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Chapter 481

The sound of Agrona’s quick, confident steps blocked out all other noise in the halls of Taegrin Caelum. My own stride felt dragged along, timid even, as I floundered in his wake. At my side, Nico walked blindly, his eyes on me, not paying attention to where his steps fell. Twice, he stumbled on an unexpected stair, but still, his eyes pressed into the side of my face like two iron pokers hot from the fire.

His fingers clenched and unclenched as his teeth gnawed at the inside of his lip. Several times, he opened his mouth, looked at Agrona’s back, closed his mouth again, and returned to chewing his lip. He couldn’t have made it more obvious that he needed to tell me something if he’d etched the fact in runes across his forehead, but he clearly couldn’t say whatever he wanted in front of Agrona.

Whatever it is, it’s going to have to wait, I thought, my own gaze settling on Agrona’s back. We’re going to Dicathen. To kill Grey.

Tessia had buried herself down deep. Throughout my conversation with Agrona, I had felt flickers of her emotions—mostly the relief she felt every time Ji-ae had failed to locate Grey—but she was keeping her thoughts from me.

So much has happened so quickly. Tessia had released me from the trap Grey had set, allowing me to escape the Relictombs and return to Agrona. I tried not to think about the promise I had made to her. Is that why you’re silent now? Regret?

There was no response, but I didn’t expect one.

We reached a teleportation chamber that I had never visited before. I knew we were still in Agrona’s private wing, so I assumed this was his personal tempus warp. The octagonal chamber was small when compared to the larger sitting rooms, studies, and other such spaces that made up the parts of his private wing that I had seen.

Light beamed down from an angled ceiling to highlight a tempus warp resting on a granite pillar in the center of the room. Even as we entered, the tempus warp activated, runes burning brightly along its sides. Though having the same roughly anvil-shaped form, Agrona’s tempus warp was silvery smooth and larger than most I had seen.

“Gather round,” he said perfunctorily, moving to the far side.

Nico stood to his left and I to his right. Deep inside me, my guts seemed to squiggle around, and I couldn’t be sure if the nerves I felt were my own or Tessia’s leaking into me.

Agrona provided no warning as the three of us were suddenly pulled out of Taegrin Caelum and carried across the face of the world. There was a distant sensation of passage, but the transition was so smooth as to be almost uncomfortable, creating an uncanny valley of movement. When my feet sank into ankle-length grass, I actually stumbled.

Nico grabbed me tighter than necessary and peered at me with worry. “Cecil? Are you—”

“I’m fine,” I said, easing my arm out of his hands and looking around us.

We were standing on the edge of a small stand of trees. In front of us, there was a cluster of rocks that formed a narrow cave entrance. I searched for any interruption of the mana that might hint at Grey’s presence, but there was nothing. “Are you sure he’s here? Could Ji-ae have been wrong?”

The ornaments in his horns jangled slightly as Agrona looked at me, his brows raised incredulously. “Cecil dear, don’t be a fool.”

I blanched, making Agrona smile as he turned away and started toward the rocks.

Nico took my hand, his eyes smoldering as they burned into Agrona’s back. He waited a moment, letting Agrona get a few steps ahead, then leaned toward me. “I need to—”

“Come along,” Agrona said, his smooth baritone vibrating in my chest.

I squeezed Nico’s hand, then pulled away and hurried after Agrona. I sensed Nico’s pause before he followed hesitantly.

Agrona stepped into the crack in the rocks and floated slowly down into the darkness beyond. Just before he left my sight, he looked back up at me, and his gaze grabbed me like a leash. Without a second thought, I stepped in after him. For a second, I plunged down into the darkness, but the falling sensation evaporated as I grabbed hold of myself with the mana and began slowly drifting down.

I landed on rough, bare rock beside Agrona. A second later, Nico alighted on my other side. Before us was a barren cavern. The only noticeable feature was the remains of a huge throne. It had been shattered, and the fragments scattered across the cavern floor. Still, I sensed no disruption in the mana, no telltale signs of an aetheric presence. To all my senses, the cave was empty. If Grey really was there, there had been no chance Nico could have located him without assistance.

“I turned this place inside out looking for hidden tunnels or chambers,” Nico said, the path of his thoughts following mine.

“Mundane,” Agrona muttered. Resting his hands on his hips, he stared up toward the very center of the cave. As far as I could tell, he was staring at nothing. “Don’t worry yourself about it, little Nico. It isn’t your fault. After all, Arthur is just…so very much smarter than you.”

