The Beginning After The End 08

by Turtle Me

I froze. There was no way he could know we were there, but still…

  Tessia was the one to act, shooting a soft gust of wind at a nearby tree rodent perched on a low hanging branch.

  The tiny mana beast, surprised, hopped off of its branch, drawing the pale robed man’s gaze to where it scampered off.

  “This damnable forest,” Bilal cursed, shaking his head.

  Sneering, he turned to leave, then stopped again suddenly. He waved the bearded guard over; then, his voice low and sickly, he said, “Pick out one or two of the livelier elves and have them sent to my abode, would you?”

  The guard paled, his nose wrinkling in disgust, but he was quick to assure the retainer he would do so.

  Tessia grabbed my hand, drawing my attention without speaking, and nodded into the forest. It was time to go.

  We sneaked away from the treeline, moving deeper under the cover of the dense boughs, then turned and navigated quickly around the village toward our rendezvous with Albold and Curtis.

  When we found the others, both Albold and Curtis were watching for us fearfully.

  Curtis moved quickly to Tessia’s side. “Are you okay? We worried when you weren’t—”

  “Yes,” Tessia said quickly. “We took our time at the prisoner cages.” To me, she said, “Ellie, what did you hear?”

  I recounted everything I’d heard. The others were quiet when I’d finished.

  Finally, her face hard as a statue, Tessia turned and walked south into the forest. “Let’s find our companions. Curtis, you lead the way.”

  I glanced at Curtis, and he smiled and winked at me. “Do you regret following us yet?”

  “Not at all,” I said, forcing a smile that fell away as soon as Curtis turned to follow Tessia.

  We walked for over thirty minutes before we found Grawder and Boo. They were lying next to one another in a little patch of sun at the center of a clearing. Kathyln and the Earthborns weren’t with them.

  Boo rolled to his feet and lumbered toward me. My bond rumbled deep down in his chest and nudged me so that I almost tipped over backwards.

  I laughed and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m glad to see you too, Boo.”

  Grawder, who must have known Curtis was returning, only raised his huge head, shook it gently so his golden mane waved like wheat in a sunny field, then went back to his nap.

  “Where are—” I started, but was cut off by the grinding of stone.

  Just behind where Grawder still lounged, the earth shifted, folding in on itself to reveal an earthen tunnel. Skarn and Hornfels stood just inside.

  “You weren’t followed, were you?” Skarn grunted, glaring past our group into the trees.

  “They’re hot on our tails!” Curtis gasped, his eyes going wide. “Quick, everyone inside.”

  I snickered at the handsome prince’s bad joke. Tessia’s lips quirked up in a wry smile, and Hornfels laughed loudly, but Skarn only glowered more deeply.

  “Yes, jokes about our immediate and untimely deaths… my favorite.” The dwarf spit on the ground. “Inside then. Couldn’t find a suitable shelter, so we made one.”

  Curious, I followed the dwarves down the earthen ramp into a smooth-walled cave, which was about twenty feet long and wide, and perhaps eight feet high. A handful of lighting artifacts, glowing stones like those we used in the underground city, had been set around the room to provide lighting.

  A simple set of chairs and a table had been molded out of earth at the center of the room, and seven low cots were pushed against the walls. I plopped down on one and was surprised by how soft it was. The far end of the little cave had been left open for the mana beasts.

  “This is pretty nice,” I mentioned, nodding my approval to the Earthborns.

  Hornfels beamed at me. “The cots were my idea.”

  Skarn grunted and rolled his eyes as the rest of the group filed in. Tessia inspected the cave, and Curtis whistled in appreciation. Albold, however, seemed uncomfortable.

  “I hate being underground,” he muttered.

  Once everyone was in, Skarn used mana to close the entryway again, hiding us completely. Boo and Grawder pushed their way through the crowd, both sitting down at the far end of the cave. Their presence made the space feel a lot smaller than it had just a few minutes ago.

  “Now that you’ve all finished your tour through our humble abode, may we have the honor of discovering what fresh slice of hell awaits us at the village?” Skarn groused, taking a seat at the table.

