The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 384

Chapter 384

ELEANOR LEYWIN

My heart gave a painful squeeze as I saw my brother holding Feyrith’s body. Pressure built uncomfortably behind my eyes, but I didn’t have any tears left.

Albold, Feyrith, Rinia...and how many others, people whose names I don’t even know?

The shock of so many conflicting emotions scraped at me, making me feel raw, brittle. From certainty of my own death to wordless amazement and joy at my brother’s return...to the slow dawning realization of how much had been taken from us in the last several hours.

As if sensing my discomfort, Mom wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close.

We stayed back and watched as Durden hurried forward to conjure an earthen bier for Feyrith’s body. I felt a pang of guilt thinking of all the bodies we’d left down in that weird chamber, but reminded myself that the living were more important right now.

The dead had time to wait.

Then, we were moving again. Arthur and the Glayders walked ahead, and I found my gaze constantly settling on my brother’s back, watching his soft, strong steps and the effortless way he seemed to command the others without even trying. It was like his mere presence settled our minds and spirits...or maybe it just settled mine.

I caught Mom watching him too, her face slipping between little frowns and half-hidden smiles.

Just a couple minutes farther down the tunnel, Curtis and Kathyln broke away, heading to get all the people who had been traveling in Curtis’s group. He confirmed that all the refugees who had been hidden with Feyrith—at least fifty people—were dead. After that, we found the rest of the surviving groups one by one.

Hornfels and Skarn Earthborn had each led separate groups, but in similar directions, and had sealed the tunnels behind them, only letting the conjured barriers fall away when they sensed our group approach and Curtis confirmed through the walls that the asura was dead.

By the time we reached the main cavern, we were a long, winding river of tired, frightened, surprised-to-be-alive people. The tunnel mouth had collapsed, but the Earthborns easily moved it aside, revealing a pile of corpses: the guards who had been at the rear.

Arthur went through first, along with a group of our strongest mages, instructing everyone else to stay in the tunnels.

It was so comforting to have him there, to watch him step right back into the role of protector as if he’d never left, but I couldn’t help but also be a little sad. Seeing how the others looked at him, how even the members of the council seemed to walk just a step behind him at all times, it felt like he was there but still somehow just out of reach.

Like he was keeping us all at arm’s length...or maybe it was the other way around. By immediately treating him like he was some storybook savior, everyone was pushing him away, putting him in front of us like a shield instead of welcoming him back with open arms.

I shook my head to snap myself out of it. We would have time to do all the lovey-family stuff when we were safe.

From the mouth of the tunnel, I could see Arthur and the others fan out, carefully scanning the wreckage of the sanctuary, which had been our home for so long. The place was in ruins. Huge gashes had been carved in the ceiling and walls, giant boulders had fallen down on the village, crushing entire houses, and everything was blasted with ice and lightning.

There was movement to our left, and a figure stepped up onto a higher shelf of rock to look down at everyone else.

I slipped free of my mother’s grip and took a few quick steps out into the cavern, stepping over familiar bodies in order to see what was happening.

“Lance Bairon!” Curtis shouted, his voice echoing eerily in the otherwise deathly quiet. “You—you’re okay!”

Despite standing straight and tall, it looked for all the world like the Lance had been chewed up by some giant mana beast and spit back out. “I was lucky that the—” He cut off suddenly, staring down at the group of mages. “Who...?”

“Bairon,” my brother said. Anyone who didn’t know him might not have sensed it, but I could hear the undercurrent of tension in his voice. “I’m glad to know I’m not the last of the Lances—”

“Arthur!” Bairon burst out, sputtering.

The wounded Lance half-slid, half-jumped down a section of crumbled wall that made a ramp up onto the higher ledge, rushed toward my brother—whose eyes went wide with surprise—and grabbed him by the shoulders. The usually stoic Lance had tears in his eyes and he stared at Arthur in disbelief, then he leaned forward, resting his forehead against Arthur’s in a sign of respect and care.

Two more figures appeared on top of the ledge, and I felt my jaw fall slack.

