've been working!"
She felt it too—the Crimson Lust recoiling from the cold fury of the storm. High above, shapes moved in the clouds: translucent figures of wind and cloud, eyes glowing like lightning.
"Sky wardens," Thorne snarled. "Old guardians of the peaks. They tolerated dragons and nymphs, but they sense something new. Something they don't trust."
A blast of wind struck them, nearly knocking Elara off her feet. Invisible bonds snapped around her wrists and ankles—tendrils of solid air that yanked her upward into the storm.
"Elara!" Thorne lunged, but the winds hurled him back, pinning him to the ground.
She rose higher, spinning helplessly as the elementals carried her toward the heart of the tempest. Rain lashed her skin; the cold bit deep. But the Crimson Lust flared in response—not with heat, but with defiance.
They deposited her on a floating dais of solidified cloud high above the valley, surrounded by a circle of air elementals.
They were beautiful and terrifying: bodies of swirling mist and storm, limbs elongated and graceful, faces shifting between human beauty and avian sharpness. Their eyes crackled with lightning, and their voices were the thunder itself.
One stepped forward—the leader, taller than the rest, with wings of cirrus cloud and a crown of crackling ozone.
"Blood-bearer," it boomed. "Your power disturbs the balance. Fire drakes roar again. Waters shift their courses. Earth rumbles with old desires. The peaks will not suffer another upheaval."
Elara struggled against the bonds that held her spread-eagled in mid-air, wrists and ankles locked by invisible force. The wind tore at her clothes, ripping her cloak away, shredding her tunic until she hung half-naked and exposed.
"I'm not your enemy," she shouted over the gale. "The Church is the one who scarred your skies with their smoke and iron!"
"Lies ride the wind easily," the leader intoned. "We will test your truth. Survive our embrace, and we may listen."
The elementals closed in.
What followed was torment and ecstasy intertwined.
Tendrils of solidified air wrapped tighter around her limbs, stretching her taut like a bowstring. Others teased her skin—whipping lightly across her breasts, her thighs, her exposed sex. The sensations were overwhelming: cold lashes that warmed instantly on contact, turning pain to pleasure and back again.
One elemental knelt (or floated) before her, face shifting to androgynous beauty. A tongue of pure wind licked along her folds—weightless yet precise, flicking her clit with hurricane force one moment and feather-soft the next.
Elara cried out, body arching against the bonds.
Another pressed behind her, a phallus of compressed air forming and pressing into her ass—slow, relentless, stretching her open. It vibrated with the storm's frequency, sending shocks of pleasure deep into her core.
More joined: mouths of mist sucking at her nipples until they throbbed, fingers of wind plunging into her pussy alongside the teasing tongue. The leader watched, eyes glowing brighter with every moan torn from her throat.
They brought her to the edge again and again—building her higher, then scattering the climax like leaves on the wind. Denial became its own torment, pleasure sharpened to a blade.
Elara's head fell back, rain streaming down her face, mixing with tears of frustration and need.
"Please," she finally gasped. "Let me come."
The leader approached, tilting her chin up with a finger of solid air. "Truth first. Swear your power will not unmake the skies."
"I swear," she panted. "I fight the ones who poisoned your air. Bind with me—lend me your strength—and together we'll cleanse it."
Lightning cracked overhead.
The elementals surged as one.
The bonds shifted from restraint to embrace—lifting her, supporting her, opening her fully. The phallus in her ass thrust deep and steady; fingers of wind filled her pussy, curling and vibrating. The tongue on her clit became a vortex of sensation.
They took her in every way the wind could touch—caressing, penetrating, whipping, soothing. Orgasms crashed through her at last, one after another, each one feeding the storm rather than calming it.
Crimson light exploded from her skin, merging with the lightning. The elementals moaned in their thunder-voices, drinking in the power she offered.
When the final climax tore through her, Elara screamed—and the storm broke with her.
Rain turned warm and gentle. Winds calmed to a caressing breeze. The dais lowered slowly, depositing her on the hill where Thorne still struggled against fading bonds.
The leader bowed from the waist, wings spreading wide.
"We are yours, moon-child. Call, and the skies will answer."
Then they were gone, dissolving into clear dawn sky.
Elara collapsed into Thorne's arms, trembling and soaked, body marked with faint red lines where the wind had lashed her skin.
He held her tightly, burying his face in her wet hair. "I couldn't reach you."
"You didn't need to," she whispered, voice raw. "I reached them."
Below, the valley emerged from the storm unscathed—tents intact, fires already relit. Rebels stared up at the clearing sky in awe.
Rowan met them as they descended the hill. "The wind just… stopped. After you—"
Elara managed a weary smile. "We have new allies. When the Church comes, they'll face more than arrows and dragonfire."
That night, as the rebels celebrated the calmed skies with cautious joy, Elara lay in Thorne's arms in their tent. He traced the faint welts on her skin with gentle fingers.
"They hurt you," he growled.
"They tested me," she corrected. "And I passed."
She rolled atop him, straddling his hips, feeling him harden instantly beneath her.
"Now let me show you what I learned about bondage."
The winds outside whispered softly—approval, and promise.
The skies belonged to the Crimson Thorn now.
And the elementals would sing when the Blood Moon called them to war.