He sped up this time, pushing his Iron body to the limit, and missed the third hit.
The first two sent light rippling through their tiny runes, and the third remained dark. He forced himself to slow down, breathe deep, and keep the power cycling steadily through his madra channels. Cool air rushed in, and a door shut. Yerin walked inside, only the silver blade over her shoulder and the red belt around her middle standing out against the shadows. "Training hard, or you have a grudge against wood people?" Lindon hurriedly straightened himself, squaring his shoulders and smoothing his clothes. She'd seen him in worse states, but he didn't want to look like he'd exhausted himself against a bunch of wooden statues. "Only working out a few things," he said, leaning closer to one of the dummies as though trying to figure out its script. She eyed him for a moment and then walked inside the circle, plopping down onto the ground. She leaned up against a dummy's support pole and sighed. "I'm the last one to tell you to stop working. Heaven's truth, I just got done with three hours of meditation cycling and two hours of technique practice. But even my master would say you need an easy day every once in a while." "I've stopped to cycle two or three times," he said, but then he wondered if that were true. "Maybe it was four times. Or...six?" How long had he been here? He glanced at the candle, which was a half-melted lump of wax in the middle of the circle. The woman who'd sold it to him had sworn it would burn all night. Perhaps it had. A break couldn't hurt, so he sat beneath the dummy next to her. Without a word, she passed him a rag. He nodded his thanks, then began wiping the sweat from his head and neck. "Trick to an Iron body," Yerin said, "is to recognize when you're tired and when you're not. Gets harder to tell the difference. You'll pick it up after a while, but until you do, you're more than likely to run your feet down to the nubs." Lindon's eyelids did feel heavy, his arms ached, and his hands were cramped...but those sensations faded almost as quickly as they came. Madra trickled steadily from his core, called by his Bloodforged Iron body to heal his fatigue.
"Is that so?" He looked at his hands, feeling the tight ache in his knuckles drain away with his madra. "Incredible. I really can't tell." "That's how you run into more trouble than you can handle. If you ask me, you've got…" Something shivered through Lindon's spirit, and he recognized the touch of her spiritual sense. "…well, that's a puzzle and a half." He'd seen Yerin walk into battle with a smile on her face. Now, after scanning him, she was frowning and mumbling to herself, staring at his stomach. Though he had just toweled off, sweat broke out over his skin again. Lindon dove into his own soul, almost in a cycling trance, clutching at his core with both hands. "What's wrong? What have I done? Did I cycle too much? Am I dying?" "You're about a thousand miles from dying," she muttered. "As expected of an Underlord, I guess." "Eithan? Did Eithan do something to me?" "He handed you that Iron body, true?" Lindon didn't remember Eithan handing him anything, but he guessed it was true enough. "Unless I'm wide of the mark, it looks like it's keeping you fresh. You could work your body until your core's dry." Lindon had felt the same thing already, but he had assumed it was a function of the Iron body. " my ignorance, but isn't that normal?" "It's normal for the Undying Lizards of the Bluefire Desert. I hear it's normal for some plants." She jabbed him lightly in the stomach. "People get tired sometimes." New possibilities bloomed in Lindon's imagination, and he had to resist the urge to start taking notes. "As long as I restore my madra, I could keep training? How often should I stop and cycle, do you think?" "Whoa there, rein it in. If you could work all day and night, you'd be fighting Eithan in a year, not one little Jai Long. The spirit needs rest just like your body does. You don't want to strain your madra channels, I'll tell you that one for free." She clasped her hands together and stretched them over her head. "You're an Iron, not a Remnant; you still need sleep. Food. Your spirit's a weapon, and you've got to keep it clean and polished. But you don't have to
worry about pulling a muscle, or collapsing in a heap. I'd kill you for that, if I thought I could take it off your Remnant." Lindon chuckled uneasily, wiping his face with the towel again. So he could work for longer than most people, but not too long. What was the limit? How could he tell? It was easy to know when he was running out of madra, but what did strained madra channels feel like? How much more time was his Iron body buying him, exactly? Lost in thought, he almost handed the sweaty rag back, but he caught himself at the last minute and tucked it inside his outer robe. He could wash it in the lake in the morning. Lindon dipped his head in thanks and spoke carefully. "Gratitude. You've given me a lot to think about. But if you'll allow me another question: what are my chances? With Jai Long? Do I have enough time?" "You've got no time at all," Yerin said immediately. "Sleep or no sleep, if Eithan doesn't have something planned for you, then you're dry leaves to the fire." The truth of that settled onto him, and Lindon couldn't think of anything to say. Yerin scratched the side of her neck, and in the dim light, he thought he saw her flush. "I, uh...sorry. Didn't intend to say it like that." She hesitated for another moment. "When I was Iron, my master didn't press me to fight a Highgold in a year's time. That's a rotten gamble, no matter what training he gives you." Yerin knew he couldn't do it. That he was going to die in a year. He stared at the dummy across the circle because he didn't want to see the truth on her face. "I'm not going to gamble," he said quietly. "There are other ways to get to him, before the duel. He eats, he sleeps, just like anybody else. He has enemies. He has a family." Yerin's Goldsign arched, as though the blade were trying to get a better look at Lindon's face. "Dark plans for an Iron," she said, voice dry. "You want to hold his crippled little sister hostage, do you think? You want to go to his enemies for help instead of Eithan?" "I don't know enough about him yet," Lindon said, embarrassed. "You know, there's always poison. Ambush."
"There's always poison," she repeated. "Yeah. You could poison his food, then wait until he falls asleep. Put a different poison on your knives, so even if he wakes up, he can't…" She trailed off, blinking rapidly. Her master. That was what the Jades of the Heaven's Glory School had done to her master. Lindon fell to his knees, pressing his forehead against the cool wooden floor. "I did not think. I—" He glanced up and saw that she was holding up a hand for silence. She waited for a few seconds, visibly swallowing a few times, before she spoke. "They were dogs and cowards," she said at last. "Don't think like them. You don't learn to stand against your enemies by crawling in the dirt." "As you say. I have no excuse." "You're on the path now, stable and true. In a year, you won't recognize yourself." He certainly couldn't disagree with her now, not to her face, but he filed his plans away carefully in the back of his mind. Surely Eithan wouldn't mind if he prepared for contingencies. Lindon had just risen to his feet when the door slammed open, and Eithan marched in, carrying a lantern caging a burning star. It lit the barn like midday, making Lindon wince and shield his eyes. Eithan saw them and paused, as though he'd just noticed them. "Oh, I'm sorry, I hope I'm not interrupting anything." Before they could respond, he added, "I was just being polite, I heard it all." Lindon was going to find it hard to relax over the next year, if Eithan listened to every word he ever spoke. The Underlord walked over to the melted candle and kicked it aside, sending a puff of smoke into the air and chunks of wax tumbling across the floor. He set his lantern in its place at the center of the course, then turned to face them with hands on hips. "I will be truthful with the two of you: I'm facing a bit of a crisis here." His demeanor was cheery as ever, but his smile had shrunk to nothing more than tightened lips. Maybe this was his serious face. "We'll do whatever we can to help you, of course," Lindon said, knowing that he could never help an Underlord do anything.
