The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 481

Chapter 481

Chapter 479: One Last Word

CECILIA

The sound of Agrona’s quick, confident steps blocked out all other noise in the halls of Taegrin Caelum. My own stride felt dragged along, timid even, as I floundered in his wake. At my side, Nico walked blindly, his eyes on me, not paying attention to where his steps fell. Twice, he stumbled on an unexpected stair, but still, his eyes pressed into the side of my face like two iron pokers hot from the fire.

His fingers clenched and unclenched as his teeth gnawed at the inside of his lip. Several times, he opened his mouth, looked at Agrona’s back, closed his mouth again, and returned to chewing his lip. He couldn’t have made it more obvious that he needed to tell me something if he’d etched the fact in runes across his forehead, but he clearly couldn’t say whatever he wanted in front of Agrona.

Whatever it is, it’s going to have to wait, I thought, my own gaze settling on Agrona’s back. We’re going to Dicathen. To kill Grey.

Tessia had buried herself down deep. Throughout my conversation with Agrona, I had felt flickers of her emotions—mostly the relief she felt every time Ji-ae had failed to locate Grey—but she was keeping her thoughts from me.

So much has happened so quickly. Tessia had released me from the trap Grey had set, allowing me to escape the Relictombs and return to Agrona. I tried not to think about the promise I had made to her. Is that why you’re silent now? Regret?

There was no response, but I didn’t expect one.

We reached a teleportation chamber that I had never visited before. I knew we were still in Agrona’s private wing, so I assumed this was his personal tempus warp. The octagonal chamber was small when compared to the larger sitting rooms, studies, and other such spaces that made up the parts of his private wing that I had seen.

Light beamed down from an angled ceiling to highlight a tempus warp resting on a granite pillar in the center of the room. Even as we entered, the tempus warp activated, runes burning brightly along its sides. Though having the same roughly anvil-shaped form, Agrona’s tempus warp was silvery smooth and larger than most I had seen.

“Gather round,” he said perfunctorily, moving to the far side.

Nico stood to his left and I to his right. Deep inside me, my guts seemed to squiggle around, and I couldn’t be sure if the nerves I felt were my own or Tessia’s leaking into me.

Agrona provided no warning as the three of us were suddenly pulled out of Taegrin Caelum and carried across the face of the world. There was a distant sensation of passage, but the transition was so smooth as to be almost uncomfortable, creating an uncanny valley of movement. When my feet sank into ankle-length grass, I actually stumbled.

Nico grabbed me tighter than necessary and peered at me with worry. “Cecil? Are you—”

“I’m fine,” I said, easing my arm out of his hands and looking around us.

We were standing on the edge of a small stand of trees. In front of us, there was a cluster of rocks that formed a narrow cave entrance. I searched for any interruption of the mana that might hint at Grey’s presence, but there was nothing. “Are you sure he’s here? Could Ji-ae have been wrong?”

The ornaments in his horns jangled slightly as Agrona looked at me, his brows raised incredulously. “Cecil dear, don’t be a fool.”

I blanched, making Agrona smile as he turned away and started toward the rocks.

Nico took my hand, his eyes smoldering as they burned into Agrona’s back. He waited a moment, letting Agrona get a few steps ahead, then leaned toward me. “I need to—”

“Come along,” Agrona said, his smooth baritone vibrating in my chest.

I squeezed Nico’s hand, then pulled away and hurried after Agrona. I sensed Nico’s pause before he followed hesitantly.

Agrona stepped into the crack in the rocks and floated slowly down into the darkness beyond. Just before he left my sight, he looked back up at me, and his gaze grabbed me like a leash. Without a second thought, I stepped in after him. For a second, I plunged down into the darkness, but the falling sensation evaporated as I grabbed hold of myself with the mana and began slowly drifting down.

I landed on rough, bare rock beside Agrona. A second later, Nico alighted on my other side. Before us was a barren cavern. The only noticeable feature was the remains of a huge throne. It had been shattered, and the fragments scattered across the cavern floor. Still, I sensed no disruption in the mana, no telltale signs of an aetheric presence. To all my senses, the cave was empty. If Grey really was there, there had been no chance Nico could have located him without assistance.

“I turned this place inside out looking for hidden tunnels or chambers,” Nico said, the path of his thoughts following mine.

“Mundane,” Agrona muttered. Resting his hands on his hips, he stared up toward the very center of the cave. As far as I could tell, he was staring at nothing. “Don’t worry yourself about it, little Nico. It isn’t your fault. After all, Arthur is just…so very much smarter than you.”