Lances Varay and Mica looked a lot different from the last time I’d seen them—in the castle, before Elder Rinia had rescued us from the Alacryans.

Lance Varay followed Bairon down. Her long, snow-white hair had been cut short, and instead of her uniform, she wore battered and ruined silver armor. As Bairon finally released my brother and took a step aside, Varay stepped into his place, her arms slipping around my brother’s waist in a soft embrace. One of her arms was an icy, deep blue, and shined like glass.

I was surprised by how small she seemed next to Arthur. How...normal.

Still standing on the ledge above, Mica snorted. “You’re late."

The dwarven Lance was badly injured. An ugly wound marred the left side of her face, and a black gem glinted in the socket where her eye should have been. She was leaning on a huge stone hammer, watching Arthur and Varay with a look I couldn’t read.

I realized with a spike of alarm that I could barely sense the Lances’ mana signatures. Even though it must have been hours since their battle with Taci ended, they still seemed near the edge of backlash.

Varay pulled back from Arthur, inspecting him closely. “It’s good to have you back, and apparently in the final moments before disaster. You must have been what the old elven seer saw coming?”

Arthur cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “That seems to be the case, yes, though I had no idea what I would be walking into.” He paused and looked around. “Where is Aya—”

“Brother!” I said, the word slipping out almost without my meaning to.

Everyone turned to look at me, brows raised in surprise or lowered in clear irritation, like I should know better than to interrupt when the adults were speaking.

Boo stepped around me, his eyes narrowing in the direction I had felt it.

“There are mana signatures coming,” I said past the lump in my throat, pointing toward where dim beams of light were piercing the cavern ceiling. Sand was raining down through the light, and as we all watched it seemed to pick up, becoming a steady stream. “A whole lot of them.”

I realized then that people had been slowly trickling out of the tunnel mouth behind me, because they all began to panic and surge back toward the tunnel entrance, pushing at the people just trying to come out, and I was suddenly caught in the middle of it, being jostled from all sides.

Boo gave a warning growl as he stepped in to shield me from the rushing bodies.

“Everyone, back to the tunnel!” Bairon barked, his voice still heavy with authority despite his injured state.

Despite his own words, he and the other Lances hesitated. Varay said something, questioning, her expression strained. Arthur’s reply was short and met with clear frustration from the others, but then someone bumped hard against my elbow and I stumbled, reaching out to Boo for support. By the time I looked back, the Lances were marching in our direction, though not without throwing resigned glances back at my brother.

Arthur’s form grew smaller, the only one still moving away as he walked toward the oncoming mana signatures. Alone.

“You can’t just let him go by himself!” I said as Kathyln hurried past me.

The once-princess gave me a wry, apologetic smile as she slipped her arm into mine. Wordlessly, she began pulling me gently, but firmly, back toward the others.

Boo gave me a sniff and nudged me hard with his nose, growling.

“Boo thinks we should fight too,” I muttered, a sense of foreboding filling me with nervous energy that made my fingers tingle and yearn for a bow to hold, since mine had, yet again, been destroyed.

“Boo is brave,” Curtis said from Kathyln’s other side, smiling sadly. “Grawder has been eager for battle as well, but to be honest, I think he’s enjoying his current duty.”

I looked into the dark mouth of the tunnel, but it was packed with people, and Grawder was too far back for me to see. I knew, though, that Curtis had set the giant world lion to guard the many children that were with us, including my friend Camellia, who was no doubt chafing at being treated like a little kid.

When I turned back to the cavern, Arthur had crossed over a pile of rubble that had fallen across the once-beautiful little stream that ran through the cavern. His steps were light, almost relaxed, as he approached where the sand pooled over the smooth stone floor.

The movement of the flowing sand shifted, taking on an undulating pattern of waves, then condensing into several smoothly flowing pillars. Up above, I could just make out a bunch of shadows descending down through the pillars like they were elevators, followed immediately by several more. At the bottom, fifty feet from where Arthur stood, Alacryan soldiers began pouring out of the sand.