The Beginning After The End

Chapter 464: The Order

SETH MILVIEW

It was a cloudy day, a good day for a fight. Deep red clouds hung low overhead as if they were laden with blood about to spill over us. Is it my blood, though, or my enemies? I wondered idly, hand clenched around the hilt of my blade.

“Se-eth! Se-eth! Se-eth!” the crowd chanted, my name becoming two syllables as they roared it loud enough to shake the soil beneath my feet.

I looked across the battlefield at my opponent. Her thin and bedraggled hair hung down over her drowned-pale and puffy flesh, a tinge of green to it. She looked like she’d wrapped herself in an old bed sheet, or maybe a curtain, instead of clothes. Sickly waves of poisonous mana wafted off her, but I didn’t mind.

I wasn’t scared. Not even a bit. I couldn’t quite escape the feeling that I should be, but with my sword in my hand and my name in the air like thunder, it was impossible to be afraid of anything.

Giving Bivrae of the Dead Three a winning smirk, I sauntered forward. Only…my feet didn’t move. It was as if I were rooted to the ground, stuck fast. My hand grasped the hilt of my sword, which was in its sheath, but the blade wouldn’t come free. I tugged and tugged, but it was futile. Then, suddenly and with undeniable certainty, I understood that I was going to die.

My body was frozen as the nightmare woman scuttled across the stadium floor toward me. I tried to shout, but the noise choked off in my own throat. Mana swelled in the atmosphere, building and building until—

I jolted upright, blinked rapidly against the sweat stinging my eyes. Groggily, I looked around, struggling to make sense of what I was seeing.

The dimly lit interior of a simple one-room dwelling opened to an outside shaded by twilight.

I jumped off the rough cot and grabbed my turnshoes, slipping them on and hurrying to the door. “Seth, you fool, you fell asleep!” It had been a long couple of weeks—maybe a bit more, I couldn’t be quite sure—since the Sovereign’s appearance and the attack. I’d only meant to lie down and shut my eyes for a minute, but…

Glancing westward, the sun had already gone beyond the distant mountains. I’d slept away the entire afternoon!

As I looked around in search of Lyra Dreide, a deep frown worked its way onto my face. Something was wrong. Everyone had stopped, and they were staring south. My own gaze followed theirs, and I suddenly felt it: mana, so much mana that I could hardly make sense of it. It swooned and swelled, battering back and forth, casting a distant pink glow against the twilight sky.

“Vritra’s horns, but it can’t be a battle,” a young woman I didn’t know said from a few feet to my right. Sensing my gaze, she met my eye. The color had drained from her face. “What kind of battle could cause such a…a…” Her words trailed off as she struggled even to think of an appropriate description for the sensation.

Then we all, as one, ducked or flinched, cries echoing across the encampment as a shadow fell over us, dim in the wan light. Looking up in fright, I watched as two huge, winged reptilian beasts flew by overhead, leaving the encampment behind in a moment as they sliced through the air toward the distant battle.

I swallowed heavily and unrooted my feet, an echo of my nightmare momentarily quickening my pulse. I needed to find Lyra or Lady Seris!

As I burst into a run, the unmoving scene around me unfroze as well, and people hurried to find their blood—their families—with a few others shouting out for leadership, and some eagerly grouping up to discuss the event. More than one, I noticed uncomfortably, watched the southern treeline with hungry expressions that seemed out of place with everyone else’s fear.

I hadn’t run far when Lyra Dreide strode around the corner of a larger family-sized building, her brows knit, her expression intense as she watched the dragons melt away into distant dots before being hidden by the horizon.

“Lady Lyra, something’s happening,” I said breathlessly. “A battle…in the Beast Glades.”

Her red eyes settled on me, and a strange expression softened her features. Goosebumps rose along my arms and neck, and I took a step back.

“Come with me, Seth,” she said, her voice soft, a kind of…ache half hidden within it. Without waiting for me, she walked past, heading for the southern edge of the encampment.

There, we found most of the villagers—those who stayed there permanently and a large number who were only there for a couple of days to help build a few new houses—already gathered, and they were almost all still staring south. Many turned to watch us, and a few shouted out in response to Lyra’s appearance.

