Against the Wind

7.1 || Amina

Morning rushed in thick and heavy and all too sudden. Amina tumbled from a wispy, unclear dream into a hard desk chair and sat bolt upright, alert but only half awake, a piece of parchment stuck to her cheek.

"Ever the picture of dignity and grace, Amina Shi-Sabri."

A hot flush lit up Amina's face before the words properly found her. She blinked, then scowled, squinting crookedly through her lashes at the slender silhouette in the doorway. Warm light bathed the study in an array of golden shades, sparkling with the day's shine and needling her skull with an unnecessary abundance of wakefulness and joy. Tight cloak illuminated the brightest, sunniest yellow possible, even Isra smiled. Mockery gleamed harsh in her eyes.

If it were possible to tear light in half with her bare hands, Amina gladly would have. She settled for a glare vicious enough to shred her mentor's smile, though it was irritatingly ineffective.

Grin tweaking sideways, Isra folded her arms. "It's not becoming for such a talented mage apprentice to drool."

With a huff, Amina yanked the limp sheet of paper from her cheek and crumpled it in her fist, then wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. It came away much stickier than she would've liked, and she fought a grimace. "Someone's in a rare good mood."

Though she laced her voice with venom, the burn of embarrassment spread to the tips of her ears. She hadn't meant to fall asleep here. Perhaps if she'd dragged herself upstairs at a reasonable hour and made use of the perfectly comfortable bed that awaited her, her head wouldn't feel so stuffed with cotton it was ready to explode. Her mouth tasted stale. Enduring the dry scrape of saliva in her throat as she swallowed, she glanced down and took in the sea of books and scrolls her desk drowned in, the culprits of her restless night and spoiled dignity.

The book pressed carelessly open in front of her was scribed in letters so small they hurt to look at, and she recalled why she'd conked out when she did. Now, however, the yellowed parchment tucked beneath the book's back cover snagged her attention anew. It depicted a roughly inked sketch of a figure, one with too many curves and sharpened lines to be entirely human. Armour plating bulked out its shoulders, indenting its torso in broad shadow. That same hard, jagged shape engulfed the entirety of one arm. Two tentative lines were flung upward from the thing's head, tiny circles at their end, complete with dotted pupils that stared up in inanimate, beady fashion. Lost in an ocean of synonyms for danger that made up the drawing's accompanying passage, the same word was scrawled again and again: Feralite.

As discreetly as she could, she curled the parchment's corner beneath one finger, inching the drawing out of Isra's sightline. She would tell no-one about what she'd seen, not until she was totally sure. She didn't need to give anyone cause to believe she'd gone crazy enough to hallucinate a fantastical new Feralite.

After her night of pouring over dusty old texts and learning next to nothing, she barely wanted to think about it anymore, but the memory chased her without mercy. It had looked so real.

Just to be safe, she propped her elbows beyond the book and leaned over it. "I thought you'd be livid after what happened yesterday." She let her face fall into her hands, massaging the bridge of her nose in an attempt to soothe the ache of her pounding thoughts. Grateful as she was not to be at the receiving end of yet another lecture, at least she could let those words drone and wash over her. Isra's unusually cheerful demeanour only served to annoy.

"I was." Isra shouldered away from the doorway and strode a few meandering steps. "I still am. You disobeyed my direct order and placed yourself and others in serious danger with your recklessness."

Amina's head snapped up, fury kindled. "Safiya would have been in much more danger if I hadn't—"

"But," Isra continued, stressing the word hard enough that Amina obediently shut her mouth, "you did display courage and uncanny skill, and that has not gone unnoticed."