The Beginning After The End

Chapter 445: The Truth of Power

CECILIA

I stared at the space where the portal had been, its afterimage still visible against the darkness of the night and the slums below. My mind was blank, the fury of the battle washed away by the shock of its sudden end. Even the screaming pain of the wound in my side seemed subdued, distant as it pumped blood around my hand.

I had failed. Grey had been there, right before me, but I hadn’t been able to stop him. I’d let him escape…

I just couldn’t make sense of it. I was the Legacy. My control over mana was such that I could drag it from the core of a still-living asura, and yet Grey had matched me—had wounded me, even, nearly killed me. If I hadn’t sensed the distortion in the mana where his attack appeared, perhaps he would have. Again.

Although I’d only been able to draw in a meager amount of the dragon’s mana, it had been enough to offer a spark of insight: Grey could apparently manipulate the interplay between aether and mana, using one force to move and guide the other, even going so far as deflecting or canceling mana-attribute spells with his aether; and through the dragon’s mana, I saw the possibility of the same being done in reverse.

The two forces pushed against one another, and so any application of mana caused some small change in the aether around it. I hadn’t understood that before—I barely knew what aether was—but I was starting to see.

But I’d been overconfident. The amount of mana and sheer mental will that had been required to barely move Arthur’s conjured weapon, even catching him by surprise, had been cataclysmic. Gritting my teeth, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d wasted the opportunity. Next time I faced him—and I had no doubt there would be a next time—he’d be ready for it.

At the very least, it seemed clear that Agrona had been wrong to view Grey’s core as a mere curiosity. That, or he was hiding just how much Grey’s control of aether impacted his plans. I couldn’t be sure what he understood—or didn’t. A small part of me wished I was intelligent enough to dissect the situation and come away with a better understanding of what Agrona might gain from Grey, Nico, and me, but that kind of strategic thinking had never been my strength.

The gusting wind of Nico’s flying spell sent my hair blowing around my face as he caught up to me. My eyes touched his, but I quickly pulled them away, unable to bear the sight of him.

He was pale, his face bloodied and battered, core exhausted, struggling even to maintain focus through the staff that allowed him to channel his spell. Even flying, he favored his left side, where Grey had struck him. He was little more than broken bones and pooling blood held together by bruised skin.

Guilt coiled up from my stomach to wrap like vines around my heart. Should I have listened to him? I wondered, already starting to second-guess my every word and action. Could Grey really help us—do what Nico feared even Agrona couldn’t? I didn’t let the thought take root, but instead ripped it out and cast it aside. That was less an option now than it ever had been, the battle had made that clear.

There was a haunted look in Nico’s eyes as he inspected me, the uncertainty shining like tears about to fall, like he couldn’t quite be sure if I was really there or if he might wake up and I’d be gone.

I’d already grown used to the hard, rage-filled Nico of this world, the one who had gone to war for Agrona, who had killed to bring me into this world. He’d scared me at first, when I was freshly rewoken from the void of death, but it hadn’t taken me long to understand the necessity of his rage, his darkness. What Agrona required of us to earn back the lives that fate stole couldn’t be accomplished by the struggling orphans we’d been on Earth.

Now, seeing the helpless look on his bloodied face, I couldn’t help but see that boy, the sensitive but intelligent young man I’d reluctantly fallen in love with.

But thinking of that Nico only reminded me of the weak, frightened little girl I had been. The years spent foolishly hoping I could get my ki under control as a child, then all that time locked away, experimented on, their training beaten into me every single day until all I could think about was the escape of death—

I opened my mouth and prepared to scream, but the frustration and pain lodged in my throat, and only silence radiated out from me.

Then everything else came rushing back in. The fear, the guilt, the rage, the uncertainty, the hope…but the pain overwhelmed it all. For a moment, I remembered how it had felt to die.

Forcing away the memory, I pressed both hands to the cut and flooded it with water-attribute mana, willing it to heal. But, although I could soothe a fever or the ache caused by long hours of training, I was no healer.

“Cecil, your wound—” Nico said, but he cut off immediately when I waved away whatever he was about to say.

