The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 432

ARTHUR LEYWIN

“That’s not possible.”

I stared at the marks on the wall. Chul was wrong. He had to be. I couldn’t accept that I’d been gone for so long. It felt like mere hours.

Chul shrugged nonchalantly, then lifted one muscular arm over his head to stretch. “Must be, because it has been.”

“But what’s happening with the war?” I demanded, getting in the half-asuran warrior’s face. “Has Agrona—”

Chul grunted and turned away. “You better talk to Mordain. Come now. I’ll show you.”

Grinding my teeth, I followed. Sylvie and Regis fell into step behind me, each transmitting a different intensity of confusion and discomfort.

‘Too soon to start trying to guess what in the abyss happened?’ Regis asked in my mind.

Yes, I shot back irritably.

‘I felt the passage of time only as a growing ache in my blood and bones as my mana was exhausted,’ Syvie thought. ‘I want to say it couldn’t have been months—I should have withered away from dehydration in a much shorter time than that—but…’

‘You were pretty out of it when we checked on you,’ Regis answered her. ‘Is it possible you were, like, in stasis or something?’

‘My mind was…’ Sylvie paused, struggling for the words. ‘I believe that I was still regenerating from the use of the egg—stone?—thing. My flesh-and-blood brain struggled to meld with the paradoxical memories of what I experienced between my death and return. It is possible that the mana and aether infused within the egg to resurrect me might have also sustained me in that place, but really I have no idea.’

‘Cool, cool cool,’ Regis thought. ‘Is it just me or is Chul poorly trying to hide something?’

Enough, I snapped, the flow of mental chatter threatening to unravel my last frayed nerve. Please, just…enough.

A hint of the sting they both felt at my reproach leaked through our mental connection, and I quickly put up my mental barrier to block them out. My own thoughts were a low, meaningless buzz of noise. I simply stared at Chul’s back and followed him through the dungeon-turned-sanctuary of the rebel asuras’ home.

“You are different,” Chul said, seemingly out of the blue. “Your energy. You seem stronger than you were. Your presence is like a forearm against my throat.”

I frowned at his back, in no mood to make small talk. In the rush to get Sylvie out of the void only to discover our long absence, I hadn’t had even an instant to turn my focus inward toward my core, yet again empowered by the formation of a third layer of aether around the remains of my original mana core.

Chul seemed to take the hint from my silence. He asked no more questions, and the Hearth passed by unnoticed until the rich smell of the alien plants made me aware of my senses once again.

A dozen or so asura were inside the grove, milling about beneath the reaching limbs of the charwood trees. Our arrival caused a stir. From the expressions of shock, dismay, and even outrage that were directed toward Sylvie, it was clear that these refugee asuras of the phoenix race didn’t appreciate having a dragon in their midst.

‘Called it,’ Regis thought, apparently unable to help himself.

It seemed strange to me that their reaction was so strong. They’d been living in the Hearth for hundreds of years, safe from Kezess’s machinations. Sylvie was no threat to them.

But I only had a few seconds to consider it, because my attention caught immediately on Mordain. The tall phoenix was pacing slowly between the trunks of two charwood trees, his hands behind his back, his golden robes just brushing the grass.

I maneuvered around Chul, quickening my pace. Some of the other phoenixes started to leave. The ones who stayed were tense and watchful. I had no doubt that if I were hostile with Mordain in any way they would leap to his defense unquestioningly.

Sensing my approach, Mordain turned, his brows knitting together, his lips pressed flat. “Arthur Leywin, you have returned to us at last—”

“I need to know what’s going on out there,” I said, not caring if I was being rude. “Chul says it's been two months. If that’s true, is Dicathen safe? Has Agrona attacked again?”

Mordain held up his hand in a sign of peace, then gestured to a nearby bench. “There is much to tell you. Perhaps if we—”

“No!” I cut in, my sharp voice ringing uncomfortably in the quiet grove. “Just tell me.”

Mordain regarded me with unaffected, almost casual, grace. Then, with a small smile, he nodded again to the bench and made his way in that direction.

‘Arthur, perhaps it would be faster to stop arguing than to keep making demands?’ Sylvie suggested.