"You made a mess out of something," Yerin said, her tone absolutely confident. Eithan pointed to Lindon. "I will take you up on that offer, don't worry." Lindon's heart sank. Now Eithan pointed to Yerin. "That's an uncharitable way to put it, but I can't say you're wrong. You know, I do wish I could tell the future. There are sacred artists out there who can, to varying degrees. It would make planning so much easier. And I don't expect you to understand this, but seeing everything makes surprises so much worse. You always feel as though you should have seen them coming." He sighed, flipping his hair over his shoulder. "That's enough of my problems, so let's talk about our problems. The Jai clan has all but declared war on our family." "All but?" Yerin repeated. "Is it war, or no war?" "If they declared it openly, the Emperor's forces would cripple the aggressor in a day. But the Skysworn stay out of the petty squabbles between clans. As long as the Jai pretend that's what's happening, the Emperor will stay clear." Lindon had seen similar situations back in Sacred Valley, as the Wei clashed along the border with the Li, and the Kazan raided them both. He saw the problem immediately. "They'll claim Jai Long." Eithan nodded to him. "He and his sister were exiled here so that they could serve the main family without being underfoot and embarrassing. Has to do with his wrapped-up face." Eithan waved a hand vaguely around his own head. "They still won't take him back, but once the duel is over, they can pretend he was one of them all along. He wins? They take credit. He dies? We killed a Jai Highgold, and they'll use it as an excuse for open war." He sighed. "And I thought all I'd have to do was write a letter…" There was an obvious solution here, but Lindon proposed it carefully. "Not to overstep my bounds, but the situation has changed. Couldn't you tell the Jai clan that you changed your mind?" Eithan braced one foot on the star-filled lantern and leaned forward. "One's word is the currency of the powerful. Reputation and honor are all that prevent us from slaughtering each other, and keep us operating with
some degree of civility. What stops an Underlord from killing everyone weaker? Their reputation. What shields their family from reprisals and attacks? Their reputation. Many experts value their good name more than their life." A dark pall settled over Lindon. Eithan wouldn't change his mind about the duel, then. That had been one of Lindon's final hopes. "Besides, I still have a use for your victory," he said. "Jai Long's defeat will give me leverage, whether the clan claims him or not, so I would still prefer you fight. However, there is another option..." Lindon's dead hope flickered to life again. "...I can allow you to leave the family. Your actions would not reflect on my word if you weren't a subject of the Arelius." Lindon turned to Yerin, who wore a troubled expression but said nothing. Would she come with him, if he left? She might, if he asked her, but would that be fair to her? He didn't know much about the Arelius family, but he knew they represented both a risk and an opportunity. Yerin could grow there, with the support of a well-connected clan. For his part, anywhere outside of Sacred Valley was a land of limitless opportunity. The Fishers could advance him past Iron. He had other roads he could take. But he'd be giving up the chance to be trained personally by an Underlord. Eithan met his eyes, speaking earnestly. "I'll be as clear as I can: the Arelius family employs hundreds of thousands of people, and their livelihoods will be impacted by the results of this duel. If you stay, I will do whatever I have to so that you win. Even if it kills you." Lindon leaned against a wooden dummy for support. "Killing me…to win. I see. How likely is that to happen, exactly?" Eithan's smile broadened. "It's my last resort. I have every confidence that I can raise you to victory without destroying your future. I can't say you will enjoy the process, though. And I will catch you every time you try and run away." Yerin still hadn't said anything since Eithan entered the room. She stood with one hand on her sword and one on the blood-red rope around her waist, as though considering her options. "If you don't mind," Lindon said, "I'd like some time to consider."
Eithan straightened, brushing wrinkles out of his turquoise robe. "Perfectly understandable, but I'm afraid we're running short of time as it is. We're leaving at dawn. If you would like to join us, look around the Fisher territory for a tall building with blue clouds surrounding the foundation and Arelius banners hanging from the walls. That is our vehicle out of here, so if it's still there, so are we." He executed a small, shallow bow in Lindon's direction and then started to walk off. Over his shoulder, he called, "I don't like to make decisions for others, Lindon...but I hope to see you in the morning." The door swung shut behind him, but it fell into Yerin's hand. She hitched up her red belt as though to distract herself. She still looked troubled, even as she spoke. "In the sacred arts, you don't want the clear path. You want the rocky one. The strongest aren't the ones who climb the highest mountains, but the ones who choose to do it one-handed and blindfolded." She hesitated as though to add something else before shaking her head. "But it's a short distance between 'rocky' and 'looking for suicide.' I don't know what you should do. I...I don't know." Then she left too. *** Lindon blinked sleep from bleary eyes, sitting up on the barn floor. The touch of sunlight streaming through the wooden slats warmed him, bright and cheery. He started to cycle his sluggish madra, prodding his body into waking and his mind into thought. Last night, he'd stayed up after Eithan left, trying to clear his mind and make the right decision. He'd known what the best answer was: to stick with the Arelius family. But that didn't make the decision easier. If he stayed, the Fishers could take him to Truegold. Truegold. Would that really be his limit? When he had walked among the Eight-Man Empire, Suriel had said that even ten thousand Gold sacred artists couldn't scratch their armor. How far above Truegold were they? How far above them was Suriel? He'd pulled Suriel's marble out of his pocket, and the sight of the steady blue candle-flame inside the glass orb had made up his mind. He'd activated
the course, matching his newfound determination against the eighteen animated wooden dummies. When he joined Eithan and the Arelius family at dawn, he wanted to do it after squeezing out every second of practice he could. Maybe he could produce a miracle, defeat the course, and join Eithan and Yerin with pride. The dummies had knocked him flat, but he'd gotten up again and again. Eventually he'd stopped to cycle, but meditation had turned to sleep... Sunlight streamed in through the walls. He jumped to his feet, the unfamiliar power of his Iron body launching him two feet in the air before he landed. He was late. He'd missed them. Lindon stormed through the door, hoping against hope that they'd decided to wait a few hours for him. The instant he opened a crack, air blasted him in the face, shoving the door all the way open and slamming it against the frame. The wind was almost strong enough to push him off his feet, Iron body or no, and the light was blinding. He had to throw up his arm against the all-present light, which surrounded him as though he'd been tossed into the sun. When his eyes finally adjusted and the gusts slowed for a moment, he squinted into the brightness and saw...not the dusty yard outside the barn. Not the collection of ramshackle buildings making up the Five Factions Alliance. An endless ocean of sunlit clouds, stretching out beneath him. Lindon shouted and fell backwards, kicking the door shut, trying to catch his breath. The barn was in the sky. In the heavens, maybe? Had Suriel grabbed this whole building and lifted it from the earth? He grabbed the warm glass marble from his pocket and rubbed it between his hands to comfort himself. As his breath and mind settled, he started to notice details he hadn't before: the floor dipped and sagged beneath him, like he was lying on a boat drifting over a lake. Wind whistled through and around the barn. Lindon leaned on a wooden dummy to prop himself up, catching his breath and staring at the door as though it might open and drag him out into open air.
Wood creaked, and he turned to see the back door swinging open. Eithan stuck his head in, smiling. "A good morning to you!" he said cheerily. "Come join us for breakfast." Lindon took a deep breath before answering. "You didn't leave me." He closed his eyes and took another breath. "This one thanks you, honored Underlord." "I kept an eye on you after I left. I could tell you'd made up your mind, so when you didn't make it on time, I decided to drag you along." Following the Underlord, Lindon pushed open the back door of the flying barn. It swung open into bright lights and furious wind, but there was another door only a foot or two away. This door was painted dark blue, with a black crescent at eye level, and the frame was all white. The colors of the Arelius family. Between him and the door was a stretch of dense blue cloud. To the left and right, he saw nothing but endless sky and white fluff. Beneath him, a soft blue carpet. Lindon hesitated, but Eithan didn't. He was already striding across the cloud with full confidence, his steps pressing down as though he walked across a mattress. It's a Thousand-Mile Cloud, Lindon reassured himself, just...bigger. Big enough to carry two buildings. If he'd needed an illustration of the Arelius family's wealth and power, this would do. Eithan held the door for him as Lindon fought the wind to enter. He stepped into a cozy sitting room, all decorated in Arelius colors. Dark blue chairs and couches were arranged into a half-circle around a fireplace of black metal. A spiral staircase led up to a second story, and a pair of tall, arched windows spilled sunlight into the whole space. Through an open doorway against the other wall, Lindon saw into a second room, this one surrounded entirely in glass that looked out over the clouds. Cassias stood in the glass room over a podium that looked like the control panel for the training course. As Lindon watched, he spread his hand and injected a pulse of madra speckled with silver. Circles lit up one after another on the polished board.
The house veered to the right, cutting through the clouds like a ship through waves. Yerin had her legs crossed on one fluffy chair, her hands on her knees and breathing measured. When Lindon crossed the doorway, she cracked her eyes open and gave him a little smile. "Sharp decision," she said. "I fell asleep." Eithan hopped over the polished wooden counter that separated the rest of the room from a wall of brightly colored bottles, then started fixing himself a drink. "This is Sky's Mercy, the personal cloudship of the family's Patriarch. It serves us as a mobile base when we need to take our business outside of the usual territory." Cassias didn't turn from his controls, shouting over his shoulder to Lindon. "We stay as high as we can, for the sake of stealth. Sometimes we must fly lower, when there are dangers in the skies or the vital aura runs low. That's when we risk being spotted." Lindon took a few more seconds to process the sea of gleaming clouds outside the windows. "The Cloud Hammer School spotted you, then?" They were the ones who had first spread the word of the Arelius family's coming. "I passed through a group of their disciples cycling up here," Cassias responded. "I'm sure they intended no harm, but there's no such thing as a secret." The floor rose and dipped slowly, as though the cloud breathed beneath them. At the bar, Eithan was pouring two bottles into a third. He didn't spill a drop. Lindon turned to the Underlord, imagination wrestling with the possibilities of flying buildings. "You lifted the entire barn off the ground?" If the family could build this, he could only imagine what other treasures they were hiding. "I dropped quite a few scales for the Fisher to build that training facility," Eithan said, flipping the bottles into the air and catching all three. "It would be a waste to just leave it behind. We had to expand the cloud base a bit, but it's well within acceptable limits." "Not well within," Cassias responded, but Eithan pointed to the top of the staircase. "And look who else came with us! Fisher Gesha, how are you feeling?"
