Wicked is the Curse.

22 | The Swans

Chapter 22 | The Swans

      Awe gripped Aire's very soul.

The city lay before them, carved out of the dark walls of the mountain. There were great towering buildings, carved in pillars with arching windows that looked like they should have collapsed with the weight of the walls around them.  Like the monumental Crown of the World, Aire struggled to grasp everything that she could see.

Small town houses, exposed only by colourful doors and tiny balconies that teetered over enormous streets of glossy stone. Those streets, like dark rippling mirrors, were so wide that they could have fit a marching battalion.

If the doorway had been a mouth, the Hoist a throat, then this was the ribcage. The houses in the walls were the ribs, holding strong to contain what lived within.  Aire drifted forward, enchanted.  In these moments of beauty and wonder, it was easy to forget the bitterness that hollowed her insides. In these moments, she could imagine herself as a different person. Someone soft and kind and good.

There were flowers here, rich and vibrant and packed into the flowerbeds that lined the massive, glass-like streets.  There were tiles inlayed in the walls, like the smattering of colourful scales on the great beasts she had seen in the books Aevran had read to her. The houses stacked up on top of each other but as Aire breathed the air of the mountain, she felt emptiness echoing for miles.

The city was massive, and yet, it was no where near full.

The feel of the mountain, the stone, the earth all seemed to press in on her bones. She felt it, like an ancient slumbering beast and in kind, her Wield flared.  It was a lot – it was almost too much. Her attention was drawn to the great gaping hole in the wall, what seemed like miles in the distance. The great hole itself must have been at least three miles wide – a great gaping eye that overlooked the city and gave it's inhabitants a look at the grey, turbulent skies beyond.

The air was strange – it smelled and tasted of sea-salt. Of home. Which shouldn't have been possible this high in the sky.

"This is..." There must have been a hundred people living here. She could almost feel them, footsteps on the stone, like footsteps whispering along her skin. A hundred people living in this bright, free place.  The flowers shouldn't have been blooming. She shouldn't have been able to hear laughter, spilling like water through the streets.  Even now, standing there and gaping, Aire spotted a group of children racing each other through the streets, their shrieks sounding like hungry gulls.

She couldn't remember seeing that in years. Not since she had been a girl, sneaking out from her home to play in the streets.  In Lower Irial, children had kept to the walls, to the shadows to escape the Crimson's boredom, fearful of snatchers or the roaming gangs who were far less gracious than Junhyn. 

The final tether of Aire's composure nearly snapped at the sound wafting through the streets, far off in the distance. Plucking strings that swelled into soft, wistful music. Sad music played so beautifully by a stranger. A song Aire had heard a hundred times during her childhood, for her people were always good at crafting sad songs. Hearing it now, only made Aire wish to be home.

The thought had been shoved down for so long. "I want to go home," she thought. Even if this place was beautiful, it only reminded her of home.  I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go ....

She sucked in a breath, too full of longing to be truly angry with herself. She wanted to go home, but home did not exist. The walls stood, but the people who made it so were long dead. Bones and dust. She hoped their spirits had not lingered, even if she wished to see their faces, hear their voices again.