The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 488

Chapter 488: A Great Gathering

ARTHUR LEYWIN

It was Lord Eccleiah who met us inside the entrance to Indrath Castle, not Kezess. Although I wasn’t surprised by his presence, I was pretty damned surprised to be there at all, regardless of which asuran lord stood in front of me. I had expected Kezess to shut down Veruhn’s idea—that I should be recognized as a new branch of the asuran race—immediately. Instead, he had agreed to hear the other great lords out, then he and Myre had left.

Now, barely a day after he threatened to murder me, he would be presiding over a meeting where his peers discussed the possibility of my becoming one of them…

“Lord Arthur, Lady Sylvie, so good to see you both again,” Veruhn said, smiling like he meant it and waving us forward excitedly, the skin around his milky white eyes wrinkling.

I peered into those eyes, wondering just what kind of machinations hid behind the cloudy film.

“Hey, I’m here too,” Regis said. My companion was in the form of a large shadow wolf, his back coming up above my hip. Purple flames shimmered around his neck and along his tail, and his bright eyes flicked from face to face, marking each guard and Veruhn himself, vigilant despite his flippantness.

“Well of course you are. You three make up a special kind of trinity, don’t you?” The old leviathan sighed, his thoughts seeming to turn elsewhere. After a long moment, he gestured for us to follow, turned on his heel, and marched quickly along the entrance hall.

There was little time to look around or consider where I was. My mind was occupied with the many potential ways this meeting could go wrong. Since the effects of King’s Gambit, even powered only partially, allowed me to follow several of these threads at once, it also enhanced my ability to delve into the undercurrent of worry.

Veruhn greeted several of the dragons we passed by as he led us deeper into the castle. Although they were respectful to him, most eyes lingered on Sylvie instead. Servants and guards bowed deeply, and a few asuras who might have been Indraths or courtiers from other clans seemed to barely constrain themselves from rushing up to meet her.

I sometimes forget that you’re such a stranger to your own people, I thought as an asura with radiant blond hair and lilac eyes tripped over his own feet as he tried to bow but forgot to stop walking first.

Sylvie gave the young man an empathetic smile as we walked past. ‘I can’t help but wonder if that otherness was on purpose. My grandfather didn’t know who I was, really, or what I would become. Keeping me at arms length—a curiosity rather than a member of the family—created a buffer to ensure I didn’t negatively impact the Indrath clan or Epheotus.’

Padding quietly beside me, Regis looked up at Sylvie. ‘The dude’s scared of what you represent. Change, an alternative path, an existence outside his little bubble.’ His tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth as he grinned. ‘He’s right to be. The prodigal princess returned.’ Regis snorted. ‘Two princesses, in fact.’

As Veruhn led us, he kept up a steady stream of small talk, providing facts about the other inhabitants of the castle, the portraits we passed, and the history of Clan Indrath and Kezess. I listened with one branch of my thoughts, but my main focus remained on preparing for the following meeting.

‘You know, Regis, you could be a princess too, if you wanted,’ Sylvie thought back to our companion. ‘If Arthur becomes Lord Leywin, and you are born directly to him, then you become a princess.’

‘Excuse me, but I am a magnificent weapon of untold destruction!’ With a snort, Regis padded ahead, moving to walk beside Veruhn.

‘That’s no reason why you can’t wear a tiara.’ She glanced at me. ‘Especially if you choose one that matches Arthur’s.’

I caught Sylvie’s eye, and we both smiled. Some of the tension eased.

Veruhn led us out onto a balcony that overlooked the cliffside. Although blue skies stretched away in every direction, a carpet of white-gray clouds hid the distant ground. “We’ll take a shortcut, I think.” He lifted up from the ground and drifted like a wisp of cloud, moving slowly upward.

Regis became incorporeal and moved into my core before Sylvie and I followed. Despite his claims of taking a shortcut, Veruhn’s flight was unhurried, like mist on a gentle wind. He pointed out windows and turrets, statues and engravings, and even stopped to admire the nest of a small bird with shimmering black and red feathers.

“Mountain Wings,” Veruhn explained with a look of pure, childish fascination as his milky eyes stared at the bird. “Also called the stonecunning swallow or cliff swallow. They only live here, although they usually do not nest this high, preferring the cliffs of Mount Geolus below.” He turned his head toward Sylvie. “They were a favorite of your mother’s.”

Sylvie raised a hand toward the bird in its nest, hesitated, and pulled back. It watched her warily with beetle-black eyes. “It’s lovely.”

Veruhn drifted onward, leading us toward a high balcony in one of the many towers. He landed lightly as a feather, then turned his face up toward the sun as he waited for us to land as well. “Ah. A beautiful day for politics.” One brow raised, he faced me. “Are you ready, Arthur?”

I considered everything I knew—and the vast ocean of what I didn’t—and gave the old leviathan a tight-lipped smile. “I suppose we will know soon enough.”

The balcony doors, made of glass or crystal framed in ornate coiling vines of silver, opened as Veruhn approached. The mana and aether were so thick in the air that it nearly hid the powerful signatures of those present within the chamber beyond.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light as I stepped into the tower behind Veruhn. In that twilight moment where it felt like I moved between worlds, the hair on the back of my neck stood and my skin roughened with goosebumps as I felt the hungry eyes of predators following me.

The airy chamber clarified.

Within, elegant white arches wrapped around the circular chamber, each one carefully carved and molded to look like the branches of thin trees. These opened to similarly arched windows and balconies identical to the one I’d just stepped in from. The light of these many windows and glass doors reflected around the room, making it almost as bright within the chamber as without.