A few hairs had come loose from the old woman's bun, her wrinkled face looked pale, and she rested heavily on the bannister, which was shaped like a serpentine dragon's head. She didn't look as though she had the strength to walk down the stairs, but she was standing on her drudge. The eight long spider legs dragged her down the stairs smoothly, as though she were gliding down. "I apologize for showing you this sight, Underlord," she panted. When she saw Lindon staring, a drop of acid entered her voice, and she snapped, "Can't stand boats, can I? I stay off the water, thank you very much, and sailing on the clouds is just the same as sailing anywhere. Hm? You have something to say?" Lindon leaned closer to her, more concerned about her presence than her tone. "Fisher Gesha, did you...choose to come along?" He didn't want to say too much, because Cassias and Eithan could hear him perfectly well, but he could too-easily picture Eithan snatching up the Soulsmith on a whim. She studied him for a moment, then reached up and patted his cheek. "I must look like a disaster, to have an Iron worry about me. No, the Underlord told me to think about it, didn't he? Well, I did. I've lived my life among the Fishers, and it's been a long life. It's about time I see the wider world, perhaps bring something back, hm? A little knowledge, perhaps." One of the spider legs reached up to poke Lindon in the stomach. "And I can't leave a half-grown cub to stumble around in the wild on its own, can I? No, I can't." Lindon's throat tightened, and he blinked rapidly. She had stayed with him. He bowed as deeply as he could without going to his knees. "Thank you, Fisher Gesha." She stayed silent. When he finally raised his head, she was gone. One of the tall windows had swung open on its hinges, and Gesha dangled half-out with her head in the rushing wind. She retched, the spider legs stretched out as far as they would go to keep her tall enough to reach the window. Eithan was sipping something from a shallow bowl. "It can take a few days to adjust, if you have a tender stomach," he said. "But we'll have plenty of time together. It will take a month to reach our destination, which we will put to good use."
Yerin woke from her cycling meditation again, cracking her eyes. "You finally bothering to teach us?" Eithan hopped up to sit on the bar, taking another drink from his bowl. "The question is, are you ready for me to teach you?" He let that hang for a second as he took another sip, then added, "And the answer is no, you're not ready, so I'm going to spend this month trying to prepare you." He nodded to Yerin. "First, I'd like you to take turns on the training course. Yerin, you will try to beat your previous time..." She rose from her seat, ready to try immediately. "...using only your Goldsign." The bladed metal arm hanging over her shoulder twitched. She turned to stare at him in disbelief. "I'd have a better chance of clearing it with my bright smile and winning personality." Eithan turned to Lindon. "And Lindon—" "Oy. Hey. Don't ignore me." "I at least expect you to clear all eighteen dummies after a month. Don't worry about your time, for now. While you're working on that, you can bring your second core up to Iron, and brush up on your Soulsmithing. Fisher?" Gesha leaned back inside, shutting the window with one hand and dabbing at her mouth with a cloth in the other. When she spoke, her voice had an extra rasp. "You should be able to identify all the properties of the seven basic aspects of Forged madra, as well as their combinations. I have the books with me." Yerin slapped the flat edge of her bladed Goldsign against the wooden bar. "You want me to fight with this thing? Why don't I just tie a knife to the end of a string and use that?" Eithan studied her over the rim of his bowl. "You think, perhaps, that I don't know what it takes to reach Highgold?" "No, that's not..." Yerin's ears started turning red. "I'm the last one who would..." "You think you know better than I do which exercises will allow you to integrate your Remnant's skills and abilities into your own? If your master left you a more complete training regimen for you to follow after Lowgold, then by all means use that." Yerin's ears had turned bright red. "I didn't aim to say that, Underlord."
"Hmm." He smiled. "You're young, and I'm unaccustomed to explaining myself. I'll try to be clearer in the future, but do as I tell you." She kept her eyes on the floor, tilted away from Lindon, but she nodded. "It's not so far apart from what my master used to have me do." "The only difference," Eithan said, "is that you trusted him. Trust comes with time. And during that time, you will clear that course with your Goldsign or I'll tie you to a string and drag you behind the house like a kite." She straightened and marched for the door. Lindon started to follow her, but Eithan stopped him. "Before you do your morning cycling, take..." –he reached behind the bar with one hand, balancing his bowl in the other, and rummaged around in a drawer— "Aha! Take this." Eithan tossed Lindon a pill the size of his knuckle. It was smooth, with swirls of blue and white mingled together. "Behold, the Four Corners Rotation Pill." Yerin stopped with her hand on the door. "It's a pill to make your madra easier to cycle, and it should help you raise your second core to Iron fairly quickly." Lindon itched to write the name of the pill down in his notes. He had to record every step of his advancement in The Path of Twin Stars manual. Which brought him a moment of panic, as he realized he didn't have his pack with him. He let out a breath of relief as he spotted his pack—with the manual inside—leaning up against the wall. A polished wood-and-jade chest leaked wisps of red from the closed lid, so he assumed his Thousand-Mile Cloud was inside. "Use the pill together with your parasite ring," Eithan said, pouring himself another drink. "The effects should complement one another, so that it feels like cycling normally, but you'll see twice the benefit. By the time we land, I hope to be able to take you straight to Jade." Lindon cradled the pill in both hands as though it was his key into the heavens. It smelled like honey and rainy days, and the only thing stopping Lindon from popping it into his mouth was his desire not to waste a single second of its effect. Yerin had already turned from the door to look at Eithan. "How far did that lighten your wallet, would you say?"
Eithan shrugged, but Cassias called back, "About five thousand scales, the way they measure them out here." Fisher Gesha's eyes bulged. "Well, that's a gem and a half," Yerin said. "You got one for me?" Eithan waved that away. "It's just a fundamental training pill. Lindon will be taking one of these every day, but I have some more interesting supplements for you. Right now, your best advancement material is your master's Remnant." Yerin grimaced, but accepted it. She would have preferred a pill of her own, Lindon knew, but at least Eithan's reasons were good ones. Lindon could barely pry his eyes away from the Four Corners Rotation Pill. This was worth more than every year's end gift he'd ever gotten from his parents, and he was supposed to take one every day. Eithan was like an endless treasure box. Cassias stepped away from his controls, walking out of the glass room and toward the Underlord. "I would urge you to remember what happened when you took over the training of our family Coppers." "Oh, that's nothing to worry about." Cassias turned to Lindon. "I personally rescued a girl who ran from his training into a place called the Thousand Beast Forest. She survived by hiding from two-headed bears. I found her crouched in a cave, dirty and bleeding, but she begged me to leave her rather than take her back to train." Lindon moved his gaze from the pill to Eithan and back. "That does seem…harsh. Perhaps she may have been pushed a little too hard, don't you think?" "Don't worry, I don't train my students like that anymore," Eithan said, holding up a bottle to the light. "I was far too lenient before. After weeks of my training, that girl should have been fighting those bears. With her fists." Yerin shrugged and opened the door. The wind grabbed the tattered edges of her outer robe, making them trail behind her like smoke. Her red rope-belt, tied in a broad bow behind her, was untouched by the wind. "If you don't feel like you're going to die when you're training, then you're doing it wrong," she said, and stepped outside. Cassias nodded to her back as though acknowledging the point, Eithan laughed, and Fisher Gesha gave an approving grunt.
Lindon swallowed his own misgivings, pushing aside the sinking feeling in his stomach. This was the attitude of the strong. He had to focus on that, and not on what he imagined Eithan's training had done to the poor Copper girl. Popping the blue-and-white pill in his mouth, he followed Yerin.
