Against the Wind

16.2 || Amina

The words slid beneath the music's tide and finished a beat before the pipe's final note trilled into flat silence. Chest heaving in and out, Rayanah let the pipe drop from her lips and clutched it to her chest. Her gaze remained distant, fixed on something above the horizon.

A jittery sense of foreboding filled Amina even before she turned to look. It closed like a fist over her hand, like rough hands thumbing her ribs as they curled around her, holding her in place while she took in the sight of the dark shape balanced atop the horizon. It grew with every second, the fuzzy outline of wings scissoring the sky around a huge, four-legged body. A beast, and not just any beast. She'd fought this one this very morning in the arena. It should've been dead at her feet while the city cheered, but instead it was here: free, unharmed, and coming for her again.

She wasn't afraid. Beasts did not scare her, despite the exposed prickle in her fingers reminding her that she lacked the dust required to defend herself. What froze her was the look in Rayanah's eyes. It was tight and messy, emotion a rose amongst thorns, yet relief still shone in the slight curve of a smile.

Shock was a brittle damn that swiftly gave way to a tide of anger, and when Amina moved, it felt like an explosion. Tension snapped cleanly against her skin. She charged out of the shade, her shout ringing. "You are a traitor!"

Composure shattering like glass, Rayanah whirled, stance stiff and alert like a beast viewing its reflection in a blade. Her cloak flung a wild arc with the movement, crashing like waves into one side and tearing back from the other to reveal the clothes beneath it. They all flowed and rippled, too big and utterly strange. It seemed she'd changed entirely in the smattering of minutes it had been since she'd fled. Amina wrinkled her nose. What kind of mage would choose to dress that way?

It was the choice of someone that was running from something and only further proof. Head held high, she stomped forward and pointed at the approaching beast, a stretched-out shadow over Rayanah's head. "You summoned that thing! You're with the beasts! Did you help them attack us?"

Fear washed over Rayanah's face. She stepped back, one hand retreating beneath the folds of her cloak. "No," she said. The word fell softly. "No, I didn't."

"I want the truth," Amina snapped.

A dry gust of wind churned the air around them both, swirling the sand. Rayanah's gaze bounced from her to the grey beast behind, just as it slammed into the ground a few paces from the barrier. Amina felt the thud in her toes. Black eyes blinked at her from over Rayanah's shoulder, and she bared her teeth, sinking into a crouch, heels pressed hard enough into the ground to squash the fear wriggling in the pit of her stomach.

"Wait," Rayanah started to say, but Amina didn't listen to traitors. Simple, burning righteousness coursed through her veins, and that song was far easier to hear. The beast had seen her, too. Their mutual fury clashed.

With an earth-shaking moan, it charged before she did. Rayanah leapt out of its way with a gasp, tripping over the long hem of her cloak and tumbling into the sand. She began scrambling to her feet immediately, but Amina didn't have the attention to spare to track her progress, so quickly cast in the beast's lumbering shadow. Her heart smacked into her ribs. At the last second, she dived aside, steps not landing with quite the fluidity she wanted. Her confidence had felt like steel, but it was rusting already. It cut at her when she tried to cling to it.

Stumbling to right herself, she reached for her hip, fingers rooting inside her skirt's sewn-on pouch. They came out empty. She must've known to expect that, but still it made her heart skip and awoke a chiding voice at the back of her mind that sounded far too much like Isra. Where was her sense? Why hadn't she grabbed a knife? Why did she always have to rush in so blindly, to have these kinds of thoughts when it was already too late?