The Beginning After the End: Book 7: Divergence

by TurtleMe

  Were the Indrath Clan’s teachings about aether wrong? Did these ancient mages originate from the Indrath Clan—and like the Vritra Clan, flee from Epheotus due to a difference in beliefs? Or were these ancient mages actually lessers that had learned how to harness aether?

  As my mind swam with questions, I continued to look behind us to make sure we were actually making progress. Bairon did so as well, even more on edge than everybody else. After a while, something luminescent appeared in the distance. The bright glow grew larger as we approached it.

  “Finally!” Bairon muttered from the back.

  He wasn’t the only one relieved. With the end finally in sight, our strides became longer and our steps more confident. When we reached the end of the corridor, the hallway opened into a massive cavern with an elegant coved ceiling carved from the natural stone. Pillars—each the width of three grown men—supported the huge underground structure. Bright orbs of warm light lined the walls, exposing the awe-inspiring expanse in front of us.

  On the one hand, it reminded me of the cavern systems that the dwarves had made for their underground cities, but at the same time, those crude structures couldn’t even begin to describe the splendor and architectural meticulousness of this sanctuary.

  The cavern was large enough to hold a small town, and the various tunnels that led out of the cavern reminded me of highways. Running through the entire expanse was a wide stream that glimmered under the light-orbs. There were several multileveled structures on either side of the stream and bridges that crossed the width of the stream at various points throughout the cavern.

  In the midst of all this, however, my attention was drawn to a flickering light that I spotted coming from within the second level of one of the buildings just by the stream.

  Sylvie and I exchanged glances, understanding each other with just a thought. I turned back to Bairon, who was still taking in the sight in front of us, and Virion, who was catching his breath.

  I waved to catch their attention and pointed to the building with the light. Their expressions both grew fierce, all signs of fatigue wiped away in the face of a potential intruder into this place, our last sanctuary in Dicathen.

  I took the lead as we descended a set of stairs leading to the ground. We weaved silently through the empty stone structures. I took a mental note to explore these buildings later on. There may be clues hidden about regarding the identity of these ancient mages. However, our first task was to find out who had lit a fire this far below the ground in a secret location.

  Arriving at the building, I could hear the quiet muttering of several voices, but the windows were covered by glass, and, even with enhanced hearing, I couldn’t make out how many voices there were.

  Gesturing for everyone to lean in close, I whispered, “I hear at least three different voices, but we should assume there are more than that.”

  After receiving a nod from Sylvie, Bairon, and Virion, we circled the perimeter until we found the entrance to the building. There wasn’t a door, so we inched closer, keeping our backs against the wall until we were just beside the opening.

  I held up five fingers and slowly counted down. Once my last finger fell, I pivoted to face the entrance, mana coiled around my body.

  I had expected to meet a guard keeping watch, and I was right…

  My eyes widened and my jaw fell slack. “Boo?!”

  244

  Reconciliation

  The towering stature, the dark-brown fur, the tuft of white on the chest, along with two spots of white just above two intelligent eyes—it was unmistakable. This was Boo.

  Boo must’ve been thinking the same thing I was, because the thousand-pound bear charged at me on all fours, letting out a happy grunt and tackling me. Looming over me, Boo revealed a toothy grin before slobbering all over my face with his long, soft tongue.

  I struggled under the mana beast’s weight as he pinned me down to the ground and slathered me with affection. “Boo—Ack! Stop! Okay! Enough!”

  “I think he’s had enough, Boo,” Sylvie said, her voice calming the excited beast enough for me to escape.

  “I feel violated,” I groaned, wiping off the thick, slimy mask of saliva that had accumulated over my face. Then it clicked. If Boo was here…

  I grabbed Boo’s large, furry head and turned him to face me.

  “Boo! Is Ellie here? What about my mom? How did you get here?” I asked, the questions pouring out of me before I could think them through.

  Virion suddenly pushed past me and the bear, and I heard his voice call out, choking with emotion. “Tessia!”

  Letting Boo go, I immediately followed after Virion. I didn’t have to go far before I was able to see four figures at the base of the stairs near the far wall of the building. It was my mom, sister, Tessia and… Elder Rinia.

  My long and hurried strides slowed as my vision blurred with tears. Tessia fell into Virion’s arms and Ellie was running towards me—my face was buried in her short brown hair, her arms around my neck—her entire body shook as she bawled into my chest—her tiny, trembling fists hit me again and again she blubbered in between sobs about how scared she was—how I wasn’t there to protect her.

  It was as if an icy, spectral hand had reached into my chest and took hold of my heart; guilt burned through my veins like venom. I had done this to her—to my bright, strong little sister. I should have been there to protect her.

  “I’m so sorry, Ellie. I’m so sorry. I’m here now, everything is going to be okay,” I said, tightening my grip around her frail body and kissing her on the crown of her head.

