Nanowrimo 2023 Best Bit and Word Count - Days 16 + 17 (Patreon)

These past few days I've added a total of 3,420 words to my project, bringing my total to just under 30k at 29,422!

The Oracle of Red brought Ayden off to a side room, one swathed in dark red velvet and black leathers. Sunlight poured in from a clear glass dome, a less fantastical recreation of the dome from the central chamber. Percival and Laurent followed, and Ayden sent Addie off to look after Fionna, though her maid gave her a sour look over it.

"Sit," the Oracle said, gesturing to a leather bench. She paused, her eyes glancing down at Ayden's glass legs for a moment. "If you are able. If not, we can make other arrangements."

"I am capable of sitting," Ayden bristled, walking past the Oracle to settle on the bench. Her left leg remained extended; the angle awkward but Ayden would not let herself complain aloud.

"May I touch you?" the Oracle asked.

"Depends on where," Ayden responded bluntly. She could see Percival bristle and Laurent cover his mouth to hide a laugh.

"Where the curse has affected you," the Oracle assured her. "Nothing more."

Ayden gestured to her extended leg in consent. The Oracle approached, kneeling between her legs as her hands grasped the calf of her glass leg. Ayden could almost feel something as the Oracle moved her hands up and down what once was flesh. It felt like spiders crawling up her leg, or perhaps like pins and needles. She flinched away from the sensation.

"What is that?!"

The Oracle stopped, looking up at her in surprise. "You can feel it?"

"Feel what?" Percival demanded from near the door.

"My magic," the Oracle explained, a breathlessness to her voice. "In order to understand the curse I must feel it with my magic. No one has ever been able to sense it before." She eyed Ayden curiously. "You must have an extraordinary affinity for magic, my dear."

"Perhaps that's why the curse hasn't taken hold as quickly as one might expect," Laurent theorized, stroking his chin.

"What do you mean?" Ayden asked, fighting back the urge to squirm as the spider-crawl sensation returned.

"Well, the Red Queen cursed you before you were even born," Laurent reminded her. "It should not have taken til your fifteenth birthday for it to take hold. And after three years it's only reached your knee? It doesn't seem right."

"The young lord is correct," the Red Oracle said, removing her hands from Ayden's leg and sitting back on her knees. She looked frustrated, and almost concerned. "This curse was born of rage too powerful for it to have taken this long to change you. It should have consumed you long ago. The raw magic in your veins has kept it at bay."

"For that, at least, I am grateful," Ayden murmured, suddenly feeling very tired.

"Is that..." Percival paused as all eyes turned to him. He coughed and started again. "Is that why she's been able to bend her knee and move in bursts of incalculable speed?"

The Oracle hummed in thought. "Perhaps. She walks far better than one of her condition should be able to. Perhaps she has been unwittingly training her magic by forcing it to manipulate her cursed limbs."

"It would not surprise me if Ayden was powered by pure stubbornness," Laurent admitted with a chuckle.

"Holding off the curse is all well and good," Ayden said with a shake of her head. "But can you break it?"

The Oracle's eyes dropped in shame. "No."

"No?!" Ayden shouted, pushing her self up to tower over the kneeling Oracle.

"Curses are magic born of anger, fear, and hate," the Oracle explained gently. "And this rage is too old, too strong, for me to break."

"Then...I'm doomed," Ayden whispered. She dared not cry in front of the Oracle, though she felt her eyes sting with unshed tears.

"Not entirely," the Oracle said, standing.

"My magic may slow the curse, but it will not hold it back forever!" Ayden shouted, clutching at her chest as if to pull out her lungs before they too could be turned to glass. "Eventually it will reach my heart and lungs. A glass leg I can live with, but I doubt my magic is so strong as to keep a glass heart beating."

"Do not underestimate yourself," the Oracle said harshly. "But that is not what I meant. To kill a curse so heinous you must kill its source."

Ayden froze, her chest growing cold at the Oracle's words. "You mean..."

"Yes," the Oracle said flatly. "You must kill the Red Queen."