The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 372

Chapter 372

ARTHUR

Nico took a half step toward me, jaw tensed and a vein pulsing visibly at his temple. Black spikes thrust up out of the ground at his slightest movement, his skin tinged with faint wisps of soulfire flames. “Even after two lifetimes, you haven’t changed.”

The false smile fell from my face at his words, and I bit back more goading words. Any pride I’d felt at my own ingenuity in drawing Nico into this fight—one where he couldn’t run away or call for backup—vanished now that he stood in front of me. His face, on which only a mere shadow of Elijah’s features now remained, filled me with conflicting emotions.

He’d been my best friend in two lives, after all. First as Nico, then as Elijah. And I had failed him in both. It was those failures, in part, that had led him to become who he was now.

Hateful. Desperate. An inhuman shell of a man.

Still...I didn’t blame him for hating me.

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t even blame him for what he’d done in this life...no matter how easy it would be to do so. He was reincarnated here only to be manipulated and used as a tool by Agrona. Fate hadn’t given him the opportunity to learn from his past life’s mistakes. Instead of a second chance, Nico’s fear, insecurity, and rage had been manipulated into a tool and weapon from the first moments of his life.

But, regardless of how we’d both arrived at this point, we’d come much too far for apologies, for reconciliation.

Despite knowing what Tessia meant to me, Nico had aided Agrona in Cecilia’s reincarnation, using Tess’s body as a vessel—the ramifications of which I still didn’t understand. Cecilia, who had wanted to avoid being someone else’s weapon so badly she fell on my sword to do it...

And he, in his infinite selfishness and ignorance, had handed her to Agrona.

“Say something!” Nico growled, almost shouting. A burst of soulfire ate away the ground beneath him, leaving him hovering in the air.

“Like what?” I snapped, his petulant whining working at my nerves like an old wound. “That I didn’t kill Cecilia? That I never meant to abandon the two of you? Would you even listen if I told you the truth? And what would it change, Nico? Certainly not the fact that you’ve killed thousands of innocents, that you took Tessia out of pure selfishness—”

“I just took back what was mine!” he yelled, his eyes full of dark, hateful fire. “What I was supposed to have. That’s fate. Just as much as it is for you to die. Again.”

I don’t know why, but the finality of Nico’s statement caused a sharp ache deep within me. I wished, in that moment, that I could undo everything that had happened. That Cecilia could have survived, and they could have run away together just like they were planning. That I wouldn’t have shut them out so I could train with Lady Vera, and would have tried harder to help Nico find Cecilia when she disappeared.

There was so much I could have done differently.

But I hadn’t. And although I could look backwards at the path I’d taken, I couldn’t change its shape. Nor could I change where that path had brought me. But I could look forward, and make new choices—different ones—to change the direction I was headed.

Ever since waking up in the Relictombs, I’d been cold and detached. I’d had to be, I knew that. I didn’t fault myself for it.

The persona of Grey was like a shield, one I wrapped around my mind, keeping out thoughts of those I couldn’t help right now: Tessia, Ellie, my mother, everyone back in Dicathen...Instead, I focused on the Relictombs and pursuing the ruins as Sylvia’s last message had instructed, and on understanding my new abilities and the new world I found myself in.

But it was time to go a different direction. And that started with Nico.

I couldn’t help the softening of my expression, knowing the full weight of my sadness and pity was plain on my face.

“Don’t. Don’t look at me like that,” Nico said, shaking his head in defiance. “I don’t want your pity.”

My body relaxed as I accepted what was about to happen. “I wish things could have turned out differently.”

SERIS VRITRA

I clicked my nails together, a nervous habit from my childhood that I’d long since cured myself of, or so I thought.

Arthur’s machinations had sped past my own, yet again, it seemed.

I found myself off guard, vacillating between a rushed attempt to put the pieces into place and a mute acceptance that I didn’t fully understand what was happening.

Still, I had not arrived at my current station by being dense, and after giving myself a moment to ponder, I realized that Arthur’s plan had really been quite simple, although effective.

Nico’s stumbling and impatient alliance with the Granbehl’s, who shared his hatred for Arthur. Arthur’s less-than-cautious reprisal and bare attempt at a cover-up.

It would have taken more restraint than Nico could muster to build up his allies’ strength enough to be a threat toward Arthur, the subterfuge working contrary to his impulsive, wrathful nature. When his ill-planned scheme failed, Arthur knew it would lead to a tantrum.

Nico had always been a temperamental boy. He embodied a weak man’s concept of power, a fool’s idea of intellect, and a child’s view of maturity. And yet I had never discounted him. The other Scythes didn’t yet see it, but none of the reincarnates were what they seemed. They were each a force of change—of chaos—in their own way.

Seeing Nico and Arthur—or Grey, who was in many ways an entirely different person than the boy I’d saved in Dicathen—standing across from each other on the battlefield, I felt a sudden thrill.