Chapter 6 Jai Long entered his sister's cabin to find her struggling into a set of sacred artist's robes. She pushed her arm through one sleeve, trembling with effort, and cinched her robe with both hands as though the cloth belt was made of heavy chain. She dipped her head when she saw him, though she had to grip her wardrobe to stand upright again. He tried to sound cold, but instead his voice came out with a sigh. "What are you doing?" "Going…with you." She spoke as firmly as she could, but she was looking at the ground, unable to meet his eyes. Even before the accident, she'd always been shy. And stubborn at inconvenient times. "I have four Sandvipers staying behind to take care of you," Jai Long said, gently taking her by the shoulder to lead her back to bed. "You'll have to stay with the Purelake School for a while, in case anyone from the clan comes looking for you." She remained standing, and he was afraid to put too much pressure on her shoulder. Jai Chen glanced up at him like a guilty puppy. "We don't…have to…go," she said, each breath drawn with difficulty. He couldn't move her without her cooperation, so he folded his arms. "I've already jumped off the cliff. Six Lowgolds and an elder came to the camp looking for me last night, and none of them left." She didn't need to know that they'd been looking for him because he'd been killing Jai clansmen in their homes. There were no civilians in the Five Factions Alliance; everyone who had come to the Transcendent Ruins had done so to try and pull profit from the jaws of danger. Those were sacred artists and warriors that he'd killed. Though most of them hadn't died like it.
But he didn't need to tell his sister exactly how dirty his hands were. That didn't matter; she was staying out of it. "We could…go west," she suggested hopefully. He started to tell her no, but hesitated. She was referring to a legend. In the mountains to the west of the Desolate Wilds, there was supposed to be a hidden valley that occasionally emerged to trade with the outside. The inhabitants were weak, but protected by a curse. Jai Chen had been obsessed with the legend since she was a girl. It seemed ideal to her: a hidden safe place. In his experience, there were no safe places. He immediately wondered what terrible dangers lurked in the valley no one entered. But even if the valley didn't exist, the mountains were at the very western edge of the Blackflame Empire, and no one had actively controlled that border for fifty years. It was so remote that even maps drawn in his father's day hadn't bothered to include it. The lands west of the Wilds were unknown to him, but they certainly wouldn't have a Jai clan. "We can hurt the clan if we go east," he said. "We can take revenge for Kral. Do you really want to go west instead?" The day before, he wouldn't have asked her such a question. He wasn't as sure of his course as he had been yesterday. He had burned to avenge himself on the Jai clan for years, but now that he had the means, he was starting to realize what a monumental task he'd begun. To abandon it now, before he'd gone too far, had a certain appeal. If they left, this would end as one minor attack on a branch of the clan. No one would look into it too closely, and in five years, no one would remember he or his sister were ever here. Jai Chen surveyed the floor, clenching her hands together as she thought. Finally, she straightened her back and spoke with resolve. "I will…go with you. No…running…away." He gave her a wry smile, though she couldn't see it. "It will take weeks to get there, and we don't have a cloudship this time. It will be painful, and messy, and you'll hate every inch of the journey." "If you…hear me…complain," she said, "leave me…behind." Once she was packed, he carried her outside, where Gokren had a motley collection of flying creatures assembled. Thousand-Mile Clouds,
collared Remnants, strange constructs that looked like wide broomsticks, a sacred eagle with feathers like dawn, a hovering leaf wider than a man, a huge levitating cauldron, and two dozen gray-white bats. Some of the sacred bats had been taken from the Jai clan, but the Sandvipers had a colony of the same breed of bat, and two of their trainers used to work for the Jai clan. Gokren was supervising the collection of mounts and vehicles. He turned, smoothed back his gray hair with one hand, and eyed Jai Chen. After a moment he gestured to a white Thousand-Mile Cloud. "Load her up," he said, looking up to Jai Long. "We'll get a canopy rigged to hold off the wind and give her some privacy." Jai Long bowed his thanks and settled his sister onto the cloud. By the time he'd finished, the sun was setting, and most of the vehicles had gathered a load of packs and bags. Gokren lit his pipe, holding it between his teeth as he pressed the end of a scripted lighter into the bowl. "You could fly me there and return," Jai Long said, hating himself with every word. He needed their help; he shouldn't be turning them down. "You don't have to risk their lives for my revenge." Gokren let out a mouthful of smoke. "I'm not an idiot, son." He paused as though he'd said something profound, letting bluish haze drift skyward. "I don't throw my sect away for nothing." He took another breath, let it out. "Old powers like the Jai clan are as traditional as they come. After you hit them, they'll send a Highgold after you. When you beat him, it'll be a group of Highgolds next. Then whichever Truegold ranks the lowest, and only then will the elders start to move." If it weren't for the Ancestor's Spear, that plan would eventually work. The clan could afford to slowly drown him in sacred artists. With the spear, he would feed on whoever they sent. To him, every Jai clan enemy was a treasure chest of scales and elixirs. "I won't reach Underlord that way," Jai Long said, though Gokren knew that better than he did. If advancing from Gold to the Lord realm was simply a matter of stockpiling power, no one would ever be stuck at Truegold. "That's true enough, but I think I can get you there." Gokren watched the best of his sect saddling their mounts and preparing to leave their home.
"Took me forty years to reach Truegold. I'll never be an Underlord, not in my lifetime…but I understand some things. By the time Jai Daishou moves himself, you'll either be Underlord or the next thing to it." That was Jai Long's plan, though he had expected it to take years. He had meant to wage a long, secret war against the clan, stealing their madra and slowly advancing. Once he could face Jai Daishou as a fellow Underlord, the game would change. With Gokren's help, his chances improved dramatically, and his timeline shot up. He might reach the peak of Truegold before the end of the year. "It's still a roll of the dice for you," Jai Long pointed out. He had to be honest with anyone willing to risk their life for him. Gokren removed his pipe, gazing into the bowl as though it would tell him the future. "I might be gambling," he said, "but I'd say I'm backing the favorite." *** On the fourth day after they left, Sky's Mercy had to duck down to the ground to let the constructs recharge. The house landed in an open field, the blue cloud slowly dying away until both Sky's Mercy and the training barn had settled safely onto the grass. The barn creaked and moaned as it came to a rest, but the main house remained solid and silent. Lindon was glad he'd taken Cassias' advice and stayed out of the barn during the landing process, or he would have feared for his life. The second they landed, everyone left the cloudship and returned to the wonderful embrace of solid ground. Eithan allowed Gesha and Lindon to look at the scripts and constructs sustaining the giant Thousand-Mile Cloud. It was intriguingly simple. Only one circle on the bottom of the main house to guide levitation, and four pillars—one at each corner—to produce and control the cloud madra. The controls were more complicated than the actual mechanism for flight. But the madra involved... Both of Lindon's cores added together would only add up to a normal Iron sacred artist, but compared to his old self, he was a powerhouse. Even so, he couldn't activate any of the scripts involved if he drained all the madra in his body.
