Against the Wind

4.1 || Raya

The rest of Raya's day passed in a soupy haze. Though disorientating, thick with activity and armed with gnawing, demanding teeth that never let go, the hours dragged, eking by like weights tacked to her ankles. Every little thing carried double the strain as usual, and she barely recalled how to breathe.

She thought of the beastfolk boy constantly. When she was summoned to patch up a rooftop that had been torn off during the breach, his scars scissored through her mind, flickering a veil over the beige fabric her magic-speckled fingers sewed back together until its warmth seemed to pulse. A child's shout stopped her in her tracks in the middle of the city, for a moment identical to his anguished scream. Beneath their dense covering of leaves, the way the branches of this copse of trees snapped and jerked, forming pointed, jagged paths that stretched high above her head, reminded her too eerily of his antlers.

Draped in the canopy's cool shade, she let her palm drop from its place on a tree's trunk and sagged against it, her hold on the dust slipping. This was impossible. Her gut felt like it was being twisted into a corkscrew, pinched and spun in circles that drilled into her stomach, and her mind would not quiet. Even the rough bark that dug into her forehead refused to ease the chaos of her worry.

No-one would discover him while she was away. Logic dictated that; she'd hung her bedroom curtain and fumbled a locking spell on the door, one that wouldn't hold against any serious scrutiny but only had to keep Yasmin out. She remembered doing that, recalled the magic grinding tight over her knuckles like illusionary chains, and knew it was simple enough to work. Still every shadow looked like a hand ready to snag her throat, or a looming senior waiting to drag her away.

Jaw clenched, she rolled to press her spine into the tree and leaned back. Her fingers tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and granted her view of the sky. Late afternoon simmered the shade of darkened sapphires, combed by strands of sunlight. Stillness rippled in waves through the thick network of branches coiled around her. Peace trickled between the emerald leaves. She sucked in a slow breath and held it, trying to settle her fluttering heart.

If he awoke, she was prepared for that too. He wouldn't harm anyone, and no-one would harm him, and worrying did nothing to alter either possibility. The worry only made her look more suspicious. She pushed herself straight, casting a hurried glance out at the street that curved around the web of trees. Sand drifted limply along the length of the barren path, kicked up by the occasional passerby, but none looked her way. She shoved the air out as a long sigh and made her shoulders relax.

If anything, a more realistic concern was that she'd return to find a corpse in her bed.

A shudder dribbled down her spine, thick and sticky as honey but lacking any sweet tang. A live monster or a dead one. Even with her choice made, her stomach churned with indecision, the two halves of a problem swaying upon creaking, unsettled scales. She did want to save him. She had to; that was the purpose of all this trouble. Yet fear rotted somewhere deep within her, filling her nose and mouth with horrid, bitter fumes.

With a shake of her head, she bent, scooping up a round fruit that had fallen from a branch higher up. "A mage does not fear," she murmured, running a thumb over its soft, crimson skin. It looked as if it bled.

Did the other laws of the mages still apply when she was so disastrously breaking one?

Something tapped the tree beside her. "Hello?"

The fruit gave way beneath Raya's flinching grip. Dropping it before the juice could stain her hand, she whirled, breath hitching as her heart raced.

Her jitters froze over within the instant, sinking so solidly into her shoes that she nearly stumbled with the ricocheted up-and-down of emotion. The long, hooked staff outstretched towards her was a cane, clutched by a dark hand that mirrored hers in shape and decoration, though this figure was male. His ink-blot hair was trimmed short against his neck, though neatly-combed bangs swept his forehead. A blue cloth covered his eyes. His face was angled towards the empty space over her shoulder, but the steady smile that quirked his lips made it feel as if his phantom gaze pierced right between her ribs. Though in reality he saw nothing at all, her brother had an omniscience about him that she couldn't help but lean into, like the certainty of his presence was something solid and meant for comfort.