“Retainer Lyra!”

“What is it, what’s happening?”

“A dragon! I saw a dragon!”

“High Sovereign Agrona has finally come!”

The crowd went silent, and all eyes turned to the young soldier who had shouted this. She seemed to realize her error immediately and shrank under so much attention—most of it clearly hostile.

“Please, I must urge you all to be calm,” Lyra said, her voice projecting across the small town so it sounded to each person as if she were standing right next to them. “Do or say nothing now that you may regret in an hour's time. We must trust that the dragons are protecting us as they’ve agreed, until such a time that we are given reason not to.”

“Where is Lady Seris?” a man with short black hair and a slightly ragged beard asked, stepping forward out of the crowd. “Surely she would have more to tell us than that!”

“Sulla,” Lyra said, placatingly. “I understand your fear, but regardless of what is happening to the south, we cannot panic.

“I’m not suggesting we panic, but perhaps we should do something besides sit here and wait to be saved,” he shot back.

I glanced between them rapidly, momentarily stunned by his attitude before remembering that Lyra wasn’t a retainer anymore, just as Seris wasn’t a Scythe. They had made themselves our equals, but that didn’t stop most of us from looking at them like our leaders. In Alacrya, she probably would have flayed the skin from his bones without a thought, but then, that was exactly what we’d worked so hard to escape.

“If it seems as if danger is—”

I fell to my knees as the world trembled. The skin of my back burned as if I’d been branded, and a presence—a consciousness not my own wrapped in a sheath of power—clawed into the space just behind my eyes. I tried to look around and see if it was just me, unsure if it would be better that way or not, but I couldn’t focus, could hardly see, as if a thick, gray woolen blanket had been pulled over my eyes.

And then I heard the voice, and I knew it wasn’t just me, because all around me, people screamed. The rumbling baritone made my bones quiver with desperation, like my skeleton wanted to rip its way out of me and run away. Even if I’d never heard that voice before in my life, I’d have known right away who it was.

“Children of the Vritra,” it began, rumbling so I couldn’t tell if it was in my head or booming out of the air itself, “you have waited. You have bided your time so very patiently, and now your long wait is at its end.”

My vision slowly returned, and I saw dozens of other Alacryans in the same position as me. As if I’d been forced to kneel before the High Sovereign himself, I thought wildly. A few had stayed standing, swaying on their feet or leaning against a wall or fence, but only Lyra seemed physically unaffected. The way she focused into the middle distance, staring blindly at nothing at all, was enough to tell me she could hear the voice as well, though.

“The time has come. The war begins anew, and you will be the edge of the blade that will slit your dragon overlords’ throats. You will lift up arms once again, and your subjugators will become but dust and blood trod into the roads on your way to victory. It begins with the one who put you here, who stole your strength and your freedom.”

Without looking at me, Lyra’s hand took hold of my shirt and lifted me uncomfortably back to my feet. It stayed there, clenched into the fabric like the claw of some mana beast, as the color drained from her face.

“Find Arthur Leywin. Find the Lance they presumptuously call Godspell, and bring him to me. Alive if you can, but his core will suffice just as well.”

Like a stone falling from the sky, a figure slammed into the ground nearby, pearl hair fluttering around her horns before falling back down over her black battlerobes. Seris’s dark eyes tracked over the crowd, settling on Lyra. She looked grim.

“Do not refuse me.”

I flinched so bad I might have fallen if not for Lyra’s grip as the same man from before shouted into the sky. “But I do refuse!” His voice cut across the stillness like the noise of a sword clashing against a shield, then hung there uncomfortably.

“Sulla, be silent!” Seris hissed, taking a step toward him and waving for him to settle down.

Instead, he took a few steps out into the open, turning to look at everyone else. “I don’t know what magic this is, but he’s just trying to scare us! Pick up our blades and go to war? Most of us did everything we could to escape our eternal service to the Vritra! We risked our lives! Fight for him now? No. No, I don’t think so.”

I caught sight of Enola pushing her way forward, her face set, clearly ready to join him, but her grandfather took her by the wrist and jerked her back, scolding her so viciously that even my dauntless classmate paled and was silent in response.

