Against the Wind

15.1 || Raya

The spell was clumsy. Raya tumbled into it, stomach performing somersaults as down became up and all sides of reality squeezed in. A well of darkness fanned out in place of the world, sucked her into a sprawling, tipping void, and spat her out with little mercy. A bitter taste surged up her throat. Her feet slammed hard into solid ground, and she clamped her hands over her mouth, swaying under the dizzying wave of her momentum.

Her back hit a wall, and she sagged against it, fingers curling until she pressed a shaking fist to her lips. Staring determinedly ahead proved successful; though the lines of the street ahead were split double, their spinning lessened the longer she looked. Colours settled and abstract shapes became pieces of reality as her eyes steadily convinced her brain they weren't telling lies. She had moved, but she was here, and the wall behind her was rough, hard and very real.

She pushed out a shuddering sigh and eased herself upright. Maybe she would hate that spell less if she practised it more, but the reward never seemed worth it.

It had, however, done its job and saved her. When she turned to properly take in her shifted surroundings, she found herself outside the arena, tucked into the mouth of an alley far out of sight of the place she'd fled from. Peering around her corner granted her a view of a wide slit of the chaos crammed into the arena: the sea of fighting bodies, pockmarked by the beasts' fur and scales, yellow-cloaked figures shining like underwater stars. Amina was reduced to a faraway blur within that crowd, blended so deeply within that Raya couldn't make her out. She couldn't see Corvin either.

Hidden as she was, the sounds of battle were sharp as blades pointed her way. She took an instinctive step back. Her arms wrapped her chest, nails raking her skin.

Was this her fault?

Maybe or maybe not. Either way, she was desperately afraid. She needed to get out of here, yet her feet lingered, glued to the packed sand, and her eyes kept searching.

She'd seen which way Corvin ran from where she was, but teleporting had ruined her sense of orientation. He could've been anywhere, and the longer she lingered, gaze jumping from one faraway face to another, the more the waters of her panic rose until she could barely focus. She needed to find him, to talk to him or protect him or something in between those flittering desires. This couldn't be his fault, could it? He hadn't brought these beasts here. There'd been honesty in his warm eyes, fear in his anger. He'd come for Meag. He hadn't killed those men.

She told herself those things in a whirlwind, but each one was slippery, flying away into the storm in her mind. How could she be sure of anything?

Walls were closing in around her again, except this time the ground refused to open up and whisk her away, and the tension in her lungs didn't let up. She shuffled backward, vision blurring. One thing she knew: despite all she thought had changed in the past few days, she was still the same coward.

"Help me!"

The scream reeked of terror, clarity shaved from the words so that they were sharp enough to pierce, and somehow it wrenched Raya from her spiral. Catching herself on the wall, she whirled in the direction it had come from. Her heart seized. Ivy-green scales stitched the shape of a beast, jaws stretched wide and thin and claws extended as it crawled towards a small figure—a child, hair short and dark and limbs curled to his core in fright. When she swiped away the film of tears that had begun to gather, she saw his purple overalls and tanned, dirtied face.

"Samir." As her next breath curled into that whisper of his name, she cast aside her doubt and pushed into a run.

Her long skirt, heavy with ceremonial beads and not hugely fit for battle, tangled with her ankles, and she hurried to hitch it up before she tripped. Her careening momentum nearly brought her crashing down on Samir, but she managed to stumble upright at the last moment and skidded between him and the beast, snatching a pinch of dust from her pouch. Iron hardened in her veins as the particles scattered. She held out a hand, palm flat and shoving outwards, and turned her face aside as she braced for impact.