Runesight

20 - Double the problems

Late in the morning of the next day, the Ayfel was under siege.

I would never claim to understand crowd mentalities, but what I saw from the top of the palace mostly felt confusing. There were townspeople everywhere, some calmly sitting outside the Ayfel, others peeking through the windows and yelling for the Hero.

I would be wondering if Aymiae was alright if she wasn't right next to me, wearing an illusion of her younger self. It was strange, but not as strange as some of the things lately.

She stared down at the Ayfel, "For some reason, I thought you were less impulsive after all this time."

I sighed, "I know, I know."

"I thought you were going to wait a couple days at least, get yourself used to the illusion, and plan out how to go about each step of the process. Apparently I forgot who I was talking to." Aymi sighed, still looking down at the Ayfel. "You're going to have to lead them somewhere else, entertain the crowd or something. They all put you on a pedestal, the only way to get off of it is to interact with them on their level."

I grimaced, "That means answering their questions doesn't it."

"You don't have to answer all of them, not even ones about the battle. You can tiptoe around it, get everyone to assume it's just too painful to talk about."

I sank to my knees, leaning against the architecture of the building, "Well I wouldn't even be lying with that. It's not like I like all the nightmares with your brother turning to ash right in front of my face. I just wish my subconscious would get more creative already."

Aymiae winced, "Sorry. You...saw it happen then?"

I nodded and stared blankly down at the city for a moment, "I had the way to save him right there in my hands. Two amulets that my master -the dragon- gave to me for that exact purpose. But by the time I got to him he wasn't substantial enough to even hold one. Sometimes I wonder if he's still there you know? In the void, suffering through Aeinar's own torture, hating me through every sparking second of it."

I blinked when I felt Aymiae sit down next to me and drape an arm across my back, "Describe that moment to me, what he looked like."

I felt my throat constricting but I complied. The one I expected to hate me the most after learning I'd let him die was Aymiae, but here she was, in the illusion of her younger self, no longer a ball of anger and resentment that I remembered her as. Instead I saw something different in her eyes as she made a comment.

"That sounds difficult. I don't think I would have taken it any better. I know that the last thing he would want is for you to be beating yourself up about this. He would just be glad that you tried. I'm glad that you tried."

--

I stepped through a spatial distortion, the architecture of the Palace melting away into the roof of the Ayfel. The crowd below hushed immediately, some gasping and pointing upward at me, pointing toward the Hero of Melor. Others simply fell silent, watching with bated breath for what I would do next. I don't think any of them expected me to leave the roof, let alone leave it by jumping three stories.

But that's what I did.

It's trivial to trick a body into thinking it only fell a short distance, but it's much more difficult to do so without letting anyone around you see the spatial distortion. But I don't think it would have mattered even if they did. Such a casual use of dimensionalism boggled almost every mind since it was a relatively rare skill. Everyone knew someone who could do it, but being able to do it and being able to do it well are very different things. I landed without issue in the middle of a throng of people and simply waited.