The Queen's Curse

Chapter 3- Mira

I was never going to underestimate the power of wind again.

I couldn't hear anything above its roaring, and had long since decided to screw my pride and bury my face into the mystery Fae's back where she had hauled me piggyback and was sprinting off to gods-know-where.

Way too fucking fast.

From what I could tell, in the past ten minutes the scenery had changed from trash-filled streets and broken-down buildings to lush green forests and crisp, tropical air.

Almost as if... we were near the equator. That couldn't be, though.

Our location looked really warm, but it was hard to stop my teeth from chattering due to the wind tearing at my clothes— my hair was never going to recover. The violent goosebumps that stormed up my spine were worse than I had ever felt before.

For the first few minutes of her running, I'd told myself I could weather it out. I had been through tougher stuff, had worse aches. The magical bounds she'd used to keep me in place were humiliating enough— even if I'd have fallen off without them. I knew how wolves worked. They circled and circled, but the minute they saw a crack in your walls they pounced and ripped you open.

So I had refused to show how the wind had whipped my face red or burned my eyes until I was tearing up against my will. For the first few minutes anyways.

After only five minutes of it, I'd damned it all to hell and buried my face into the mystery Fae's neck, relaxing into the bonds that kept me in place around her back.

I had tried to say something —ask for her name, perhaps— but the roaring in my ears had drowned everything out. Not to mention that I couldn't open my mouth without a surge of wind ramming itself into the back of my throat.

So I'd decided to stay quiet and observe what I could about where we were going, which wasn't very useful thanks to the ungodly speed we were traveling at. Everytime I opened my eyes, all I saw was a watercolor blur with streaks of color thrown in the mix. Right now we were at green. A forest, perhaps?

My thoughts were yanked back to the present as a suffocating blanket of soft, warm vanilla flooded my senses. I blinked my eyes open in confusion as a smooth, thick sheet of —nothing?— glided over my skin, and promptly my vision was returned to me. A warm voice filled my head; one I imagined the Fae under me wielded.

"We're about to enter the Split. You'll need the extra layer."

There was no time to question it as a void ripped open ahead of us, thundering and towering and filled with dark swirls of inky blackness with twinkling specks of light beckoning us amongst the endless shadows. Come, they seemed to call. We will keep you safe. You will be happy.

The enormous warning bells that began pealing inside my head at the sight obviously didn't make a peep in the Fae's because she ran straight into the jagged crack oozing death without slowing down. Taking me with her. I can't die yet. No, no, no—

The second she stepped through the rip, light died out. All that existed was the vast darkness and the shadows gliding to me, caressing my skin and burrowing into my hair. Making me a part of them. Peace like I'd never known before settled onto my soul; there was no Uma, fire, or Fae— I was safe.

The slow, slumberous atmosphere was so at odds from the abusive wind that I should've gotten whiplash, but the night seeping into my skin held me up. The crack that had allowed us to arrive sealed behind me, but I couldn't care less. Not when all I could see was an endless ocean of glistening, jet-black oil, spilling around me, on me, in me—

It could have been hours or seconds or days; there was no telling. Another rip tore into existence in front of us, and I was taken toward it and its blinding, abrasive lights. No! I don't want to leave here.