Focusing instead on fire-attribute mana, I burned the gash closed, cauterizing it and stopping the blood loss. It wouldn’t kill me before I could reach Taegrin Caelum and the healers there, and so I put the wound and the pain out of my mind.

Nico cleared his throat. “Guards and soldiers were already gathering outside the palace before we left. I’ll return and inform them of what’s happened. And…I need to find Draneeve, see if he’s still—”

I scoffed. “You’re worried about that shattered, sniveling little creature at a time like this? Vritra’s horns, Nico, we have more important things to…to…” I trailed off as I took in his expression.

Nico’s nose was wrinkled, his brows creased into a frown, and his lip curled up in a disbelieving sneer. “I made him a promise, Cecilia. He helped us—helped you! I—” This time, he cut himself off. Looking away, he dragged in a long, fortifying breath. When he looked back at me, he was calmer. “I’ve treated him terribly. For years. I understand how you see him—how you see everyone else—because I used to be the same. That’s why I want to help him escape this life.”

The weight of his words nearly pulled me right out of the air. I felt my cheeks redden with shame at his chastisement. “I’m sorry, Nico. For not telling you what I’d remembered sooner. I—”

He let out a huffing breath, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Please, don’t apologize to me. It’s not…it’s…” He trailed off. As the wetness in his eyes finally began to fall down his dirty and blood-crusted cheeks as tears, he turned away and began slowly floating back toward Sovereign Exeges’s demolished palace.

The Sovereign…

Balling my fists, I followed. I’d almost forgotten about the Sovereign! It seemed unbelievable—impossible—that Grey was powerful enough to defeat a full-blooded basilisk Sovereign and his entire personal guard, and afterwards still have the potency to fight me to a standstill, even with two fledgling asuras at his side.

Agrona needed to know what had happened immediately. A Sovereign had been assassinated, a Scythe killed, and our target had escaped…

It was not a conversation I was looking forward to.

‘You should have listened to Nico,’ Tessia’s voice sounded suddenly in my thoughts.

I had been waiting for her to interject, in fact I was surprised only that she waited so long.

‘You should have listened to me. We could be safely in Dicathen right now, far from Agrona and his ambitions. Arthur could help us, I’m certain of it.’

The wind whipped up by my flight carried my answering snort away. As if I could ever trust him to do that. Even if Grey didn’t set out to murder me, he still abandoned Nico and me in his hunger to become king. He’s single-minded, has been ever since he was a kid. It seems he wants me dead badly enough that he’s even willing to kill you to make it happen.

‘He defended himself,’ Tessia countered cooly, her consciousness wriggling under my skin like a parasite. ‘Yet again, you are the aggressor putting him on his back foot as history repeats itself.’ Her voice was silent as a tense pause hung pregnant between us, then: ‘Are you really such a coward that you’ll force him to kill you twice to escape your lives? You’d put that burden on him again, a person you once considered your best friend—someone you used to love, even?’

A bitter laugh burst from my lips only to melt away in the night air as we approached the ruined palace.

Love…as if. I was a child with a crush on the first person who’d been kind to me. Besides, Grey was never like that—romantic—and he gave up on me the second she showed an interest in him. Gave up on me and Nico both. But Nico never gave up. That’s why…that’s…

I swallowed hard. If you hate me and Nico so much, why help me defend him? I asked, thinking back to the emerald vines that had erupted from me to catch Grey’s arm and stop him from taking Nico’s head. You released the Elderwood Guardian’s power to me, just for a moment. You are so sure that Grey can—that he would help us, and yet you know just as well as I do that he was ready to kill us both, if he’d been able.

Tessia didn’t immediately answer. Her spirit was prickly, like the beginning of a headache.

Scoffing, I pushed back against her. Although I could no longer block her out completely, I could entangle her will in a struggle against my own, forcing her silence. I’m not ready to die—nor am I going to. I thought I only had one way out, before, and maybe in that world it was true. Here though…

I followed Nico into the smoking rubble, casually conjuring a stiff breeze to clear the air.

