Against the Wind

20.1 || Raya

Guilt and terror strangled Raya as coalescing weeds and thorns, one sticky and slithering, the other cold as bone. She forgot to breathe.

A nest of beastfolk had been right, though she'd expected to have a moment to steel herself, to prepare and then walk through a waiting entrance of her own accord. Instead, she appeared to have spawned in its centre. The nest unfurled from all around as half-human creatures mounted the dune, prowling into the shape of an easily laid trap.

Their looming presence was deceiving; there were not many of them. She counted four figures within her view, all with teeth or claws that glinted and fur grown from where it shouldn't, though she was too stiff to dare turn around and check if any approached from behind. She ran the number over in her head, confirming it, holding close how small it was, knowing in the pit of her stomach that it was foolish reassurance. Four already made double, and numbers mattered little. These were beastfolk, and they weren't Corvin. Malice dripped from them as poison did from a cracked vial and laced a burning sizzle beneath her skin.

She ached to flee. Shoulders pushed back, teeth dug into her tongue, she knew she fought a losing battle to hide her fear. Her gaze ran in circles. With no safe spot to settle, her focus landed on the centremost figure, the man slowing to a halt directly in front of her.

He was at least a head shorter than his companions, small in every physical sense of the word, lithe and thin with a keen stare his size did nothing to diminish. The pale markings dotted across his nose and cheeks were too concentrated to be freckles, stark as stars against his cold brown skin. His hair was wild coils of flame that matched the scruff on his chin. A pair of triangular ears stuck up from amid the mess, both hung at crooked angles, with the sharp points of two loosely humanoid ears tucked underneath. He bounced on bare toes, the thick orange tail curled at his back flicking with every slight movement. The grin he wore mirrored that of a devious child gifted a knife.

"You came," he remarked. His accent was strongly reminiscent of Corvin's, if a touch nearer a whistle than a growl in its hollows. Smooth delight rolled the words together. "I did not believe you would. You surprise me."

Amina drew in a sharp, strained breath. In the corner of Raya's eye, the apprentice was a trembling statue, held stiff by the long, silvery claws latched around her neck from behind. She was undoubtedly strong—frustrating, but admirable, and braver than Raya could ever hope to be—but the resolve in her expression was fragile and crumbling away. Cracked steel glossed the amber of her eyes, the look of a girl contemplating her own death.

Perhaps guilt was the fiercer twin; Raya fought the onslaught of tears that suddenly spiked at the surface, their echoes burning her inside. She swallowed thickly, her throat awfully dry. "You were expecting me?"

One of his furry ears lifted in sync with the curve of his smile. "Of course." In a sudden burst of speed, he scurried up to her, face tilted towards hers and nose twitching as if testing her scent. She flinched, shaken by the heat of his breath on her throat. His fangs were small but jutted over his lip when he grinned.

"You are Raya." Each syllable of her name pushed out separately, detached, their hushed pattern dusting her chin. "Yes?"

Unease trickled down the back of her neck. "I am," she breathed.

Glee swelled to light up his face, and he reached up a hand. Raya leaned away from it, but it found a place to settle anyway, bony fingers tracing her cheekbone before rounding her ear to thread through her short, choppy locks. His touch dropped free with a soft tug. "I have heard many surprising things about you, Raya."

Raya pushed her shoulders back, hand swimming through the folds of her cloak to brush the pocket that held Corvin's flute. Calm. Steady. She nodded once, stiffly. "Then you know I mean you no harm?"