Against the Wind

2.2 || Raya

Barrages of stares prodded Raya from all sides as she raced through the central part of the city. She elbowed her way past several stunned passersby, throwing out strings of mumbled apologies. The quicker she moved, the fewer questions could seize her by the throat, thick twines of rope that clutched tight as a noose.

It wasn't difficult to summon enough urgency to barge them aside, even with those who did try to ask. Coupled with the drag in her arms caused by the boy's bony weight, the effort of maintaining the camouflage mirage settled over his antlers was quick to drill in exhaustion, like a sharp fingernail was stuck in her middle and wriggled wider with every racing step. Her grimace grew harder to conceal. She clenched her jaw, fighting the shivering urge to relinquish her grip on the magic. It was like clinging to a barbed rod, dangled over watching, watching eyes that waited for her to fall.

The boy bounced in her hold as she skidded around a corner, nearly slipping free before she hoisted him up near her chin, clutching him so tight that his ribs felt like they were scraping hers. Her breath was scalding as it clouded around her face, loud in her ears. Just a little further. All she needed was to get home.

Now, the hollow emptiness was welcome. She twisted to shoulder her way through the curtain and thundered down the corridor, sprinting straight past the dressing room. Yasmin's voice snatched at her, but she pushed on. Her feet thumped hard on each narrow stair. The boy juddered suddenly, making her stumble, and it took her a moment to realise that his antlers were scraping against the wall. Twin gouges dug shallowly into the brick. The tips of the antlers flickered in and out of sight, pain twinging like a plucked string. She hefted him up, readjusted so that his head tucked in against her shoulder, and climbed the rest of the way. She practically fell into her bedroom.

Little jewels and charms woven into the drape across the entryway tinkled, smacking against her face and over the boy's bloodied chest. She thrust him onto the bed and sank to her knees at its foot, panting, trails of magic aching as they trickled away. She was drenched in baking sweat.

Relief was shaky and short-lived. All too soon, she heard anxious footsteps tapping their way in pursuit, and snapped to her feet, then promptly staggered into the bedpost, clinging to it with both hands. Pushing herself off it and stumbling over to the door felt like moving a mountain. She ducked her way back through the drape, shot out a hand to catch herself against the wall as she wobbled, and fixed a smile on her face just in time to greet her emerging attendant as she stepped onto the second floor.

Yasmin wore an expression of horror, fear accentuated by the sharp shadows etched out across her face by her drooping headwrap. She didn't wait for permission. Her fretting hands lunged forward to grab at Raya's bloodstained dress. "I heard there was a breach. Are you hurt?"

Doing her best not to flinch, Raya teased herself carefully away, holding out a placating hand. "I'm fine." She kept her back pressed to her bedroom's entryway, firm as a shield, hoping she didn't look as weary as she felt. Sometimes she felt as if Yasmin could smell any crack in her poise across half the city. "The blood isn't mine."

Yasmin refused to back away. She grabbed Raya's wrist, tugging on it. "Come with me. At the very least, I must change—"

"No." Raya yanked her hand free, swaying backward. The drape clinked in a series of light bell chimes.

As if the cheerful notes sapped Yasmin dry, her expression fell, her frown sagging into one faintly hurt. "Rayanah, if something is wrong, you can be open with me. I'm always and only here to help you. Your clothes, they—"

"You serve me," Raya snapped. "You don't question me. Now, fetch me a wet cloth and then leave me to rest alone, as I see fit."

The musty green of Yasmin's eyes darkened into shade as she dipped her head, hurt strong and clear in the quiver of her lower lip. She nodded once, twice, head bobbing like a floating pebble on a stream. "Right away," she said, words painfully choked, and then whisked herself away.

A knife twisted in Raya's chest, blade thick and curved with wicked guilt. She bit down on the inside of her cheek until her mouth was flecked with blood. That was the third time she'd abused her authority today to get what she wanted. It left behind a bitter taste, one that slicked her resolve with unease and burned as out-of-control flames in her chest. Her palms itched. Panic thrummed awfully through all of it, storming on and on until her head spun. This would have to be worth it.

When Yasmin returned with the cloth she'd requested, all mumbled words and meek glances, Raya accepted it with one, soft thanks and shrank back into her room. She waited for a few seconds to tick by, water dripping through her fingers and onto the sandbrick floor, until she heard Yasmin leave and finally tasted the hollow solace of being alone.

Well, not quite alone. She lifted her gaze, lips thinning when she saw the reddened spill already soaked into her bedsheets. The beastfolk boy's legs dangled precariously off the bed's end. She hurried over, eased him into the centre of the bed—if it were stained already, she might as well doom every inch of her linen to its bloody state—then gave the soaking cloth a gentle squeeze before making a start with cleaning his wounds.

The sticky crimson ocean laid over his skin slowly but surely retreated into fissured rivers as the cloth's colour darkened. Gaining sight of the wounds themselves helped temper the overwhelmed feeling of so, so much blood, though the knot in her stomach only squeezed tighter the longer she worked. He was injured everywhere: the slash across his cheek, poking thinly up at his left eye; the older, scar-like cut snaking the bridge of his nose; trios of jagged lines marking his forearms and legs; a cascade of gaping ravines slithering down his back, tearing his light flesh to ribbons. He was a patchwork of pain, like his body itself frayed at the edges. It was a wonder he still somewhat held himself in one piece.

Bile stung the underside of her tongue, crept sourly up her throat. Blinking hard, she tore herself from staring and spun to face the wall opposite, breathing steadily through her nose until her stomach settled.

Rows of shelves were fastened within her field of view. Glass bottles crowded into the neat narrow spaces, all filled to varying levels with a cacophony of colourful liquids. Surveying them calmed her. With a quick scan of their labels, she snatched up a bottle containing a creamy yellow ointment, spinning it between her thumb and forefinger. The hard, smooth material pressed up against her skin felt like certainty, dug in like control. The ointment was thick enough to slather her palm. She made herself focus on that alone—its tacky, clear scent, its soft feel as she rubbed it into the boy's skin—until the rest of the world bled away.

She knew this was simply the dust's airiness brushing aside her worries and that it could not last, but she sank willfully into the sensation. Ointments and other such concoctions were Raya's private talent. She was no genius; any half-decent mage could conjure up something just as efficient in its task, if not more so, but still her pride remained. There was a natural ease to potion crafting that came with nothing else. She liked to think of it as pouring her heart into those little bottles. If the feelings were arranged neatly, cluttered with distracting bursts of colour, sunk into their prisons of glass where they couldn't spill out, she could do nothing wrong.

It was a foolish thought, based on nothing, but it stayed.

Only when the stopper had been placed into the bottle and her stained hands were buried in the basin at her bedside did she cast the boy another long, draping glance. Perhaps foolish thoughts were everywhere right now. They filled her chest, an expanding bubble, pressing against her lungs.

Red-tinted water ran through her fingers, numbingly cold, a rippling pool that displayed her face in only blurred blotches of colour. Her ponytail had come loose. It slid halfway down the back of her head, slapping limply at her back as she leaned forward.

"All of this is wrong," she murmured, hearing the tension in her own voice, like a musical string stretched so tight it grated. "What am I doing?"

She twisted her head again. The water splashed, pool rising to submerge her dangling fingers. The boy breathed, raggedly, steadily, lost deeper into unconsciousness now. But he still breathed. The torn strips of flesh on his back shifted with each minute movement.

Raya turned off the water, wiped her damp hands on her dirtied dress, and snatched a needle and thread from her dresser. She was fixing something broken. That was what magic did, wasn't it? There was no need to pin any deeper thought to it than that.

She was saving a life. The rest could come later.

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