Here, I have the power to change my life’s outcome. I may be Agrona’s weapon, but only because he is my best chance at getting what I want. When I’m done with this world, I will return to Earth. Not as the Legacy, but as Cecilia, and I will live a quiet and loving life with Nico. I will…

Even as I pictured it, my mind stumbled over the thought. Ever since Agrona had promised to make it so, I had only accepted it as being what I wanted. I’d never asked to be the Legacy, only to be allowed a life. But would the cozy cottage far from the cities, politics, and war of Earth really give me that? Could I sacrifice the power I now had for the life that I’d lost…?

To give someone this gift only to snatch it away from them? It was a fate worse than death.

Hadn’t those been my own thoughts, seeing Nico’s wound? Was it really my heart’s dearest desire to give up everything I’d gained from this world—from mana?

Tessia receded deeper within me, pushing me no further, and I almost wished she would. Who else could I talk to, if not the voice in my own head…

I pulled back from the contest of wills, no longer attempting to keep her silent. But she was nonetheless.

Nico was shifting aside rubble where I could sense the faint signature of Draneeve’s mana. Shouts were coming from the front of the palace.

“I’ll deal with the soldiers,” I said softly, biting my lip. When he didn’t answer, I left him and flew out through the partially collapsed entrance hall.

A hundred or more mages were already gathered there, although they hadn’t breached the palace grounds.

An older man in heavy plate armor and sporting a long, drooping mustache stepped forward. “Legacy,” he said, going down on one knee in a bow. Behind him, the entire force of soldiers did the same. He held the bow for a respectable amount of time, then glanced up at me for permission to stand.

I granted it with a nod. “The Sovereign has been assassinated,” I explained, my voice obscured with wind-attribute mana so that only he could make out the words. “No survivors remain in the palace, but you need to get mages in to start putting out the flames so they don’t spread. And prepare a statement for the city to explain the destruction, but do not announce anything related to Exeges. You’ll receive further instructions soon.”

The man’s face had gone slack as he stared up at me, uncomprehending.

“Send someone to prepare the closest teleportation gate to take us to Taegrin Caelum immediately,” I added before turning away.

Flying back through the smoke and rubble, I found Nico leaning over Draneeve, who had been uncovered and was now propped up against the base of a demolished wall, head lolling in unconsciousness. I was surprised by how normal he appeared.

“He’ll live?” I asked, trying to sound concerned but not feeling I quite managed it.

“I think so,” Nico answered. “But his skull is fractured and there is a lot of swelling. I need to get him to a healer, but…”

“Not in Taegrin Caelum,” I filled in when he hesitated, understanding. “I’ll tell Agrona that he’s dead.”

Nico’s jaw worked silently for a few seconds before he finally spoke. “Be careful. Don’t lie to him if you can avoid it. When I’ve seen to Draneeve, I’ll work with the city’s forces to deal with things here, then follow you.”

I nodded, but he wasn’t looking in my direction. Reaching out, I almost set my hand on his shoulder but stopped just short. Cursed body, I thought bitterly before turning away.

When I reached the compound where the teleportation gate was housed, it was already tuned to Taegrin Caelum as I had ordered. The guards let me through without preamble, and I found myself deep in Agrona’s fortress. By the buzz and bustle, it was clear that everyone was aware of what had happened and on high alert, but I also detected a certain amount of confusion in the response. Although I received the customary bowing and scraping at my appearance, I had expected a message or orders from Agrona to be waiting for me in the teleportation chambers, but no one approached me.

In fact, there was a distinct edge of fear in the way the attendants and soldiers watched me stalk through the chamber, with most avoiding my eye while others visually devoured me, breath bated, like they were waiting for me to give them orders instead.

I grew more and more tense as I made my way up through the fortress and no one stopped me at all. It wasn’t until I started up the stairs that opened into the hall connecting to Agrona’s private wing that I started to understand. Above me, someone was screaming and shouting, her rage shaking the very stones.

Before I could open the heavy iron-bound door, it was blown off its hinges just in front of me. It slammed against the opposing wall and exploded into a spiderweb of shattered wood and twisted metal.

The previously ornate hallway was in ruins.

