The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 296

Chapter 296

“What the hell?”

Caera lifted one delicate hand to her face, feeling her cheek, then pulled a lock of her long hair out in front of her face so she could see it properly. She paled visibly as her hand reached up and touched one of the onyx horns that grew from the sides of her head. Each horn had two separate points: the main horns swept forward and up, while the smaller fang-shaped pair jutted back behind, framing her head like a dark crown. Thin golden rings adorned each of the smaller spurs.

“Grey, I can expla—”

My hand shot out in a blur, gripping Caera by her thin neck and lifting her off the snowy ground. A small gasp escaped her lips as she tried to pry herself free, but my eyes were focused on those black horns.

She’s a Vritra! I thought, feeling foolish for letting someone I knew so little about get so close to me. No, she wouldn’t be able to enter the Relictombs if that was the case. I wasn’t sure what to make of this sudden revelation. Is she just Vritra-blooded?

‘I know you’re shocked—so am I—but I don’t think we’ll get any answers from her if she’s dead,’ Regis chimed in, sobering me.

I loosened my grip, letting the Alacryan woman fall to the ground, where she coughed fitfully and rubbed her throat.

“Please...Grey. I don’t mean...any harm,” Caera pleaded, her red eyes locked on me.

“Stop,” I warned, drawing the white dagger from my dimension rune as I studied the high-blooded Alacryan woman.

What was Caera’s purpose—to kill me? That didn’t make sense. She could’ve killed me anytime while I was in the keystone realm. Did she need proof to take back to her blood, a Scythe, or maybe even Agrona himself, so that they could find and execute me?

In the end, regardless of her reasons, it boiled down to two choices.

The thought of simply killing her right there and mitigating any potential risk surfaced in my mind, but holding the dagger brought up memories of Caera giving up her late brother’s blade so that I could have a weapon. Not only that, Caera and I had parted on good terms after our temporary allegiance in the convergence zone.

Even then, she and her two guards had several chances to kill me while I was unconscious after our fight against the titan, though it was also true that she could have guessed my identity after returning to Alacrya.

She’s still calling me Grey, though, which means she might not know who I am after all...

My grip around the bone-white dagger tightened as I struggled to come up with the right decision. I had trusted Haedrig, but the green-haired man that had fought beside me never actually existed. Instead, it was a woman wrapped deeply in the veil of Alacryan nobility—with Vritra blood coursing through her.

Regis let out a chortle. ‘Why are you thinking so deeply about this? Maybe she just likes you.’

“What?” I blurted, startling Caera, who was still on her knees in the snow.

“Nothing,” I said, clearing my throat and silently cursing my companion for his flippant attitude.

I could feel Regis roll his eyes. ‘Kill her or not, it’s up to you, but chop chop. I don’t fancy finding out what happens to me if you freeze to death standing here.’

My face and hands felt stiff from the cold, but my asuran body made this deadly weather a nuisance at most. Caera, despite her obvious Vritra ancestry, didn’t share my fortitude, and she had already started to shake.

Letting out a sigh, I reluctantly made up my mind. I withdrew the wool bedroll from my rune—yet another piece of equipment that Alaric had thought to pack for me—and tossed it to her. “Wrap yourself up in this. We need to find shelter—then we’ll talk.”

She took the soft bedroll and draped it around herself like a blanket. “Thank you.”

My eyes quickly scanned our surroundings. Like before, the portal we’d come through had vanished, leaving us stranded in a pure white expanse. An icy wind kicked up a lot of snow, making it difficult to see very far.

“Let’s get moving,” I replied curtly, turning away.

‘I would’ve gone for the nice gentleman play, but aloof bad boy works too,’ Regis teased.

Do you want me to cut you off from my aether?

‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’

Rolling my eyes, I continued walking, paying close attention to the soft crunch of Caera’s footsteps just a few paces behind me.

“You’re wary of me, yet you’re exposing your back to me. Are you that confident?” Caera asked, her silvery voice cutting through the howling of the wind.

“Do you want to find out?” I asked, not bothering to look back.

“Perhaps next time,” she said softly after a beat of silence.

‘Ooh, so she wants there to be a next time,’ Regis snickered.

I ignored my companion’s comment but mentally gave him his second strike.

“Keep an eye out for any kind of shelter,” I called out, my own eyes scanning every shadow and wrinkle in the frozen wasteland for something that could be a cave or ravine, or even just an overhang that would get us out of the biting wind.

