The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 452

Chapter 452

Chapter 450: Changes

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“Please?”

Seris was still as stone as Oludari pawed at her, his expectant, pleading face turned upward.

It seemed like something out of a nightmare. No piece of reality as I had been made to understand it fit properly with what I was seeing.

“I have so much work left undone…” Oludari whined, his spiderish fingers kneading at Seris’s robes. “There are layers and layers and layers to the world, just waiting to be peeled back, one by one, but not if I’m gone. Agrona thinks he’s the only one who knows, but I’ve seen the shadows, I’ve felt the rising surface tension of a bubble ready to burst, I…”

The Sovereign choked on his own whimpering and began to cough, his shoulders shaking. When the fit passed, he drooped like a wilted plant.

Blinking as if waking from a deep sleep, Seris glanced around at the frozen crowd, then at Cylrit, and finally to me. For half a second, there was a question in her eyes, one I had no clue how to answer. “What do I do?” her eyes were asking, but even as they touched mine, her expression hardened into resolve as she came to some answer of her own devising.

Slowly, Seris pressed her hand against Oludari’s cheek. “Calm yourself, Sovereign.”

Oludari suddenly took two fistfuls of Seris’s robes and pulled her down a few inches. “Help me! Hide me! The dragons, the Lance, you…you know them! You’ve foiled him before. I don’t understand how, but you have! I command you to do it again! So…so has the Lance. Yes, take me to him. To Arthur Leywin.”

Seris firmly wrenched herself free of his grip, then with the suddenness of a striking thundertail, slapped him hard across the face.

The Sovereign’s head snapped to the side, his blubbering cutting off sharply. “H-how dare you, I….I…”

“Get yourself together,” Seris said, seeming more in control of herself now. She held out her hand, and Oludari took it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.

The spell over the crowd broke, and most began hurrying away, disappearing into the village. Udon rushed to his brother, helping him up and brushing dirt off his clothes, but Idir pushed him off, hurrying to one of the other farmers.

That farmer, like all the others, was prone, unmoving. I could already feel it in the fading of their mana signatures; they were all dead.

I looked away, angry and frustrated but unsure how to channel my emotions. The carelessness of the asura…

More than a few people lingered, slowly coming closer, their rapturous gazes locked on the Sovereign, apparently oblivious to his current sad state.

“Sovereign. Please, forgive us—”

“—take us home—”

“—only what we must to survive, Sovereign!”

Cylrit slashed his hand through the air, and the rambling pleas went silent, and the people fell back. All except for Lars Isenhaert, who rushed toward the Sovereign.

Oludari’s eyes went wide, and mana spilled out of him.

Isenhaert was lifted from the ground and sent hurtling back into the crowd, knocking down a couple of others. It was enough to finally break their rapture, and they practically stampeded over one another to escape, leaving Lars moaning on the ground. Corbett, Ector, and a woman I recognized as one of Lars’s soldiers hurried to his side.

Seris shot me a look. “We need to get the Sovereign somewhere more safe…for everyone.” She trailed off, her focus shifting past me into the distance.

I turned to look, and my blood ran cold.

On the horizon, the Grand Mountains cut the Elenoir Wastes and the Beast Glades off from the rest of Dicathen. Only moments ago, the snow-capped peaks had been lost in thick white fog. Now, a low black cloud was racing over the mountains. Even as I watched, though, it dipped down the steep cliffs, cascading to the flat ashlands below, and billowed toward us at great speed.

“No,” Oludari moaned. “No no no. He knows. He found me.” Oludari took Seris by the hand, squeezing so tightly that she winced.

“Wraiths…” Seris breathed, pulling herself free of the Sovereign and taking a few halting steps so she was next to me. Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at her sides.

My frayed nerves shattered. Moving as if in a dream, I turned away from the cloud. My gaze swept across the panicked village, taking in all the people I had worked so hard to protect and help to thrive after the war, people I considered my friends…family, even, to use the Dicathian word.

A better word than ‘blood,’ my near-delirious mind offered up.