The objects decorating the walls had been flung down, the furniture crushed, the thick rugs tattered and burned. A dragon’s horn pierced the wall. Red and orange feathers, now blackened by the flames, had been cast all around, spotting the floor like so many blood stains.

Standing in the middle of this wreckage was Melzri.

Her back was to me. As I watched, she let out a howl and sent crescents of black fire at a barrier preventing her from progressing farther down the hall. The flames crackled against the barrier but hardly even made the mana shiver in response.

She spun around suddenly, her eyes flaring, teeth bared, mana boiling into spells around her hands. “You!” she shouted. She pointed at me, the mana writhing in her grip. “You useless bitch, you were supposed to—”

I waved my hand in front of me like I was brushing away a cobweb.

Her spells winked out. Her eyes bulged yet further somehow, her mouth opening and closing like a drowning fish.

“Where is Agrona?” I asked, looking past her to the barrier.

“He—he won’t…” She hesitated, deflating. “He won’t see me. Me. Viessa—dead—but he won’t even see me!”

“Is he here?” I asked, still not meeting her eye. There was something so uncomfortable about seeing a Scythe look this pathetic that I didn’t want to acknowledge it. “Agrona. Is he here?”

Growling, she spun and lashed out at the barrier again. “How the hells should I know! If he is, he hasn’t shown his damned face.” Gulping in a struggling breath, she screamed, “Coward!” at the top of her lungs.

Her voice grated on my nerves, making me wince. Almost without meaning to, I swept the mana from all around her, dragging it out even from her body.

She stumbled as if she’d been struck, looked over her shoulder at me in confusion, and then collapsed onto the ground, unconscious.

I felt a little bad, knowing the backlash she felt when she woke would be truly awful. But at the same time, I hoped I was helping her. Saving her from herself, even. If she did meet with Agrona in her current state, the conversation would not go well. Better she sleep through the worst of her grief. I hoped.

The barrier preventing her passage opened like a curtain before me and closed just as easily behind. I passed through the doors beyond, then into Agrona’s private wing propper.

I’d seen only parts of this side of Taegrin Caelum. Agrona had let me come and go as I wished at certain times but had warned me against exploring too thoroughly into his space. It was dangerous, he had told me when I was just coming to terms with my reincarnation, and I was expected to restrict myself to seeking him out directly if I entered this wing.

Extending my senses outward, I searched for his mana signature.

Many sources of mana shone throughout the fortress, some of them even asura, I was sure, but Agrona wasn’t among them.

I’d never known him to be absent from Taegrin Caelum. Certain he was deeper within, his mana signature shrouded by his own doing or some aspect of the barrier he’d wrapped around the entire wing, I pushed forward.

Each room I passed through was plushly furnished and decorated with the spoils of his centuries of leadership. He was particularly fond of the body parts of other asuran races such as the horns and wing that had, before Melzri’s tantrum, adorned the entry hall. But he seemed to collect a wide variety of portraits and tapestries as well, covering the walls with dozens upon dozens of them.

As I explored deeper into his wing, reaching rooms I had not seen before, I realized there was a kind of story being told. A descent. From light into darkness. It was, I thought, a metaphor for Agrona’s flight from Epheotus, told in portraits and scenery. Recognizing this made me…sad, and for a little while I forgot what I was doing there.

A strangely placed stairwell drew my attention. Although the higher level continued to spread out, this stairwell, which interrupted an otherwise ornate dining room, made such a point of itself that I felt compelled to descend, just like the story the decorations were telling.

The finery of the upper floor was left behind, and I entered into narrow halls of cold stone. The tunnel turned and turned again, intersecting a dozen others like a labyrinth. Doors were inset at odd distances and in unusual locations, and when I thought to check behind one, I found a small room with a single glass orb resting within a narrow indentation in the top of a small pedestal.

I touched the cold glass, but there was no reaction, and so I backed out of the room and closed the door behind me.

Bypassing the next few doors, I tried another at random. The room beyond was empty except for a round grate in the floor, through which a constant trickle of water ran. The water seemed to be coming from the walls themselves, seeping out of the stone.

