The Wielder and the Source

Chapter 14

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."