Amos arrived at the top of the High Tower.
The howling of the fierce gales seemed to have weakened somewhat, a weary whimper that spiraled through the vast, empty space.
The high-backed throne, condensed from the power of the gales, had already dissipated without a trace. Decarabian stood before the massive arched window, gazing down below.
Amos knelt on one knee, her voice trembling slightly with urgency and a certain suppressed emotion:
"My King! A great change has occurred within Mondstadt City! The commoners are rioting, seizing the workshops and granaries. A captain of the Knightly Order has also defected, attacking his comrades and burning down their barracks!"
Decarabian did not turn back, nor did he make even the slightest movement.
His voice came calmly: "Though the foreign god has been crushed, its residual poison has seeped into the hearts of the foolish. It matters not. Once I have finished reinforcing the storm wall, I will cleanse all filth with a new gale."
Amos looked up, her eyes filled with disbelief.
The scale of the riots across the city today was so great, the commotion so loud, it was impossible for the King to have missed it. By all accounts, the King should have long since sent down his divine winds to soothe the people's hearts.
Did the fight against Andrius and the slaying of the foreign god consume too much of his power? Or could it be that the King's power was draining away along with the people's ever-thinning faith?!
The thought sent a chill down her spine. She pleaded, "No, my King! It is not a foreign god! It is the nobility! It is their centuries of oppression that have made life unbearable for the people! To keep from starving, to avoid being whipped like cattle, they would have rebelled even without a foreign god! They are fighting to survive!"
The Solitary King's voice seemed tinged with the faintest hint of confusion, as if pondering an inconsequential problem. "I use the storm wall to shield them from the frost, granting them a place of shelter. They do not have to face the cruel world outside the walls to survive. This is the greatest gift. Whether they have much food, whether their clothes cover their bodies... these are but trivial details."
"Trivial details?!" Amos was almost wailing, tears welling in her eyes. "My King, a corrupt order is as terrifying as the ice and snow outside the walls! It devours people's hearts from within! I beg you, look at them! Even if it is just to lighten their taxes, to punish a few of the most corrupt nobles, let the people see that you are still listening, that you still care for them! Faith must be maintained. If you do nothing and allow the nobles to trample them, that faith will utterly collapse, and your power..."
"Faith?" For the first time, Decarabian interrupted someone, his tone carrying a nearly instinctual arrogance. "I grant them shelter, and they return it with faith and hymns. This is the natural order of the world. Why should it need maintaining?"
"My King!" Amos's tears finally fell, rolling down her pale cheeks. "What they sing are no longer hymns, but furious battle cries! You should not be merely a high tower, a storm wall! You should be a monarch beloved by all, one who listens to the voice of the people!"
She practically shouted the deepest, most extravagant desire buried in her heart: "I only wish... that you would look at your subjects... look at me... if only once..."
However, the figure with its back to her remained as motionless as a mountain, offering no response. Only that hollow and placid voice sounded once more:
"When all the dust has settled, you will bear witness to my correctness."
Throughout the entire exchange, from beginning to end, He never once glanced at Amos.
...
Amos did not know how she left the High Tower.
She returned to her chambers, and the door closed behind her, shutting out both the clamor of the outside world and the deathly silence of the tower's peak.
On the room's wall hung a well-crafted weapon rack. At this moment, it was empty.
Her utterly exhausted body could no longer support her. She collapsed onto the cold stone bed, staring blankly at the blurry patterns on the ceiling.
Scenes from the day flashed through her mind, uncontrolled:
The foreigner who stole her weapon with bizarre methods; the soldiers of the guard she personally commanded, openly defying her order to 'not harm the residents'; the people surging toward the granaries like a bursting flood, their roar of fury nearly tearing the roofs off; the King's eternally turned back, and his refusal, again and again...
Pain coiled around her heart like a vine, tightening its grip.
She shot up, went to an old wooden cabinet, and began to rummage through it, almost violently.
Finally, she took out a stack of old papers, carefully wrapped in waterproof oilcloth. Untying the cord, the papers released an aged scent of ink and a faint smell of mildew.
On them, poems about kings were recorded in ancient script.
She sat back down on the edge of the bed and, by the dim light of the room, began to recite them softly. Her voice was hoarse, utterly devoid of rhythm.
The verses depicted a king 'embraced by the people,' 'wise and divinely valiant,' 'attentive to the people's suffering.' They described the relationship between a ruler and his subjects as one of shared blood, of a common destiny.
She tried to superimpose the image of the back that stood before the high tower's arched window, never looking back, onto the image of the king praised in the poems.
A terrible thought surfaced in her mind with searing clarity:
"Perhaps, my King... was never the kind of 'king' described in the poems."
The pain of this realization nearly tore her apart.
In the depths of her turmoil and pain, she found some blank sheets of paper and a charcoal pencil.
She needed an outlet. Drawing on memory and imagination, she began to sketch on the paper.
The charcoal pencil rustled against the paper. She first drew the magnificent high tower piercing the clouds. Below it were countless kneeling, blurred figures, a grand and solemn scene.
Her strokes were filled with longing, as if she were depicting a distant, unattainable dream.
Then, on the supreme throne, she drew the only back she knew. His posture was ramrod straight, bathed in the fierce winds.
When she paused her pencil, trying to imagine this back turning around, facing the imagined masses below the tower, extending a hand to accept their adoration and cheers...
The tip of her pencil froze on the paper, trembling slightly.
"His face... what does it look like?"
Tears streamed down silently, blurring the freshly drawn picture. She could not continue. Because she had never seen the King's face, not even once.
The one she so deeply loved, the one she had sworn loyalty to, for whom she had given everything, seemed to have always been nothing more than an empty illusion, a symbol filled by her own loneliness, longing, and gratitude for 'shelter.' Beneath that symbol, there was nothing.
After a nearly suffocating sorrow and emptiness, something cold began to settle in the depths of her eyes.
The tears still flowed, but her gaze had already transformed from extreme sorrow to one as cold as Mondstadt's permafrost plains.
"The conflict can no longer be reconciled," she murmured to herself, her voice hoarse yet clear. "The current order can no longer provide true faith; it will only breed more enemies."
Her gaze seemed to pierce through the stone walls, seeing the turbulent city outside.
"The resistance..." Her voice took on a decisive tone. "Since this fire cannot be extinguished, then let's add more fuel and make it burn even brighter!"
A frantic yet clear plan rapidly formed in her mind.
"Let them burn away the decadent nobility, let them completely destroy the old order. When the rebellion has built a cleaner, new world. Then... I will persuade the King to accept it, to rebuild faith..."
Amos raised a hand and forcefully wiped the tear stains from her face. She gently picked up the scroll depicting the grand scene and the Solitary King's back and walked to a lit candlestick.
She stared at the dancing flame, then extended a corner of the scroll toward it.
The orange-red tongue of fire spread quickly. The flames consumed the imagined kneeling masses, consumed the magnificent high tower, and finally, consumed that ramrod straight back that had once been so familiar, but now seemed so utterly strange.
The firelight danced and burned, reflected in her resolute pupils.
"If betraying you is the only way to save you..."
She whispered to herself, her voice very soft.
"Then I shall be the one to play the traitor."
___
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