When I found myself at the end of one branching tunnel, I opened the door to peek inside and caught my breath.

Slipping inside, I closed the door behind me, then stared down at the object taking up most of the barren room. It was a table perhaps six feet long and three feet wide. Like before, looking at it filled me with a sense of wrongness, like invisible insects were crawling up my arms and legs. Hesitating, I ran my fingers along the grooved runes, just as indecipherable as they were the last time I’d seen them.

The table I’d woken up on after my Integration.

‘I wonder what the runes mean,’ Tessia thought, suddenly resurfacing. ‘Decipher them, and you’ll know what Agrona was really trying to do when you awakened.’

A sudden bolt of fear hit me, quickening my pulse. I knew in that instant that I’d gone too far. Whatever this table represented, whatever those runes did, Agrona would be furious if he knew I’d found it. Even if he didn’t punish me, he’d have the table relocated or even destroyed, I was certain. If he did so, I wouldn’t be able to show Nico the runes in their complete form. Nico hadn’t gotten far with the trace of mana I’d taken last time, but if he saw the whole system of runes, maybe…

I hurried from the room, making sure the door was shut, and moved quickly down another hallway, then another, putting distance between myself and the rune-etched artifact.

‘Slow down, you’ll forget where you’re—’

So suddenly that I almost screeched, I rounded a corner and found myself face to face with a robed young woman. She jolted away from me so hard that the object in her hands—a round plate of crystal that issued multi-colored light—tumbled from her grip and hit the ground with a sickening crash.

Wind and heat and light filled the hallway. The young woman screamed, the light dissolving her before my eyes.

When the noise faded and the light dimmed, she was entirely gone, and the artifact that she’d been carrying was nothing more than broken shards of crystal on the floor.

“Well, that’s a shame.”

I spun at the voice, my heart pounding in my throat

“Curious how so many of these old djinn relics are so dangerous, isn’t it? Considering.” Agrona stepped up beside me, looking down at the ruined relic. “Ah well. I’ll have someone down to clean this mess up. Oh, don’t look so distraught,” he added, taking in my appearance.

My jaw was hanging as if it’d been dislocated, and I could feel the blood rushing from my face.

“They’ll be happy not to have to scrape her insides off the walls, you know? A nice clean disintegration—not even any dust left behind. Quite the feat, really.” Agrona offered his arm, and I took it, my mind numb and lips trembling. “Or perhaps it wasn’t the sudden death of that young—and quite talented, I might add—Imbuer that has you so upset. Well, go on then. I imagine you didn’t delve down into my private sanctuary on a whim, Cecil dear.”

‘Protect your thoughts!’ Tessia shouted in my head, filling every corner of my mind.

When I had silenced Melzri and passed through the barrier above, I had been in control of my inner turmoil, ready to face Agrona. Now, I felt scattered and ill-prepared, and Tessia’s intrusion wasn’t helping. But I knew I had to keep my thoughts in order, or he would read me like a children’s book.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed aside all thought of the rune-etched table, the broken relic, the young woman’s sudden demise, and even Tessia Eralith. “I found Grey. He murdered Sovereign Exeges. We fought and…Scythe Viessa and Draneeve are no longer with us.” I stopped, pulling my arm free of Agrona’s, and bowed deeply, struggling to keep calm. “Forgive me, High Sovereign. Grey escaped.”

I waited for a response, but none came. Eventually, I glanced up through the silvery-gray hair that had fallen over my face. Agrona was watching me calmly, his brows slightly raised, the hint of a wry smile on his lips.

“Oh, that Arthur, am I right?” Biting his lip, he extended his arm again, and I took it. “Like a bad egg floating to the top of the pot, he just refuses to be kept down, doesn’t he?”

I stared up at Agrona, entirely unable to read his mood. Outwardly, he seemed almost…giddy? But I couldn’t trust his outward emotions.

Chuckling at the look on my face, he gave a little shake of his head, setting the ornaments in his horns to jangling. “Allow me to let you in on a little secret,” he said, smiling coyly. “Arthur Leywin—Grey—is doing exactly what we want him to do.”

