Excerpt 1

Azura had heard all the explosions and commotion and had guessed correctly that it was Rafe that was the cause of it all. As they passed by one of the doorways, Azura spotted her wand resting on the arm of a chair and reached in to grab it, only to have someone inside the room that she couldn’t see grab hold of her hand and start to drag her into the room. She let out a loud scream and immediately the wolf turned and ran into the room and launched himself at her would-be attacker, once again sinking his sharp teeth into the arm belonging to Forneus Gomory, forcing him to release his hold on Azura. Azura held on fast to her wand and then ran out of the doorway as quickly as she could and disappeared into the forest behind this large house. Once there she crouched under some large bushes and tried to catch her breath. Then she remembered the potion that Artio had given her and slipped it out of her underwear where she had hidden it and quickly swallowed all of its contents, without giving any thought as to how long she would then have to stay in wolf form.

As she sat there crouched in the bushes, she thought she saw a beautiful silvery-white wolf’s face in front of her and started to feel a little dizzy and disorientated and found herself slipping forward, almost as though falling directly into the creature’s face, and then… nothing.

A beautiful silvery-white-she- wolf stayed in the bushes close to the large house, waiting for her companion and surely enough as she watched she saw a large timber wolf running out of the house and he joined her in the undergrowth. As he reached her, he nuzzled her all over to check that she was okay and only when he was satisfied that this was the case did both wolves then take off and run deep into the undergrowth of the forest. Once they were sure that they were well away from everyone else, they both raised their muzzles into the air and howled in their delight of being free and in the full moonlight.

Excerpt 2

Howahkan sprinkled more of the herbs onto the stones and their sweet aroma once more filled the lodge. He now started to scoop more water than before onto the stones and then once again the heat intensified. As Azura once more relaxed she found that she was very quickly slipping into the very pleasant semi-like trance state again as she continued to breathe in the even hotter steamy aroma that now filled the lodge.
She now noticed white sparkly little lights dancing all around the lodge.

They reminded Azura of fireflies in a night sky. “Those are spirit lights Wakanda,” said Howahkan quietly as he continued to sprinkle herbs and spill more water onto the hot glowing stones. “The spirits are here to help you.”

Before Azura had a chance to reply, the heat in the lodge suddenly intensified dramatically and took her by surprise. She was finding it difficult to catch her breath and her breathing became shallow.

 “Remember the heat is your friend Wakanda,” said Howahkan. “Relax. Don’t fight it, it gets a lot hotter,” and continued to sprinkle herbs and scoop water as he spoke.

By now, Azura had long since abandoned the blanket that she had wrapped around her and was lying down on it. It was so hot; it must have been at least one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty degrees in the lodge and still getting hotter with every minute that passed. But, by now, Azura had relaxed again and was becoming more relaxed by the second, allowing the intense heat to seep into her very inner being through her skin and through her breath, relaxing her deeper and deeper until she was no longer aware of anything around her. Suddenly she was aware of nothing, but the fire pit and its Spirits were whispering to her. “Trust us, come into the fire, look for the blue flame, walk into it, we will cleanse you, come to us,” whispered the Spirits of the Fire. Azura felt her spirit rise up and leave her physical body and walk into the flames of the fire pit.

Rafe shifted his position and leant over Azura. He had heard her breathing change and was a little concerned at how still she was at this time. “She’s not there Rafe,” said Howahkan quietly. “She has gone to Spirits of the Fire.”

Excerpt 3

He quickly surveyed his surroundings and out of the corner of his eye he noticed that a car had pulled up on the road that swept past Mount Rushmore and its occupants had got out and were watching the aerial display above them, their faces in awe, unable to quite believe the battle that they were witnessing in the skies above them. There were four of them, a man, a woman and two small children.

Rafe watched in horror as yet another flame red lightening strike left the depths of the forest and headed directly towards these mortals. As he pointed his broomstick forward and sped towards them, he could see that their predicament had already been seen by some of their own wizards, whom, by now, were sweeping down on their broomsticks towards them and before these poor mortals knew what was happening to them, they were all lifted up onto the broomsticks of these wizards and swept up high into the air, the red lightening strike narrowly missing them and hitting their car, which now exploded into a enormous fireball, burning away on the lonely road.