The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 310

Chapter 310

Ellie

The little stream in our underground town built by the ancient mages was burbling away happily . It was lucky, I thought . It was able to simply exist, running among the rocks and singing its bubbly little song . Even when Boo swiped a glitterfish out of the water, it’s not like the stream experienced the loss of the fish . It didn’t have a heart to be broken .

But I did—and it was . Everywhere I looked I was constantly reminded of my family’s legacy of failure, loss, and death .

I was reminded of our failure in every tired, hopeless face, and in every sad, knowing look I got from the others .

Even if they had their own losses, they still treated my mother and me like glass—like glass trophies . It was like we were something to beam at, to keep out where everyone could see, but could not interact with...to treat like we still mattered, even though we were just a relic of better times, when the great Arthur Leywin still protected Dicathen .

When my brother and Sylvie disappeared, it was like the last piece of solid ground in the world had slipped away from under our feet, and now we were all slowly sinking into the dark waters of despair .

Or that’s how Kathyln put it, anyway .

It was weird . I’d have thought the death of her parents would have been a little more important to her than my brother’s disappearance, but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; everyone always loved Arthur the Lance, Arthur the general, Arthur the hero .

But I had loved Arthur the brother, Arthur the friend...when he was around, anyway .

My mother had faded into the background, happy to smile sadly and say “thank you” whenever someone offered their condolences . At best, she offered the occasional bit of healing to some injured refugee that the soldiers dragged back down into the shelter .

I think she had been so close to the edge of despair already that when Arthur didn’t return from rescuing Tessia, she lost hope for everything else . It hurt to admit, but if not for me, I think she’d have just curled up and gone to sleep, then never opened her eyes again .

Picking up a flat, smooth rock, I tossed it up in the air and caught it again .

How long had it been since Arthur and I had stood here on the bank of this underground stream and he had taught me how to skip stones across the water? Days? Weeks? I might as well have died and been reborn since then .

Letting out a scoff, I hurled the stone violently at the surface of the water where it splashed in a satisfying sort of way .

Boo, who had taken his catch and lumbered off to find a soft, mossy place to eat, lifted his head to gaze seriously at me . The dark spots above his eyes came together, which always made him look grumpy .

“Sorry Boo . I’m fine . ” Though I wasn’t sure he believed me, the giant bear-like mana beast snorted and went back to his meal .

“With an arm like that, have you considered throwing rocks at our enemies instead of shooting arrows?”

I turned, startled, but relaxed when I realized it was only Helen Shard, leader of what was left of the Twin Horns . Helen had been my mentor in the castle, teaching and helping me improve my ability to fire arrows of pure mana from my bow .

It had been a huge relief when she had arrived at the refuge with Durden and Angela Rose, and she had been quick to take up the role of my mentor again .

She seemed to have some sort of magical sense of when I was slipping into “a mood,” as she put it, because she always turned up to support me .

I flicked my hair in the girlish way I knew annoyed her and looked back at the stream . “I was trying to catch a fish for mom’s dinner . ”

From the corner of my eye I saw her raise a brow, smirking . “A fish? With a rock?”

“Shooting one with my bow would be too easy,” I said haughtily, turning my nose up slightly and putting my chin forward, the very picture of an overconfident, self-assured child . Helen had always pushed me to be different from the noble children in the castle, and it aggravated her to no end when I acted like them .

Turning serious, Helen gestured toward the water . “Let’s see it then . ”

Returning her serious look, I picked up my bow from where it rested against a nearby boulder and inspected the clear water . Every thirty seconds or so, a dimly glowing fish would swim slowly past, heading down the stream .

My brother had explained once that things you see in the water aren’t quite where they appear to be because the water bends the light . With this in mind, I drew back the string of the bow and conjured a thin arrow of mana . Then I waited .

A wobbly blue line in the gloomy stream told me a fish was coming . I waited until it passed into the wide, shallow part of the stream where I was standing, then prepared to take the shot . At the last instant, I tethered the arrow to me with a thread of pure mana, then let it fly .

The beam of white light slipped into the water with the tiniest plop, and the fish jerked, sending up a splash . I yanked at the tether, causing the arrow to jump out of the water and fly back to my hand, the glitterfish neatly impaled through the gills .

Helen began to clap slowly, shaking her head and letting her mouth hang open as if in awe . “Incredible, Eleanor, simply incredible . ” She then marched toward me, pulled the glitterfish off the arrow, gave it a single hard crack against one of the large rocks lining the edges of the stream, saluted me with the dead fish, and turned to walk away .

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“Consider it payment for a lesson well learned,” she said over her shoulder, not breaking her stride . “With a talent like yours, it surely won’t be any trouble catching another?”

Half irritated, half amused, I turned back to the water, feeling better . I decided that I might as well shoot a few more fish and take them home to Mom for dinner .

As I drew my bow again, though, movement on the other side of the stream caught my attention and I instinctively aimed in that direction .

“Oh!”