The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 362

Chapter 362: Fate Intertwined

NICO SEVER

I marched from Taegrin Caelum’s primary tempus warp chamber through the castle’s cold halls, moving purposefully toward Agrona’s private wing. Servants bowed and pressed themselves to the walls as we passed, and even the many elite soldiers and high-ranking military leaders shrank back in fear of me—as they should. I was in no mood to be disturbed or interrupted; I wanted answers, and wouldn’t be dismissed until Agrona himself delivered them to me.

I took the spiralling stairs to Agrona’s chambers two at a time, my grip firmly around Cecilia’s wrist as she lagged behind me. The stairs opened up on a hallway that connected the main body of the castle with Agrona’s private chambers. Unlike the cold stone halls we’d just come from, this chamber blazed with warm light.

The walls were covered in artifacts and souvenirs of Agrona’s many victories. Scattered among the dead relics and artifacts of Agrona’s favored highblood families were more gruesome keepsakes: a phoenix wing, mounted so that it was spread out, displaying the feathers that still gleamed red and gold; a headdress made of pearlescent dragon feathers over an ornate necklace of claws and fangs; and a pair of dragon horns that sprouted from the wall.

I stopped short. The way forward was barred.

“I am here to speak to Agrona. Move, Melzri.”

The other Scythe pressed a hand to her heart and let her mouth hang open mockingly. “Now is that any way to speak to the one who trained you and took care of you after we got you back from that trashy little island, little brother?”

I scoffed, letting a murderous intent seep out into the fancifully decorated hallway where Melzri stood guard. Though I glared at her, she only smiled back, looking exactly as she always had: perfect silvery-gray skin, pure white hair plaited into a thick braid that ran down her back, and dark lips and eyes that matched the two pairs of shining onyx horns that sprouted from her head and curved sharply back, a smaller pair directly beneath two larger horns.

“I’m not your brother,” I said waspishly. “What are you even doing here, anyway?”

She gave me a simpering little giggle, which she knew I hated and did purely to irritate me. “Just some Victoriad business. Viessa was here too, but she left only minutes ago, I’m sorry to say.” Her red-black eyes, the color of congealed blood, drifted to focus on Cecilia. “Ah, the famous Legacy. You wear the elven girl’s skin well, I must say. That hair is to die for.”

I growled, stepping between Melzri and Cecilia. “Shut up and leave her out of this.”

I felt Cecilia shuffle next to me. “Nico, it’s okay. Why don’t we just go wait in our rooms?”

Melzri’s smile sharpened into a predatory grin. “What’s wrong, little brother? Not willing to share your plaything…although, I suppose really she is the High Sovereign’s pet, right? Which makes you…what? Her nanny? No…” Melzri put a hand over her mouth as she gave another little laugh. “You are her plaything, I think…”

“I don’t care what you have to say, Melzri,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it. I thoughtlessly reached for Cecilia’s hand, but she dodged it, and the anger rushed out of me like air knocked from my lungs.

Melzri saw, but instead of mocking me, she gave me a disappointed frown and stepped back to block the way forward. “The High Sovereign is not available to speak with you at this moment. You may wait here or return to your room.”

“This is urgent—”

Melzri sniffed. “I’m just looking out for you, little brother. If you storm in there and interrupt the High Sovereign’s meeting with Dragoth and Sovereign Kiros, you might find yourself with something other than your little feelings hurt.”

This caught my attention.

“The Sovereign of Vechor is here?” It was rare for the Sovereigns to leave their dominions. Although I was paraded around before each of them when I was named a Scythe of the central dominion, I had never met any of them again.

Melzri didn’t bother to answer, and so I turned my back on her and walked to the farthest corner of the room, next to the stairway door, where I stood and glared at a matched pair of ruby blades, crossed over the crest of some long defunct highblood.

Did the members of this ancient blood see the end coming for them? I wondered. Did they feel safe in their nobility, as if they had carved out a place for themselves in this world, or were they always waiting for someone to put a knife in their back?

I played through the events at the High Hall again, trying to make sense of it. There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that this blond, golden-eyed Ascender Grey was really my Grey, despite the change in appearance. But I didn’t understand why Agrona hadn’t told me the name beforehand.

Was it some kind of test?

I had been tested often, and experimented on, and pushed to my limit. Sometimes these trials were painful, even cruel, but they had always made me stronger. There was always a reason.

I sighed deeply, failing to understand.

