The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 442

CECILIA

Voices above, around. Familiar, but far away. So, so far away…

The words, talking about the flames in my flesh, dancing like sprites. Swirling, eager mana, burning, burning. Too much. More and more, drawn to me, flames to the moth. Filling me. My blood, my bones.

Mine.

Mine, like the hole. Deep and endless. A frost-filled pit. Can’t remember…what was there before? In the hole?

Magic. Mana. A key. A core.

The words again. Strange voices, and familiar ones. “Delirium.” “Fever.” “Danger.” “Time.”

Time. A snapped thread, frayed, incoherent.

Light, dark, light, dark…dark…

Eyes open. A darkness full of color. Red, yellow, green, blue…mana.

Figures looming. Needles in my flesh, metal pressed against my skin. More words. “Delay.” “Will.” “Soul.” “Healing.” “Integration.” “

Darkness again.

I woke up trembling. The echo of a scream ringing in my ears, heart racing, bursting. Terrified.

There were stars. Outside my windows. The purple silhouette of mountains. Their name escaped me. Something was wrong. With my mind, with my magic.

I closed my eyes, tried to think. It hurt. I hurt. My skin was burning. Muscles ached. Every breath was full of ragged pain. Pain and…mana. Every breath was full of mana. Not flowing into my core but…into me.

Calm down. The mana was there. The magic was there.

Wind blew through me, cooling my bones. Sleep slipped back over me.

I blinked awake again, an unknown presence filling my rooms. At the foot of the bed, a man stood. Like Agrona, but also nothing like Agrona. His eyes, two bright rubies, pierced me like blood-tipped spears. I shivered, feeling his gaze on my skin, under my skin, peeling me apart layer by layer.

He had a cold, gray face, impassive around his cutting eyes. Two horns corkscrewed up from the top of his head. I knew that face, I thought. Only…

He said something, and someone else moved into view, his own presence dwarfing the first man. Agrona. He smiled down at me, and spoke kind words.

Sovereign Oludari Vritra of Truacia.

Names and places, the meanings of which I couldn’t seem to capture.

Oludari replied, concerned.

Agrona brushed the concerns aside, confident, assuring. Daunting.

Oludari, unassuaged. Agrona, commanding. Oludari, subservient. He cast an uneasy glance at me, and my spirit shriveled. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.

When I opened them again, I was alone. Time felt more tangible…more real. I could tell that several hours had passed.

I struggled to think back to Agrona’s conversation with Oludari, but it was like trying to remember a dream after waking. The more I tried to cling to the memory, the more it slipped through my grasp.

My fever had broken. How long has it been? I wondered. Weeks, I suspected.

‘Long enough that I wasn’t sure we were going to survive after all,’ Tessia said in my mind. ‘Integration…I never could have imagined experiencing it myself. How would everyone rea—’

I groaned and rolled over, pulling one of the sweat-stained pillows over my head. Leave me alone.

There was no reply.

After a few minutes, I pushed away the pillow and kicked my legs over the edge of the bed. The floor was cold against my hot skin, and when I stood, my legs shook violently. I stumbled to the balcony door, which was open, and leaned against the railing. The wind off the mountains was bitter cold, conjuring gooseflesh all over my body and making it shake even worse.

Mana flowed to my limbs, and the shaking eased. It filled my lungs, helping me to breathe deeply. It sparked within my mind, clearing my thoughts.

Before, I’d felt like I was at one with the mana. It listened to me, reacted to my thoughts and desires, a tool I could do anything with. I should be stronger now, but…

There was this inescapable sense of irony. I couldn’t remember feeling weaker and less myself since being reincarnated into this world. I was the Legacy, and now I’d gone through Integration, making me perhaps the most powerful mage in the world. But I couldn’t stop my knees from shaking or the sweat from beading on my brow. Every breath felt like I was forcing it into my lungs, like the next time I tried to breathe I might not be able to.

Agrona had told me I was past the worst of it, but it didn’t feel that way. Whatever had happened to me while I was unconscious, right after my Integration, I couldn’t see how it was worse than these weeks of healing and sickness.

There was a frightening sense of incorrectness to it. Kind of like when I’d had a huge ki center, but hadn’t been able to stop it from surging out of me and hurting Nico—and Grey.

Leaning forward, I was sick over the balcony's edge. I propped myself up on the cold railing, tasting the bitterness of my own bile on my teeth and losing myself for a while. Then, slowly, I stumbled back to my bed and fell in it, but sleep was distant and unreachable.