A large charwood table in the shape of a near-full moon dominated the space. Its darkness was in stark contrast to the brightness of the walls and ceiling. Seven ornate, high-backed chairs sat equidistant along the rounded side of the table, while a silver and gold throne with gleaming gemstones floated several inches off the floor at the flat side.

We were not the first to arrive.

An asura with dusky skin and smoky orange hair pulled back in a bun stood from the nearest chair. He wore a flowing sort of robe reminiscent of the kimonos of Earth, expertly embroidered in shimmering thread that looked like true flame against the silky black fabric. His gray eyes seemed to take all of me in within a breath, and then he turned and gave a shallow bow to Lord Eccleiah: the gesture of an equal.

“Lord Novis of Clan Avignis,” I said, addressing the phoenix member of the Great Eight with a bow that was only slightly deeper than that shared by Veruhn and this phoenix. I hadn’t been named an asura—or the lord of an entire clan or race—just yet. It was important not to come across as too presumptuous, but I also couldn’t afford to be seen as weak or timorous, either.

“Arthur Leywin, a pleasure to—”

“Hello!” a sharp, airy voice cut across Lord Avignis’s words.

The speaker was a small woman with light blue skin that seemed to…move, almost as if she weren’t quite corporeal. She had drifted out of her chair and was floating across the massive black table, bobbing around like an apple in a shallow stream. Her youthful face was split by a wide grin, revealing brilliantly white teeth that came to points. Her misty blue-gray eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as she did a kind of midair curtsey. Her dress, which seemed like nothing so much as a sort of windy mist that she’d wrapped herself in, fluttered at the motion.

One small hand brushed through white hair that similarly floated around her head like a cloud. “I’m Lady Aerind, but as a soon-to-be member of the Great Eight—or Nine, but that doesn’t work quite the same—you can call me Nephele!”

Before I could respond, the sylph did a flip in the air, flew to the room’s third occupant, and wrapped her arm around the extremely tall woman’s shoulder. “And this is Mads!”

The woman stood stiffly, her features practically carved of wood. As I looked more closely, I thought I could see faint lines in her skin that did, in fact, remind me of tree bark. “Please, Lady Aerind, show some sense of decorum,” she said, stepping sideways to break free of the grinning sylph. “Greetings, Arthur Leywin. I am Lady Mapellia, representative of my clan and all the hamadryads among the other great clans of Epheotus. You are…welcome.”

There was a slight hesitation that suggested quite strongly that I was not, in fact, welcome, and I looked more closely at the high lady of the hamadrayds. There was no flicker of hostility in her butter-yellow eyes despite the severity of her expression and attitude. Outwardly she would have been intimidating, but the simple river-blue gown that clung to her reedy figure and volumes of green hair that fell in thick ringlets down over her bare shoulders served to undercut this impression.

I repeated my careful bow. “Thank you, Lady Mapellia.”

“Mads!” Lady Aerind said in a stage whisper before bobbing back to her seat.

“My name is Morwenna, Lady Aerind,” the hamadryad said in exasperation.

At this moment, another asura appeared from a stairway beyond an open set of doors carved of some light-colored wood and bound, like much of the room, in silver vines. At first I thought he must be a servant or attendant, mostly because of the fact that he took the stairs instead of flying or simply appearing in the meeting chamber. Then, I fully registered him.

Although dressed plainly in a beige shirt that stretched over his broad chest and bulging muscles, the belt that kept up his leather breeches was inlaid with gold and studded with strange, multicolored gemstones. His beard was long and bushy but otherwise well maintained, and he wore diamond studs in his ears. There was something very solid about the man, and his mana signature immediately reminded me of Wren.

“Ah, Radix, perfect timing as always,” Veruhn said, putting his hand on my back and gently guiding me around the table. Behind me, I heard Lord Avignis introduce himself to Sylvie.

“So this is the pup, eh?” The man—Radix of Clan Grandus I now knew—strode forward and shook Veruhn’s hand roughly. I had at first taken him to be a few inches shorter than myself, but as he’d approached, he seemed to grow. By the time he extended his hand to me, he was exactly my height.

I shook his hand, which was rough at stone. His fingers clasped my hand with enough strength to shatter bone if my body hadn’t been strengthened by aether. Whereas the other lords had so far focused entirely on me, Radix looked right through me to Regis. His flint-black eyes narrowed.

“Is that the signature of Wren of Clan Kain, fourth of his name?” he rumbled.

Instead of waiting for confirmation, he brushed past me and knelt in front of Regis, who watched him warily. My companion’s eyes widened when Radix took him by the jaw, forcing his mouth open. The titan inspected Regis’s mouth like a tinker might inspect a horse.

“Hm.” He said only that, then stood, scratched Regis behind the ear, and finally tossed him what looked like a piece of dried meat that had appeared as if from nowhere.

“I feel strangely violated yet flattered,” Regis said while chewing the meat. “And my god is this jerky good. What even is this?”

Radix slumped into his seat and kicked one booted foot up on the table. “That’s a special treat usually reserved for our guardian beasts.”

‘When you’re an asuran lord and member of the Fine Nine or whatever, you have to get that recipe,’ Regis thought desperately. ‘I don’t care if we have to go to war over it.’

One of the balcony doors opened of its own accord, and shadow condensed within it. From the shadow stepped a thin man in black battlerobes. His dark red eyes flicked around the room rapidly before catching on me. He fiddled with one of his horns, which sprouted from his forehead and swept back before curving forward again, pointing at me like two spears.

I was caught off guard by the basilisk’s sudden appearance. I had known, logically, that Clan Kothan represented the basilisks in the Great Eight, but I had failed to consider that he would actually be present.