The house drew vital aura from the sky to keep itself powered, but it could only drain so much while in flight. Cassias activated the collection script, and ribbons of white and green aura—visible only in Lindon's Copper sight—streamed into the four pillars of the house. The only script Lindon had ever seen consume more power was the one that had activated the Transcendent Ruins. Lindon had peeked inside earlier, and besides the Forged madra devices that produced the cloud, each pillar held a crystal flask the size of his head. The aura ran inside those crystals, condensing and processing into the madra that powered the cloud. It would take three days to fill up the crystals, Cassias said. He had made it to the Desolate Wilds in a month, but that had been carrying one person. Not five people and an extra building. If they had to spend three days drawing aura for every three days flying, it would take them twice as long to return. Eithan assured them that he intended to make it back in a month, but they would still spend one day grounded for every three in the air. No one asked him how he planned to recharge their power reserves—he was the Underlord, so he knew what he was doing. He spread out a blanket and had a nap in the sun, but the rest of them were expected to spend the day doing chores. Lindon regarded the idea with dread: if he was hauling water or scrubbing floors, then he wasn't training. He wasn't getting any closer to defeating Jai Long. But just because he wasn't practicing sacred arts didn't mean he couldn't improve. When he was sent to fill a man-sized wooden tub with water, and then bring it back to Sky's Mercy to fill up their reservoir, he refused to Enforce himself with madra. He didn't know any real Enforcer techniques, but everyone used madra to reinforce their body to some degree. Cycling madra to tired limbs, focusing it to lift something heavy—Lindon had been doing that since he'd learned to walk. This time, he kept the madra firmly in his core, relying solely on the strength of his Iron body. Before he'd carried the tub downhill for two miles, filled it up with water, and carried it two miles back, he'd never appreciated just how heavy
water could be. The tub was big enough that he could bathe in it comfortably, big enough that he looked like an ant carrying a grasshopper carcass as he made his way back. Without his Iron body, he would have collapsed halfway up, even using his madra. He arrived red-faced and sweating, limbs shaking, and his breathing disordered. But after ten minutes of letting his Bloodforged Iron body restore his fatigue, he set off again. This might not improve his sacred arts, but at least he could build his muscles. 'A healthy spirit lives in a healthy body,' as his clan used to say. After four trips, the reservoir was full, and Gesha was impatiently waiting on him. They needed dead matter for his Soulsmith practice, so Lindon, Yerin, and Gesha went out to track and kill a wild Remnant. Gesha found her prey within two hours, but Lindon stopped Yerin from killing it. Forcing his trembling hands to be still, he looked down on a giant frog that seemed to be made from blue-green blocks. "Let me try first," he said, affecting a casual tone. Fisher Gesha's eyebrows went up. Yerin put her sword away. "Scream and bleed when you need help." Lindon learned some valuable lessons that day. First, he learned that the Empty Palm blasted a chunk out of Remnants, who were made of solid madra. That would surely come in useful later. Second, he saw how strong Remnants were in the outside world. Yerin was true to her word, blasting the frog into a pile of blocky dead matter the second he screamed and bled. She tied the pieces of the spirit's corpse together and dragged the bundle back, while Fisher Gesha carried Lindon. His Bloodforged Iron body had restored him enough that he could walk on his own by the time they reached Sky's Mercy, though one of his cores was empty and the other only half-strength. Back in Sacred Valley, an Iron would be enough to fight anything but a very advanced, intelligent, or strange Remnant. Those were children compared to these. In the Transcendent Ruins, he had battled Remnants most every day for two weeks…but he hadn't battled them, had he? Not really. He had used traps, and script-circles, and ambushes. Even when he'd personally killed a few, he had used weapons, or fought them together with Yerin and Eithan.
Now that he thought of it, this may have been the first Remnant that he'd stood and fought, relying on nothing but his sacred arts. And it had driven a two-inch spike through his calf. It showed him how far he had to go. As though he needed another reminder. After they'd brought the Remnant inside, the sun was setting. Eithan finally woke up, stretched, and saw that the stream of aura flowing into the four pillars had slowed to a trickle. He opened up one of the columns at the corner of the house, revealing that the green-and-white madra swirling inside the crystal flask had only filled it a third of the way. "Good enough," he said. "I'm on a schedule." Then he carefully rolled up one gilt-edged sleeve and pressed his hand to the collection script, which gathered up aura and distributed it to the four crystals. The script took in the proper aspects of aura automatically, but it could accept virtually any madra. It would take that madra, purify it, and use it to reinforce the existing cloud madra, but the efficiency was terrible. Thanks to Fisher Gesha's tutelage, he could calculate exactly how terrible: cloud madra was the best to fill the flasks, twice as much pure madra would achieve the same result, and any other aspect would take four times as much power to generate the cloud and lift both buildings into the air. Eithan filled all four crystals in seconds. Dark blue clouds popped out of each of the four corners, swelling and lifting both buildings off the ground. The levitation circle on the bottom shone bright, showing that it was at capacity and ready to be used. The Underlord shook one hand as though it had fallen asleep and then walked inside. Cassias and Yerin treated this as normal, but Lindon and Fisher Gesha had exchanged astonished—and somewhat fearful—glances before heading in. Gesha had confided in him later that she, a Highgold, would have taken four or five days to fill up the circle. Lindon wondered how long it would be before he could do something like that. Three days later, Lindon had gained a new appreciation for elixirs.
The Four Corners Rotation Pill doubled the speed at which he cycled his madra and expanded his core, noticeably speeding his advancement. Unlike the orus fruit or the Starlotus bud, it didn't provide much external power, but the cycling effect alone was invaluable. When he put on his parasite ring, it usually felt like he was hanging weights on his spirit, slowing his cycling but filtering the quality of the madra. With the ring and the pill together, he could cycle at his full normal speed, but his madra would still be filtered. Twice the result for the same effort. He brought his second core up to Iron by the seventh day, which was actually something of a disappointment. His Copper core had compressed to a brighter, higher-quality core with ease, matching the second ball of pure madra floating in his spirit. He had confided to Yerin that he'd hoped for a second Iron body, but she'd looked at him as though he wished he'd sprouted a third eye. "How many bodies do you have? One? Well, there you go, then." Eithan had been prepared to give him a pill a day, but thus far it took Lindon two days to process the energy of each pill. In a week, he'd only used three, with a bit of energy left over. Still, that was fifteen thousand scales. He pictured the Sandviper wagon he'd seen stuffed with boxes of scales back in the Desolate Wilds, and wondered if all of those together had added up to fifteen thousand. How many scales had they mined from the Transcendent Ruins every day? It couldn't be too much more than fifteen thousand, and that was a whole sect of Golds working together. In the training course, he could clear six of the wooden dummies every time before he messed up: he either missed a step and took a blow or ran out of madra in one of his cores. That wasn't enough to dampen his enthusiasm, because he was improving. His movements were sharper and faster than they had been the week before, and his madra control was getting better. Every time he struck a target, he had to inject the exact right amount of madra on contact—too little, and the circle wouldn't light up; too much, and the extra energy would be wasted. His Empty Palm was therefore improving by leaps and bounds, as he learned to project his madra more efficiently and precisely.
Cassias and Fisher Gesha praised his progress, but he wasn't satisfied. After the first few days, he'd taken to wearing his parasite ring while training. The ring was meant to be an aid in cycling to grow his core, not in combat, and it hampered his control over every Empty Palm. It was like trying to practice swordplay with a heavy rock strapped to the end of his blade, and he was tempted to tear the ring off with every strike. But when he returned to defeating six dummies consistently, even with the parasite ring on, he finally felt as though he was making real progress. Yerin, in her turns on the course, was frustrated that her progress using only her Goldsign was slower than Lindon's with his entire body. She could only light up four dummies before she was forced to block a blow on her shoulder, or she injected too little madra through the silver limb and a circle failed to light. She seemed to feel that she had fallen behind Lindon somehow, even though she had literally tied both of her hands behind her back. And she took out her frustration on him, which he felt was hardly fair. Why was it a mark against him that he was finally a little stronger than her Goldsign? His training as a Soulsmith was still in its infancy, though Fisher Gesha tutored him every night before his evening cycling. One night, she spread seven boxes out before him, flipping open their lids and revealing seven different types of Forged madra. They were all in different forms—one a liquid, one a sludge, one a collection of irregular chunks like pebbles, one a quivering pile of glass-like shards—and each a different color. "These are the seven most common aspects of madra, you see," Fisher Gesha said, pointing to each in turn. "Fire, earth, wind, water, force, blood, and life." He had studied these aspects before. There were other types of madra that he felt should have been equally common, but these seven were most widespread because they were the easiest types of aura to cultivate. Light aura was everywhere, but it was difficult to convert to madra, and required special techniques to harvest. The surge of pride Lindon felt when he heard that had surprised even him. His Wei clan practiced a Path of dreams and light, and now it seemed that might be an impressive combination, even by Gold standards.
"You will re-Forge each of these aspects into discs," Fisher Gesha continued. "Solid discs, don't just move them into a circle, you hear me? I had a disciple once…troubled girl. Anyway, reshaping madra besides your own is the fundamental skill of a Soulsmith. If you can't do that, you can't do anything. Bring your discs to me, and if I approve them, then we'll try Forging them into needles." By then, Lindon had grown used to setting extra challenges to push himself, so he decided to skip the discs and dive straight into Forging needles. Over the next few days, he bent all of his time and effort to the task, eventually succeeding…with six of the seven aspects. Even water madra could be forced into a solid shape if he focused himself, though it wouldn't stay there, but life…he spent an entire extra day focused on Forging life madra, skipping his training, before he finally gave up and returned to Fisher Gesha in shame. "It's impossible," she said, eyeing his seventh box. "Life madra on its own is a liquid, and that's the end of it. Even life Remnants are giant blobs of ooze. I didn't tell you because I wanted you to say you couldn't do it, hm? Thought it might get you to think about your limitations." She looked over the other six needles, which were supposed to have been simple discs. "Doesn't seem to have worked, did it?" On the night of their eighth day, he was cycling power into his core, using up the last of the Four Corners Rotation Pill before he snatched a few hours of sleep. He breathed evenly in the pattern Eithan had taught him, building up his power one step at a time and slowly pushing the bounds of his core. After about an hour, he slowly opened his eyes. …to see Eithan peeking in through a crack in his door. The first few times Eithan popped up unexpectedly, Lindon's reactions had been entertaining enough that the Underlord kept trying to catch him off guard. But you could get used to anything if it happened often enough. "What can I do to serve the Arelius family?" Lindon asked, rising from his bed. Eithan had done so much for him already, the least he could do in return was ignore the Underlord's…quirks.