Nico flinched as if he’d been struck and looked at his feet. I felt like I should intervene, but my mind was too busy with the puzzle of Grey’s hiding place. “So how do we find this…pocket dimension? Isn’t that what Ji-ae called it?”

“The aspect of aether called spatium is, as one might expect, quite adept at manipulating physical space,” Agrona said, his tone changing. Instead of the cold, goading sarcasm, he sounded like an eager professor explaining a favored topic. “Such pocket dimensions have all kinds of uses. The extradimensional storage artifacts so commonly used throughout both continents were designed based on a similar premise. Of course, the djinn could do many things that are, today, seen by most as impossible.”

Agrona walked in a circle around the cavern, his eyes always focused on the same point. “When bound into an item with runes, such spaces are relatively stable. But when projected as such…” Agrona stopped pacing and took a few steps back. Although he stood in a relaxed posture, waves of dark mana began to radiate forward from him. Dark striations appeared in the air as his mana disrupted that in the atmosphere, scattering it throughout the cavern.

A transparent, ethereal bubble became visible, revealed by the waves of mana. It shimmered, shining with an internal light that was somehow contrary to the dark mana bombarding it. It was small, only a few feet across, and hovered fifteen feet in the air. Only then, looking at it with so much mana highlighting it, did I sense the distortion that might have revealed its presence.

One part of me was embarrassed that I had failed to sense it before, while another was amazed—and a little afraid—that Ji-ae had found it from across the ocean and with the Alacryan search forces so far away.

I was also curious by how easily Agrona seemed to identify and manipulate it, but as it all worked together, it mostly showed me exactly how unfair Agrona’s jab at Nico had been. When I glanced at Nico, I realized he was still watching me, not examining the dimensional pocket. I gave him a small, apologetic smile, hoping that he understood.

The mana issuing from Agrona intensified. Lashes of void wind were striking the bubble over and over again, growing slowly stronger. The edges of the bubble were fraying, and space seemed to warp strangely around its edges, bending and twisting the mana.

“Stand back,” Agrona said suddenly, gesturing with his hand.

Nico and I quickly shuffled away from where the jagged lines of dark mana crashed into the transparent bubble, each lash striking with more power.

With a rush of air, the bubble popped. Inside was…difficult to understand. A three-dimensional space several times larger than the bubble had been folded up inside it. I saw the space that had been hidden within as if looking at it through warped glass, its proportions entirely out of whack, the physical attributes making it up losing all meaning except for the presence of a soft glow.

Further confusing the sight was the fact that it was rapidly unfolding itself as it spilled out into the cavern, transitioning from the pocket dimension back into normal space like a ship's sail unfurling.

With the grinding of stone and a sluggish splashing noise, the hidden space settled in the center of the cave. Glowing liquid sloshed back and forth in a small pool, partially hidden by a pinkish mist that surrounded the pool in smooth panels like walls. Even as we watched, the mist began to disperse.

Sitting in the pool, eyes closed, was Grey. A girl with his same wheat-blond hair sat across from him. I had never seen her in this form with my own eyes, but I knew from Tessia’s memories and her unique mana signature that this was Sylvie, his dragon bond in her humanoid form.

A dark cuboid relic floated in the air between them, snapping and sparking with violet jolts of aether.

Both had their eyes closed. Neither moved as the pool water settled, the gentle sloshing against their clothes ceasing.

They don’t even know we’re here, I thought. Despite being buried deep within me, Tessia trembled.

Nico swallowed heavily as he stepped up beside me, his eyes locked on Grey. Once, I’m sure he would have already been in motion, blood iron bearing down on Grey’s undefended neck. Now, though, I couldn’t read his expression.

The soles of Agrona’s boots crunched against the dirt-covered floor as he approached the pool gingerly. Surprisingly, his dark eyes were entirely on the girl. Once at its edge, he kneeled and reached out, his fingers just barely brushing a lock of her hair. “Daughter,” he said, his lips carefully enunciating the word that he only barely whispered.

Suddenly, he stood. His fists clenched, and the mana around him seemed to pull away in fright. “Such a waste. Such a disappointment.” He looked away and started to turn his back on her but, as if being grabbed by some external force, stopped and looked back. “You think like a lesser, daughter. Short-sighted and desperate. Your mother’s act—bonding you to a lesser like some common beast—destroyed your potential.” He shook his head, and his fists unclenched.