But others did come forward to stand at Sulla’s side. I recognized them all, even if I didn’t know them individually. Most were those who had fought alongside Seris in Alacrya as part of her rebellion, but a few I knew had been soldiers. Among them was the Sentry, Baldur Vessere. I knew him pretty well, as he’d worked closely with Lyra, having become a de facto leader among the soldiers when Professor Grey—Arthur, I reminded myself— tasked Baldur with rounding up the troops after the route at Blackbend City.

“Lauden, no!” a woman hissed, dragging my confused gaze through the crowd to where a man was pushing away from an older couple—clearly his parents, he looked just like them—and striding proudly to join the growing crowd.

“Please, mother. We’ve come this far. Haven’t we already given up every shred of power the Denoir name once carried? Abyss take us, but it was right, wasn’t it?” He clapped Sulla on the shoulder. “I won’t recant now.”

Lauden Denoir. Lady Caera’s brother, I acknowledged dimly, my thoughts refusing to come into focus. My brain felt like it was being compressed within my skull.

“Stop! Be still, be silent,” Seris commanded, suddenly shrill, a panic growing in her that I’d never seen before. Beside me, Lyra was tense, the hand clutching my shirt trembling.

“Lady Seris, we all swore ourselves to your cause back in Alacrya,” Sulla said. “I won’t cow before Agrona now, and not ever again. Not when I—I…” Sweat was pouring down his face, and he grimaced as words seemed to fail him. One hand began scratching at his back, and a growing terror fell across his features. Suddenly he was clawing at himself, moaning low in the back of his throat, and all those nearby stepped back, aghast.

With wide, horrified eyes, he looked at Seris, but she was shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Sulla—all of you. I’m so sorry.”

His shirt, which covered his runes, was smoking, a glow emanating through the cloth. As it lit on fire, burning outward from his spine, he fell to his knees and screamed. A sudden burst of black-tinged wind lifted him off the ground, spun him around, and slammed him back into the soil. Blades of wind and fire sprouted from his body, spraying blood in a halo around him, then spun, eviscerating his body and silencing his agonized screeching.

Too late, I turned away and closed my eyes.

“Still your minds!” Seris shouted, both hands pressing down into the air around her as if she could smother the growing terror. “Do not answer him! Not aloud, not in your own thoughts, keep—”

Someone else cried out, and I couldn’t help but look. One of those who’d joined Sulla was engulfed in blue flames, their skin blackening and their eyes turning to jelly as they clawed at the ground.

The crowd screamed as one and pulled back yet further from the small cluster of those who had been brave enough to stand up and shout out their denial of Agrona’s orders.

Terrified, I tried to do as Seris ordered, smothering my own thoughts. Without meaning to, I inched closer to Lyra, and her arm wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me close.

But my eyes fixed on one person. Lady Caera’s brother, Lauden, was stumbling back from the crimson stain that had been the man, Sulla. He was smeared with Sulla’s blood, but his face was blank, confused. I thought distantly that my own face must look pretty much the same.

Beside him, another person began to die, their runes igniting and their own spells ripping them apart from the inside. Lauden’s eyes pierced through the crowd to find his mother and father. The woman was weeping openly, pleading with her husband as he held her back from running to her son.

My stomach clenched, wriggling sickeningly inside me, but no matter how much I wanted to look away, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t.

And so I watched, wreathed in the unexpected comfort of Lyra Dreide’s arm, as Lauden Denoir’s runes burst, their energy burning away his shirt and the skin of his back. Mana spilled out of him like blood from a butchered wogart, bubbling up from his lungs and out his nose and mouth as he choked and drowned in it. A vein in his neck burst, spraying outward, then another, and then…and then I did look away, in the end.

For a moment, I was afraid that the same thing was happening to me, but when I wretched, only bile and my mostly digested lunch came up, spattering the ground and my shoes.

“I gave you the power you wield, and it is mine. Work against me in action, word, or even in thought, and the magic that was my gift to you will become your bane. These first brave few, for acting as my example to you, have spared their bloods from the same fate, but any others who disobey condemn their mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters to share their painful and gruesome end.”

The voice went silent, but the clutching presence still pressed against my lower spine. As I wiped my mouth, I looked up, back into the village, and met a pair of laughing red eyes.