Eithan kicked the door open and grinned like a child playing a prank. "Cycle! Now!" Lindon reasoned that Eithan had also earned a measure of trust, so he dropped to his knees, hands in his lap, and began to cycle. Just as Eithan had shown him in the Transcendent Ruins. At first, every breath using this cycling technique had felt like trying to inhale water. But he'd grown so used to it over the following weeks that he rarely had to consciously think his way through the technique anymore. Eithan tapped his fingers together as he waited for Lindon to settle into a cycling rhythm. When Lindon's breathing evened out, Eithan's grin broadened. "Now," he said, "close your eyes. I'm going to teach you a trick." I should trust him, Lindon reminded himself. I owe him. Once he'd returned to the position he'd held before he was interrupted, Eithan's voice cut in. "Madra is very responsive to your imagination. It's part of you, just like your thoughts. So as you study more advanced techniques, you'll find that holding a clear mental picture is just as important as moving your madra in certain patterns." That fit Lindon's experience. As he advanced, his madra was easier to visualize, and he was better able to get the power to do what he wanted without forcing it into a pattern. "I'm going to teach you a cycling technique. Once you've mastered it, this method will take you to Jade and beyond." Lindon leaned forward eagerly, eyes squeezed shut, suddenly afraid to miss a word. "This is a technique for processing your madra, not for battle," Eithan went on. "If you try to fight while cycling like this, you might as well tie your ankles together." Lindon wondered if he should be taking notes. "In your mind, focus on your core. Ah, I mean one core. Pick one." The core that had reached Iron first was brighter and more solid than the other, so he focused on it, letting the bright blue-white ball fill his vision as the other one fell behind into irrelevance. As he breathed, his madra cycled, spinning out from his core to run out to the rest of his body and then swirling back.
"Your core is made of stone. Picture it as a huge, stone wheel. It's all you can see. It's like a wall of heavy, solid stone." Lindon focused on that image, superimposing it over the blue-white sun. "Now, as you exhale and cycle madra through your body, the stone grinds away at the edges of your core. It's heavy, and it rolls slowly, pushing your core outward." That was harder to hold. Madra usually flew out from his core freely, but he had to slow it down, forcing his core to rotate and running power through it a scant inch at a time. He felt like he was pushing that stone wheel up a hill with all his strength, all while trying to keep madra from slithering through his grip. If he lost concentration for one second, the strings of madra would escape and the wheel would fall back down, crushing him. The effort of moving his madra in such an unnatural pattern caused his channels to strain, as his spirit groaned under the effort. Sweat dripped over his eyelids as he concentrated, and each exhalation was agonizingly slow. "Now, when the madra comes back in, spiraling from your limbs to your core, the stone wheel shifts. It slowly rolls back the other way, grinding your core again." It was like letting the wheel roll downhill, only to haul it to a stop and pull it back up again. He poured all his madra into the effort, controlling his spirit with every ounce of his concentration. There was an instant in the middle where he felt like he was manually stopping his own lungs. He gaped like a fish, his lungs frozen as though the stone wheel sat on his own chest, before he finally got it moving the other way. Eithan waited for him to get himself under control before graciously reminding him that he still had to hold his previous cycling pattern. It took Lindon another half an hour to match the old timing, and by that time his soul felt like he'd pounded it flat. Only minutes of cycling, and he was more exhausted than he would have been after hours of practicing in the dummy course. But Eithan wasn't finished. "Once you have a grip on that, you want your wheel to spin as slowly as possible without stopping. Breathing in the same pattern, I want to see how
slowly you can move your madra, how heavily that wheel turns, how that huge stone wheel is almost stopped and your madra is just crawling along. "Then you exhale, and it goes back the other way." Only two more minutes, and Lindon began to seriously wonder if he was going to pass out. He couldn't wait for Eithan to leave so that he could take a real breath. "This technique is called the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel," Eithan said, and Lindon felt his weight settle onto the end of the bed. "It has a long and fascinating history." Lindon would have cried, but he couldn't spare the breath. "I'll spare you the details." Lindon almost let out a sigh of relief. "But to reach Jade, you need to form a spiral in your core. The spinning motion will condense the quality of your madra, increase your receptivity to spiritual forces, speed up madra recovery, help your control…all sorts of benefits. Eventually, the suction force will become strong enough to contain a Remnant." Though he itched to take notes, Lindon would lose the breathing technique if he so much as opened his eyes. And that would be disrespectful to the Underlord who had gone through the trouble of teaching him a technique. If only he would leave. "Every Path has their own Jade cycling technique, and it emphasizes certain aspects of the spirit. Some are particularly good at processing aura efficiently, others help you recover your madra in minutes, and so on. It's a deep and varied field. But I selected this technique just for you!" Lindon tried to thank him, but grunting out a single syllable almost lost him control of the revolving stone wheel. "The Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel slowly grinds away at your core's borders, focused entirely on improving your capacity to contain madra. It does what you tried to do by Forging and swallowing your own scales: it uses temporary power to push at the bonds of your core, expanding your ability to permanently store power. But while swallowing scales loses some energy in the Forging process, this keeps the entire cycle contained, so there's no loss. It's also slow, difficult to practice, and you will feel like you're choking and dying." Lindon nodded and almost choked.
"But it works with any madra, including pure. If you fill your second core with another Path, this technique will work for that too. And your Path of Twin Stars breaks one normal-sized core into two smaller cores, so without special elixirs or a technique specifically focused on capacity, you'd never get even one of your cores up to its normal size." Lindon finally lost the technique. His madra slipped out of his control, he gasped as though he were coming up for air, and the power he'd been damming up in his core surged through his body. His eyes snapped open, and he jerked to his feet like a puppet with strings pulled. Eithan nodded. "That can happen." He rose, brushing his robe off as though preparing to leave. "All cycling methods have tradeoffs, so if after a few days you have objections, I can recommend a different technique. But control can be learned, quality can be improved with elixirs, collecting aura only takes patience, and as for recovery…why would you need to recover madra quickly when you have more than you could ever use?" Lindon was still trying to recover his breath, but he swiped his sleeve across his sweaty forehead and bowed slightly. "I won't give up, Underlord. I trust your wisdom." "Underlord isn't my name," Eithan said, before pointing to Lindon's pocket. "You might want to avoid wearing that ring of yours for the time being. This technique is hard enough without hobbling yourself." He touched his forehead and nodded. "Well then. A good night to you." The door shut behind him. And then immediately opened again. Eithan poked his head back in. "You're going to keep cycling, aren't you? You're not going to slack off while my back is turned?" "Your back is never turned," Lindon said, voice dry. "And don't forget it." Eithan widened his eyes, staring at Lindon intently as he slowly shut the door. Lindon took a few moments to breathe before sitting down on the bed. He had started to picture the stone wheel before he slipped his hand into his pocket and ran into the cold circle of halfsilver. Eithan had said not to use the parasite ring, but Lindon was trying to push himself beyond what his teachers required. Then again, the thought of trying that cycling technique with the additional burden of the ring
physically made him shudder. It was like wrapping his lungs in bands of iron. He was pulling his hand out of the pocket, leaving the ring behind, when he brushed past another small object: a slightly warm ball of smooth glass. Lindon gripped it in his fist, picturing the steady blue candle flame. Jade wasn't his goal. Jai Long wasn't his goal. Even Underlord wasn't his goal. If Eithan could have saved Sacred Valley, then Suriel would have shown him a vision of Eithan. He had to reach further than Eithan thought possible. He settled into a cycling position and slipped on his ring.