I closed my eyes and forced in a deep breath, letting the air fill me. When I let the breath go, I pictured it taking some of my panicked anger with it. When that didn’t help, I marched to the bench and sat down stiffly next to Mordain.

“Agrona has not attacked Dicathen again,” Mordain said immediately. He crossed his legs and shifted into a more comfortable position on the bench before continuing. “In part because he is still occupied managing the affairs of Alacrya. Also, though, because of the dragons.”

My entire body tensed. “What do you mean?”

Mordain’s fingers drummed on the back of the bench. It was only once, then the noise and motion stopped, but it was enough to give away his agitation. “Less than a week after you and Aldir went through the portal, a rift opened in the sky above the Beast Glades. Not far from here, in fact. Dragons began pouring out.”

I jumped to my feet. “Kezess—the dragons—are they—”

“They spread across the continent rapidly. Your people, it seems, have welcomed them with open arms. Dragons patrol the coastlines and sky, but also have installed themselves in your largest cities. Advisors and protectors, or so they are claiming.”

The painful hammering of my heart began to ease somewhat. “They haven’t attacked anyone?”

Mordain shook his head, then waved for me to be seated again. “It seems Kezess has followed through with his promise to help you safeguard your continent. Although…” He trailed off, not finishing his thought, but his blazing eyes stayed on mine.

I eased myself back down. “Dragons in every major city. You think they are as much a threat as protection.”

The devious ingenuity of Kezess’s ploy came clear as I considered it. The threat of direct violence never needed to be more than implied as a possibility, but this occupation also allowed him to weaponize the safety of Dicathen indirectly by threatening to remove his forces. What leader—king, counselor, or Lance—could convince the people that they would be safer without the dragons present?

Do even I have that kind of political capital? I wondered.

Mordain’s countenance had turned grim. “Kezess is ancient, and he has played this game many times before in Epheotus, with much greater stakes than now. Or, at least that is the case so far as he is concerned.”

I scanned the grove. Regis and Sylvie were standing nearby, watching the conversation play out. Sylvie wore a thoughtful frown, and I could tell she was thinking about her time training in Epheotus. Regis, on the other hand, was unconcerned with the appearance of the dragons.

When he felt me probe his mind, he cocked his head slightly and met my eye. ‘The whole point of siding with the almighty psychopath was to buy time, right? Deal with our laundry list of deitific assholes one at a time? This lets us do that. The dragons in Dicathen aren’t going to move against us or the people while your agreement with Kezess stands.’

“Do you have any news of my family?” I asked, unable to hide the guilt I felt at having left them for months without a word.

Mordain gave me a sad smile and shook his head slightly. “While the dragons may be your allies, they are very firmly still my enemies, at least for so long as Kezess rules them. It has been difficult to learn even the little I have of what is happening outside the Hearth.”

Biting back a sigh, I stood again. “I’m afraid I need to leave immediately, then. I’ve been away for far, far too long already.”

Mordain stayed where he was, looking up at me from the bench. “Perhaps the urgency is not as great as you believe. If you’ll take my council, I would suggest preparing yourself more fully before you rush into the dragon’s mouth, so to speak.”

‘Listen, it’s not like little Ellie is likely to be hanging by her toes over the caldera of an active volcano and rushing back to Vildorial right now will be the only thing tosave her, right?’ Regis asked with all of his usual charm and tact. ‘We should probably, y’know, figure out what the hell is happening first.’

‘While I don’t necessarily agree with the delivery,’ Sylvie added, shooting Regis an exasperated look, ‘Regis is right. If the dragons are in control of Dicathen, that makes it very dangerous for all of us.’

I didn’t find their arguments convincing, but I knew there was another way to ensure that my family was safe. Returning to my seat, I withdrew the seeing artifact. “Excuse me one moment, Mordain. I want to hear you out, but I need to be sure.”

Gripping the milky white crystal, I imbued it with aether. My vision shifted, focusing on the crystal’s surface as tendrils of aether met my own. As I’d done many times before, I thought of Ellie, and my senses were drawn through the artifact and across the miles separating us. When the rush of movement stopped, I was looking down on her from above. She was lounging in a wooden chair, her leg kicked up over the arm, and she wore a look of intense boredom.