Standing as if petrified, with my sleeve half-dragged across my lips and my back hunched as I attempted to straighten, I stared at the Wraith. Perhata, I remembered. The woman who had subdued a Sovereign.

Perhaps sensing my distress, Lyra turned as well, sucking in a sharp breath as she noticed the woman. “Scythe Seris!” she called urgently, accidentally slipping into the habit of using her old title.

The entire crowd dragged their gazes away from the smoldering remains of those who had died, and then as one flinched back as they saw the Wraith lurking behind them, her lips curved into a smirk, her stance and expression both relaxed, almost lazy. The energy of that moment tingled beneath my skin, raising the hair on the back of my neck. I couldn’t recall ever experiencing such fear.

Then Seris was beside me. Her fingers brushed my shoulder, and it was like she released me from some spell. I jolted upright and took a couple steps back, splashing in my own sick as I sought to hide behind Lyra like a child.

“I told you,” Perhata said, singsong. She took a bouncing step forward, her deep red eyes jumping from Seris to the corpses and then back again. “These are Agrona’s soldiers, understand? And the time has come that the High Sovereign is ready to make use of them. The order has been given, and you will march, as I said before. Or…” Her smile sharpened, like a dagger being drawn over a whetstone. “Lead them elsewhere, Seris. Tell them to refuse, to stay here, to do anything except exactly what he commands. You know what will happen.”

I stared at Seris, knowing she had to have some way around this, past it. She had to; otherwise, what had it all been for?

Beside me, Lyra shifted. “Lady Seris—”

Seris’s hand snapped up, fast as a whip, and she half turned to look past Lyra to all the others gathered there, then off to the east and west, no doubt thinking of the thousands upon thousands of Alacryans in the other encampments. Did they all experience the same thing? I wondered somewhere in the back of my mind.

Finally, Seris spoke. “Gather what weapons and armor we have. We…we march to war.”

CAERA DENOIR

Alice set down a bowl of mushroom stew, still steaming and giving off a rich, meaty scent, and nudged the plate of fresh-baked biscuits closer to me. “Please, eat up, dear. You and Ellie have both been training so hard, I worry about you.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle, but it was a sound of appreciation and wonder more than amusement. “Thank you, this smells wonderful.”

And it did, too. It was strange, that such a simple meal could seem so…complete and complex and…homely. I’d grown up with private chefs who were happy to prepare an entirely separate meal for each member of my family, but it had been a long time since something as simple as a meal had felt special like this one.

Ellie laughed too, slurping down a spoonful of her own stew, her focus somewhere deep below us. “Speaking of, did you see Gideon today? He burned off his eyebrows again!” She giggled and sprayed stew on the table, which only made her laugh more as Alice glowered at her.

“I know, the poor man,” I said, hiding my own smile behind a spoon-filled hand. “And he was doing so well, too.”

Alice tried to smile as she tossed a towel at Ellie to clean up her mess, but she didn’t seem entirely focused on the moment, and I thought I could guess why. I didn’t pry, however, and instead took up a spoonful of my dinner, blowing gently on the broth to cool it.

“I hope Arthur is all right,” she said, inviting us into her thoughts anyway.

I set the spoon back into the bowl without tasting the stew, then met her eye. She returned the look only for a moment before her eyes darted away again, and I felt a squirming guilt within me. I hadn’t told Ellie or Alice about my conversation with Arthur yet. He’d be upset to know Ellie had invited me for dinner…although perhaps more so that I’d accepted. Perhaps it had been a moment of rebelliousness, or…

No, I told myself chidingly. You were lonely, and you accepted a moment of kindness even if you shouldn’t have, that is all.

“No one is more capable of facing whatever is to come than Arthur,” I said aloud. When Alice met my eye again, it was my turn to look away, hurrying to stuff a spoonful of stew into my mouth and instantly regretting it as the sensitive tissue of my tongue burned. “Hah,” I breathed out, searching for a change of subject. “Anyway, I was surprised when Ellie asked me to dinner. I thought Arthur would have you two hidden away in a vault somewhere,” I said, only half teasing.