  Tessia nodded, taking a seat at the table as well. “Almost everything was what we expected…”

  Kathyln sat down across from her. “Almost everything?”

  Curtis and Albold exchanged a knowing look, while the dwarves wrinkled their brows in confusion.

  After everyone took their seat around the table, Tessia recounted what we experienced, from the female elf we saw all the way to the two guards’ conversation and our encounter with Bilal.

  “A mass execution…” Hornfels said with a long breath.

  “So much for our plan of coming back with a larger force,” Skarn chortled.

  After a moment of strained silence, it was Curtis who shot up to his feet. “We can’t leave these people here.”

  Everyone’s head turned to the crimson-haired prince, surprised.

  “What does the enemy force look like?” Kathyln asked.

  Her brother’s determined gaze wavered as Albold answered. “Not many mages on their side, but…”

  “There’s a retainer,” Tessia said simply.

  “Well, that’s that then,” Skarn said with a shrug. “I say we teleport straight back to the sanctuary, we’ve—ouch!” Skarn glared at his brother, who had just stomped on his foot under the table.

  “What my brother means,” Hornfels said, looking much more serious than normal, “is that, as much as we’d like to help these people, perhaps we should take stock of our abilities. Has anyone here ever faced a retainer?” The dwarf looked from face to face around the table, then turned to look at me for good measure.

  I shook my head, as did the others. I expected Tessia to argue, but it was Kathyln that spoke up.

  Turning to our leader, the ice mage asked, “What are your chances against a retainer?”

  Tessia’s gaze fell as she thought for a moment before her turquoise eyes landed back on Kathyln. “At worst, a stalemate. At best, a close win.”

  Skarn let out an appreciative whistle while the rest exchanged excited glances.

  “We have five silver core mages amongst us,” Curtis said with a confident smile. “We can do this!”

  Kathyln nodded as she rubbed her chin. “And having more water and plant mages back in the sanctuary would help our settlements spread tremendously—”

  “Kathyln, we’re not saving them for the value that they’ll bring back to our sanctuary,” Tessia said sternly.

  A flash of red emerged on the ice mage’s pale face. “You’re right. My apologies.”

  “I won’t pretend to be as strong as Arthur was when he defeated Jagrette, but I don’t need to be,” Tessia said seriously. “I’ll hold off Bilal along with Albod, who’ll be keeping the other guards busy, long enough for the rest of you to secure the imprisoned elves and send them back to the sanctuary.”

  “If you are able to hold a retainer off alone, why not have the rest of us join you and finish this Bilal bastard off first?” Skarn asked.

  “Because this isn’t just a simple one-on-one battle like Arthur had against Jagrette,” Kathyln answered. “Our priority is to get everyone out of here safely.”

  “Kathyln’s right. If we were all to charge after the retainer, he might decide to harm the prisoners.” Tessia’s lips curved into a mischievous smile. “But if the distraught and emotional princess of the elves stormed the village with just her trusty aid for backup, wreaking havoc…”

  “The retainer will come running. He might not even notice that his
prisoners are gone!” Hornfels finished, snapping his thick fingers. “I like it!”

  “Me too!” I exclaimed with newfound confidence.

  Curtis turned to the two elves and said with a grin, ”Looks like the two of you will have to practice your acting.”

  307

  God Rune

  ARTHUR LEYWIN

  A piercing pain that spread throughout my body wrenched me out of my sleep. I couldn’t even muster a groan as I pried my eyes open.

  It was only as I stared at the scorched remains of the long, squat hallway that memories of what had happened flashed before me: Riah being possessed by the Vritra-blooded ascender, Ezra’s death, Kalon falling into the void, my use of Destruction to kill the ascender, and the violet flames spreading onto Haedrig.

  Haedrig! I tensed as I thought of the green-haired ascender, causing the organ-rending pain to flare in me once more.

  ‘The first thing you do when you wake up is worry about some random ascender you met a few days ago and not your beloved companion?’ a familiar voice said in my mind, albeit a bit higher in tone than normal. ‘I see how it is.’

