The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 431

SYLVIE INDRATH

“Kyu…?”

A wry, trembling smile curved one corner of Arthurs lips. “Welcome back, Sylv.”

I blinked again, and Arthur was an old man with streaks of gray in his wheat-blond hair and deep furrows wrinkling his skin. Without meaning to, I withdrew, pressing my fingers against my lips.

This too-old image of my bond hesitated, his hand, which had been reaching out toward me, pulling back slightly, just an inch, his brows creasing into a frown. I blinked, and the vision faded. Arthur, the real Arthur, was standing—no, floating—in front of me, his liquid-gold gaze like the hot summer sun on my skin.

His hesitation abated and he leaned forward, wrapping strong arms around me and pulling me to him.

I closed my eyes and let out a shaking breath. Arthur’s relief washed over me, pure and warm and hard-won. So many moments where my return was within arm’s reach and then snatched away by circumstance, so much time and energy focused on the stone containing my essence. Beneath the relief, there was a hint of regret—slight but bitter—that it had taken so long or been necessary at all. And the anxiety…the fear, the weight of it enough to crush anyone weaker, enough to choke the life from anyone else.

My mind was still knitting itself back together, and as we held each other, I lost track of where my bond began and where I ended. “Papa…it’s really you. I was afraid you were a dream.”

The concept of time was all but shattered. Floating in that strange, aetherial place, just the two of us, our embrace may have been only the briefest contact or lasted yet another lifetime. I held desperately onto that connection, needing Arthur’s presence to anchor me into that moment in time and space.

“So…hey there,” a voice—not Arthur’s—said from the void.

My eyes snapped open, and I stared incredulously at a strange being floating next to Arthur.

He was shaped like a wolf, except his fur seemed to be grown out of purest shadow and a burning ring of aetheric flame wreathed his neck. He was considering me with bright eyes, which glowed in the gloom beneath a pair of straight, onyx horns.

I reached up and brushed the horns sticking out from my own head, feeling inexplicably nervous. But no, that wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t nervous, I was confused. The creature was nervous, but his emotions were bleeding into me, like Arthur’s. I prodded, but there was a wall between our minds.

“Sylvie, hi—y’know, actually, I’m not quite sure what to call you. Like, are we siblings? Step-siblings? Are you my mom? My aunt? Y’know, Aunt Sylvie has kind of a—”

“Hello, Regis,” I said with a growing smile, his name appearing to me from Arthur’s mind.

Suddenly, flashing memories and disjointed thoughts were jumping like electrical sparks behind my eyes. It was too much, and each flash was accompanied with a dull-needle jab of pain.

Closing my eyes, I pressed my fingers into my temples. “Arthur—your thoughts—I can’t…”

An undercurrent of alarm ran beneath all my other conflicting emotions, then the deluge ceased. I drew a steadying breath, relief washing away the lingering pain.

“Sylvie, I’m sorry, I should have realized,” Arthur said, and I felt him drifting back slightly.

I shook my head. “Not your fault…” Slowly, my eyes opened again. They met Regis’s, who appeared stricken, as if he himself had done something to harm me. “My mind is…full of a raging storm right now. My own thoughts are disparate and disjointed and…it’s a lot. But it’s a pleasure to meet you, Regis.”

The wolf bent his front legs and dipped his head in a sort of awkward, floating, lupine bow. I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight, which made Regis chuckle too.

“You look different,” Arthur said into the silence that followed.

The words made me uncomfortable, but it took me a moment to realize why. We’d been apart for such a long time, but for me, the battle against Nico and Cadell in Dicathen was both moments and a lifetime ago, and I was unaccustomed to Arthur shrouding his thoughts and feelings so completely from me.

Closing my eyes, I reached for his mind. I felt the barrier, then a question. I nudged into it, and it gave way, molding itself around me. Not breaking completely, but making room for me. I saw myself through Arthur’s eyes.

My blonde hair spilled down over my shoulders. Black horns protruded from the hair, stabbing downward and out. My eyes were bright yellow, gemlike, set in a face that had grown slightly sharper, slightly older. I wore a black dress of fine, glossy scales that caught the purple light of this realm and reflected it back, making it look like my body blurred away into the void.

“I look older,” I said, opening my eyes. “Just like you. But then, I’ve waited a lifetime to return.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked. The worry in his face was also mingling into my own emotions, though distantly. “Sylvie, what did you do, back then? Where have you been?”