“Windsom was supposed to come get us today, but so far he’s nowhere to be found,” Ellie explained, acting as if it wasn’t a big deal. Her brother, I expected, would very much disagree.

“I just…” Alice sighed deeply and pushed her own bowl away before continuing with her previous thought as if it hadn’t been interrupted. “I know he has Sylvie and Regis, but they’re…well, they’re as much a part of him as his own thoughts, you know? I worry about him being lonely.”

The word caught me off guard, like an echo of my own thoughts from just a minute earlier. I cleared my throat and dabbed at my lips with a napkin, unsure how to respond.

“It’s just that the world has put him up on this pedestal.” Alice stared, unseeing, at the curling steam slowly wafting off my bowl. “And he’s so high up there, and with no one to keep him company. No one who understands him, who can offer him companionship. Not really.”

I mulled over her words, thinking if I—or anyone, for that matter—could be that companion. Or was I just one of the many looking up at him on that pedestal.

After a beat of silence, I opened my mouth to offer her words of consolation that I hadn’t decided on yet, but all that came out was a ragged gasp. A warmth spread out from my runes, and my mana seemed to gust and swell, only half controlled.

And then I heard the voice, unguent and violating. “Children of the Vritra, you have waited. You have bided your time so very patiently, and now your long wait is at its end.”

My eyes flew open, and I stared in horror at Alice and Ellie. They both stared back, reflecting only growing confusion. Pushing my chair away from the table, I stumbled toward the door into the sitting chamber, but as the voice grew in strength, my control seemed to weaken, and I barely made it to the opening before I collapsed against the frame, looking across space as if I were seeing Agrona’s face in a projection, his sneering, smirking visage looking down on me as he continued, explaining everything.

“No, no that’s not possible. I won’t—can’t!” I gasped, lunging toward the front door.

A bulky brown shape appeared before me, and I bounced off the furry wall, collapsing onto my rear, only half understanding. The bearish creature let out a low, dangerous growl as he loomed above me.

“Boo!” Ellie shouted, horrified. “What are you—”

“Find Arthur Leywin. Find the Lance they presumptuously call Godspell, and bring him to me. Alive if you can, but his core will suffice just as well. Do not refuse me.”

“Arthur…” I moaned. He knew, but how? How could he have foreseen this? “I have to get—get out of here,” I said, staring up into dark, wet, beady eyes. “But I won’t do that. I won’t. I refuse. I’d rather die.”

“C-Caera?” Ellie stammered, hovering above and behind me. I could almost feel her hands extended toward me, frozen just out of reach. “Wh-what’s going on?”

Through clenched teeth, I tried to explain, but a sudden surge of pain and power from my runes split the words into a scream. I threw myself on my back, writhing. Alice grabbed Ellie and pulled her away, and Boo roared and leapt over me, putting himself between the Leywin’s and my body.

My body…but was it, even? Or did my Virtra blood make it Agrona’s body? Was it even a body, now? Or had he turned me into a weapon, a bomb? And I had planted myself exactly where I shouldn’t be. I’d have cursed if I could have gotten a word out through the pain.

My mind flashed for just as second to my adoptive blood—my family—and I hoped beyond hope that they were okay, but even that thought was swallowed as wind began gusting around me, turning my body half about and then lifting me up and slamming me against the wall. Heavy paws pinned me to the floor, teeth bared in my face. I felt a blade of wind cut a line across my cheek.

“Run!” I gasped, ragged and desperate. “P-please, you have to—”

Small hands grasped mine, and I looked over to see Ellie kneeling next to me, tears spilling unnoticed down her cheeks.

“Agrona—he knows—searching for Arthur—using the Alacryans already in Dicathen—” I stammered, struggling to get each word out. “My runes—using my runes—-”

Ellie’s presence was like a cooling balm against my burning skin, but even as I looked at her, a blade of wind slashed across her forearm. She winced, and I tried to pull free, but I lacked the strength.

I closed my eyes, feeling tears streaming down my own face now. I needed her to understand, I needed them all to run.

I won’t be the reason Arthur loses his family, I thought desperately. Not after what happened, the things he said. I can’t.

