Against the Wind

15.2 || Raya

Sand stained the air around Amina as she skidded to a haphazard halt, though her eyes—fiercely bright and shaded the orange of newborn flame—pierced the cloud with ease. The particles glittered gold in a flash of sunlight, parting around her with the grace of glitter. Her brown curls were frayed, her circlet tipped at a wild angle, her white cloak rimmed with dirt and twisted so that it half-covered one arm and left the other exposed, yet still Raya went still as stone under the girl's burnished glare. Her heart clawed at her ribs.

Like a moon drawn into the shadow of her sun-like presence, a tall shape emerged behind her, draped in a deep blue to match the cloth that covered his eyes. Raya's breath snagged. Her brother's step had been cautious, controlled, but he stumbled as he came to Amina's side. His cane, held across his chest in place of a fighting spear, stuck the sand hard. He nudged it in front of the apprentice's foot, just barely blocking her path.

"Raya?" he whispered.

He didn't look at her—of course he didn't—but the tilt of his head said he was listening, that he heard her. The desperate wish to respond built up in her chest. She always answered him. Locking her jaw nearly brought tears to her eyes.

Amina shot the cane an irritated glance and stepped around it. Her finger jabbed the air, straight at Raya. "Why did you do it?" Anger burned away the question's confused edge, raising it to a shout.

Hariq moved again, cane lifting to swing before her and act as a more effective barrier. His frown was deep and aimed at the ground. "What do you speak of? Has Raya hurt you?"

His question sounded incredulous, but it raked Raya's bones anyway. She felt Samir's inquisitive gaze on her, saw the way Zayd's wariness bounced from one girl to the other, and fought not to look at any of them.

Amina commanded her attention too fiercely to resist. Her voice was a thunderous hiss. "She stopped me from killing a Feralite. She stood on my hand!" She wriggled the bruised fingers as if to demonstrate, then curled it close to her, a fist to her heart. "Like she was protecting him—it," she spat.

Raya's ears started to ring. The sound was splitting, and with it came the sensation of the ground cracking open and pulling her in. In the vision, darkness enveloped her and dry air filled her lungs and her stomach dropped to her toes as she fell, helpless and screaming, though reality claimed her feet were still clamped to the dense sand and her mouth was thick with silence.

Some tiny, fragile cord of instinct chained her eyes to Hariq's face. She searched every inch of it, desperate for her brother's reliable calm, for him to save her like he always did. The distance between them felt like an abyss.

The uncertain twist of his mouth was difficult to read, but she watched his cane tilt downwards, a slight shake loosening his grip on it. His voice was painfully soft, thin as unspooled wool. "Raya, is this true?"

Raya had lied a thousand times over. The threat of one more shouldn't have turned her tongue to stone nor her bones to ice. She parted her lips, but no sound emerged.

"Raya?" He said her name as gently as always, yet it teetered on the verge of shattering.

Regret welled up bitterly within her. She'd had to save Corvin. She owed it to him—more than that, she knew it was right—but in that moment, doubt rocked her, curling knotted vines around her heart and her courage. Her knees went weak, and she suddenly, harshly, craved the safety of Hariq's embrace. She'd have crawled into it if she could, but instead she merely stood there and faced their stares.

Amina's glare was somehow the easiest to take in. It had even faltered, steely still but cracked by curiosity. As if in reverse, Zayd's eyes grew dark and narrow. He hefted up his spear, point tipping over, bit by bit. "You have betrayed us?"

Betrayed. He said it with no surety, but that word rippled outward, dissonantly echoing. "No," she breathed, too quick, too sharp. Had she?

Hariq's expression crumpled. The sorrow in it, the tensing lines of his stance, said yes.

Someone drew a breath—Amina, maybe—through the gathering blur of Raya's senses, but Samir fractured all of it. Releasing her dress in a rush, he sprang into the air. "Look out!" he shrieked.

A black thing of spikes and matted fur surged up behind Amina, stretching silvery claws. Fear shrank her immediately. She whirled, feet nearly slipping from beneath her as she scrambled to face it, before Hariq thrust himself in its path with his cane clasped in both hands, his movements swift as wind and pointedly focused. He swung his cane in a wide arc. It connected with the beast's ribs and sent it flying, speckling its dark fur with sandy streaks. It shot to its feet with a prickling hiss and stalked towards him, hackles raised.

Spear raised, Zayd rushed to join him. Amina cursed loudly—she'd been knocked to the ground and was now fiddling with her headpiece, seemingly picking at something buried behind its clinking pendants. Raya took a step back. Surprise shot through her when her heel hit the ground a beat earlier than she was ready for; dizziness claimed her, muddling the sights around.

She nearly knocked shoulders with Samir. He watched her with wide eyes and a face pale with fear. When they locked eyes, he stumbled.

"Did you really betray us?" he whispered.

It hit her then in a rush. In bridging a line she should never have crossed, she'd lost her balance. In trying to play both sides, she'd lost both. Her gaze sprinted across the battlefield. Yellow formed a more solid line now, offensive and stern; the mages were united, and the beasts scattered, fleeing the scene in a cacophony of thundering paws and howls that rang with a strange kind of victory. Foreboding was heavy in the air, but Raya felt more than that. A horrid, lonely feeling crawled over her skin, rippling her view of the divided arena and its drying bloodstains until she was sure she could've touched the wall that formed.

Her actions had a price, and they would turn everyone against her. No-one here would stand with her now.

And she remained a coward.

"Run away, Samir," she said, voice not half as firm as she wanted it to be. Swallowing hard, she reached for her dust. "Don't look back."

She dipped into the distant serenity of her magic, squeezed her eyes shut, and forced a dark divot in the world to open up once more and whisk her away.

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