“An unscheduled interruption, but perhaps this will be an opportunity for little Nico to prove himself,” Dragoth mused with a carefree laugh.

“Prove himself?” Viessa asked, her voice a low hiss. “Merely by fighting this—what is he, some kind of school teacher?—Nico embarrasses himself, and us by extension.”

Sovereign Kiros let out a huff of irritation, his bored eyes traveling aimlessly around the high box, which had been appointed with every comfort imaginable. “So long as this doesn’t slow things down too much,” he grumbled. His gaze lingered in the darkest corner of the room. “Perhaps you should go chastise your brother-in-arms.”

Cadell stepped out of the shadows and bowed to Kiros. “Forgive Scythe Nico’s impudence, Sovereign. The High Sovereign has let him off his leash too long and too often, I’m afraid.”

Kiros’s lips twisted in a wry half-smile. “Do you question the High Sovereign’s actions or judgment, Scythe?”

Cadell sank to one knee, resting both arms across the other. “No, Sovereign Kiros, of course not.”

“They’re saying something,” Melzri said, leaning against the balcony rail and turning her head slightly. “Pointless, pratling banter.” She exchanged a dark look with Viessa. “We should have beaten Nico more during his training.”

“Who is this Grey, anyway?” Dragoth asked, looking around at the rest of us. “He seems somewhat familiar.”

Cadell, once again on his feet, was watching from the shadows instead of stepping out onto the balcony with the rest of us. “A dead man,” he said simply, meeting my gaze as he spoke.

So Agrona did not confirm Arthur’s presence in Alacrya with the rest of the Scythes, but he has told Cadell. Interesting.

I wasn’t sure how much I believed Agrona’s insistence that Arthur no longer mattered to him. The High Sovereign often played his own games, some with purpose, some purely for entertainment. There were times where he worked at cross purposes to himself, perhaps simply to confuse anyone who was keeping track, including his allies, or maybe because he enjoyed the thrill of not knowing exactly how things would unfold.

Below, Arthur pulled the white cloak from his shoulders and made it vanish with a flourish. No hint of mana or intent leaked from him, a fact the others were quick to notice as well.

“His control over mana is perfect,” Viessa said, her black-on-black eyes squinting as she peered at Arthur.

I didn’t try to hide my amusement at this statement, and she turned her gaze on me. It had been quite some time since I’d spoken with the Scythe from Truacia. As we matched gazes, I took in her stance, expression, and features.

Her skin was as pale as her eyes were dark, and a sea of purple hair spilled down over her shoulders and back. She was taller than me, made even taller by the heeled leather boots she wore, their teal coloring matching the runes stitched into her fine white and gray battlerobes. The black voids of her eyes were always unreadable, and emotion rarely interrupted the porcelain coldness of her face.

Of all the Scythes, Viessa was the one I was most unsure of.

But I didn’t spare her any additional thought just then. There were more interesting things to focus on. “They’re going to fight.”

In the arena, Arthur and Nico had separated, putting twenty feet of distance between them. Nico was an inferno of black fire. Arthur could have been carved of ice.

With an angry scream, Nico hurtled forward. The ground came apart beneath him, collapsing in on itself as black spikes grew like weeds wherever his shadow touched. A vortex of black flames coiled around and extended in front of him as he prepared to bathe Arthur in hellfire.

But Arthur did not flinch in the face of Nico’s rage. I might have thought him as mad as Nico if I didn’t know better.

My eyes widened and I leaned over the rail next to Melzri, well past ready to finally see for myself the power that Caera had described.

With a hungry roar, Nico’s soul flames burst forward. Arthur’s hand rose, and a cone of amethyst energy spilled out to meet the fire.

Where the two powers touched, they intertwined and ate away at one another, each perfectly canceling the other out.

“Impossible,” Cadell grunted from behind us.

“Oh, now that’s interesting,” Kiros said, leaning forward on his throne. “You there, Melzri, scoot aside, you’re blocking my view.”

Black spikes punched out of the ground all around Arthur, but they shattered against a layer of glowing aether that tightly clad his skin.

Nico burst through the crackling cloud that remained behind after the aether and soulfire collided, a dozen more blades of black metal orbiting around him. With a shove, he sent them flying like missiles at Arthur.

A sword shimmered to life in Arthur’s hand. A blade of pure aether, glowing vibrantly amethyst. The air around it warped in a way that made my eyes ache, like the blade was pressing away the fabric of the world to make room for itself. In movements so quick that most wouldn’t have been able to follow, Arthur cut through spike after spike, letting the pieces careen past or ricochet harmlessly off the protective barrier over his skin.

Then Nico was on him.

Their collision sent tremors through the foundations of the stadium, and for a moment I lost sight of the action as it was happening. Arthur’s weapon was a line of vibrant purple light glowing through a screen of dust. Nico was a silhouette, highlighted by the nimbus of black fire that still surrounded him.

The line of purple light intersected the dark silhouette...

Then...Nico was hurtling past Arthur, tumbling through the air like a tossed ragdoll.