There were no dreams, only memories. Memories that were unbound from the paint I’d firmly affixed over them. Eliax never wondered why she’d chosen paint to mask the blood, but I knew that answer. I knew so many of the answers.
I just couldn’t look at them, not yet.
There was no blood when I was just eighteen. When I’d lived for ten years with a barrier of blue and red paint masking it from view. It…it might still be there, but I didn’t have to think about it. I could be happy.
But Eliax didn’t like that idea. She wanted to know what I’d gone through. She wanted to fix us. She wanted to know who she was and why she was the way she was. She hated the idea of never knowing something as crucial as her own past.
Neither of us had any say in the nighttime. As our dreams scraped away the paint and for once made us a cohesive whole.
A cohesive whole that could do nothing but hurt.
The same memory sounded over and over, now that it was recovered there was nothing I could do to force it back beneath the surface forever.
--
I was running.
I was crying.
I watched them, their eyes fading into darkness, their skin turning black and brittle, the blue of their life force falling away into shadows. I watched as their soundless yells met my ears, thousands of dying wishes falling into my mind.
One man wanted nothing more than to tell his sister he was sorry. One wanted to finish his mother’s gift.
They were all valiant men.
I ran past them, the guilt and fear overwhelming me as I clutched two pendants in my hand, two versions of the same spell that could save one person each.
One was for me.
I watched the nightmare as the massive spell of destruction took hold. I ran through the battlefield, the stench of rot in my lungs. The stench of death. They were all dying. Everyone except for me.
My light feet pattered against the cold blood stained grass, I barely left a mark where I went besides the sets of bloody footprints as my bare feet spread it like paint. Paint was something beautiful that I loved. Something I could hide behind.
I screamed his name.
The warriors around me that dwarfed me in stature fell to the blade of a single culprit. A blade of pure death. A blade that swallowed the human armies, the Tuvei protectors, and…him.
He was nowhere. I was too late. I couldn’t save him.
All I did was let him fade into the blackness.
The lingering memory was the closest to the surface from earlier, and in every way, it was the worst memory to be in that place. That was the day I’d lost everything. My home. My trust. My king. My best friend.
All I had left was vengeance.
--
Eliax felt her eyes snap open, her heartbeat was like a drum in her ears, quick and painful. She felt her throat constricting, her mind spinning.
She felt cold as death. Her mind replayed the scent of rot, but it didn’t go further than that. Eliax knew the memory that went with it, but as she reached to peek at it, the resonance pulled it away from her grasp.
She needed to…ugh her mind was spinning.…she probably needed to go over some different memories to figure out why this one was so terrifying. Yes. That was the right word. Eliax had never felt that before, but as her heartbeat slowly lessened and her mind dulled from the panic that had brought out its edge- she could accurately say that this was terror.
Eliax prodded at the resonance again, getting nothing but a second source of terror out of it.
After a moment she glanced down at her bedsheets, noticing how uninviting it suddenly seemed. She pulled the blanket off and sat on the floor with it wrapped over her shoulders, hugging her knees as she sat there and simply breathed for several moments.
Eventually found herself taking out her notebook and fumbling for a candle. It took her a second, but before long she was writing.
17th of Darion, 771
For once, the resonance didn’t stir at the number. Sparks, was the thing getting used to it or was it too distracted by the terror to worry about a simple discrepancy in dates? With a sigh, she put her pencil to the page again.
The stench of rot sent me to a battlefield. I was trying to find someone. I might want to check up on battlefield records later. It was nothing like I’d ever heard of before. People simply faded into nothingness as if returning to the dust.
Eliax frowned and wrote a few other ideas out, but she had a feeling she would be going to the library in the near future. Knowing what to do next was both a relief and a pain.
She glanced out the window once she was done, knowing very well that it was nowhere near sunrise. She was definitely not tired enough to go back to sleep. The lingering terror would only strengthen that way.
After contemplating her courses of action, she finally sighed and poked at all those memories she’d shoved to the back of her mind, having promised herself she would go over them later.
Well.
It was later.
She chose one that seemed happy, gently eased it to the front of her mind, and felt the information slowly seep into her.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
--
Eliax bent the space between her fingers, watching as the sun began to rise from her small window.
The distant mountains were visible for the first time since she’d arrived. They were barely a hint of shadow, but seeing as the sun was still behind them, Eliax got a rather good view of the whole spectacle.
She’d gone over so many memories, and all she’d learned was that apparently everyone called whoever she’d been ‘Fari.’ There was a lingering sense that this wasn’t her whole name and it still itched at the back of Eliax’s mind. Mostly she’d seen a room of stained glass, a woman who smiled down at her and looked over her ideas and drawings with a kind, happy bearing. There were a few other girls, memories of growing up with them, memories of running messages to high-ranking nobles and learning decorum from the kind lady.
And once again there was that boy, the one in the tree. Whenever Eliax tried to look at a memory with him in it, the resonance withdrew again. The sun peeked above the horizon, its rays shining right into her eyes.
“And it’s morning again, as if…nothing happened.” The resonance stirred for the first time since she’d woken up as the sunlight chased the lingering terror away.
She pulled at space again, making a bubble out of it that was separated from the outside world. It was completely unstable, but it was the closest thing yet to making some sort of permanently expanded storage.
She released the tension after a moment and watched the runes unravel at the seams.
Goal one, understand my past.
Eliax smiled as she looked back at the sun, it was almost completely risen.
Goal two, develop my dimensionalism.
After a second of staring at the window, Eliax picked up her bag, ready to accomplish things with this new day. She would be alright, it was still starting.