Nico flinched as if he’d been struck and looked at his feet. I felt like I should intervene, but my mind was too busy with the puzzle of Grey’s hiding place. “So how do we find this…pocket dimension? Isn’t that what Ji-ae called it?”

“The aspect of aether called spatium is, as one might expect, quite adept at manipulating physical space,” Agrona said, his tone changing. Instead of the cold, goading sarcasm, he sounded like an eager professor explaining a favored topic. “Such pocket dimensions have all kinds of uses. The extradimensional storage artifacts so commonly used throughout both continents were designed based on a similar premise. Of course, the djinn could do many things that are, today, seen by most as impossible.”

Agrona walked in a circle around the cavern, his eyes always focused on the same point. “When bound into an item with runes, such spaces are relatively stable. But when projected as such…” Agrona stopped pacing and took a few steps back. Although he stood in a relaxed posture, waves of dark mana began to radiate forward from him. Dark striations appeared in the air as his mana disrupted that in the atmosphere, scattering it throughout the cavern.

A transparent, ethereal bubble became visible, revealed by the waves of mana. It shimmered, shining with an internal light that was somehow contrary to the dark mana bombarding it. It was small, only a few feet across, and hovered fifteen feet in the air. Only then, looking at it with so much mana highlighting it, did I sense the distortion that might have revealed its presence.

One part of me was embarrassed that I had failed to sense it before, while another was amazed—and a little afraid—that Ji-ae had found it from across the ocean and with the Alacryan search forces so far away.

I was also curious by how easily Agrona seemed to identify and manipulate it, but as it all worked together, it mostly showed me exactly how unfair Agrona’s jab at Nico had been. When I glanced at Nico, I realized he was still watching me, not examining the dimensional pocket. I gave him a small, apologetic smile, hoping that he understood.

The mana issuing from Agrona intensified. Lashes of void wind were striking the bubble over and over again, growing slowly stronger. The edges of the bubble were fraying, and space seemed to warp strangely around its edges, bending and twisting the mana.

“Stand back,” Agrona said suddenly, gesturing with his hand.

Nico and I quickly shuffled away from where the jagged lines of dark mana crashed into the transparent bubble, each lash striking with more power.

With a rush of air, the bubble popped. Inside was…difficult to understand. A three-dimensional space several times larger than the bubble had been folded up inside it. I saw the space that had been hidden within as if looking at it through warped glass, its proportions entirely out of whack, the physical attributes making it up losing all meaning except for the presence of a soft glow.

Further confusing the sight was the fact that it was rapidly unfolding itself as it spilled out into the cavern, transitioning from the pocket dimension back into normal space like a ship\'s sail unfurling.

With the grinding of stone and a sluggish splashing noise, the hidden space settled in the center of the cave. Glowing liquid sloshed back and forth in a small pool, partially hidden by a pinkish mist that surrounded the pool in smooth panels like walls. Even as we watched, the mist began to disperse.

Sitting in the pool, eyes closed, was Grey. A girl with his same wheat-blond hair sat across from him. I had never seen her in this form with my own eyes, but I knew from Tessia’s memories and her unique mana signature that this was Sylvie, his dragon bond in her humanoid form.

A dark cuboid relic floated in the air between them, snapping and sparking with violet jolts of aether.

Both had their eyes closed. Neither moved as the pool water settled, the gentle sloshing against their clothes ceasing.

They don’t even know we’re here, I thought. Despite being buried deep within me, Tessia trembled.

Nico swallowed heavily as he stepped up beside me, his eyes locked on Grey. Once, I’m sure he would have already been in motion, blood iron bearing down on Grey’s undefended neck. Now, though, I couldn’t read his expression.

The soles of Agrona’s boots crunched against the dirt-covered floor as he approached the pool gingerly. Surprisingly, his dark eyes were entirely on the girl. Once at its edge, he kneeled and reached out, his fingers just barely brushing a lock of her hair. “Daughter,” he said, his lips carefully enunciating the word that he only barely whispered.

Suddenly, he stood. His fists clenched, and the mana around him seemed to pull away in fright. “Such a waste. Such a disappointment.” He looked away and started to turn his back on her but, as if being grabbed by some external force, stopped and looked back. “You think like a lesser, daughter. Short-sighted and desperate. Your mother’s act—bonding you to a lesser like some common beast—destroyed your potential.” He shook his head, and his fists unclenched.

With a sigh, he finally turned away, and his eyes, their color lost within the reflection of the light from the pool, locked onto mine. “Kill her, Cecil dear. Take her mana, and then we can decide what to do with your old friend Grey.”

