Aldeheid stepped closer to his likeness, running his hands through the blue aura. It was warm as sunshine and curled around his fingers like luminescent vines. His likeness looked peaceful, serene even, surrounded by the leaves and flowers – so far removed from the mess of a man he really was. "What is this place?"
"This is your head." Nylarah materialized next to him, begilded with the same blue glow as his likeness. "Since we're here, I'll ask: would you like my help, Aldeheid?"
"With what, exactly?"
"Whatever may be bothering you." She laid her staff in the air and hopped atop it, floating around his likeness with a thoughtful look on her face. "I understand that you don't want to talk. But you don't have to say anything. We can just hang around here, in your head. I'd like to see all the ugly things that have made their home in here."
It didn't make sense to him, standing in his own head, but so long as he didn't have to talk about his past, he was fine whatever Nylarah wanted to do. He pointed to his likeness. "Is that me?"
"Yes and no. That is more who you could be if you weren't so... troubled." Nylarah floated beside him and place a hand on his shoulder. "Just try to relax." And she was gone, just as abruptly as she'd came.
"Try to relax? Why?" His question was met with silence. Aldeheid walked up to his likeness, studied it from every angle. So this was who Kitaya saw when she looked at him – not who he was, but who he could be.
"Aldeheid?"
The voice that echoed through the chamber was a woman's, but not Nylarah's. It was one that used to bring him joy, brighten his world, and one he hadn't heard in a long time. He turned around, and there she was. Chestnut hair and hazel eyes just as he remembered them.
"Amalie." He walked towards her, but she held up a hand and backed away, refusing to even look at him. "Amalie, I'm not going to hurt you."
She finally looked at him and what her eyes held made his heart shrivel in his chest – bitterness, resentment and pain. "You already did. You lied to me. You told me everything would be fine. That we'd be together. That I'd be your Queen."
"Ama—"
"Don't you dare speak my name out of your lying, murderous mouth." Her voice was shrill, echoing through the chamber, and her words lashed at him like whips. "You never really loved me, did you? I was all a lie."
"I..." Aldeheid swallowed, but it didn't help the dryness that had taken over his throat.
"Murderer!" another voice screamed, and he whirled around to see more people behind him. More of the capes he'd killed. "Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!" they chanted.
He clamped his hands over his ears, but that did nothing to drown out their voices. They were inside his head, a chorus of vengeful spirits, risen from the grave to haunt him. "Stop," he begged. "Stop!" The voices quieted and he opened his eyes to find the capes gone, only to be replaced by laughter. His own laughter, but it wasn't coming from him.
Another likeness of him stood where Amalie had, swathed in the royal blues and whites of Wylerra. A cape billowed behind him, clasped at his left shoulder, and a crown sat atop his head. Baldavin's crown.
Aldeheid's hands shook. What was this? Some kind of illusion created by Nylarah? That wouldn't make sense. She knew nothing of his past. "And just what in damnation are you?"
His likeness laughed at him, a hollow sound that reminded him of someone he wished to forget. "I'm you. Or what you would've been were you not so worthless."
Aldeheid ground his teeth together. "I never wanted to be you."
His likeness snorted. "Are you so sure about that? You always aspired to greatness, and it always stayed just out of your reach. Because of your weakness. You refused to do what needed to be done. To reach out and grasp what was yours. To be who you were meant to be."
"I never wanted to live that kind of life. Where everyone feared me. Where I manipulated and controlled everyone for my own personal gain. I never wanted to be like..." Aldeheid refused to even say his name. "Like him."
His likeness circled him, eyes raking over his form. "And so you choose to live your life being a burden unto others. What have you ever done for anyone except leech off of their kindness? No wonder Mellidius couldn't care less for you anymore."
"That's not true!" Aldeheid sounded as though he were trying to convince himself.
"Then why didn't Mellidius take you with him? Why did he leave you behind to be shunned and ridiculed?" His likeness narrow his eyes. "You don't deserve what you have. You would've never been anything without the people surrounding you. Kitaya? You don't deserve her."
Aldeheid threw his fist at his likeness, but it disappeared in a cloud of smoke before his blow connected. Ragged, rasping breaths hissed from between his lips and sweat beaded on his forehead. "Nylarah?"
"Angel eyes." The voice that reached him was weak and raspy.
"Kitten?"
She was lying on the floor near the center of the room, and his heart shriveled at the sight of her limp form. The last time he'd seen her like that, she'd been struck down by a monolith.
Aldeheid rushed to her side, kneeling to check over her. "Kitten." No visible bumps or gashes marred her skin, but her breathing was shallow and labored. "What happened?"
"Too much," she said, looking up at him with hooded, glassy eyes. "I thought I could handle it. But you took too much."
"No. No, Kitaya, not you too. Not..." Aldeheid took her wrist between his hands, her skin cold and clammy against his palms. His breath caught in his throat, and stayed there until it ignited into an agonizing fire that spread down to his chest. The thump of her pulse faded, growing weaker until it stopped.
It's not real. Tears clouded his vision and his body shook all over. It's not real.
Aldeheid dropped Kitaya's wrist and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. He needed to get out of here, out of this nightmare. "Nylarah! Ny—"
Something touched his arm, and he almost jumped out of his skin.
