The Stormcrow Cycle [Slow-burn Slice-of-Life Tragic Fantasy Romance]

Chapter Ten: Tik-tak Mal'uk

Warning! Blood and disturbing imagery within!

Update 20/03/2022: Fixed a small error thanks to Royal Road user Raodin! <3!

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Ba'an slept soundly. If she had had any nightmares, she did not remember them, which suited her just fine. She lay awake in her nest of blankets and listened to the wind and Lukios' breathing. Sunlight dappled the floor; she had gone to bed around dawn, and it was nearly mid-afternoon now.

It was obvious from the tidy kitchen and—Ba'an glanced at his sleeping form—his clean hair that he had gone to bed much later. For once, Lukios had not gone to chop wood from the akaikai grove.

Soon, he would be gone too.

Nothing lasts forever. Everything ends. Why had she allowed herself to get so comfortable?

Surely she was too old to be this foolish now.

They were supposed to leave for Kyros in the next...what, two days now? There was no reason to delay. Ba'an knew that on foot, the journey would be long. A week, if they were quick, but likely longer. It would be more accurate to say ten days, then perhaps three days in the city to see to her own needs. Another ten days to walk back alone. That was twenty-three days.

She wasn't sure if Salu'ka had twenty-three days left. When Ba'an had placed her hand over her belly, she had felt it: the twisting coil of a geas, pulling the life from the babe, just as the babe struggled to stay alive by pulling the life from its mother.

It was not wise to travel when the sun was hottest, but Ba'an was not sure she had a choice.

The desert basin where the spirit walked was far away. On foot it would take days.

Ba'an had wings. She could go today and be back tomorrow. Faster, even, if she killed the thing quickly. Perhaps it would even bargain with her, though Ba'an did not think it would.

She would have to leave before Lukios woke. There was nothing he could do against a malevolent spirit, and even if he could do anything, it was not his problem. He had just finished recovering from nearly hemorrhaging to death.

She would have to leave now.

Ba'an turned her head to look at him. He was sleeping soundly—or at least it looked like it—with an arm flung over his eyes and his legs dangling over the edge of the bed. He was simply too big to fit in it, and Ba'an could not imagine he had been very comfortable here.

Very quietly, she got up, keeping an eye on him in case he stirred. She took a ladleful of water from the clay pot in the kitchen and drank it, knowing it was all the water she would get until she returned.

She retrieved her coat and went outside. She changed in the privy, tucking her clothes and Thu'rin's necklace into a corner to keep the sand—well, most of it—out.

Ba'an took one step out onto the courtyard. Crows took flight and soared into the sky.

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There was nothing like flying, especially if one was a flock of birds. If Ba'an had been asked, she doubted she would be able to explain even the first thing about it. Everything made sense when she was made of birds; they only started to not make sense once she became human again, her mind struggling against the memories of seeing in separate directions simultaneously, of moving in more than one direction at a time.

The view was always spectacular.

The desert basin was called so because it resembled a basin, though sometimes the K'Avaari called it "The Eye". Long ago, something had fallen from the sky and scarred the ground, creating a crater with a deep, rounded center radiating into an oblong pan.