Chapter 7 When the moon rose on their thirty-second night of traveling, Cassias Arelius walked away from the control board of Sky's Mercy. The script didn't need constant maintenance, but he felt better with someone watching the sky. If a Three-Horned Eagle rose out of the clouds, they would be in trouble without someone close enough and quick enough to steer out of the way. Not that any Arelius would miss the approach of a threat like that, even with his eyes closed. His web of madra showed him nothing but clouds and empty air for a quarter-mile around them. And the Arelius Underlord was aboard. Even the wind couldn't sneak up on Eithan. "Would you like to take the last shift?" he asked Eithan, who was sprawled out on the couch with a book in hand. In less than ten hours, they would arrive at Serpent's Grave. If he could have drained his core dry to push Sky's Mercy any faster, he would have— his wife and son were waiting for him down there. They'd left their home back in the capital to follow him, and then he'd abandoned them for two months to chase down their delinquent Underlord. This was his job now, however much it strained him to be away for so long. Eithan was the reason he'd been able to marry Jing in the first place; only an Underlord's word had convinced their families to agree to the match. Even putting up with Eithan for the rest of his life wouldn't be enough to repay that favor. Though he had taken Cassias' place. Cassias was born to be Patriarch of the Arelius family. He was a direct descendant of the bloodline, his appearance and conduct were impeccable, and from an early age he had impressed everyone with his skill in the sacred arts.
But none of that had been good enough for Jing's family before Eithan took his side. He'd traded away his position as Patriarch's heir with a smile on his face, but the occasional reminder could still…sting. Eithan yawned and shut the book. "Nothing but clear sky between us and a safe landing." A web of invisible power stretched throughout Sky's Mercy, bringing Cassias little snippets of information: Fisher Gesha's sheets rustling as she turned, Yerin's eyelids crinkling in a disturbing dream, Lindon's chest rising and falling evenly. There was no privacy when an Arelius was around, but it was polite to act otherwise. Everyone knew what the Arelius could do, but they didn't know about the limitations. Publicly, the family liked to pretend they had none. Now that he'd confirmed the outsiders were asleep, Cassias spoke freely. "They can't hear us. Tell me when we're really close enough for you to guide our landing, please." He'd known Eithan for six years now, and worked closely with him for most of that time. He could tell when the man was bluffing. Usually. And one of Cassias' first tasks after Eithan's arrival had been to determine the limit of the Underlord's senses. Stretching, Eithan spoke through another yawn. "My father used to say the First Patriarch could watch over his descendants from another continent. Maybe even from…beyond the grave." Eithan waggled his eyebrows up and down. "Do you often listen to myths?" Cassias asked lightly. "Yes. That's the secret to reaching Underlord: studying old tales. That, and bladder health." Eithan headed to the back, to the side of the bar. "If you'll excuse me, the house can fly itself for a moment." Cassias was left alone in the central room of Sky's Mercy. It had been his home for the last two months, and over the course of his life he'd spent even longer inside, but he'd grown up expecting it would belong to him. Now, it was Eithan's. Cassias was only borrowing it. Everything in life was a trade. Before heading upstairs to his own bedroom—there were six aboard Sky's Mercy, as well as the washroom, the bar, a training room, and a silent chamber for cycling—he stopped.
Over the month since departing the Desolate Wilds, he'd built up a certain curiosity. Now that the other three were asleep, and the two children had both left the circle of wooden dummies alone, he had a perfect opportunity to indulge that curiosity. Eithan would know what he was doing, of course, but it was best to operate as though Eithan knew everything. The Underlord could stretch his web to a target miles away, if he was focused on a specific spot, but he saw everything within a hundred yards without even trying. Cassias pushed the door open, took two steps on cloud through the bitter, cutting wind, and entered the repurposed barn. Only slanting bars of moonlight cut through the shadows, but Cassias could see all eighteen dummies with his bloodline powers. An arm here, a slice of head there, a piece of a circle, but it was enough for him to fill in the gaps. As he moved, strands of his detection web swept through each of the dummies in turn. It was as though he could run his fingertips over everything in the room, slowly gaining a picture. He finished in a few seconds, confirming what he'd suspected. Because he knew Eithan was listening, he shook his head and sighed. "You're not trying to kill him?" When he re-entered Sky's Mercy, he found Eithan standing at the control panel. "Of course I'm not," the Underlord responded. "When a mother bird pushes a chick from the nest, is she trying to kill her child?" "That's a Lowgold course," Cassias said, his tone dry. "I trained on something similar until only a few years ago." "It should be similar indeed. I took the plans from your training room back in the main house." Cassias cast his web back over to the barn, sweeping his sensations through the dummies. It wasn't as quick or as detailed as it had been when he was standing an arm's length away, but it was still thorough. With very little surprise, he realized Eithan was telling the truth: the two courses were virtually identical. It would be a relief if he ever caught the man in a lie instead of a half-truth, bluff, or exaggeration. "You're teaching a child to wrestle by locking him in a closet with a wolf," Cassias said. His tone straddled the line between polite subordinate and stern caretaker.
He had gotten to know Lindon over the last few weeks—the boy was earnest, quick, and almost entirely ignorant about the sacred arts. Cassias didn't want to see him hurt. Someone had raised him completely disconnected from the real world, and he needed a thorough, solid education. It would take years to prepare him with all the knowledge he needed to face society, especially as a representative of the Arelius family. Their enemies would tear him apart, if he weren't ready. Eithan seemed determined to cram those skills into him in a matter of months. That wouldn't help him or stretch him; it would burn him up like dry tinder. "Jai Long is dangerous, even for a Highgold. Best to start Lindon on something as safe as a wolf, wouldn't you say?" Eithan was sitting on the control panel, reading his book again as the night sky stretched out the windows behind him. He didn't even bother to face the glass. "You really want him to fight against a former Jai clan heir? Still?" It wasn't technically proper to question the Underlord, not even in private, but Eithan had never been one to lean on propriety. Besides, dealing with him was a trial that would stretch anyone's manners. Eithan flipped a page. "You've been watching Lindon and Yerin both. What do you think?" "Yerin is a treasure vault," Cassias said immediately. "I can't imagine completing a Lowgold training course using a Goldsign like hers, but she almost has it. Her madra is incredibly stable if she really reached Lowgold only a few months ago, and at this rate she could reach Highgold inside a year. She was born for the sword arts." "Not just born," Eithan said. "Made. And Lindon?" "He's...talented," Cassias said hesitantly. In truth, he didn't know what to make of Lindon's ability. His mind and attitude were admirable enough, but his spirit... He had two half-sized cores filled with Iron-quality pure madra, a few very interesting trinkets in his pack that Cassias had respected his privacy enough to ignore, and an Iron body that was far beyond his capacity to support. He knew Eithan must have led Lindon to that particular Iron body, but he didn't know why. Lindon having to carry that body was like a child
trying to control an Underlord's weapon; they might be able to flail it around a little, but in the end, it would do more damage to them than to anyone else. "He's a mess," Eithan said, flipping another page. "I wouldn't put it quite like that," Cassias said, but he was relieved he hadn't had to spell it out. "His Bloodforged Iron body takes too much madra to sustain, and he's weak as it is. No matter how physically resilient he becomes, he's no more than half a sacred artist." Eithan looked over his shoulder and showed Cassias a grin. "Have I hit the mark?" Cassias lowered his voice. They were still all sleeping, but this was the sort of subject matter that should be discussed discreetly. "Why train him, then? The branch heads will worship you for bringing home the Sage's apprentice. You don't need a second disciple. And I can name you a dozen sacred artists Lindon's age with twice his skill." Eithan hopped down, tossing his book onto the control panel. He walked over and threw an arm across Cassias' shoulder. Then he turned so they were both looking out over the night. "Imagine with me, will you?" Eithan extended his free hand as though presenting a glorious future. "Imagine if he could restore each of those cores to full size and raise them to Lowgold. With pure madra in one, he'd be a unique resource, and he could still follow a combat Path in the other. That's two full cores, so he could bring out the full capabilities of the Bloodforged body with energy to spare." "It's a delightful vision," Cassias said. "He would throw the Lowgold rankings into chaos. In ten or fifteen years, he could grow into a pillar of our Arelius family, and follow me and Jing to the top of the Truegolds." Cassias shrugged out of Eithan's arm and turned to look him in the eye. "But he won't be ready in a year. Even if he were, he would be no match for the Jai clan exile." Eithan's eyes sparkled. "But you haven't heard about his second Path." When Eithan told him, Cassias was speechless for a moment. After a pause, he forced himself to start breathing. The Underlord was just needling him again, to watch him squirm. "Please don't worry me like that," he said at last. "I almost believed you."