Among them were those who had lived these last months in the wasteland, building homes here, learning new skills, putting their hard-won magic to work as farmers, hunters, and craftsmen instead of soldiers…killers. People like the Plainsrunner brothers, like Baldur Vassere. Like the children now huddling around the golden-haired Frost girl, green with fright.

I looked down at Seth, who was still lying on the ground at my feet, his glasses askew. He, like everyone else here, would become nothing but compost to feed the infertile ashen wasteland if caught in a battle between a Vritra Clan basilisk and a battle group of Wraiths.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I had power, incredible magic, and yet next to these beings I was no more dangerous than an unad slave…

“—yra!”

The shouting of my name cut through my brain fog, and I jerked spasmodically. Seris gripped my arm, pulling me to face her. “Find your calm, Lyra, your courage. Discard the rest, it won’t help you now.”

I stared into her eyes, wondering, not for the first time, where this inner strength of hers came from.

I hadn’t known Scythe Seris Vritra well before the war. As a wartime nomination for the position of retainer, I hadn’t been in that club prior to being sent to Dicathen. But I had proven adept at getting the Dicathians to fall in line with minimal bloodshed, and that had aligned with Agrona’s goals for the continent.

During those couple of days working alongside Seris, I had felt repeated pangs of jealousy at the relationship between her and Cylrit. My own Scythe, Cadell, had been cold, distant, and violent. In two days, I felt like I knew more about Seris than I ever had Cadell. My relationship with him had been a matter of military necessity and nothing more, although I had foolishly coveted his strength and the latitude with which the High Sovereign allowed him to do his work.

Doing as Seris said, I layered these thoughts around myself like a weighted blanket, the mental equivalent of a child pulling her comforter up over her head to hide from the mana beasts under the bed…

But it worked, and I felt myself calming. Seris may not have been my Scythe—abyss, she wasn’t even a Scythe anymore—but she had already inspired me, being a better mentor than Cadell or any other teacher or trainer I’d had in my ascension through the ranks of power.

There was no time to do anything else before the Wraiths arrived.

The cloud split into four distinct forms, and several spells rained down on us at once, aimed at Oludari.

I hurled out a barrier of void wind to block a gout of black fire, the collateral damage of which was set to overtake not only Seris, Cylrit, and me, but a dozen other Alacrayns who were still trying to get away.

The Wraith’s soulfire ate through the fabric of my shield, but a second barrier appeared within mine, and a third supported that, redirecting the soulfire to roll harmlessly over us before spilling across three freshly built houses and engulfing them instantly.

As we struggled with the flames, twin bolts of lightning flashed, one striking the ground in the midst of the fleeing crowd, sending up a spray of dark ash and throwing those nearest to the ground, including Corbett and Ector. The other hit Oludari squarely but deflected off his mana barrier before crashing into a distant tree, splitting it in two and causing the dry leaves to burn like so many little candles.

The noise of splintering wood and roaring flames was still ringing in my ears as I felt the surge of mana from below. Seris and Cylrit were already moving, flying into the air and conjuring shields over the screaming bystanders. I grabbed Seth and pulled him into the air just as the ground around Oludari surged upward, a field of blood iron spikes stabbing through as the Wraiths struck from every direction at once.

Oludari clenched his fists, and the blood iron shattered with an ear-splitting shriek. His face was taut with panic and desperation, his intent cascading through the village like a hurricane.

A shadow manifested between us, and the sun glinted off carved blades as they cut toward the Sovereign. His hand snapped up, catching the sword, and with a jerk of his closed fist, he shattered it. His bleeding hand knifed outward, releasing a wide crescent of soulfire that only barely missed me and Seth, but the Wraith had already vanished again.

There was a lull.

Oludari glared into the sky, where the four Wraiths encircled the village at a distance, their killing intent like four raging bonfires closing in on us. The Sovereign grimaced, opening and closing his hand as blood seeped from the small cut he had taken. Sickly green tendrils discolored his pale flesh around the wound.

“Poison,” I whispered to myself.

Oludari snarled, quickly scanning his surroundings, looking for a way out. His demeanor hardened, fear being pushed aside by the will to fight. Grimacing, he shot up into the sky past me.

