The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 460

Chapter 460

Chapter 458: Lady Dawn's Child

CECILIA

As I watched the phoenix slump, his core overdrawn, backlash ripping him from consciousness, a memory that wasn’t my own blistered up in my mind: a boy running and laughing, his mismatched eyes—one burning orange, the other icy blue—sparkling with joy and wonder. Now those same mismatched eyes rolled back into his head as he tumbled into freefall.

I was looking at Lady Dawn’s child, there was no doubt. The taste of her mana lingered in my senses, creating a sort of resonance with his own. I could feel their connection, was now a part of it, like there were two magnets linking us.

Along with the connection came emotions that also weren’t mine: protectiveness, despair, and a bright, blistering fury.

Not my emotions. I thought bitterly of all the alien thoughts, memories, and ideas that had been stuffed into my head since being reincarnated. This isn’t someone I care about.

Taking a firm hold of the surging motherly instincts, I tamped them down, burying them.

Khoriax swung low and grabbed the unconscious phoenix by the back of his clothes. He shot a questioning look at me where I was hidden among the smoldering branches of a broad-leafed tree. I opened my mouth to speak, but before the words left me, the world erupted into fiery hell.

The flames started by the battle roared into the sky, painting the world in a red that burned like a falling sun. The air scorched my lungs, combusting into smoke and fire. My clothes smoldered and little flames licked up from the protective barrier of mana shrouding my body. Even my senses seemed to burn beneath the swelling mana, as if I were staring at the sun.

Reaching out, I took hold of the mana and tried to smother it…but the will controlling it resisted, driving me back.

“But…how? Who?” I gasped out loud, astounded.

A man descended into the inferno. The sudden roaring wind seemed to barely ruffle his hair, just as the smoke failed to blind his yellow eyes.

The four surviving Wraiths all faced the man, but they were having an even more difficult time resisting the effects of the spell. They exchanged uncertain looks and threw searching glances down into the trees in my direction.

“Servants of Agrona.” The reverberation of the man’s voice suddenly told me who he was, his identity contained within the memories shared by Lady Dawn. “Your hostility within my own domain will not be tolerated. This place, and everyone within it, are under my protection,” Mordain of the Asclepius clan said firmly. “You test my sworn neutrality by attacking here. Give me this member of my clan and go.”

Khoriax’s scythe reformed in his hands, and he pressed the blade against Chul’s throat. “It seems to be showering phoenixes on us today. How convenient. Stop channeling this cursed spell and give yourself up, or I open this boy’s throat and—”

Huge talons of fire manifested from the heat searing the atmosphere, wrapping around Khoriax. The claws burned through his mana and flesh alike, rending him into charred meat before he could even shout out. The half-phoenix slumped into the claw, unharmed.

I was still hidden, my control of mana ensuring that I would be unsensible even to one so powerful as this man. I worried the Wraiths might give me away, but the remaining three kept their focus on Mordain, their defenses up but making no move to attack.

Suddenly the tree in which I hid was engulfed in a fire I could neither control nor sustain. Reacting instinctively, I leapt into the air and flew free of the flames, my skin red and sore even beneath my protective mana.

“The Legacy…” Mordain said. His bright yellow eyes were locked on me, his robes billowing around him and melding into the smoke. “Even you cannot hide from me within my own domain spell. Do not not test your limits against my patience here.”

My mind reeled. I didn’t know what to do. This phoenix was powerful, his grip over mana ironclad. Dragons still swarmed over the Beast Glades, so even if I did defeat him, could I do it fast enough to return to my task without drawing their attention?

It’s not worth the risk, I told myself, hoping I was acting logically, as Agrona would, and not out of fear.

“Wraiths, with me—”

Suddenly, my body went rigid as a force inside of me thrust itself against my control. My hand raised of its own accord, snapping forward and releasing a whiplike vine that had coiled around my wrist.

The whip carved across the space between Mordain and me, a green crescent that seemed to be moving in slow motion. The tip of the vine burst into flames, which raced along its surface, blackening the emerald green of its flesh.

The whip blew away to ash just short of Mordain’s throat.

His expression twitched slightly, but he did not move to counter, hesitation leaking onto his face for a split second.

Clenching my teeth until they creaked, I forced my body back into submission, breaking the momentary loss of control, then spun away and flew at all speed, bursting out of the domain spell’s shell and back into blue sky and cool wind.

What in the Vritra’s name were you trying to do? I snarled inside my own head.

Tessia didn’t immediately answer, and I hurried to put distance between Mordain and myself. The three Wraiths fell in behind me, pushing to their limit to keep up.

Looking over my shoulder, I realized Mordain’s domain spell was a sphere wrapping everything within it in pure fire-attribute mana. Within that sphere, his own mana pushed out all the atmospheric mana, amplifying his spells and control while diminishing that of his enemies.

You thought he could beat us—kill us, didn’t you? Inside that hellish terrain he created. Make up your mind, would you? Really, do you want to live or die? Do you even know?

‘No, I don’t want to die,’ Tessia said softly, her first words to me since entering Dicathen. ‘But I can’t help but wonder if I’m a coward not to try harder to make that happen. To hurt Agrona and keep everyone safe—Arthur safe—you need to die.’

I stopped suddenly, a shiver running down my spine.

Mordain’s domain spell collapsed. For a moment, the presence of both asuras was crystal clear, then the atmospheric mana seemed to swallow their signatures as Mordain shrouded himself and Chul from me.

And yet…something was still there. No sense of their mana signatures, but…the resonance I now felt with Chul couldn’t be so easily disguised.