“W-what?” I asked, unable to stop myself from choking on the word. “But you ordered—”

“Good steel is forged in a hot fire, isn’t it?” he interrupted, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. “You’re a tool, he’s a tool. Tools need sharpening, tempering—gracious, in Nico’s case, the tool needed to be broken down and reforged entirely.”

I swallowed heavily. This was how Agrona operated. Flippantness, sudden switches of extreme personality traits, vagueness…he always knew how to put his opponent off guard. And right now, he was treating me like an opponent.

“Nico nearly died. I almost died,” I snapped, stopping to point down to the wound in my side, blood soaking my clothes. “If you really are…tempering us or whatever, what are you doing to ensure that we don't shatter?”

Agrona seemed entirely unconcerned as he looked down at the blood staining half my torso. “Would you agree, Cecilia, that battles are won by strength?”

I sensed the trap in his tone, but I couldn’t see it. “And wars are won by the strategic application of that strength. Yes.”

“Not exactly, no. Battle doesn’t consist only of power levels. If that were the case, Kezess—with his vastly greater numbers and resources—would have successfully assassinated me long ago.” Agrona began walking again, and I had no option but to follow. “Regardless of whether you are studying lessers or asuras, there is a universal truth to violent conflict. The factors surrounding a battle—the emotions, interplay of relationships, crossroads between expectation and effort—are equally important to the outcome as the strength of the combatants.

“While the game of Sovereign’s Quarrel may have a near-infinite combination of moves, you limit the opponent’s range of creativity not by changing the game, but by changing them. For example, I was aware that Arthur left Dicathen with a lessuran phoenix in tow. There would be no reason to do so unless he intended to bring this lessuran into battle with him. Dragoth would have been a poor match for such a warrior, and so I kept him where he is, banging his thick, horned skull against Seris’s shields.”

“Viessa’s powers…” I started out loud, then trailed off.

Agrona nodded encouragingly, like I was a toddler taking my first steps. “It's a shame she died, I suppose, but she served her purpose. The lessuran’s impact on the battle was reduced, and even turned into an asset, disrupting Arthur’s ability to focus on you and forcing him to protect his companions while you were not so impaired.”

I felt a cold chill run down my spine. I hadn’t told him any of that; he’d read it in my thoughts.

Agrona was silent for a moment, his eyes tracking across the length of my body. “After all, it seems you were able to absorb some of his dragon bond’s mana, even if only a touch.”

It was too much to absorb while also struggling to keep my thoughts in line. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, until white spots burst behind them, I focused on my breathing. Only after opening my eyes again did I feel confident enough to speak. “So what is it that you—we—want Grey to be doing?”

Pausing, he pressed a finger to his lips and looked up as if thinking. “I’ve never met another who can manipulate aether the way he can. The djinn knew more, sure, could work aether in a way that seemed like, well, magic,” he said with a sharp laugh. “But they worked it. It was a tool to them, bricks in the wall. Do you think Arthur has survived this long because he is…what…more powerful than me? More intelligent than me? Better prepared than me? Oh, Cecil dear…”

He gave himself over to a fit of soft laughter, his body shaking beside mine as we walked through the narrow corridor. “I’ll admit, when Nico and Cadell had him cornered, when they claimed Tessia Eralith to be your vessel, I had written him off, thinking him dead and having no more use for him. But, after the Victoriad…”

I shook my head, unable to decide if Agrona was telling the truth or simply covering up for his mistakes. “But the Wraiths…”

He shrugged, the movement pulling me out of step for a heartbeat. “A crucible. The heat needed turned up, so to speak. An entire battle group of Wraiths was just enough to be decisive. Either they would kill him, or he would reveal his strength. If we’re being honest, I would have been quite disappointed had it been the former.”

But you set me the task of finding him, killing him. You knew…

As if reading my mind—I set my jaw and hardened my will against the possibility—Agrona gave me a concerned, parental look and said, “You and Grey need each other now, Cecilia. You are the hammer, he the anvil. It is where you meet that the truth of power in this world will be revealed.”