The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 401

NICO SEVER

The sterile glow of my workbench lighting artifacts illuminated an array of parts that were spread out over the dark wood. Silver runes ran around the edge and across the surface of the Imbuing workbench in circles of varying sizes.

I picked up two nearly-identical objects: hexagonal fittings with a series of grooves and notches etched into the inside. Both were alloys of silver rather than pure silver—I speculated these might perform better for housing active mana crystals, but I would have to experiment to see which silver held up better and resulted in a cleaner transfer of mana.

There were a thousand variables to consider while undertaking an Imbuing project as complicated as this, and I couldn’t afford anything less than perfection.

My eye caught on a blemish on the edge of one of the interior grooves in the fittings. With a frustrated breath, I tossed it back on the charwood workbench surface.

Yet another delay. That blemish is going to prevent the mana crystal from seating properly. And I’ll have to order a replacement from a different silversmith too.

My right eye twitched, and another memory of Earth invaded my focus.

In it, I was perhaps eight or nine, sitting by myself out behind the orphanage. With a small pocketknife in hand, I was whittling a stick I’d found in the street. Nothing special, just carving a bunch of circles around it so that it kind of looked like a pretend magic wand.

I’d carved just over half of the stick when the knife slipped, slicing deep into my thumb. It hurt, but I was more afraid of being caught with the knife. Headmaster Wilbeck would have taken it away and scolded me, then I’d have had to see that stupid I’m-suffering-with-you look on Grey’s face for a week. It was a small but important lesson.

Be more careful. Pay attention, but don’t draw attention. Hide when you’re hurting.

A life was made of thousands of little moments like this…the fear and the pain clear over everything else, teaching a person not to touch a hot surface or put their thumb on the wrong side of the blade. It was a large part of the material that forged a personality.

Without those memories, what did a person become?

Faced with questions I couldn’t answer, I reached for the apathy I had felt after waking up in the laboratory far below…after Grey destroyed my core and left me to die.

After Cecilia did the impossible and healed me again.

One fist hammered on the workbench, making the prepared parts jump.

The dragon core I’d stolen rolled out of a circle of runes and toward the edge of the workbench. The rage I’d felt was washed away by a sudden pang of alarm, and I practically lunged across the table to grab the core, cradling it in both my hands.

Holding the cold hard shell, it was easier to push away the angry voice within me and focus on the apathy instead. I would need that control. As much as these invasive memories of my past life—on both Earth and Dicathen as the fool, Elijah—were troublesome, I also felt fiercely protective over them.

They were mine. And now that I had them back, I wouldn’t give them up again.

Which meant I would have a secret from Agrona. There was something thrilling about that prospect. He was not a man who could easily be fooled, however. I would need to feign a lack of control while actually holding an iron grip over myself and my emotions. I couldn’t give him any reason to tamper with my mind.

This line of thought caused a sharp twinge of guilt that I couldn’t ignore.

Cecilia…

Despite my eagerness to speak with her after the resurgence of my old memories, I’d only crossed paths with her briefly, and I hadn’t found it in myself to start the discussion I knew we needed to have. At that very moment, any number of falsified memories were clouding her mind, memories that I had helped develop. More than that, though, I had no way of knowing how many little moments of her previous life she might be missing.

How much of what made you the person I love most in all the world is still intact? I wondered, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted the metallic tang of blood.

I closed my eyes hard, scrunching up my face and tightening my muscles, then released the tension. If I tumbled down into the deep, cold darkness of these thoughts now, I’d never complete my current task.

Carefully, I eased the core back onto the workbench and examined the array of parts and equipment I had managed to get hold of quietly. It would have been much simpler if I hadn’t also felt the need to keep my activities shrouded from Agrona—or whatever much of it was possible.

The problem was that I couldn’t make everything myself. Sure, there were facilities inside Taegrin Caelum to do so, but everything I did there would be watched. And if I ordered all the materials from the same Imbuers and smiths, I risked giving away too much of my design. And so I’d quietly gathered everything piecemeal.

This was better for keeping things quiet, but not so much for efficiency. In addition to the scuffed fitting, I’d already received three mana crystals with imperfections, a piece of charwood three inches too short, and an order of refined quicksilver that was contaminated with cinnabar.

