Chapter 238: Fracture XLIII
She clung to my sleeve. The touch was numbing, as her slight form held onto me tightly, her face cast downward, a curtain of dark hair covering her eyes. She appeared older than she would have... after... well, you know the story. I wasn't sure how that worked, and there was an odd veneer that encompassed her, smoothing features at the cost of clarity, leaving an image akin to a parchment sketch. But it was her.
Lillian's mouth twisted in fright.
Gods damned Draugblod.
The fear, regret, and guilt I'd been suppressing roared to the surface, a chimera with a vice-like grip on my guts.
"Greetings," I said, trying for kindness without being overly familiar. Suddenly it no longer seemed so important to find the void mage. Aetherya was likely right. Through whatever means—magical or otherwise—they were gone. "You look a bit lost."
"I am..." she whispered.
I looked around, trying to get a sense of the greater threat. There were fewer unbound spirits roving the sky now. Even the city's din had quieted. There was still chaos and confusion, but only the occasional scream.
The crisis was contained, for now.
There was a sudden, irrepressible urge to offer excuses. To explain, in gratuitous, winding detail, why I hadn't been there in her time of need. An urgency.