40°55'54.0"N 47°30'40.9"E – O?uz, Azerbaijan

  18.05.2024- 22.40 UTC +04.00

  I crawled. My legs pushed my body, and my hands shuffled through the floor, flailing, and gathering strength for each push. I could not just lie on the wooden floor. I was Starling’s, and I had my feathers, my candle, and a path to the sky. And that would be enough to reignite all the Curses I needed, if I reached it.

  “Please… Light up…” I tried to command the candle from afar. Nothing.

  A strict and sharp voice whispered through the silence, annoyed. Angered. It was a familiar one; my coven’s leader.

  The mission is at risk. They are here for the bow. Abandon wards; Starling.

  Starling’s hissing words carried warning and disappointment. She was failing in the north, just as I was facing my own demise in the south.

  I repeat, abandon wards; Starling.

  My arm lingered upwards, trying to reach my candle. I felt weaker, as my coven’s leader warned me to abandon the mission. I gasped in realization; this was an intentional mockery. Whoever was silencing whispers in my ward had let this one through on purpose, to reach me and break my spirit. They wanted me to know despair, and surrender. They wanted me to lie down and lose myself, instead of standing up and whispering back. I had to whisper my warning again. Starling’s whispers flooded the cabin.

  I repeat, abandon wards; Starling. Abandon. Mission in danger; Starling.

  Knowing they were meant to break me, I decided to persist. I reached the wooden wall. I dug my fingernails and climbed, unable to breathe except through short spikes of pain. My enemy’s hold had its limits, and I was about to break them. With a lunge, I sprang up. With a wish, I blew on the unlit candle, which ignited in a golden flame.

  I could breathe again, but only for a moment. That moment was all I needed, each millisecond replenishing my will to survive.

  I lifted the candle off the windowsill. I could hear again: the crackling of its flame, my heart, my breath. Not everything, but it was a start. I had broken out of the silence hex, and I was ready to fight back.

  “Come forth!”

  The window burst open, an ominous wind blasting through and then dissipating, leaving only quiet on its tracks. The wind blasted on me, but the candle’s Cursed flame was impervious and burned brighter. My eyes stayed fixed on the scene outside the window.

  Heavy rain fell on the orchard, the trees swayed by the wind, so much in contrast with the absence of sound, it felt dream-like. The cloudy sky hid all the stars, leaving only the frequent lightning to illuminate the field.

  And as lightning struck, I saw one more tree among the familiar batch, only for a moment. When the next lightning struck, a dark figure stood there, just a few meters away from the cabin’s warding circle. I could not see his face, but he looked like a man, wrapped in dark clothing covering body and face, leaving only a predatory set of eyes.

  He was still outside my ward, using his mind tricks to bend me without entering. Would he dare approach? Could he even see past my ward? The cabin should be invisible to the man.

  Stay lit only for me, I whispered to the candle, bracing for him, stay lit only for me.

  He made a reluctant step backwards. Then, he moved his left hand behind his back, only to bring it to the front again, holding an unnaturally large platanus leaf. A lightning set the world alight like a firework, and the leaf shone greener than the pasture. Its pattern was unmistakable.

  A man of Adil. A branched platanus tree – nothing but a vicious trickster. I needed to leave. All men of Adil were combat-trained; I was but a seer.

  Starling, bless me and let me fly away, I beckoned to my coven’s leader.

  A tickling sensation, starting from my shoulders and tracking around my chest and back, was a sign Starling had listened. The feathers on my coat moved and ruffled by an invisible hand. The transformation was beginning, but the man of Adil had a plan.

  He stepped forward, now holding the platanus leaf, until he met the line of sand.

  It should not be possible for him to perceive the circle, me, or my ward. That much, I knew.

  I was sure.

  Whoever he was, he could not simply pass over the invisible divide of my ward. But if he was trained enough in the arts, he also knew there was something unseen right in front of him.

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  There is no time, I have to take flight, I whispered. I could see myself in my mind’s eye: a golden-black starling, piercing through the clouds. But my eyes could not wander away from the dark figure, now raising his hand and releasing the leaf.

  It followed a fast and whimsical gust of wind, unbothered by the rain. My eyes followed it, while the tickling sensation on my shoulders turned into searing pain. Would my wings grow faster than -

  The leaf flew darker than my thoughts and right through the window. The sand circle split, and for a moment, golden particles of sand burst in all directions, illuminated by the storm. The platanus leaf flew and reached me. As it touched me, I heard my very own trapped whisper, the one I had sent minutes ago:

  Something is approaching O?uz, I failed; Nisy.