  Regis! What happened?

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened!’ Regis snapped, his almost child-like voice laced with frustration.

  A black shadow emerged from my sternum to reveal my shadowy companion… kind of.

  “Look at me!” Regis barked, floating a few feet above me. The once formidable shadowy wolf, who had been large enough for a grown man to easily ride when I’d last seen him, was now, for lack of a better word, a puppy. He still had his wolven features, from a shadowy tail to four black paws and two horns on his head, but he was now only about the size of my head.

  “I see you… lost some weight,” I rasped, wincing in pain.

  “Hur hur,” Regis mocked, glaring at me. “I would’ve slapped you already if I had the upper body strength to do so.”

  “Did this”—I waved my hand in his direction, indicating his diminutive form—“happen because we had to exhaust all of our aether?” I asked.

  My pup of a companion rolled his large eyes. “No. I became this way in order to live out my dreams as someone’s cuddle buddy.”

  Ignoring his sarcasm, I tried pushing myself off the ground. With barely a sliver of aether remaining in my core and pain radiating throughout every inch of my body, I couldn’t even sit up, let alone stand on my feet.

  With no strength and a headache severe enough to keep me from meditating, I laid back and let my thoughts wander. Memories and emotions that I had been bottling up and storing deep inside began to surface—memories and emotions of my friends and family back at Dicathen.

  I had been trying so hard to keep myself busy, not even giving myself time to think of the painful memories of the life I had left behind. Watching the Granbehl family’s tragedy play out must have broken the dam I’d been unconsciously building to hold back these emotions. I was afraid there was a genuine possibility that the hopeless odds I faced if I ever wanted to see my family and friends again would overwhelm me entirely if I dwelled on them too often.

  But what was even scarier was the fact that I felt myself slowly forgetting their faces and voices. Recognizing them wasn’t the problem, but being able to picture them in my mind… that was getting harder.

  With my body slowly regenerating its aether reserves and the pain from backlash beginning to dull, I pushed away the faces of Ellie and my mother, frozen in my mind with expressions of grief and desperation.

  Slowly getting up to my feet, I took out the dead relic I had stashed in my pocket, confirming with my own eyes that the once black stone was now a cloudy white crystal. Eager to see what its actual purpose was, I infused it with the meager remains of aether I had left.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Did you break it?’ Regis asked.

  I don’t think so? I tucked the opaque crystal back in my pocket. We’ll have to explore this more later, when I don’t feel mostly dead.

  Shifting my gaze, I noticed that a piece of cloth had been rolled up into a makeshift pillow for me. Needless emotions of attachment to these Alacryans that I had just met began surfacing, gripping my insides. Shaking my head, I asked the question I had been afraid to ask since waking up.

  “Who’s alive?”

  “Go check for yourself. They’re over there,” Regis grunted, pointing to his left with a pudgy paw. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hide out in your body until I can absorb some aether on my own again. Don’t call for me unless you absolutely need to.”

  I raised a brow. “Would you even be useful in the state you’re in right now?”

  “Oh shut up,” he snapped before disappearing back into my body.

  Letting out a sigh, I looked around at the scorched remains of the mirror room. Just like the future I had seen within the keystone, the hall was painted in black and red with the fountain shattered and water spilled all around it. Many of the mirrors were broken, revealing the endless void that Kalon had fallen into.

  The keystone…

  I glanced around, but the cuboid relic was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘It crumbled to dust after you snapped out of your trance,’ Regis said.

  Damn it! I had hoped perhaps there would be another opportunity for me to delve back into the keystone, another chance to build on the knowledge I’d gained. If that stupid kid wouldn’t have released the Vritra-blooded ascender—

  I recoiled from the thought. That “stupid kid” had paid for his mistake with his life. Being mad at him now didn’t serve any purpose, and there was no taking back what had been done.

  Unless…

  The keystone had shown me a future where I could literally turn back to the time on death itself. I probed my mind for the godrune, and while I could feel it there, I couldn’t tell what it did.

