Against the Wind

15.3 || Raya

Much to Raya's relief, the street outside her home was abandoned. Faceless windows and stiff brick roofs looked on as she staggered the final few steps to the front door, filling the quiet with her ragged breaths, her headache peeling thunder through her skull. Exhaustion dragged at her ankles with water's weight and made every motion ache. She despised every creaking step that led to her room, clinging to the rail to lever herself up each one, her legs ready to crumble underneath her.

The fierce buzz in her veins kept her from collapsing. She fell against her desk, propped with both hands as she took a slow, steady moment to breathe. It solved nothing. She could only listen to her pulse, hearing Hariq's brittle voice in her head over and over until it drowned in the haze sitting heavy on her shoulders.

Everything was heavy. Her thick ponytail pulled on her scalp as she raised her head, lancing an ache along the back of her neck that spiderwebbed into her shoulder blades. Gritting her teeth, she dug her fingers underneath the clasp that held it in place and tore it off, allowing charcoal waves of hair to tumble down her back, though it hardly softened the weight. Black swept the edges of her vision as she turned, smooth strands tickling her cheeks. She did her best to ignore it and the throbbing built behind her eyes, focused instead on pulling open her desk drawer and rifling through it.

It took her a second longer than it should've, but soon enough her fingers closed around the smooth wooden shaft of Corvin's flute. She clamped it against her chest, shoved the drawer shut, and marched downstairs without a backward glance.

The more the idea unfurled in her mind, set in place by strips of decisively iron will, the more solid and swift her steps became. When set on a task, her hands moved of their own accord. It reminded her of her haste to heal Corvin on that very first day, the one that had started it all—the desperation that thrummed through her came in the same bittersweet rush, her thoughts and fingers shaky but steady when they needed to be. She was still terribly afraid, but time and choice rolled the feeling into a spark of determination. She moved into her dressing room and avoided meeting her own mirrored gaze. She didn't need to dwell on what she looked like right now, what lurked in her eyes, whether or not she was really too numb to have let tears trickle down her cheeks. She would not cry now. She only needed to act.

She freed herself from her cloak at lightning pace, tossing it to her feet and stepping over it as she crossed the room's threshold. She wished to dwell on that least of all.

Next came the dress. She shrugged the thin straps off her shoulders and then stopped, neck bent awkwardly as she twisted her arms behind her back to claw at its clasp. The garment was sewn up at the back—it kept the light fabric sitting snug against her skin, and maintained her figure's curves in what she supposed was flattering grace—and, lovely as it might have been, it was near impossible to untie by herself. After several long moments of picking at the threads, frustration clenching the joints in her fingers until they were useless, she grabbed a fistful of material and yanked.

It was slenderly woven and ripped surprisingly easily. The sound raked her senses, startling and strangely freeing. Cool shade caressed her bare shoulder blade. She kept pulling, wincing as the tearing sound continued but forcing it to lengthen on and on until the garment slid off her entirely, lifting another weight. The beads' clatter was muffled against the carpet and folds of the skirt. It fell at her feet as a pool of rich violet and indigo, shimmering dully in the room's cheery light.

She kicked off her shoes and threw a glance at her closet. Brief hesitation overcame her. A fleeting scan of her array of dresses and skirts, arranged like a gradient wave from frothy pinks and frost-glass blues to purples spawned of twilight skies, was all it took to set in a knot of uncertainty. Every one leapt out at her, and that wouldn't do. They were all the shades of herself, all the colours Yasmin had complimented and perfected, all the days she'd shone. They belonged to Rayanah Kel-Jabir, unquestioning mage.