  “W-we almost died and you weren’t there. Y-you’re—you’re never there! Not at the castle, not at the Wall, not even when Dad died!” she wailed, her fists still pounding my body. “You’re my brother, you’re supposed to be there! You were supposed to comfort me when Dad died! I—I needed you… Mom needed you!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ellie,” I said again, repeating it like a prayer. “I’m so sorry…”

  Ellie slowly calmed down, but her head remained buried in my chest. Her shoulders now only occasionally shook when she hiccupped. During this time, I didn’t look up. I kept my focus entirely on my sister until she pushed herself away. Staring at me with swollen red eyes, she gestured behind her with a thumb. “G-go apologize to Mom now.”

  I looked up to find our mother only a few steps away from us, her expression hollow, empty of any emotion. That warm and tender smile, usually there even in the hardest of times, was nowhere to be found.

  I walked up to her, unsure of what to say or where to begin.

  “Mom…”

  My mother’s apprehensive gaze as she slowly approached me made me all the more confused. “If it wasn’t for Elder Rinia, I don’t know whether or not we’d be alive.”

  My gaze turned to Elder Rinia, who was talking quietly with Tessia and Virion. “I…I—”

  “But throughout that entire situation, when I thought that surely we would die—soon, if not now—do you know what I was thinking?”

  I shook my head.

  “I was thinking…” My mother paused for a moment, her stony mask wavering. Tears welled in her eyes and she bit her lower lip in an effort to keep it from trembling. She turned away from me, quickly wiping away her tears, trying to compose herself before turning back. “I was thinking the entire time how sad and guilt-ridden your father must’ve been to leave this world without getting the chance to make up with his only son.”

  The weight of her words were heavy enough to make me weak in the knees, but I held on and responded in the manner that I wished I could’ve back at the Wall.

  I wrapped my arms around my mother and squeezed her close. “It’s okay.”

  Her trembling hands gripped me back tightly as she whispered, low enough for only me to hear, “No. I need to say it. I need to say that it doesn’t matter who you were before. I raised you when you were little, I nursed you when you were sick, and I watched as you grew into the
man you are today. Your father and I talked for a long time, and we realized that you—who you are now—you are so different from who you were when you were born—and that’s when we knew that you are our son.”

  I sagged, letting myself fall to my knees, my mother’s hands still gripping my shoulders. I put a hand to my chest as my breath came out in strained gasps. I couldn’t breathe, I could only gag out the never-ending sobs as my mother kept her arms around me.

  “I’m so sorry that it took us so long to realize that. I’m so sorry that you couldn’t come to your own father’s funeral because of me. I’m so sorry, Arthur.”

  Tess, who had waited patiently for me to reunite properly with my family, slid her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. She seemed to have something on her mind, but I was hesitant to ask directly. I satisfied myself with sharing a silent embrace, though my eyes kept flitting to her as we made our way upstairs to get settled in for a much needed rest.

  I couldn’t help but notice the tension between Tess and Elder Rinia. Tess’s expression darkened every time Elder Rinia was mentioned, and they gave each other an unnecessarily wide berth as they moved about the second floor of the building.

  Once we were all upstairs, Elder Rinia, her expression grave, pulled Virion aside and disappeared into another room. Tess’s face fell as she watched them hide themselves away. I suspected something had happened to her parents. As for why she was so angry at Elder Rinia, I could only speculate. Regardless, she excused herself not long after we sat down, telling us she was tired.

  Bairon was next, telling us he wanted to spend some time meditating to recover. Due to the lack of ambient mana here, it would be almost impossible to go further than trying to recoup the mana he would naturally gain from his mana core, but I suspected that he left more to give me and my family some space. While my impression of Bairon had never been good, we’d come to terms with being at odds and settled into a vague understanding of one another.

  Finding myself with just my family, I felt a sense of peace. After our rush from Etistin to the castle, then our long trek here, all the while fearing that my family was lost to me forever, it felt surreal to be sitting around a fire with them, safe and together. We sat in silence for awhile, watching the flames dance, but my mind never could rest for long, and soon enough it was full of burning questions.

  Catching my mother’s eye, I asked, “How did you, Ellie, and Boo get here?”

  She held my gaze for a moment before glancing at the exit that Tessia and Bairon had left through, shaking her head. “I’ll let Elder Rinia tell you. It’s better that way.”

  Sylvie and Ellie filled the silence, talking about nothing in particular. Instinctively, they avoided speaking of the war, and it wasn’t long before my sister and mother began nodding off to sleep.

  “Sorry, we haven’t been able to sleep well these past few days,” my mother said, rubbing her eyes.

  “Don’t worry. Get some sleep—both of you,” I said, turning to my sister.

  The two of them retreated to a bed of blankets that had been laid out in a corner of the room.

  “Good night,” Sylvie and I said together.

  They responded in kind before lying down. I caught my sister lifting her head every now and then, checking to see if we were still there, until her soft, rhythmic breathing eventually melded together with the crackling fire.

  I sat and thought for awhile, watching my mother and sister sleeping peacefully. Many unexpected events had occurred in the last few days alone, but one of the moments I had dreaded the most was confronting my family after everything that had happened to them. I was so caught up in blaming myself for my father’s death that I avoided Ellie and my mother out of guilt. I even had a readymade excuse—I was needed for the war effort.