His body lengthened, swelling with mana as the monster hidden within the humanoid form burst out. He seemed somehow even larger than before, the beating of his wings so fierce it knocked me off balance, his squalling roar enough to take my breath away.

His tail lashed like a giant whip, and a Wraith dipped beneath it. His jaws snapped, closing just short of a retreating shape in the sky. The third Wraith came from the side, taking advantage of Oludari’s distraction to land on the basilisk’s back with twin blades of black ice gleaming in his hands. The last rays of the sun gleamed off the edges as they sheared across the base of an enormous wing. The ice shattered like glass, and the basilisk roared and spun in the air, sending the Wraith flying off.

Fat droplets of dark blood rained down on the encampment below.

As Oludari thrashed and roared, a black web knit itself into the air right in front of him, thin filaments of blood iron affixed to points of condensed shadow. The basilisk tried to veer away, but too late, and crashed at full speed into the webbing.

His bulk drove him through, shattering the construct, but even from below, I could see the network of thin, bloody gashes left all over his serpentine face and body. The blood iron net caught in Oludari’s wings and jaw, sawing back and forth with every movement, cutting more deeply.

A dozen bolts of lightning converged on the metal, wracking Oludari’s transformed body with spasms as the lightning raced along the metal and into the hundreds of little wounds, the two spells working together to bypass the Sovereign’s protective layer of mana. More of the sickly green tendrils were spreading from the cuts on his wings, and heavy ice was condensing along the metal, the weight of it dragging the Sovereign down.

The blood weeping from the cuts suddenly lit on fire, soul flames burning away the blood iron and black ice, and sealing the wounds. On the ground, everywhere a drop of flaming blood fell, it roared and caught alight everything nearby.

A black mist appeared to hover over the crowd, shifting rapidly to absorb as much of the raining, burning blood as possible, Seris’s nullification magic eating it away before it could spread any further.

Still, half the village was already a conflagration.

The streets were full of running people now, going every direction in their confusion, leaderless and rudderless as each was left to fend for themselves.

Contradictory orders were shouted with a dozen disparate voices, helpless nobles wailed for their guards and attendants, and through it all were easily discernible the keening of the wounded and dying as Vritra soulfire coursed through their blood.

The only leader worth her salt was the Frost girl, who had taken the group of children in her care and was leading them toward the Beast Glades and away from the battle.

Shaking free of the enthrallment I had felt at watching the Sovereign battle these Wraiths, I pummeled the dry, hard soil below with a wave of sonic vibration, simultaneously pulling at the ground as it softened, the ash moving like liquid under my power, and dumped the gray slurry atop as many flames as I could, burying entire houses where I could sense no mana signatures.

Above, Oludari closed on a Wraith, his jaws opening to unleash a torrent of black flames.

The Wraith launched upward over the fire, spun, and plunged down atop the speeding basilisk, dozens of knives conjured from dark ice hailing down around him.

Those that didn’t strike Oludari pummeled Seris’s spell, most dissolving harmlessly, but enough still made it through to shred the buildings and people beneath them. I could do nothing but watch as bodies tumbled to the ground, blood running freely from holes punched through them.

Oludari screeched, his long neck and head twisting at random as soulfire continued to spill from his jaws. Below, another house went up in flames, then another. The wind kicked up by the battle sent sparks drifting all the way to the Beast Glades, and I could already see little lines of smoke curling up from the dense forest.

Everything had happened so quickly; people were still picking themselves up from the initial lightning strike. Ector stumbled away from the crater, his hand pressed to his ear, his eyes unfocused. Something exploded. Almost as if in slow motion, I watched as he was lifted up off the ground, a jagged shard of broken blood iron piercing his chest. His body tumbled over the ground when it landed, and by the time it stopped, I knew he was dead.

The faces of the crowd blurred, the details lost among the smoke and the shadows. Someone else went up in a gout of black flames, their scream choked out as the oxygen burned from their lungs. Another was buried as a house collapsed just as they ran past it, the outer wall swallowing them.

On the fringes of the encampment, small figures were pouring out into the flat gray emptiness.

But…she had arrived in Dicathen weakened by her long trials in the Relictombs. I had known that. But I hadn’t—I saw now—really understood it. _{freewebnøvel.com}