Goal three, make valuable connections.
Alsen, Illila, Niun, Hivren, there were more people to connect her to her future. She needed to have a future. She knew she needed people in her life in order to be satisfied with that future, but accepting them there was a different matter entirely.
Eliax opened the door, blinking at Alsen’s hand poised to knock.
They stared at one another for a long second, somewhat surprised, “Ah…what is it?” Eliax finally asked.
Alsen smiled pleasantly and took a step to the side, giving Eliax room to exit, “There’s an official from Starsbane here to see you.”
Eliax blinked at her, having absolutely no idea what she’d done to make them notice her, “Do you know…why?”
“No, but I believe he just wants to ask you something.”
Eliax frowned, but she couldn’t think of anything that could implicate her. Maybe Illila did something stupid? Maybe it was Niun? Necromancy was fairly illegal outside of the proper channels, but she couldn’t see a school official interrogating her for talking to a necromancer. “Alright, I guess I’ll have a chat with him then, he’s just downstairs?”
Alsen smiled pleasantly and nodded, her eyes adopting a more serious light after a moment. “If he does anything you don’t like, just shout, I’ve got a cast iron wok in the kitchen.”
Eliax examined the woman for a moment and nodded slowly, “Ah…thanks?”
“That goes for anyone missy!” Alsen said a bit louder as Eliax turned and started down the stairs. “Anyone, anywhere! You take my wok with you if it might go wrong!”
“Got it!” Was the only response she felt was appropriate.
She opened the door at the bottom of the stairway and peeked into the front room, which was devoid of life this early in the morning. The only person in the area was a fairly tired-looking man with a neatly trimmed goatee and a rather fidgety bearing. He glanced up as the door made a very undignified squeaking noise. Eliax ignored it, nodding at him.
“Ah…you wanted to talk with me?” She hesitated in the doorway.
“Miss Lestwood I take it?”
She nodded and moved toward him, sitting across from the stranger at one of the dining tables. She remained silent, observing him.
“My name is Roin. I’m an official at Starsbane University. Do you know why I’m here?”
Eliax frowned, that just made her feel like he was digging for information. Did people do that if they weren’t being actively malicious? She had no idea. “No. I’ve thought about it but I can’t think of what it might be.”
His lips turned upward into a slight grin, “We’d like you to enroll in Starsbane, Miss Lestwood.”
Eliax tilted her head at him, “Really? Why?” She had a couple of ideas, but she couldn’t figure out how the school would know either of them.
“We had a report last night about one of our students practicing dark arts in the palace dungeon. Along with that, we had the revelation that you are a dimensionalist. Is this correct?”
Eliax froze slightly, her face was still mostly neutral, but apparently, he saw something in it. “I get the feeling you didn’t want us to know that. Considering how thoroughly you hid it in your papers, how valuable mages with this skill are, and the magesight that comes with it?”
Eliax glanced at the table, “I just have some personal matters I wanted to deal with. I don’t plan on being in Reiaran for more than a month or two.”
“And yet we also have it on record that you are entirely untrained. Your papers list no teachers, mentors, or magical academies. The most you have is the tutelage of a dropout spellcaster who could barely draw a rune.”
“You’ve clearly done your research. Congratulations. Guilt trips don’t work on me, my dad tried that all the time.”
He sighed, “Why don’t you want to go through official training?”
Because she wasn’t ready. The resonance knew things about the ability that she hadn’t pulled out of it yet. “I’m perfectly fine on my own. Do you need a demonstration or something?”
The official paused, he seemed curious. Good. “Perhaps. What can you show me right now?”
Sparks, she had to do something that was at least mildly impressive for her age and presumed skill level. “I…alright.” She prodded at the realm of magic, the source of all spells and abilities. It was easily accessible. Thankfully, some places made it more and more difficult to open, but in the middle of a city where people had been using magic for thousands of years? Well it was almost too easy.
She bent the space at first, not so much drawing runes in the air as she was pulling them into sight. She could see them at all times, it was part of her magesight, most of what she needed when bending space was picking the right type of space to bend, some runes would never bind to regular matter, which was why it was so difficult to make a permanently distorted area since those runes were everywhere, tiny and hidden by Gium when he made the world.
The small lines in the air grew brighter as she moved them, spurred by contact with the Between realm.
She could tell that Roin could see them now because he watched their movements with a slightly curious -but still ultimately tired- expression, he grew more interested the more runes he saw, flying about the area like little insects.
Eliax stopped after a long moment, hesitantly holding up a small silver bit that she’d bound the whole thing to. It was still rather unstable, but it was an expanded space that might be able to hold a book or something.
Roin examined it for a long moment, “Impressive. It will fall apart soon, won't it?”
Eliax nodded.
“And you can’t teleport or make gates?”
Eliax shook her head.
The official frowned. “How about we simply set you up with a teacher for personal lessons? You won’t have to enroll and we won’t get any of the face from having a dimensionalist learning at our institution.”
Apparently that’s what he thought the real reason was.
This offer was a lot better than what she’d resigned herself to eventually having to do, it didn’t change the possibility of any teacher noticing that there was something terribly wrong with her, but-
“Our of curiosity, what’s your other affinity?”
Eliax felt herself harden, the resonance, rising up, overtaking her entirely of its own accord, “I don’t have one.” She found herself saying.
The more interesting part was that she could tell it was a lie.
The man shrugged, “That just gives you more time to focus on the important things. So what do you say, will you take the offer?”
She met his eyes for a moment and looked away just as quickly. “I’ll…think about it.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”