  When I saw them in that abandoned underground house, my mind immediately expected anger and blame from them both. Instead, I learned that my mother had blamed herself all that time. She said that her inability to properly deal with the secret of my past life had caused me to miss my own father’s funeral, and she apologized for that.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized how mature that was. I was in the wrong as well. I had chosen to hide behind my duties as a Lance to avoid confrontation, and I had been the one to keep it a secret from them for so long, yet she ignored my mistakes and pointed out her own shortcomings instead, and then she had asked me for forgiveness, which was something I wasn’t even sure I deserved.

  Even with the experience of two separate lives, I had learned something valuable that day. I was once again humbled by the fact that, while my past life had given me many advantages, it was foolish of me to equate years lived to maturity.

  ‘It’s not like I didn’t tell you this already. I guess you needed to arrive at that conclusion yourself,’ Sylvie sent to me, managing to convey a mental eye-roll along with it. ‘Mark today on the calendar as the day Arthur Leywin realized he wasn’t the mature man he thought he was.’

  Shut up, I sent back, smirking at my bond seated next to me. You’re using my own inner thoughts to belittle me and say that you’re more mature than I am.

  ‘I am more mature than you are, but a true mature person wouldn’t say it out loud,’ she replied, putting on a sweet, innocent smile.

  You just said it out loud, I pointed out.

  Sylvie looked at me with a raised brow. ‘Well technically…’

  I playfully nudged my bond with a shoulder, feeling good for the first time in a long while. My sister and mother were alive, and, while we had a lot to work on if we wanted to be how we were in the past, they were safe.

  Sylvie was the next to fall asleep, her head resting on my lap. I caressed her hair between her horns and was reminded of when she would curl up in my lap in her fox form and fall asleep. As a growing asura, she had slept often. She was still growing, still maturing into her power. It was odd to think that, someday, she would be more powerful than I could ever hope to be. It was as her grandmother had told me in Epheotus: There was a limit to what I could do, to the power I could wield.

  Staring at the fire in front of me, I became lost in thought. I had originally wanted to leave after bringing Virion and Bairon here in order to look for Tess and my family. Seeing that they were there already, I immediately thought about the possibility of staying with them. There weren’t many supplies available here, but there was a stream of fresh water and I had noticed a pile of large fish where Boo had made his den on the lower floor of the building.

  We might need to make a trip to civilization occasionally—maybe the Wall—but for now, I considered just resting for a while.

  I was tired, Virion was tired, and Bairon was tired—whether he admitted it or not. We all agreed that we had lost the war. Coming to this realization didn’t warrant any mind-numbing revelation—maybe I was growing used to winning our battles but losing the war. Agrona utilized his limited resources to their utmost potential and didn’t hesitate to sacrifice his troops to further his overall goal. Dicathen had been only reacting, and Agrona knew that all too well. Like Virion said, maybe the best thing to do was to go underground and wait for a chance to fight back.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the soft footsteps approaching me. I turned around, greeting Elder Rinia with a nod. The old diviner smiled back, wrinkles tugging at the edges of her eyes. Taking a seat next to me with a weary groan, she lifted her hands to warm them in front of the fire.

  “You’ve grown older since the last time I saw you,” she said, her eyes staring blankly at the dancing embers.

  I chuckled. “Well, I am a growing teenage boy.”

  “No teen would be wearing the expression you have,” Elder Rinia scoffed. “But I guess that’s what comes with war and having so many responsibilities.”

  My hands unconsciously stroked my face as I wondered what sort of expression I wore and what Rinia meant. Too tired to think deeply, I looked at her, wondering why she had come back alone. “Where’s Virion?�
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  “He said he’ll check up on Tessia to see how she’s doing.”

  We sat, gathering our courage together: I, to ask the question, and Elder Rinia, to answer it.

  “Can you tell me everything that happened?”

  245

  Hope and Trust

  A long silence followed my question, but when Elder Rinia spoke, it wasn’t to provide the long, convoluted story of how she managed to get into the castle and save Tessia and my family. Instead, she started off by saying something I didn’t expect.

  “Arthur, I knew your identity the first time we met, back when you asked me to help you contact your parents.”

  My eyes widened. “What? How?”

  Rinia held up a finger. “These old eyes see much more than you can imagine. However, much like how I had feigned ignorance of your past life and kept it a secret, there are also parts of this story that I can’t reveal yet.”

  I didn’t respond, letting her continue.

  “I have known for some time now that an attack would occur at the castle following the betrayal of Virion’s son.”

  “Virion’s… You’re telling me right now that it was Alduin who was responsible for letting the Scythe in?” I shook my head, unable to imagine the circumstance that would lead to such a thing. “That’s not possible, you can’t seriously be saying that he was trying to get his own father killed, right?”

  “My knowledge doesn’t extend to his intentions, but yes, he was the one that allowed the Scythe access to the castle teleportation gate,” she answered.

  My hand came up to my gaping mouth. I couldn’t believe it. Despite any disagreements the two of them had, Alduin had always looked up to Virion. Then the pieces started clicking into place. “Was Alduin guaranteed the safety of Merial and Tessia? Was that why he betrayed everyone? But then…” I dropped my voice to a whisper so my sleeping family wouldn’t hear. “Why did they take my mother and sister?”