Gathering my own mana, I pushed out a condensed sphere and sent it hurtling forward at about the same speed I’d been flying. “Follow as long as the spell lasts, then return to the others and resume your hunt.”

The three Wraiths gave me similar looks of confusion. When I waved them on, their hesitation broke and they sped away, following the miniature sun now rushing over the forest’s canopy.

Drifting down under the cover of the trees, I began slowly moving back in the direction where the Wraiths had fought against Chul. The wind carried the smell of smoke and burning, and there was a consistent flow of atmospheric mana back into the void left behind by the domain spell.

Anger welled inside me: anger at myself for having to run away from Mordain, for allowing Tessia to take control.

If it was your goal to kill us both, you should have let me die during my Integration, I seethed to the elf as I searched for the resonance.

‘Was it easy for you? When you killed yourself on Grey’s sword?’ she responded, her voice laced with bitterness and regret.

I chewed the inside of my cheek, careful to keep my mana in check in fear of Mordain sensing me. I still did it, didn’t I?

‘Yes, you did. But you did it to escape, to run away from what you couldn’t handle.’ A beat of silence lingered before she spoke again, her thoughts growing more confident. ‘I didn’t want to die then, and I don’t want to die now. But I’m trying to do what I can to help—to fight back—unlike you.’

Just because you know my memories does not mean you know what I went through, I snapped, pausing my pursuit. You have no idea what I’ve had to endure…or what I’m willing to do to make sure Nico and I get the life that we deserve.

With newfound resolve, I took a moment to align my mana signature with the ambient mana around me and resumed tailing Chul, letting the slight pull from his core guide me. I moved forward carefully, quietly flitting through the lower network of branches, my entire conscious focus on that small tug in the distance.

Suddenly, the connection with Chul’s mana was completely severed. I felt a spike of fear as adrenaline surged through me, and I increased my speed, aiming for the last place I had felt him. My thoughts started to knot themselves into a jumble, but I tried to let my mind go blank again, remembering only the sense of where that tug had been before it was blocked.

I slowed again as I got close to where I thought I’d lost the sense of it and settled down into the roots of a giant, silver-barked charwood tree.

It has to be nearby, I thought, almost hoping for a reluctant confirmation from Tessia.

The entire Beast Glades were ringing with the echo of all that mana pouring between Epheotus and Dicathen, but there were multiple sources of shrouding magic at work in the glades as well. Now, so close, I could feel the edges of such a spell, or rather, many layers of the spell. It was subtle, nearly undetectable by design. But I could see the mana, feel the way the shrouding spell pressed against the atmospheric motes, taste the complex compression, smell the hint of that unique attribute that made phoenix mana different.

Mordain’s spell was powerful; it had to be. He’d been hiding his people from Agrona Vritra and Kezess Indrath for centuries. But what mattered more than power was control, and mine was greater than either of theirs.

I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. My own mana was perfectly in equilibrium with the atmosphere, hiding me from anyone who might, in turn, be searching for me. The charwood was rough and cool against my back. The rich, smokey scent of its leaves reminded me of brewing tea. Mana-laden wind sent ripples through its leaves, which rubbed against each other with overlapping echoes of soft scratching.

The tree was breathing. I could feel its life, its energy. Limbs lifted high, high into the air, spreading and seeking the sun and mana, while the roots dug deep down into the soil. It was almost beautiful how the tree took in sun, water, and atmospheric mana and, even without a core, purified that mana into something else, something new, a plant-attribute deviant form uniquely its own.

That mana spread throughout it, leaching into the soil, mingling with the earth-attribute mana and giving it life and energy. I could sense it in every twig, leaf, and root. And the roots of this charwood, along with all the others in this part of the Beast Glades, seemed to grow at an angle as if they were drawn toward something. They didn’t spread out evenly but were pulled in one direction, diving down deeper than any other trees nearby.

I let my senses trickle down, following the deviant mana into the roots. They spread and entwined, and I felt the shrouding spells move past me like a parting veil as I followed, blind to everything except the plant-attribute mana. As my consciousness moved beyond the layers of shielding, I suddenly felt again the specific mana signatures of Mordain and Chul—and many others besides.

A smirk tugged at my lips as I wiped the bead of sweat threatening to roll into my eye.

Do you see now? It was inevitable from the start. Your purpose, your fate was to be the vessel for my reincarnation, I thought smugly.

‘If that’s the case, I look forward to seeing what fate awaits you, a coward too afraid to even see the truth: that you’re nothing more than a weapon, a tool for destruction,’ Tessia replied, her voice unbearably pitying. ‘If what you hope for ever does come true, I assure you it won’t be earned through victory. It will be out of mercy.’

My fists clenched as every fiber of my being wanted nothing more than to snuff her presence out of my mind like a candle, but the hold I had on the mana past Mordain’s shielding threatened to come loose.

I turned my focus back to the task at hand, letting my mana permeate through the roots within the carved walls of the phoenixes’ sanctuary, edging carefully forward like walking on a tightrope until—

“—need to agitate his core, encourage it to draw in the mana. Stoke the fires, and bring me mana crystals and elixirs. Everything we have!”

It was Mordain’s voice. Tight with an edge of panic, no longer the controlled storm of power that he had shown me before. A dozen other conversations vibrated into the soil and the roots of the charwood trees, but I blocked them all out, focusing solely on Mordain.

“He’s too far gone,” another voice said, slightly reedy and hesitant. “His core is barely drawing mana, and his missing limbs—”

“Thank you, Avier,” Mordain said firmly, cutting off the second voice.