“I can barely see past you. Even with mana, I don’t think I could find anything unless it was standing right in front of me,” Caera said, frustration laced in her voice.

‘Maybe you guys will have to dig yourself a shelter and cuddle for—’

Strike three.

Coalescing aether around Regis’s incorporeal form inside me, I directed it to the palm of my hand and pushed outward.

To my surprise, Regis’s fiery cub form actually burst out of my hand, limbs flapping in surprise.

‘Hey! What the—’

Caera gasped and burst into action. Flinging off the bedroll and drawing her thin, curved sword, she cut swiftly downwards, cleaving Regis in two.

I watched with a raised brow as Regis’s bisected form faded away, dissolving into the windblown snow.

Caera’s sharp eyes darted around the terrain, but when she didn’t see any more threats, she smoothly stored the blade once again. Then she noticed the look on my face, and her own confident expression slipped away.

I pointed nonchalantly at the area where Regis had disappeared and said, “That thing is going to reform in a few seconds. As amusing as it was, please don’t attack him again.”

Her eyes went wide. “That was something you did?”

“That was my wolf, yes.”

“Grey, I’m—”

She was cut off as a pocket of dark ash began to spin within the light snow, condensing down until it was a perfectly round ball, then bursting into flames. Finally, Regis’s bright eyes popped open, and the dark shadow of his mouth twisted down into a comical frown.

The will-o-wisp floated down to the ground where it shifted again, bulging outward as it transformed back into the small, wolf-like puppy. “You know, I’m not sure I like either one of you very much right now.”

Caera’s brows furrowed in confusion as her gaze shifted from Regis to me and then back again.

I shrugged. “This is Regis. You two have met before in the last two zones.”

Her eyes shone in realization, then she tilted her head. “But he was a little bigger then.”

“Yeah, well you were a dude,” Regis snapped angrily.

“You’re right.” Caera’s lips quivered as if she were trying very hard not to smile. “I’m sorry, little friend.”

The Alacryan leaned down and scratched Regis behind one pointy little ear. His bright eyes glared at her, but he couldn’t stop his shadowy tail from wagging in pleasure.

This time, I let out a chortle, causing my companion to stiffen.

Letting out a growl, Regis snapped at Caera’s finger, startling her so that she jerked her hand away.

The tiny shadow wolf pounced ahead of us, bounding through the snow with some difficulty. Without looking back, Regis said, “Stop staring and start walking, before you both turn into meat popsicles.”

I met Caera’s strange red eyes, narrowed in a pleasant smile, and forced myself to turn away. Scooping up my bedroll, the Alacryan shook the snow off and wrapped it around her shoulders, then we followed after our fuzzy little guide.

***

“It’s a bowl,” I muttered, stopping so that Caera, who was walking in the track I left in the deepening snow, bumped into me.

“What?” she asked, taking a step back and peering around us.

I took her by the shoulder and turned her so that she was looking down into a wide dip in the land. Visibility was poor enough that I hadn’t immediately noticed it, but we were walking along the ridge of a massive, shallow crater.

The wind let up at that moment, and a beam of silvery light cut through the gray blanket above us, spilling across the snow and highlighting the entire basin. Far below us, perhaps a mile or more, there was the clear outline of a large, round bulge under the snow—much too round and perfect to be a natural formation.

Then the wind picked back up, and the clouds closed in, and the shape was lost behind a white curtain.

“Did you see that?” Caera asked excitedly, pointing down toward the hidden mound.

She turned toward me, and suddenly she seemed very close. Her gaze then landed on my arm, which I suddenly realized was still around her shoulder. Immediately, I pulled myself away, taking a step back as Caera also shifted uncomfortably.

“See what?” Regis asked, trotting back toward us after having gone several yards ahead. “What’d I miss?”

‘And what were you doing with your arm around the spy, eh?”

“There’s something down there.” I gestured down the slope, ignoring my companion. “It looks like the snow gets deeper, though, so maybe you should get back inside me.” I looked at Regis pointedly, making it clear this was less a question and more of a demand.

“You know, it’s been nice to stretch my legs. I think I’ll stay out here. I don’t mind a little snow.”

I glared at the pup, and Regis wiggled his eyebrows in return, a gesture that reminded me of the cartoon animals in the shows I had seen as a kid.

‘I think I’ll keep an eye on things from out here,’ he thought to me, making it obvious that he was still upset about being cut in half.