And then…Ellie was there, not just her physical presence, but her mana, pushing into me. She was reaching for my own, soothing it and calming the storm inside me. It snapped back at her, its agitation held in check but not quelled. Her spellform was a wonderful piece of magic, but this teenage girl couldn’t match herself against the might of Agrona Vritra himself and expect to defeat him. I knew that all too well.

The spellform! My mind lurched, my thoughts only half connected to one another.

My Alacryan runes were swallowing up my mana, activating, and unleashing their pent up spells back against my body. But the spellform I’d received in Dicathen was dormant, at ease…

As Ellie struggled to control the self-destructive mana, I opened my core and pushed. As much mana as I could control flooded the spellform, and Alice gasped. I opened my eyes to see ghostly flames dancing across my body. Alice had flinched back even as Boo’s jaws reached for my throat.

“Boo, don’t!” Ellie screamed, and the creature hesitated.

“Flames—won’t hurt…” I gasped, but I couldn’t voice more than that.

Although I’d practiced with the new spellform constantly for weeks, now the flames spilled out around me and across the floor without direction. The room vanished beneath them, so it was just me, Alice, Ellie, and Boo huddled amid a heatless conflagration. And…some of the tension eased with less mana being pulled to my other runes.

Wind yanked at my heel, and my leg bent unnaturally with a tearing and cracking sound that summoned bile up the back of my throat. The flames faltered, and wind exploded, hurling Ellie back. The rest of my bones creaked as Boo pressed his weight down more fully, pinning me to the floor even as the blustering winds sought to tear me apart.

I fought through the pain, kept channeling mana into the new spellform, then hot hands were pressing against my face and neck, a silver glow suffused me, and healing magic poured through me. The agony of my back and leg cooled. Ellie was there again, her will surging against the curse activating inside of me, the force of my own runes trying to tear me to shreds.

More mana flooded out as ghostly fire, burning it all away. Desperate and wild, I activated the silver cuff as well, sending the thin spikes of silver out to hover around us all, imbuing them with all the mana my unfocused consciousness could grasp hold of.

And as my core emptied, I felt Ellie’s probing fingers of pure mana strengthen and tighten. She was taking control, holding my mana down as I burned it away, emptying this assault of the fuel it needed.

My leg shifted and popped as it moved back into place. A bloody gash on my hip I hadn’t noticed happening sealed over. My core ached as I crushed every last particle of my own native mana from it.

With the same suddenness with which the attack began, it ceased, my body purged of whatever sickness was causing it.

Ellie and Alice kept working, ensuring my body was healed and the little lingering mana in my veins remained under control, but Boo eased back, taking his paws off me. My collarbone fused back together and healed under Alice’s touch.

Minutes passed as we all lay in a heap, breathless and sweat-soaked, before Alice broke the silence. “Caera, are you okay?”

I only hummed my affirmative response, not sure how “okay” I really could be.

She swallowed and glanced at Ellie before continuing. “You…well, you said…about Arthur.”

I stiffened suddenly as Agrona’s voice once again filled my mind. “I gave you the power you wield, and it is mine. Work against me in action, word, or even in thought, and the magic that was my gift to you will become your bane. These first brave few, for acting as my example to you, have spared their bloods from the same fate, but any others who disobey condemn their mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters to share their painful and gruesome end.”

“No, oh Vritra no…” Corbett, Lenora, Lauden, and the others. They were all in danger. Because of me.

I struggled to sit up, but Alice pressed a hand against my shoulder. “Rest, Caera. You need to—”

“Vajrakor,” I moaned, pushing aside her hand and continuing to struggle. “I have to warn the dragons. They must know.”

Alice blinked in surprise, but Ellie stood and took my hand, pulling me to my feet. “I’ll come with you.”

“We’ll all go,” Alice said firmly, an expression of fierce and protective love hardening her features. Without waiting for permission or even understanding, she headed toward the door.

I stumbled after her, Ellie helping to support me.

My entire body protested the movement, but I broke into a run after Alice, through the labyrinthine halls of the Earthborn Institute, out into the city of Vildorial, and up the long highway to Lodenhold, the dwarven palace.

My heart sank when we found the outer halls full of nervously gossiping dwarves. No one stopped us even as we entered the throne room itself.

It was empty. The dragons were gone.