The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 205

Chapter 205

Chapter 205: Enemy Territory

CIRCE MILVIEW

Alacryan

“How much longer?” Fane hissed, his head constantly darting left and right. His voice was hardly louder than a whisper. None of us dared to be any louder than that.

I held up two fingers, turning my focus back on the tree in front of me. The crest on my back flared as I grit my teeth to keep my powers under control while mana coursed through my arms and into the tree itself.

“My veiling barrier isn’t going to last much longer on such a wide range,” Cole muttered through gritted teeth.

I wiped a bead of sweat running down my cheek. “Done.”

Maeve grabbed my arm and we were already on the move. I turned back one last time to make sure the three-point array I had just finished was in place.

It’s in place. I allowed myself a breath of relief as we began making our way through this forsaken forest.

We traveled at a frustratingly slow pace with Maeve and myself in the front. Only by using my crest did my senses extend to about thirty yards—much too restricted than I was comfortable with. It didn’t help that, because of this mysterious fog that only seemed to exist in this forest, I was the only one that could see past a few feet around us.

“Do you see anyone around us, Circe?” Fane asked for the fifth time.

I whipped my head back and shot him a glare. “I said I’ll tell you if I see anything out of the ordinary.”

He narrowed his eyes, discontent, but didn’t say anything further.

After about an hour of practically crawling through the fog-laden forest, I signaled for everyone to stop. “We need to place another array.”

Everyone got into position. Maeve hopped onto a nearby tree with her hands poised to fire. Cole stuck beside me and enveloped the area in a veil to help mask mana fluctuations while I worked. Fane circled the perimeter with wary eyes as our first line of defense.

After everyone was in place, I continued in our most important—and quite likely our last—mission.

Activating my crest once again, I began setting up the first part of the three-point array. With my control as a mid-tier sentry, it wasn’t hard setting it up. The tricky part was making sure it was all but undetectable until I finally activated it. There could be no trace, no leakage, of mana or the elves lurking around the forest will sense it. If any of the arrays that I had made were discovered, the whole plan was ruined.

Pushing aside the burden weighing down on me, I controlled the mana coalesced in the tip of my fingers as it began seeping into the first tree. A rustle sounded to my left and I jerked.

Were we discovered?

By the time I turned my head in the direction of the sound, Fane was already there. He shook his head, holding up a rodent whose neck had been cleanly broken.

As expected of a veteran emblem holder. The striker’s attitude was foul, but he was a reliable teammate to have.

Turning my focus back on the old tree, I controlled the passage of my instilled mana until it buried itself deep into the core of the tree. After it was in place, I had to cover the tracks and the mana fluctuation at the site of the ‘wound’.

For this moment, my attention had to be concentrated. I wasn’t able to afford to spread my senses around us in case an elf sneaked up on us.

Minutes crawled at the pace of hours as I blinked away the tears trying to get inside my eyes. The mana imprint left by my spell had to be manually obscured with surgical precision so that no one could sense that magic was used in the area.

Done, I mouthed at my teammates before moving onto the next point.

Kneeling down on the ground a few feet away from the tree, I repeated the process until finally I was on the last part on a tree on the other side of the array I had made on the ground.

After this three-point array had been completed, we were once again on the move. Luckily, Cole’s veil barrier didn’t leave any mana fluctuations. Neither did Fane or Maeve’s magic.

Truly a team specialized for this mission, I thought, feeling out of place. Afterall, I was a sentry. I wasn’t built or trained for this.

My only source of comfort was that we weren’t the only team.

Maybe one of the other teams have already succeeded in securing a route, I hoped, knowing how unlikely it was. Out of all the other teams, I knew that we were the most likely to succeed... because of my newly acquired emblem.

Suddenly, an arm shot out, stopping me in my tracks. It was Maeve.

She locked gazes with me and then looked down. Hidden underneath the fog was a small ditch with spikes of wood.

My heart thumped at the close call.

“The spikes weren’t sharpened, it was twisted into this shape,” Maeve informed in a whisper.

“Plant magic,” I breathed. My heart dropped at what this meant.

“We’ll have to find another route,” Fane said from behind, still on the lookout.

“Then we’ll have to stop in a bit for me to scout another route,” I replied, disheartened.

With a solemn nod from Maeve, we continued our hellish march.

My legs throbbed in pain and my sore back made me feel older than my grandma, but I continued on without complaint until the sun was about an hour from setting.

“Merciful Vritra,” I mumbled as we finally settled down for the night on the thick branches of a tree.

Cole passed around strips of salted dried meat and a candied root to each of us.

Tearing smaller pieces from the dried meat, I let it sit in my mouth so my saliva would soften it before I chewed it down. The four of us ate silently, relishing the first small break in two days.