  It echoed my voice, distorted and unnatural. Another mockery, reminding me of my utter failure.

  A tight grip over sound, tighter than what I had experienced before, held over my chest. The dreadful breath at the back of my neck returned, waiting for me to scream and cage my voice.

  I was too late, and Starling’s blessing had now abandoned me. I could sense the feathers shrinking and my coat turning back to all that ever was – a mundane coat. Starling could not reach me to help me anymore; I was outside her domain.

  The rain’s downpour intensified once more outside the cabin, and I lamented its silence, as I realized I would never flee through its protection. The pain in my shoulders retreated, my transformation reverting.

  My flight as a starling was never meant to be. I was not meant to flee; I was meant to fight or fall.

  But what I hated the most was really that, despite all the torrential rain, if this was to be my final night, I would not even hear its sound one last time through the damned hex spread by my assailant.

  “Wind broke your wings? Got tangled in the trees?” His voice pierced the silence, taunting me and the air around me, as the only sound permissible.

  Cold hands grabbed my neck. He was there behind me again, but this time in person, as the platanus leaf had carried him inside the cabin.

  My breathing was now laboring, and my lungs were caged. I wanted to scream, and I couldn’t. I focused my eyes on the only bright thing in front of me: the weak flame of a candle resting in my hands. And I knew, for a brief moment, before my next breath, I was at his mercy. But instead of killing me when he had the chance, he spoke.

  “Time to send a whisper for me,” he commanded me, as his silence crept in to dominate my mind.

  Fight or fall.

  Ignite, I whispered with my next breath, and I brought the candle’s flame close to my coat.

  The feathers sparked and immediately caught fire, setting the coat ablaze. I felt the flame’s warmth, but not its threat. I illuminated the cabin in gold as I set myself on fire, making me impossible to hold.

  His cold hands let me go.

  The moment of opportunity I sought. I lunged forward, then turned to look back at my adversary. My feather coat was still ablaze with a flame that could not dare hurt me. Although now the coat was ruined, no longer fit to let me flee by flight.

  “Begone, tree, lest the fire consume your leaves,” I said, panting. I could still not tell much of him, covered as he was in tight dark brown clothing, padded with leather on his chest. His face was hidden by a cloth, leaving only his light-colored eyes to cast an expression of surprise. But I was sure he was a man of Adil, with the signature use of the platanus blessings.

  I took a step back, as he remained crouched, stalking me like a wild cat ready to pounce. I expected that pounce – but he slowly rose from a battling posture. The light of my burning coat quickly diminished, running out of flammable feathers.

  When the flames flickered, he was gone. Where he stood before, a lone platanus leaf suspended in the air in front of me. The leaf was a means of his transport. A blessing by his master, much like the wings of Starlings by mine. The leaf floated, levitated almost.

  “Tell Adil to stay out of O?uz!” I said.

  It was a short shout before a blanket of silence enveloped the cabin again. I was mistaken. He was far stronger than I was. My flaming trick was a surprise, but not an attack, and he simply maneuvered to strike back again. He was not done with me: cold, calculated fingers rested upon my forehead.

  “No…” I begged with a trembling voice. He had spawned behind me and had caught me once more.

  “Show me how far you can see,” his voice echoed in my head, and my eyes shut, driven by his command.

  My Farsight Curse awoke, spurred by his words. My eyes were closed, but like a bird, I was riding the wind, equipped with an all-knowing gaze from above. Guided by the rain and the clouds clashing – I could sense the people of Daymadere and listen to the prayers in K?rimli, all the good people in O?uz praying for the covens to end their clash. People gathered in a school nearby, hoping no battle would draw near. Children screaming with each thunder, and parents struggling to console them, knowing full well storms were the least thing they should fear when Cursed armies clashed.

  My heart weighed above them. What was the point of my Curse, if all I could do was observe? I did not understand the war we were in anymore, and neither did the people of the land.

  My Farsight lingered over the lost people of the region, and it felt as if my captor hesitated before issuing his next command.

  “Show me further!” He was in control. I tried to ground myself by heeding the people’s prayers and forcing the vision to end. It was pointless. “Further!” His voice deepened.

  I gasped, enthralled by the challenge. I obeyed.

  My Farsight knew no bounds, and he was pushing them. Past G?nc? and past the mountains of K?lb?c?r, into Erm?nistan, into new lands past Ankara and Ba?dad, deserts I could not recognize anymore. I was in awe of my own Cursed sight, despite the searing hot tears bursting through my closed eyes.

  “You can go further. You are strong enough.”