Kitaya's body was gone, and a little girl stood before him. Her blonde curls were just as he remembered, and she stared at him with doe-like, blue eyes.
"Wenry..." Aldeheid's heart ached just looking at her.
"Why didn't we go back, Al? I wanted to go back." She ducked her head, but he could still see the tears running down her face.
He wanted to say something, tell her he'd done his best. That he was sorry about what happened to her. But the words died in his throat, buried by his guilt and shame.
"You told me everything was going to be alright. That we would find a new home and play as much Tactica as we wanted." She swiped at her tears, crying in earnest.
"Wenry, I—"
"No!" She shoved him, her eyes glinting with white-hot fury. "You lied! You're a liar!"
Someone else pushed him from behind, and he stumbled forward, tripping over his own feet before slamming into the ground. Two shiny black boots appeared in front of his face, and his likeness' laughter filled the chamber again.
"Look at you. You're pathetic."
"Shut up!" Aldeheid curled up in a ball, clamping his hands over his ears.
"A weak and worthless excuse for a magician."
"Stop!" The world around him shattered like a dome of glass, its shadow-like pieces fading as they fell. Bright light assaulted his eyes as he blinked his vision clear. The drum of his heart along with his labored breathing filled his head.
Nylarah was kneeling in front of him, one hand on her staff while the other reached for him.
He flinched and backed away from her. "No, get away from me." He scrambled to his feet and sloshed through the water to the door, ignoring Nyalarah as she called after him. His mind was fixated on one thing: getting as far away from this place as possible. From the nightmares of his past. From his own head.
Aldeheid mounted the steps, but didn't make it far before his clumsy feet slipped from beneath him. Head over heels he tumbled down the steps, his body pummeled by the stone as gravity dragged him.
With a smack he hit the bottom of the steps, somehow still conscious, still breathing. He had no desire to take stock of his injuries. His mind was screaming for him to run despite the pain in his body.
The scathing voices were still echoing in Aldeheid's head.
Weak! Worthless! Murderer! they screamed.
"Aldeheid!" The hems of Nylarah's robes appeared in front of his face. "Oh, dear gods." She tried to help him up but he scuttled away.
"No, no, no." He used the wall to pull himself to his feet. That was when he noticed the last two fingers on his marked hand were sticking out at an unnatural angle. "Get away from me." He half limped, half ran through the halls, cradling his injured hand like a wounded animal.
Aldeheid finally made it to the outside, where the sun was high in the sky and the birds chirped without a care in the world. He felt as though he was locked in his own bubble of misery, while everything else around him went on as usual.
He didn't bother to pick up his shoes from where he'd left them. His barefooted sprint continued through the eastern gates and into the city. Curious eyes bombarded him from every direction, as he weaved through the throngs of people that filled the marketplace.
"Isn't that Kitaya's magician?" someone asked.
"What happened to him?"asked another.
Their questions went in one ear and out the other. There seemed to be no end to the massive river of bodies. Still Aldeheid pressed forward, pushing through their ferocious current like a fish swimming upstream.
Finally, blessedly, the castle gates came into view, beckoning to him like the gates of eternity. The guards paid him no mind as he stumbled through, careening to and fro along the path as though he were in a drunken stupor. He could see Kitaya and the others on the terrace, talking and laughing, oblivious to his inner and outer turmoil.
"Angel eyes? What happened to you?" Kitaya asked, standing from the table.
Aldeheid couldn't catch his breath to give her an answer, so he continued running, past them all and into the castle. He had no idea where he was going, but stayed in decorated corridors like Kitaya had told him to.
"Aldeheid, wait!" Kitaya called after him.
When he got to the belly of the castle, a hand landed on his shoulder, and he startled. He was thrown off balance once more and landed face-first on the polished floor. It seemed he and the ground was best friends today.
"Good gods." Kitaya reached a hand down to help him up but backed away, turning onto his stomach to crawl, eyes darting around for a door to escape through. "Aldeheid, please, talk to me."
He wanted to, but all he could see was her unmoving form in front of him. All he could think about was her nonexistent pulse and dead eyes.
"Nylarah what did you do?!" Her voice was as shrill as sharp as thunder.
"I didn't know it was that bad," Nylarah answered. "I only wanted to help him like you asked."
Aldeheid dragged himself across the ground with his good hand. There was a door at the far corner of the corridor. If he could just make it there, he could escape.
"Help? Look at him, Ny! Did he look like that when I left him with you?"
"Kitaya, I'm sorry..."
Just a little further. The door was almost in his reach.
"I can't... I just can't with you right now."
Footfalls filled the hall and, a moment later, the hem of Kitaya's skirt was in his line of vision. He had the doorframe clutched in his good hand, and was pulling himself through. Sweat rolled down his forehead and stung his eyes, and his muscles burned from exertion.
"Here, let me help you." She reached a hand out to help him up but he flinched away, slamming into the doorframe and adding to his collection of bruises.
Kitaya stared down at him, hands fisted at her side, and her eyes held something Aldeheid had never seen in them before. Fear. It looked wrong – like it had no place on her face. And it didn't. Kitaya wasn't afraid of anyone, except him, it seemed. "I'm sorry about this." She pointed her marked hand at him and uttered a cadence of ancient words.
Aldeheid didn't have time to speak or run before gold light flashed across his vision.