  Regardless, I had learned everything I was capable of understanding from the keystone. That’s why it had pushed me out, I was sure. I would just have to try it out to see what it could do…

  Despite the chaotic state of the room after our battle, it didn’t take long to find the others.

  And like I had expected, the only two left were Haedrig and Ada. Haedrig was kneeling by the gruesome remains of Ezra’s deteriorated body. The sole remaining Granbehl sibling was lying on the ground near her mirror, which was thankfully still intact. The phantom was unbound, but she appeared to be unconscious.

  The Ada in the mirror, the real Ada, was also lying on the ground, her entire body shaking with sobs.

  She must have seen everything that happened, I realized with a jolt of horror. I thought of the battle at the Wall, how I had searched the battlefield in a panic, looking for my father, and how I had found him too late…

  I reached out and touched the mirror, and suddenly I was able to hear her choked, manic sobs. “I’m sorry, Ada.”

  Let’s hope this works, I thought, but I hesitated before activating the new godrune. It felt so… final to activate it, to experience for real the result of my work in the keystone. Once I used it, I’d know exactly what it could do—and what it couldn’t.

  Regardless, this needs to be done. I steeled myself, then directed aether into the godrune.

  The familiar warmth radiated from my lower back along with a flood of knowledge into the specific edict of aevum gained through the keystone. Much like my flames of Destruction and God Step, the edict molded into what I was able to grasp, manifesting itself into a form that made sense to me.

  Motes of purple began spreading from my hand, swirling around like a miniature galaxy. Ada looked up, confusion and surprise overtaking her desolation for just a moment, and she began to fade away, turning to pinkish mist that flowed out of the mirror and back into her body.

  A thick blackish-purple smoke was expelled from her pores and sucked back into the mirror. The phantom manifested back in its prison, a look of pure hatred on its twisted copy of Ada’s face.


  At my feet, Ada’s body twitched and her eyes snapped open. She scuttled backwards, away from the mirror, her eyes wide with fear. Haedrig leaned down and put his arms around her shoulders, causing her to scream.

  “Shush now, Ada, it’s me, it’s only me. Shush now.”

  Drawing the bone-white dagger that had once belonged to Caera’s brother, I drove it handle first into the Ada mirror, shattering it and destroying the phantom forever.

  When I turned back around, Ada had her head buried in Haedrig’s chest, her small frame quivering as she let out a wail so sorrowful that I just couldn’t bring myself to go closer.

  These were Alacryans, the same people that had devastated Dicathen, who were responsible for the deaths of so many people that I knew and loved. I should be relishing in their misfortunes and misery.

  So why? Why did my chest feel like it was being wrung like a soaked towel?

  But then, it wasn’t just about them. The disappointment and regret I felt—the sense of loss at knowing what I’d failed to learn—gnawed at my insides, and I couldn’t help but wish I hadn’t seen the potential futures.

  Although I’d unlocked a new godrune, it was clear now that I’d only managed to grasp a part of the intended whole. And with the keystone gone, and my affinity with aevum as weak as it was, I might never have the chance to learn it again.

  “Aroa’s Requiem,” I whispered. The flood of knowledge I’d experienced had included this name-like signature imprinted in the spell itself. It was poetic and beautiful, but to me, it would only serve as a reminder of what the spell could’ve been.

  A spell that could’ve saved Kalon, Ezra, and Riah—a spell that could’ve even brought my father back.

  At least I saved Haedrig and Ada, I thought half-heartedly, trying and failing to see the silver lining in the future I’d ended up in. And I can release these trapped ascenders and keep going, keep trying.

  I peeled my gaze away from the others, turning my attention to the countless intact mirrors still containing ascenders, most of whom were studying me with expressions of respect… and some even fear.

  Leaving Haedrig to tend to Ada, I began searching for a specific mirror near the fountain. It didn’t take long to find the ascender who I had promised to free, and while it was riddled with chips and cracks, his mirror prison had remained intact.