I froze. The effort to look away from Agrona to Sylvie—his daughter—felt herculean. I had tasted her pure mana before. At the time, I had wanted dearly to absorb every drop from her. What insights into mana, or even aether, would a full, healthy, powerful dragon’s reservoir of mana provide me?

And yet my focus turned inward, searching down deep to where Tessia lay. I had been waiting for her protestations from the moment Grey and his bond appeared, and yet she had been silent.

She stirred as she felt my attention turn to her. ‘I am in your thoughts, Cecilia. You already know what I would say, because you feel the same way.’

I flinched back from the mental contact as if she’d struck me. After everything, that’s all you have to say? Why bind me to a promise if you’re not going to call it due?

She didn’t respond.

I swallowed uncomfortably. A slight rise of Agrona’s brow forced my focus back to him.

This was an unfair request. She was his daughter, and she was defenseless. It was cruel to ask me to absorb her mana. If she has to die here, why does it have to be by my hand?

Another, deeper, more frightened part of me acknowledged something else. She is his daughter, and he is willing to spend her life this easily. The truth was, hadn’t I tried to see Agrona like a father figure? Hadn’t I tried to be a daughter to him? I never had a family on Earth. Just Nico. And Grey, I acknowledged with some difficulty. And Headmaster Wilbeck, who was always kind to me.

“Cecil dear…” Agrona prodded, a dangerous edge in his voice.

“I can’t,” I said around the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry, Agrona. Please, don’t ask me to do this.”

Agrona took a step toward me. His face was impassive, as blank as if it were carved of marble. “You are the Legacy, Cecilia. The path before you will be replete with demanding obligations. You cannot balk at each one, needing me to hold your hand throughout. Our wills—your will—must be absolute.”

My jaw worked silently as Agrona held my gaze. I couldn’t look away from him. “I will fight your battles for you. I will destroy your enemies. I will master every aspect of asuran magic, and I will make the world kneel, if that’s what you wish.” I let out a shaky breath. My legs felt like jelly, and my guts squirmed like fire eels. “But please don’t make me do this.”

“This is your line?” Agrona’s stony visage cracked, but it did not shatter. He looked into the middle distance between us and gave a soft huff of something like laughter but very much not. The motion made the ornaments in his horns tinkle softly. “After all the deaths you have caused, this is where you decide not to kill? What sort of inconsistent logic bars you from killing my daughter? Is it her tie to arthur? Or…her relationship with me? No. You are afraid of what might happen to you, knowing that I could do this to my own flesh and blood.”

“No…yes. All of it. I…” I looked inward to Tessia, wishing she would beg me not to kill Sylvie or Arthur. “I won’t do this.”

Agrona scoffed, a bitterly cutting noise. “Be careful, Cecilia. You see what happens to those who disappoint me.” He gestured delicately to the immobile girl in the pool.

Nico stepped in front of me and held up the charwood staff he had designed, its four differently colored crystals gleaming dully. “Enough!” His voice was higher than usual, and there was sweat on his brow. “After all she’s done for you…after everything! You don’t get to threaten her, Agrona.”

My heart gave a strange pitter-pattering jump in my jest, and I yearned to reach out and wrap my arms around Nico, pulling him to me and keeping him safe. But then Agrona began to laugh. The sound of his wild amusement echoed off the walls and rooted me to the spot.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I figured it out,” Nico continued, his voice shaking almost as much as the staff in his hands. He was still looking at Agrona, but I knew he was talking to me. “The table, the runes, the energy transference, all of it.”

Agrona’s laugh petered out, and he wiped a single tear from his cheek. He gave Nico a predatory smile. “Oh, go on. You’ve clearly been dying to have your big moment, hero.”

Stumbling, Nico began to explain. I struggled to follow all the technical details. Still, the purpose was clear enough: the artifact table, in conjunction with the runes marking my body, worked to transfer magical abilities from one person to another.

Tentatively, I reached out and touched Nico’s shoulder, and he stopped speaking and turned to look at me with desperate hope. “Nico…he already told me. I’m sorry. I know.”

His brows knit together in confusion, and his mouth worked silently. Finally, he said, “No, you don’t understand—”

“Yes, you’ve caught me!” Agrona said, raising his hands as if preparing for them to be manacled. “Amazing detective work, Scythe Nico. You have realized that I have backup plans. What a terrible shock for you, I know.”