But the resurgence of my old memories had reminded me exactly where my strengths lay. For far too long now, I’d relied on the inherent raw power that came from being reincarnated into a Vritra-blooded body. The ability to master even one of the Vritra’s decay-type mana arts made me stronger than most other mages in this world, and I had leaned on that almost exclusively throughout my training in Taegrin Caelum. Even the runes marring the flesh along my spine seemed paltry afterthoughts by comparison.

But with more of my old memories returning in bursts, I realized I had something else, too, something no other Alacryan had.

On Earth, I’d been a technical wizard, mastering advanced scientific principles at a young age to achieve feats like suppress Cecilia’s ki and allow her to function in something like a normal life. After her death…I spiraled, throwing myself into my research, learning everything about engineering, physics, and ki-related studies that I could.

A surprising amount of this knowledge was directly transferable to working magic, especially Imbuing and artificing. Energy had to be sourced and efficiently transferred, instructions were presented, power outputted to provide a specific result.

Efficiency, I repeated to myself. That is the real problem. If what I’m doing is going to work, it has to allow entirely efficient manipulation of the mana, with no delay or loss.

In Dicathen, I’d been trained to manipulate atmospheric mana, not just my runes and the spell formations they provided. I’d gone to one of the best magic schools on the continent and studied under talented professors, learning mana theory and a type of manipulation that wasn’t studied in Alacrya.

Mages learned to understand the shape of a spell, to mold the mana with their mind and their intention through chants and other devices, like wands. It was harder, and it took longer, but it was much more versatile. The mage could adjust the focus of their intent or the words of a chant to change a spell’s output, or even invent an entirely new spell.

Runes, on the other hand, could be mastered but never changed. They were fixed, as was the benefit they provided to both the mage’s core and body. And without new runes being slowly doled out by Agrona’s servants, no Alacryan mage could make true progress, even among the Scythes.

But there was no reason I had to rely on Agrona to gain power. Not with all the knowledge and skill I had at my disposal.

I saw everything more clearly now that my core had been ruined and rebuilt.

Cecilia had worked a miracle I still didn’t understand in returning the gift of magic to me, but it wasn’t without a cost.

My core was weak.

And that meant everyone would see me as weak.

But the world was changing. Everything was shifting around us, becoming more dangerous by the day. Cecilia had been so busy since I’d recovered, and I knew there was only one reason that would be.

Agrona was preparing her for war.

If she thought I was too weak, she would leave me behind. There would be sadness in her eyes when she did so, and she would truly believe it was for my own protection, but it would destroy us. She’d never look at me the same way again, and Agrona would slowly cut me out of the picture. Soon, she would be nothing but a weapon for him, and worst of all, she wouldn’t even know that she’d wanted to be anything else.

I had to stay by her side. I had to protect her.

And I would do anything to make sure I was strong enough to do so.

With a firm grip on my purpose, I lifted a long, twisted black branch of charwood—one I’d risked raiding from Agrona’s private stores after the first sample had been inadequate. Charwood came from Agrona’s home in Epheotus, and was as hard as steel and perfect for working runic magic, but also very rare and expensive. The six-foot-long staff came to a dull point at one end but was splintered on the wider end where it had been broken free of its tree.

I took up a tool that looked somewhat like a shallow spoon crossed with a scalpel and pressed it against the charwood. Mana jumped from my hand to the tool’s handle, and runes hidden beneath leather wrapping converted the mana to heat. In moments, the blackened metal scoop was glowing orange.

I pressed hard on the raw charwood, and the tool bit into it, giving off a thin wisp of smoke that smelled of vanilla. Fueling my muscles with mana, I drove the tool into the wood, but still managed to scrape away only a thin shaving. Gritting my teeth, I repeated the process, then again, each time coming away with a paper-thin wafer.

After twenty minutes, I had scoured a shallow divot into the staff. After an hour, I had an uneven pit. In two, I was able to carve out a precise facet.

