8 – The Art of Public Speaking

Molten gold droplets flowed from Celestine’s outstretched fingers. They coalesced into a mechanical clock that hovered in the air before her. It hung a few inches off the floor. The rhythmic ticking vibrated up through the stone and into the soles of her shoes like a second pulse.

A third, actually.

The spell took hold. The world fell silent with a totality that went beyond silence. It was a vacuum. Time had stopped inside her sphere of control.

Aury was caught mid-step. His wings were frozen in a white flurry, every feather like carved glass. Behind him, Simon and Agata were locked in place: eyes wide, unblinking, mouths open on words they would never finish.

Should I pull them into the spell too?

It wouldn’t hurt to take a few years off their shoulders. I have mana to spare.

She spun her fingers in a sharp, counterclockwise motion.

The clock’s hands whipped backward. The sensation was a cold, hollow tugging in her gut, as if her own history were being unspooled.

Time bled away. Tiles peeled off the dusty floor and snapped back into their places on the wall. Each one landed with a small, percussive crack. Shattered glass reversed its arc.

It fused whole in the window frames, the broken edges knitting shut as though they had never split. The room reassembled itself around her in a vacuum of silence. A broken world rewinding itself in perfect order.

Then the mosaic. The jagged cracks sealed. The painted horns receded stroke by stroke until the pristine face of the Saint smiled back at her: polished, untainted.

Ashley’s spell broke as her mana hit zero.

The golden clock dissolved into a spray of sparks that scattered and winked out before hitting the floor.

Simon and Agata gasped as the present crashed back into them. Their skin was tighter. The lines around their eyes smoothed over. The grey drained from their hair, replaced by a richer brown.

They opened and closed their hands slowly. They were testing the strength of a younger body.

Agata reached out. She caressed the skin around Simon’s eyes, stretching it as if she couldn’t believe what she was feeling.

“How in heaven…”

“You are welcome. Come on. Make way,” Ashley said.

The scene had been cool. She’d admit that much. But a nagging sense of disappointment pulled at her. She had been inside it the whole time, looking out through Celestine’s eyes. That was the problem.

No wide shot. No slow-motion zoom. What a waste.

When nobody moved, Ashley clapped her hands together. The sound was too sharp for the quiet room. “No time to waste.”

Nobody laughed at the Archmage who had just literally wound back time.

“Y-yes,” Simon and Agata whispered in unison. They stepped aside to pull open the heavy double doors of the church, their movements jerky.

They would not look her in the eye.

Seriously? No smile at all. That was a good joke.

“It was quite funny, mistress.”

Aury’s voice was perfectly smooth. Hollow. There was no ghost of a laugh in the tone.

“Yes. It. Was,” Ashley snapped. “And you. Go back to your place. We don’t want to attract unwanted attention with a glowing angel and all that.”

“Sure, mistress.” Aury dissolved.

The armor bled away into light; he folded back into a halo. It settled above her head, circling the other, humming with a soft, electric vibration.

“I’m sure that nobody will notice you walking around with wings. And this time magic… it was just so discreet.” Aury said.

“Oops.”

Too late now, I suppose.

“The [Saint Wings] can go.”

A weight lifted from her shoulder blades: a sudden, hollow subtraction. The translucent wings vanished in a blaze of white light. Ozone stung the air.

Ashley stepped outside.

The village square was no longer half empty.

A crowd filled the space. Ragged clothes. Hollow cheeks. Hundreds of bodies were pressed to the dirt, knees digging into the earth. Every face tilted upward. Every pair of eyes fixed on her.

Ashley stepped forward and stopped.

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A leader would know what to say. A leader would rouse these people to a cause, or whatever this side quest demanded of her. The crowd was worse than any monster she had faced. She had killed things with a hundred eyes. Talking to them was a different kind of horror.

Public speaking was a human skill, the kind built over years of practice she had never put in. It wasn’t a bracketed [Skill] she could simply trigger with a mental command. Her body knew it before her mind caught up.

Sweat prickled across her palms. Her throat clenched. The skin felt tight, scratchy, as she tried to swallow. The crowd blurred at the edges: too many mouths, too many eyes, all waiting for a word she didn’t have.

What can I even say?

A memory surfaced, some useless advice about picturing a crowd naked to feel at ease.

No. It doesn’t work. I’m the one who feels naked.

Her arms acted on their own. She crossed them over her chest, fingers digging into the fabric. The crowd shifted.

The silence around her was a physical pressure. It pushed against her ribs, making each breath feel shallow and hard-won.

Say something. Anything.

Her mouth opened, but the air in her lungs had turned to lead.