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RYNAEZEL'S HAND WAS BURNING.
She could not see flames engulfing it, or ambers stirring deep within her skin. But she could feel her flesh char, her muscle scorch, and her blood boil.
It had started in Marie Laveau's tent, but that was nothing compared what she felt now, sitting on the floor of her small library, trying to clear her consciousness enough to cast a traveling spell which would carry her to the fields outside the circus.
But she could barely move without feeling the crippling pain engulf her in a wave of dizziness.
It had come so suddenly that now, as she sat with white chalk lying abandoned in front of her and a satchel filled with necessities she'd packed for travel at her side, she couldn't help but want to scream her throat out raw.
This pain, this spell, it could only have come from the three men she had seen in that tent. From those dark, drowning eyes which left behind so many questions, so much fear nestled deep in her gut.
You will see us again in the village if you ever make it there, one of them had said.
Rynaezel let out a moan and her face contorted in pain as a prickling sensation worked its way up her hand, numbing as it went, like a dagger sliding slowly through her skin.
They had known it was going to happen, whatever this was. They had known.
"Ryn," someone breathed, but Rynaezel couldn't find the strength to turn and see who had entered her tower. "What hath happened?"
She saw a flash of lightning blue curls as she felt a presence lower itself down beside her. Rynaezel could feel something leaking out of her, fleeing through the pores of her skin, escaping with every breath she exhaled.
"Marie..." she groaned, pushing up to sit up straight, ripping a gasp out of her throat as she shifted her left hand.
"Marie Laveau?" asked Maige as she hastily picked up the chalk lying on the floor, her movements calculated and controlled in Rynaezel's swimming vision. She dropped the chalk soon after, remembering something else, and circled her hand around Ryn's shaking wrist instead.
"Whither doest the presence await?" she asked, pulling the satchel onto her shoulder. Rynaezel could barely breathe past the pain, but she had enough of her clear mind to notice that Maige did not stop to question her like anyone else would have, there was an adamant determination in her that made Rynaezel's eyes flutter closed in gratitude.
The last streaks of the sun colored the sky outside a vivid red.
"The circus... fields..." Rynaezel breathed and something blue sizzled at the edges of her vision, like veins of lightning crawling across the space of the library, carving streaks of brilliant blue out the air.
