If my two-volume mythology titled The Waste is equivalent the Old Testament of the Bible, Gaunt Rainbow is tantamount the Gospels. Rainbow is my female Jesus. When she was just an Unchosen girl, a self-proclaimed messiah cured her blindness - that story is found in the second book of The Waste. Then her city was destroyed by heathens and the poor orphan was driven from her home.
Her curse becomes apparent after the tragedy, but the boy who had healed her vanished. This is the story Gaunt Rainbow tells. The grown orphan goes into the waste alone to find this messiah. And she prays he will remove her murderous curse.