“Time,” I said, then shook my head, uncertain how much of what I remembered was reality. “There will be time to tell you everything I know.” I looked around again, growing more curious as the haze of my return faded. “Where are we?”

“If it has a name, I don’t know it,” Arthur said seriously. “I’ve been thinking of it as the aether realm. The djinn built their Relictombs within it.”

Knowledge of what those terms meant manifested from Arthur’s thoughts as he spoke, but that only served to confuse me further.

“You have a lot to tell me too, it seems,” I said with a shake of my head. As I spoke, I became aware of a discomfort in my lungs, like I was breathing under a heavy blanket.

“Sylv?”

There is no mana here, I realized with a sort of detached curiosity. I experienced this lack of mana as a burning that was slowly growing outward from my chest. It was not dangerous—not yet—but it was uncomfortable and further disoriented me.

“We should go,” Arthur said, his worry growing sharper. “This place isn’t safe for asuras. We can catch up in—”

“No, I’m okay,” I assured him, honing in on something that had jumped across the partially shielded connection between our minds. “There is something else you want here, isn’t there?”

“I…” Arthur rubbed the back of his neck, the sight of which conjured a warm glow in my chest. “No, really, I don’t want to keep you here any longer than necessary.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his feeble attempt to lie. “Your mental barrier has grown…crass, Arthur.”

“Blame him,” he said, chagrined, gesturing to Regis.

“Whoa, hey, I’m just floating here. What’d I do?”

Reaching out, I touched the tips of my fingers to Arthur’s chest. “Your core,” I said, piecing together tendrils of half-formed thought that drifted along our mental connection. “You really have changed, haven’t you?”

Little by little, Arthur opened his thoughts to me, showing me the truth of what had happened to him. The connection didn’t overwhelm me like before since Arthur was still keeping a barrier between us, but it was enough that I could make sense of the memories that drifted through: his core, broken; rebuilding it with aether; the trap, pushing energy into him until his core cracked…

“Sylvie, I’m just glad to finally have you back. Nothing else matters. I don’t even know if I can form another layer around my core, but that’s a problem for another day. Right now—”

“Arthur, everything is important when you balance the weight of worlds on your shoulders.” I pushed down the ache in my chest, steeling myself to do whatever was necessary. “You’ve worked so hard to bring me back, but now I am, and I’m not going anywhere. If staying in this place just a bit longer will help you stand up against my father and grandfather, then you have to do it.”

When Arthur’s discomfort wasn’t immediately soothed, I added, “Please, it will help me understand. A lot of what you’ve shown me feels so unreal.”

“Whoa, that’s a lot of conflicting emotions from both sides,” Regis said, shaking like a wet dog. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

Arthur regarded Regis for a moment, then closed his eyes and settled his mind. “You were my priority in coming here, Sylv, but if I can take this opportunity to increase my power as well…”

No need to explain, I said mentally.

He gave me an abashed smile and pulled me in for another quick hug. “Thank you, Sylv. Sorry I haven’t already said it, but I’m glad you’re back.”

“I shudder to think what you’ve been up to without me,” I teased, reinforcing my own mental barrier so my thoughts didn’t leak into Arthur’s. I needed to be strong, for him, like I always had. I was his protector. Despite what this place made me feel—like I was warm water in a leaking bath, slowly cooling and draining away—this next step for Arthur felt essential.

I had waited for him for a lifetime. I could wait a short while longer.

Arthur closed his eyes and the aether began moving. I drifted back several feet, giving him space to focus.

Regis left his side, swimming through the void until he was next to me. I could tell he was eager to say something, but he seemed to be building his courage. The shadow wolf both looked and felt unlike any creature I had ever seen, simultaneously alien and familiar, comfortable and antagonistic.

As I looked at him, I noticed something else for the first time. Far below us, something like a dungeon was floating freely in the void. Thick, semi-transparent walls of earth and stone encased it, but I could see dark hallways inside.

“The Relictombs,” Regis said, glancing downward. “Sort of like home. I guess you could say I was born there. Not there, in particular, just, y’know.” He was quiet for a moment, almost sheepish, then, “Hey, I just wanted to say, no hard feelings, right? Like, I’m not the ‘Sylvie replacement’ or anything like that. He didn’t, you know…”