Wicked is the Curse.

26| Uncontrolled

Chapter 26 | Uncontrolled.

The hands were cold.

Strong too, like shards of ice bending around Aire's warm throat and locking tight. The pressure was immediate, Aire's body jerking in panic. Such grief, such anger poured from the spirit. Her mouth strained against the bindings, muting a bottomless scream. It was just a choking, pained groaning sound that seemed to cut from her throat like someone was sliding her vocal chords over sharp rocks.

Her face, grey and gaunt, was twisted in such dark hatred that Aire knew that the hands around her throat would not release until she was dead.

"Stop," Aire choked.  The nails were cutting into her skin.

Aire's knees began to weaken, buckling under the weight of the spirit's hold, under the weight of her rage. It terrified Aire – she had known many spirits and none were bothered by something as humane as pain. They had no mortal body to strike, to hurt but they felt emotions as vividly as if they lived.  The anger terrified her too, when she had been so used to the warm friendships of her spirits – who had never seen them as anything other than benevolent. Even the spirits like Daria, who had died torn apart by dogs, who had been sold to the fighting pits for refusing to marry the man her parents demanded her to, had never been violent in death.

The children who died in Lower Irial, gaunt and mere brushes of air, who had never known warmth or safety had always been smiling.

"Stop it!" Aire choked out.

Blackness ebbed in from the corners of her eyes. Her lungs screamed, rattled. Dry. 

"Stop!"

She was going to die here, on the side of a mountain. A thousand miles from home.  It was enough to stoke an ember of rage and Aire held onto it, remembering the Bloodbound's words. Joy to grow flowers. Fear to rot the earth. What could her anger do?

Firmer this time, as her vision trembled, she choked out another, "Stop!"

The spirit lurched.

Under Aire's skin, her Wield hummed. Her anger was still there, sizzling through her. Stoking the magic in her blood. Her thoughts looped, desperate and insistent. 'Step away from me. Away. Away. Away."

"Step away," Aire wheezed.

The spirit's thumb pressed harsher into Aire's throat for a fraction of a second, before she wrenched away with a gasp. Aire reeled back, her breathing harsh and desperate.  The spirit watched her with her face spliced in such wrath that Aire took another step back. Given a choice, the spirit would have ripped out her throat and danced with joy over her cooling corpse.

Aire straightened, the wind pulling at her clothes. The trickle of magic sunk into her bones. Her magic. It was different from when the rot had poured into her, or when she had commanded the thorns to bind the Bloodhound. This Wield now, was colder. As if commanding the spirit had left a chip of ice behind her heart. But – there was a comfort in it. Like that ice was there, sliding down into her chest on a warm, summer's day.

Like this, Aire knew she could pull on the spirit. Not in the way she had always done – by asking them, by befriending them. No, this was forceful. Like the simple utterance could force the spirit to dance to her tune. That sickened Aire.

"I do not mean you harm," Aire breathed, her voice rasping painfully. "I do not mean you any harm." 

Blood eked from the claw marks on her throat, leaving splatters on the crisp snow. As it soaked through, the mountain that confined them, protected them, gave a great ringing groan. Like a gigantic beast waking from a deep slumber.