Next, I took up one of the metallic fittings, double-checking to ensure it was perfect. I pressed it into the facet, then took up a small hammer and drove it into the opening. The hammer’s ringing drowned out all the other subtle noises of the castle, such as servants moving back and forth in the hallway outside and muffled bursts of magic from one of the training rooms below.

After setting down the hammer, I inspected the results: the silvery fitting had settled perfectly into the carved facet, and suddenly the plain stick appeared to be something more than it had been. No longer a piece of nature, but something crafted and given purpose.

Taking up another item from the workbench, I slipped a hexagonal jewel into the fitting. The bright red stone looked bloody and dark against the black wood and silver metal. But I didn’t permanently set the stone. Instead, I shook it loose and placed it back on the workbench, turned the staff over, and picked up the carving tool again.

“That looks like a fascinating project.”

I flinched so hard that I scraped the scorching tool across my knuckles. It burned hot enough to pierce my mana barrier and flay the flesh underneath. I cursed and threw the stupid thing back on the table.

“Oh, sorry!” Cecilia hurried to my side, leaning down and taking my hand in her own.

I wondered nervously how long she’d been standing there, then realized she must have come in while I was hammering.

She bit her lip as she inspected the wound, and when she looked up into my eyes, her own were shining. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I said, my voice hard, then added, “I’m fine,” in a softer tone.

Mana trickled out of her fingertips and across the wound, cooling the flesh and easing the burning sting. My own mana was already circulating through my body to enhance my rate of healing as well.

“I’m glad you’re here, actually,” I added after an awkward pause where we both just stared at the cut. “I need to talk to you about something.”

She flashed me a chagrined sort of smile and subtly rolled her eyes toward the door. “It’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. Agrona has called for us. For all the Scythes, and me.”

Her tone carried the same uncertainty I felt at this news. It was rare for all the Scythes to be gathered at once.

“Do you—”

“No, but he’s…riled,” she said slowly. “I’ve never seen him like this before.”

I wanted to tell her that she hadn’t been with him that long, didn’t know him well at all, hadn’t seen him at his worst, but I kept my thoughts to myself. Whatever this news was, it didn’t bode well that Agrona had allowed himself to appear outwardly upset.

Before following Cecilia from my chambers, I took a moment to look over the workbench. I used a rag to wipe my blood from the carving tool, fiddled with a few items to line them up better in their respective runic circles, then, realizing it would be exceedingly foolish to leave it here while I was gone, I surreptitiously grabbed the core and slipped it into an inside pocket of my jacket.

“What are you working on, anyway?” Cecilia asked as we stepped out into the hall.

I turned around and set the mana lock. “Oh, nothing really, it’s…”

She smirked at me and I trailed off. “I can tell it’s something you’re excited about. You don’t need to say, of course, but I’m glad you’ve found something to occupy your time.”

Sticking my hands in my pockets, I rubbed the core with my thumb through the fabric of the lining, but I didn’t elaborate.

Cecilia turned right instead of left down the hallway, catching me off guard.

“Aren’t we going to Agrona’s private wing?” I asked, hurrying after her.

“No. He’s called us all to the Obsidian Vault.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. I wasn’t even sure what I felt. The Obsidian Vault was where the highest echelons of Agrona’s subjects received their bestowals: Wraiths, Scythes, retainers, and occasionally even highblood warriors or ascenders who captured Agrona’s attention.

There was only one reason he would call us to the Obsidian Vault.

There was going to be a bestowal. Maybe it’s not bad news after all.

“Nico, I wanted to say…” Cecilia’s voice drew me back out of thought, and I turned to look at her.

I’d come to terms with her change of appearance, just as I’d accepted my own. Seeing the fine elven features—the pointed ears, almond-shaped eyes, and silvery gunmetal hair that she kept threatening to dye—now, though, wrapped up with all Elijah’s memories of Tessia Eralith, caused more conflict than I was used to.

“—sorry that I haven’t been around much these last few days. I have wanted to speak to you—I’m sure coming to terms with what happened at the Victoriad has been difficult—but there is a lot going on in both Dicathen and Alacrya, and Agrona has kept me unusually busy, so…”

That only confirmed what I’d already guessed. Agrona was getting ready to unleash Cecilia, send her into real battle.