Nico turned fully toward me now, setting one hand on my shoulder and leaning toward me until our faces were almost touched. “It’s not some emergency option, Cecil. It’s the entire plan. He can take the Legacy from you. All that potential, all that knowledge…insight into all the other asura’s mana arts, everything.” Nico’s grip tightened, and his eyes shone with anger and fear. “He’s never going to send us home. It’s all a lie. Everything.”

Behind Nico, Agrona rolled his eyes. “As usual, Nico, you fail to see what is right in front of your face. Do you think you and Cecilia can return to Earth and live a cozy, happy little life if she is still the Legacy?”

Nico spun back to Agrona, again brandishing the staff. “You’ve pushed me and taunted me and belittled me. Fostered my anger while taking everything else away from me, baiting me along in your service with promises of bringing Cecilia here and then sending us back to Earth to have a life together. You never stopped moving the goalposts to ensure that nothing—nothing!—was ever enough for you. But this…this is the line I won’t cross. I won’t let you do this to Cecilia!”

I looked back and forth between the two. Agrona had already told me what he and those mages were doing when I woke from my Integration, and based on what Nico was saying, it seemed as if he’d been truthful. But Nico was frightened…and angry. I’d never seen him stand up to Agrona before, and to know that he was risking Agrona’s wrath to defend me…

“Enough,” Agrona said, any hint of humor in his demeanor vanishing between one heartbeat and the next. A cold wind whipped through the cave, throwing dust in our faces. His eyes gleamed an angry scarlet as he looked past Nico to me. “Cecilia. I am tired of this game. Absorb this failure of an asura’s mana now. Kill her or…watch Nico die instead.”

My ears filled with a terrible ringing. A heavy pressure seemed to descend onto my chest, crushing the air from my lungs.

Somehow, Nico seemed unaffected. His staff cut through the air, conjuring a shield of all four elements gusting, flaring, and swirling into and through one another. He spoke, and although I recognized the words as defiant, I couldn’t process them beyond the drumbeat in my skull. I wanted to stop him, to protect him, to beg Agrona to understand, but I felt like I had been turned to stone.

From deep down inside my very being, I felt a sensation like wiggling my bare toes in cool grass. ‘It’s okay, Cecilia. I’m here. You know what is right, and you have the strength to do it.’

As I leaned into those words, truly appreciating Tessia for the first time since my reincarnation, something hot and wet sprayed across my face. Only as a kind of echo, I realized there had been a surge of mana.

Slowly, my gaze fell, from the flickering lights within the gemstones inset in Nico’s staff, to his tangled black hair, down his neck and shoulders. There, my focus caught, snagged on what I saw but I was unable to process it.

Nico collapsed to his knees.

The shield cracked, the elements splintering and turning against each other as the magic in the air faded.

To either side, Nico held one half of his staff in each hand.

I saw all this in a detached sort of way, peripheral to the focus of my gaze, which remained on Nico’s back, just below his shoulder blades, where a black spike of blood iron had erupted from him. Dozens of smaller spikes burst out from the blood that ran down the black metal, and even more spikes grew from those, each one tipped with a drop of blood. These drops rained down like petals from a rosebush to pool beneath him.

My hand raised, brushing against my face. It was the act of looking down to find my own skin red with Nico’s blood that finally snapped me out of the otherworldly fugue.

I drew in a ragged, desperate breath and threw myself onto my knees at Nico’s side just as he began to pitch forward. Scooping him into my arms, I eased him down onto the ground. “Nico. Nico! Nico…” His name kept tumbling from my lips, my inflection changing each time, almost as if I were uttering the chant to a spell.

His dark eyes turned to me, glossy with pain. His lips moved, but no sound came out, and I was too dull with shock to read them. They flicked up and away from me, and I followed them, looking up into Agrona’s face just as his fingers tangled in the gunmetal gray hair I had always hated. With a fistful of my hair, Agrona jerked me up onto my feet and dragged me toward the pool. I thought I was screaming, but I wasn’t sure.

With a shove, I pitched forward onto my hands and knees beside Sylvie, almost landing in the pool with her and Grey. Red spilled into the liquid, slowly tinging the bluish light an angry purple.

“Kill her,” Agrona said coldly, his killing intent pressing down on me so I couldn’t rise.

Turning my head, I looked up into his face. There was no sign of the man who had brought me to this world, who had given me the strength and the confidence to dare for a new chance at life, in Agrona’s expectant but emotionless gaze. Now, just like the researchers of my old world, he looked at me as if there was no doubt that he would break me. I would do his will as I always had. This was just another test.

I closed my eyes against the pain that clutched my rapidly beating heart like venomous claws. Accepting what it would mean, I uttered one last, unexpectedly liberating, word.

"No."