I just lay there, able to do nothing but drag the spotlight of my attention across the internal workings of this fragile elven body. It was still in the final stages of acclimating to the mana, now infusing every cell. It was a strange sensation to have mana that was not constrained by a core. I really was one with mana. That’s what Integration was. Agrona had tried to describe it, but what he’d told me couldn’t match with reality. Maybe his asuran mind couldn’t even conceive of what Integration really meant. But then, I thought, no one who hadn’t experienced this sense of balance and power could hope to understand it.

Tentatively, I began to experiment with it, sensing the flow of mana around and through me. Water-attribute mana soothed my aching muscles while wind-attribute mana cooled my skin. Earth-attribute mana hardened in my bones and fire-attribute mana warmed my blood.

This detached kind of observation helped bring some clarity. Integration, I realized, was actually a lot like awakening to mana after spending my entire former life trying to control my ki.

In the same way that mana had felt so much more complete and magical, Integration felt exponentially more potent than relying on a core to use magic. The creation of a mana core was similar to the condensing of a ki center since each required the concentration of energy to form, with the sensation of mana filling and flowing freely through my body very similar to ki manipulation on Earth.

I felt myself shrink back from this thought, still afraid that my mana—like with ki—would surge beyond my control. Without a core to control it…

I sat up and pushed my back against the wall, slowing my breathing. Being the Legacy hadn’t stopped that from happening before, on Earth. I’m in control, I assured myself, repeating it over and over again like a mantra.

Eventually, sleep crept up on me, and I drowsed.

I woke screaming, and an echoing scream came back to me.

Bolting up from my bed, I stared wide-eyed at the startled attendant who had been cleaning my room. Nico was sitting at my bedside, and he quickly dismissed the attendant, who bowed and rushed from the room with a frightened backward glance at me.

“What is it?” Nico asked, his voice soft. It almost sounded like his old voice, his real voice, the way he’d sounded back on Earth.

I looked at him more closely. Not his dark hair and sharp features. No, his Alacryan face wasn’t his any more than Tessia Eralith’s thin elven face was mine. But the way he dug his nails into his palm, the way he tried not to show it when he was biting the inside of his lip, how he leaned toward me every so slightly, like he wanted to be just that little bit closer to me…in those moments, I could see him. And when I closed my eyes, I could picture him so clearly.

I tensed suddenly as Tessia’s voice entered my mind.

‘Show him the mana, from before.’

I knew what she was talking about immediately: the mana I had taken from Agrona’s rune-covered table, the one I’d woken up on after my Integration. It had stayed within me, still carrying the shape and purpose it had been given by the strange runes.

‘Remember, Cecilia. You felt like something was wrong when you first woke up. There is more to all this than what you’re being told.’

I didn’t acknowledge her, but she was right. I had woken up on that table feeling weak but myself, only to sink back into sickness the very same night. Half-remembered words tumbled in the back of my head, out of reach.

Haltingly, I began to explain to Nico what I’d seen and done upon first waking, and the discomfort I’d felt at being surrounded by the strange mages.

“You did…what? That doesn’t make sense, Cecil.” He gave me a pitying look. “It’s not…well, possible.”

I held out my hand, palm up. Warm light issued from my skin as a wisp of mana appeared in the air, burning in the shape of the runes that had originally given it form.

Nico’s eyes widened and his breathing became shallow. He leaned forward, peering at the mana, his struggle to understand and accept it clearly written across his face.

I told him about the runes, and what I wanted to do.

Moving gingerly, Nico pressed the tip of his finger down into the mana. It condensed into a swarm of individual particles and was pulled into his body. I held my focus around it, allowing the spell to keep its form instead of being dissolved into the individual components of its mana. Nico’s eyes closed, jumping around beneath his lids.

“It’s…I’m not sure.” Nico’s words rolled out of him in a slow drawl as his focus stayed on the spell. I felt him channeling mana into his regalia. “The structure, the runes—the magic, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen, but…” His eyes opened, and he stared at me. His fear was obvious. “This is going to take some time. We…shouldn’t tell anyone else about this.”

I agreed completely.

Nico hesitated, clearly thinking hard about something, then added, “Except…Draneeve, maybe. Only if completely necessary. We can trust him, because—well, just know that we can trust him. I’ve had him keeping an eye on you whenever I couldn’t.”

Despite not really understanding, I acknowledged what he said.

After that, Nico came to my rooms as often as was prudent. Slowly, more of my time was spent awake than asleep, but the experience of Integration left behind a deep-rooted fatigue that kept me in my chambers.