I recognized Gideon’s lab around her, and when I thought of the old inventor the perspective shifted slightly, revealing both Gideon and Emily. They were talking, asking Ellie questions. They didn’t appear to be in any danger…

I watched for another minute but nothing changed. Emily or Gideon would say something I couldn’t hear, then Ellie would offer a mute response. With enough effort, I could have read their lips, but it was enough just to know that Ellie was safe. Seeing her so relaxed—bored, even—made me confident that my mother would be fine as well.

Withdrawing from the artifact, I returned it to my dimension rune.

“Thank you for your patience,” I told Mordain, who had let his gaze wander while I’d focused on the distant vision offered by the artifact.

“Where's Aldir?”

I looked up to realize that Wren Kain had appeared while I was focused on the crystal.

“He…” I paused, my gaze sweeping over all the asuras listening in.

Aldir had been right. His death was capital I could spend both with the people of Dicathen and Kezess. Now, with the dragons present in Dicathen, I needed every advantage I could get.

From my dimension rune, I withdrew the silver rapier Aldir had called Silverlight, regarding Wren firmly but solemnly. “His crimes against Dicathen couldn't go unpunished.”

Both Mordain and Wren stared at the blade, momentarily frozen.

“You ignorant lesser,” the titan spat, throwing his arms up and glaring at me. “Aldir wasn’t your enemy. You have no idea what he gave up to leave Epheotus. If you think Kezess will reward you for doing his dirty work, you’re a bigger fool than I ever realized. Had I known that training you would lead us to this, I’d have let you twiddle your damned thumbs on that crater.”

More than anything else Wren said, this last part stung. Silverlight vanished again, and I straightened to my full height. “Millions of elven voices will never ring through the forests of their forefathers again, because Aldir destroyed both the voices and the forests. If you think that Aldir died simply so I can get a pat on the back from Kezess, then you asuras are even more ignorant than us so-called lessers.”

Wren’s glare could have shattered granite. “So you can forgive the tyrant who ordered such an atrocity but not the soldier forced to carry it out? You truly were once a king, weren’t you?”

“Don’t mistake necessity for forgiveness,” I answered, the words as hard and cold as a knife’s edge.

Wren let out a derisive snort, but if he had anything else to say, he kept it to himself.

Mordain cleared his throat. “It isn’t my place to pass judgment on what has been done. Epheotus will mourn the passing of a great warrior, but it may also be that your people will celebrate his death as justice. What’s done is done.” His gaze shifted to Sylvie. “It seems that you were successful in your purpose.”

Thanks to Aldir, I thought, acknowledging his sacrifice quietly even if I could not voice it aloud.

Sylvie took a step forward and bobbed her head in a shallow bow. “Lord Mordain of the Asclepius Clan. Thank you for assisting my bond.”

Mordain’s brows inched up, his expression as he regarded her difficult to parse. “Lady Sylvie of Clan Indrath. Your heritage is known to me. Half dragon, half basilisk, raised by a human. An alchemy of contradictions. Where, I wonder, does your loyalty lie?”

Sylvie raised her chin, and I felt the inner fire of her resolve swell. “With Arthur, as it always has. Dicathen is my home, its people my people. It’s enemies”—she held the ancient phoenix’s eye, every syllable honed to a fine point—“my enemies.”

Mordain hummed thoughtfully. “And yet you’ll always be pulled in not two but three different directions. Both factions of asura will attempt to use and manipulate you for their own gain. Arthur already walks along danger’s edge in his dealings with your grandfather. Your return will complicate that further.”

I moved to stand beside my bond, resting a hand on her shoulder. Regis stalked forward, standing on my other side. “Your words of caution are beginning to sound more like threats.”

“I would not dream of it. You do not seem like a man who would be easily ensnared, but against such a force as Agrona, no one is immune to temptation,” Mordain said.

His gaze seemed to pierce my mind and conjure up the memory of how I had begged Agrona to accept his deal: my family’s safety in exchange for my own agreement to stop fighting in the war.