Cecilia had followed me, staying by my side but never touching me, never offering comfort…

Needing to look anywhere but Cecilia or Melzri, I let my eyes wander up to the ceiling, where an enormous fresco stretched the length of the hall.

It showed the flight of the Vritra from Epheotus, depicting the dragons of the Indrath clan as monstrous beasts swarming in a blood-red sky, while people—both lessers and the Vritra Clan basilisks—cowered behind Agrona, displayed here in shining platinum armor and radiating a golden light that kept the dragon’s at bay…

“Nico…?” Cecilia asked from my side. I could feel her gaze on my cheek, but I didn’t turn to look at her. I couldn’t. If I did, I was worried I might break.

It shouldn’t have been like this. I had spent an entire life trying to protect her, first from her own monstrous ki and then from the many people who sought to use her, and this new life had been dedicated to completing the reincarnation ritual and giving her a second chance, but when I’d finally accomplished it, it seemed like everything had gone wrong for me.

Agrona had once fawned over me the same way he now treated Cecilia…but he had turned dismissive and sarcastic toward me. He had sent me to the High Hall knowing who this Ascender Grey really was. He must have, or why else chose me to go, and with so little information? But I didn’t understand his motivations. Was it nothing more than a cruel game?

He should have told me what he knew, or suspected.

My mind flinched away from these thoughts, rejecting them, because to linger there meant I would have to acknowledge the creeping fear that was stealing through my mind, corrupting every dark corner of it. Fear was unacceptable. It was weakness. The other Scythes, the Vritra…they could all smell it, and to show fear here meant being devoured alive.

“Nico,” Cecilia said again, moving to be in my line of sight.

“What?” I said, more coldly than I’d intended.

“How…” She trailed off, biting her lip. After several long seconds, she took a deep breath and tried again. “I want to know about my death.”

My jaw clenched and I ground my teeth together. Although I wanted her to understand—wanted her to hate Grey as much as I did—I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

“Experiencing the memory of a death can be quite traumatic,” Agrona’s rich baritone said from the end of the hallway, announcing his sudden arrival. “But I think you are ready, Cecilia.”

Melzri slid aside, putting her back to the wall and keeping her head down. Agrona’s red eyes took in everything within the hallway with an easy sweep, a placid movement that almost seemed like laziness, and yet I knew in that instant he had read everything in the room. He moved with an unhurried grace, obviously expecting the world to stand still and wait for him to arrive. As he passed Melzri, he reached out and ran a finger along one of her horns, but his attention was otherwise entirely on Cecilia.

“Do you really—” My mouth snapped shut at a glance from the High Sovereign, my argument dismissed before it could leave my mouth.

I wanted to wrap my arm around Cecilia, draw her close to me so I could comfort and protect her, but instead, I did nothing as Agrona approached. He brushed aside her gunmetal gray hair and placed his fingers against her temples. She closed her eyes as her body went stiff.

Although I couldn’t directly experience what the High Sovereign was doing in her mind, I knew well enough. Agrona was a master of direct manipulation of the mind, able to both remove and alter memories, and even able to directly control another person’s body to a limited extent. Right now, he was giving Cecilia back the memory of her death…in only a few moments, she would know.

She would remember.

I forced back the nervous, guilty energy tingling through my body. It would have been better if I could have told her all the truth from the beginning…but it was too great a risk. I knew that Agrona had twisted the memories she’d received, highlighting my role in her life while diminishing Grey’s. She just had to have someone in this world she could trust entirely, implicitly. Adjusting those little memories made sure she had that…in me.

This memory, though, the memory of her death…even I didn’t want it in my head, and I wished, not for the first time, that Agrona would help me forget it. Cecilia shouldn’t have to remember it either, but she had to see, she had to know what had happened. With Grey alive, it was only a matter of time until they crossed paths. She needed to know who he really was. It didn’t matter how many names he’d taken or lives he’d lived…inside, he was still the same cold, selfish Grey. The man who chose kingship over his only friends—family—in the world.

I wouldn’t let him take her from me again.

Cecilia began to tremble. Her eyes stayed shut, but a pained whimper escaped her lips. Her knees threatened to buckle.

“Stop, she’s—”

“You see and encourage the lies I tell Cecilia, and yet you don’t think I would do the same to you?” Agrona smiled, a nonchalant, disarming expression that showed no guilt or regret. “Utilizing what I learned from the Relictombs, I looked across worlds until I found the Legacy, and next to her, you and King Grey.” _{free𝑤ebnovel.com}