Nico was restless when presented with a problem, a puzzle to be solved, a knot to be undone. His mind could focus on nothing else, and even when he couldn’t be with me—my presence was required to hold the shape of the mana—he thought about it ceaselessly.

I could tell something was bothering him, but he was hiding his fears from me. In all this time together, I hadn’t wanted to derail his thoughts and so hadn’t gone into more detail about the return of my old memories…but no, really, that’s just an excuse. I was afraid. Afraid of what I might hear after confessing. What would that conversation lead to? I wasn’t ready to tell him that I had killed myself and let Grey take the blame.

Whenever someone knocked on my door, I expected it to be Nico. I was surprised, then, the day that Melzri strode in. She wrinkled her nose as she looked around my room, not hiding her distaste. “Hello, Legacy. I’ve been tasked with fetching you for some training. I’m sure you’re just as excited about the prospect as I am.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, I stood and gestured wordlessly for her to lead the way. We were quiet as we passed through the halls of Taegrin Caelum, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of scurrying like a mouse in her wake. I hated feeling so vulnerable.

Melzri’s long bright-white braid bounced with each step. The way her horns curled back over her head, they were pointing at me like spears. We’d never got along, but I couldn’t help but admire her obvious self-confidence, the way she was entirely at ease in her own skin. I thought about trying to make small talk to break the awkward silence between us but didn’t know where to begin.

She was a Scythe, and all of Alacrya knew her story. When her blood manifested, the resulting conflux of mana killed her highblood foster siblings. Her foster father—the man who had raised her for twelve years—flew into a rage and tried to kill her. Defending herself, she burned the heart out of his chest. After that, she was taken in by Agrona and raised within this very fortress.

It was probably why she’d become so bitter toward me. After all, she’s been like a daughter to Agrona before I arrived. In some way, I was certain she thought that I’d supplanted her.

And I suppose, really, I had. That didn’t make me feel bad for her or anything. In fact, as I considered the situation, I felt more and more strongly that she’d gotten exactly what she deserved. Melzri and the rest of the Scythes were self-important, cruel people. They’d been awful to Nico. Suddenly that self-confidence I had admired only seconds earlier seemed unearned.

I clenched my jaw and walked in silence.

We ended up in a long hall deep in the stone at the base of Taegrin Caelum. The bare walls and floor were cracked and blackened with scorch marks from the many powerful mages—retainers, Scythes, even Wraiths—who had trained here over the decades. There was no equipment or weaponry, nothing to help with training. Anyone strong enough to be brought here didn’t need things like that.

I was unsurprised to find Scythe Viessa already present, along with Draneeve and a handful of nameless mages I didn’t recognize. Of those present, Viessa had the strongest mana signature, then Melzri. Draneeve was a distant third. The others were all mediocre mages at best. I could only assume they were researchers or scientists, not warriors.

Melzri stopped beside Viessa, glowering at me. Viessa’s porcelain skin was washed out in the dim light, her purple hair dark and her void-black eyes even darker.

She would have been terrifying except…

I looked down at my own hand, rubbing my fingers together. I could see the mana in each of them, watch it churning in their core as it was purified, and knew better than they did themselves just how strong, or weak, they really were. I could break these Scythes with a snap of my fingers. If I wanted to.

Draneeve bobbed forward, his expression hidden behind his awful mask. “Ah, Lady Cecilia. Lord Agrona sends his regrets that he can’t join us at the moment. But he hopes Scythes Melzri and Viessa will…” He trailed off, his eyes jumping to the Scythes behind the mask. He cleared his throat, then finished, “That they will make suitable partners for your training today.”

Viessa hissed under her breath. “We should be helping Dragoth dig out the traitor, not babysitting this reincarnate child.”

Melzri only rolled her shoulders and grinned. “Now, sister, don’t be like that. The Legacy needs all the help she can get. Despite everything the High Sovereign has done to get her to this point, she hasn’t had so much as one real victory for him.”

Viessa scowled, circling around me and away from Melzri so the two were flanking me. “Your mana signature doesn’t seem as strong as before, girl. Without a core, you seem…deflated.”

All of my self-doubt and anxiety melted away in the face of their taunting. These two were nothing to me. I sure as hell wasn’t intimidated by their desperate jabs.

Draneeve had taken several steps back, and the other mages followed his example. “Lady Cecilia is to test her powers, you two should—”

Viessa thrust her hands forward. Dark mana coalesced around them, spilling out like a swarm of locusts.

And then vanishing.

She stared at her hands, disbelieving, and thrust them forward a second time. Nothing happened. The mana didn’t respond to her at all.