Wicked is the Curse.

09 | Beyond the Walls.

09 | Beyond the Walls.

The rot beyond Irial was far worse than she ever imagined.

In the first few days of travelling, the weather flipped between miserable rain and biting, humid heat. The heat carried the scent of rot, which was so pungent that Aire felt it rooting inside of her nose. Every ragged, desperate breath was a lungful of moldy decay that made the young boys hack and splutter every few minutes. They had been pushed from the wire-rimmed wagon to walk the rough roads within a day. The Crimsons kept their hands bound only when one of the dark haired boys vomited, nearly choking on the guard that kept his mouth shut.

They stopped only for food and water breaks.

Neither of those were common for the Wielders.

The nights should have been a reprieve from the walking, but the darkness and the wild terrified Aire. In the darkness, she saw twisting shapes and blinking eyes that burned into her. She had known Irial, where the twisting streets were imprinted in her mind. Her spirits had watched her back and her fear of the darkness had abated.

Now, she felt like a girl again. A girl who would sit in the light of her candle, fear clutching at her throat as the darkness outside pressed in. In the growing dark, she reached for Royden's pinkie and as always, it was not there.

Gone.

He was gone from her. She had pretended that the spirit had bothered her, but his humour had beaten away many grim nights. Would his spirit still wander? Would they be able to gather and speak when she was not there? Were they alone now?

Who would help them, and fix the problems that they no longer could?

She shook in the night, craving Eoban and water, watching the dark and refusing to speak to the others. They did not press her and she was grateful; the knot of betrayal had rooted inside her heart, twisting her throat so tight that she could barely breathe, barely think, barely...

As the days slugged on, the need for Eoban grew. As her tongue dried and her pitiful water rations dwindled, the burning need seemed more evident. Her hands, laced with silver spider webs of burns, began to throb. Her throat seared, lined with ash and grit. Her mind twisted, pushing images of blood squeezing out through her skin. Magic.

The chains on her wrists withheld it, but the beast under her skin could sense an escape. A chance.

On the seventh night, Aire listened to them without speaking. They had been given a decent meal of rabbit – the Bloodbound was not only a magic hunter, but a trapper as well. The Crimson had eaten their fill, before throwing them the scraps. The two youngest had descended on the rabbit ravenously.

Aire had devoured a rabbit's leg, uncaring of the juice dripping down her fingers. She cracked the leg-bone and sucked on the marrow, her stomach unsatisfied. One of the boys watched her do it, and her heart cracked and the raw hunger on his face.

She spoke, her voice cracking with disuse. "People always forget about the bones. It is enough to stave off some hunger."

The boy returned her slight smile. He and the other boy were mirrors of each other. With hair as dark as night, curling and in a bad need of a cut, narrow eyes and strong noses. They were young, but hunger and fear was melting the roundness of their faces.

Aire glanced at the Crimson's fire, her heart in her throat as she noted the dying embers.

The other young woman leaned forward, her kind eyes on Aire. Aire had walked behind her and had spent her days imagining the woman's hair, like a river of flickering fire, bound in the custom of her people. It had preoccupied her mind as she walked, imagining the braids, ribbons and beads that could be weaved through her hair.