"Then you were almost correct." The horrifying possibilities of Eithan's plan started to creep into Cassias' mind one by one, but he refused to consider them. "He's not born of the Blackflame line. He couldn't handle the madra." "Didn't you wonder why I'd given him a top-grade Bloodforged Iron body?" "But you can't get him the aura though, surely, unless you've tucked a dragon away…in the…" He trailed off. Horror dawned on him as he realized where they were going. Eithan beamed. "Serpent's Grave. We're heading right into the dragon's mouth, as it were." …that might work. Heavens help him, but that might actually work. "No," Cassias said, still refusing to acknowledge the truth. "The branch heads will never allow it. The Skysworn will never allow it. The Emperor will never allow it!" "There's an old saying about asking forgiveness rather than permission," Eithan said, "but the essence of it is, 'I'm going to do what I want.'" Cassias had given up his spot in the family for Eithan. He'd suffered for Eithan's mistakes, taken the heat of the family's anger over Eithan's childish whims, and hauled his family halfway across the Empire to Serpent's Grave…and then left them again, because Eithan had wandered off. But even he had limits. His shouts woke Fisher Gesha. She made it to the top of the stairs to see the Underlord with a hand over Cassias' mouth, stopping him from calling out to Lindon. Cassias hadn't even gotten a chance to draw his sword; Eithan had seen every movement coming, broken his techniques before they formed, broken his stance, and broken the flow of his madra. It had taken him no more effort than scooping up a kitten. Cassias stopped struggling, his shoulders slumped. There was no standing against an Underlord. As Lindon and the entire Arelius family would soon realize. ***
It was their last day before landing in the Blackflame Empire, and Lindon was up early to train. Not earlier than Yerin, who was sitting with legs crossed outside the circle of wooden dummies at dawn, already cycling. And now, this was to be his final attempt at the eighteen-man course before landing in Serpent's Grave. He slipped the parasite ring into his pocket and cycled his madra, standing in front of the first dummy. He glanced at Yerin so that she would start counting. She nodded. "Run it." Lindon moved with a speed born of habit, striking at the targets on the right arm, torso, left arm. Without looking, he raised his forearm to block the counterstrike. He could hear the bone creak. The sudden pain was a flash of lightning down his arm, but he'd already moved to the second dummy. The injury cooled just as quickly, his Bloodforged Iron body drawing his madra directly to fuel his recovery. It had been impossible for him to complete the course. Even if he'd executed each step perfectly, every hit that landed on him took too much of his madra. He'd asked if he could stop the drain, and Eithan had looked at him as though he were crazy. "Can you stop your body from healing? No. That's what bodies do. Yours just does it a little too well." With two Iron cores and three weeks of training under the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel, he could barely, just barely, finish the eighteenth dummy. This run went smoothly all the way up to number sixteen, where he placed his foot too wide and didn't have the footing to take the overhead blow. He blocked with both arms crossed, but he was supposed to stay on his feet. This time, thanks to his misstep, he went down to a knee. He couldn't allow his last attempt to end in a failure. Lindon slammed the heel of his hand into the dummy's chin, pushing an Empty Palm through the bottom of the circle and into the center. The madra penetrated, even though the hit had been off-center, and the circle glowed. He lunged for the next dummy, clearing the last two without incident. As soon as the last bell rung and the last light shone, he draped himself over the wooden frame, panting and sweating. Both his cores were weak
and empty, and it would take him half an hour to refill them even under the effects of the pill. But that wasn't the important part. He looked to Yerin expectantly. "Twenty-one, by my count." She chuckled at his relief as he sagged off the dummy, collapsing to the floor. "That's more than nothing. I'd have been proud of that at Iron." "I don't believe you had a course like this when you were Iron," Lindon said, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. "No, I had to fight half a dozen starving wolves with a shaving-razor." She sighed and moved into the center of the ring. "You got a count going?" He hesitated. "Yerin, we're already there. I don't mean to suggest anything..." "Start the count," she said, steel in her voice. He started counting. She leaned into the first dummy, her Goldsign blurring silver. First target green, second target blue, third target white. One-two-three and she was onto the next one. Even with just the bladed arm, she was faster than Lindon. Yerin complained that she couldn't make the Goldsign do what she wanted it to. Over and over she said that, until Lindon was sick of hearing it. To him, she always looked in complete control. She reached the ninth dummy in seven seconds, and this one had a target low in the abdomen—where the core would be, in any sacred artist but Lindon—one in the chest, and one in the center of its head. It was one of Lindon's favorites, because it only moved its arms defensively; it never hit him back. Yerin struck the lowest circle easily, the second a little slow, and her third blow was knocked aside by a wooden hand. All the previous eight dummies, which had remained lit until then, dimmed slowly as though the light leaked out of them. She stood there panting, glaring at her wooden enemy, and Lindon thought the red rope around her waist had brightened from dark red to the pure crimson of fresh blood. Finally, she screamed, her Goldsign striking forward and taking the dummy's head.
She didn't look at Lindon or excuse herself, dropping to the floor right there and beginning to cycle. Her cheeks and throat were flushed with anger, her scars standing out in stark contrast to her red skin. Lindon was already walking to a box in the corner, which was filled with replacement heads. They'd picked up some extra wood on one of their landings, and every time Fisher Gesha said he needed practical experience, he hollowed one out and filled it with the simple scripts and basic constructs the dummies needed to function. The outer scripts and core constructs of each dummy were all unique, but the heads were the same, which fortunately made them easy to replace. He screwed it on—the original wood was lighter than the replacement, and he would need to carve a target circle onto it. He pulled out a shortbladed knife to start, but Eithan threw open the door. "Twenty-one seconds is fairly good," Eithan said with a broad smile. "Now, if you'd gotten below twenty seconds, then you'd have done something." Lindon bowed, accepting what little compliment there was. After weeks of working with Eithan, he'd started to realize exactly how high the Underlord's standards were. If he used a technique to blow a hole in the moon, Eithan would ask why he hadn't taken care of the sun, too. "As for you, Yerin..." She didn't open her eyes at Eithan's words, apparently still cycling, but Lindon was sure she was listening. He'd gotten to know her better over the last few weeks too. "...you're still trying to get your Remnant to guide you. You're making things harder for yourself." "He's talking to me," Yerin said stubbornly, eyes still closed. "If I could hear him clear, I'd be two stages stronger by now." Eithan's smile was filled with pity, as though he looked down on a dying old woman. "No will of your master remains in the Remnant. You're hearing impressions that echo from his remaining memories." "It's him, so I'm listening." "The easiest way to reach Highgold is to break down your Remnant for power. You are staring at a feast from afar while wondering why you're so hungry. All other paths to Highgold are—" She bounded to her feet, cutting him off. "I'm not going to bury his voice. You know how much of his teaching I'd be giving up? You think you
can make up for that? Are you a Sage?" "If only I were," Eithan said calmly. "It would solve many of my problems." She stepped forward, glaring up at his chin. "A Sage's Remnant can do things you can't imagine. I'm telling you, he's in there, and he'll get me to Highgold in a snap." Eithan placed two fingers on her forehead and slowly pushed her back until she was standing an arm's length away. "The path from Lowgold to Highgold is learning to use more than the excess energy your Remnant provides you. You normally break down the Remnant itself for power, digesting its skills and its madra. There are other ways past Lowgold, certainly, but this is the most direct path." Her face reddened even further, her Goldsign drew back as though to strike, but Eithan continued with his tone and smile still friendly. "We have time. Perhaps you'll choose to feed on your master's Remnant, or perhaps you'll find another way. Or you could do neither, and Lindon and I will leave you behind." Lindon flinched. He had been perfectly happy to stay out of that conversation. For the past four weeks, Yerin had ranted about Eithan's instruction and how he didn't understand her master like she did. Eithan clapped his hands together. "All right! Let's leave your failures and inadequacies aside for the moment. Even now, we are arriving at our destination. You should clean yourselves and join me in the sitting-room, because I suspect you'll want to see this." Eithan left Lindon and Yerin behind, which suspended them in silence as they toweled off and packed up. "It's less than easy to keep a Remnant under control," Yerin said after two minutes of quiet. "I can't even imagine," Lindon said honestly. Someday he would, though. He looked forward to it. "I am trying. My master knows how to reach Highgold without cracking into his Remnant, I just need to hear what he's telling me." Sometimes Yerin spoke like this when she needed to bounce ideas off Lindon, even when he had no clue what she was talking about. He usually nodded and let her work it out aloud.
But he could tell the difference between needing a sounding board and needing encouragement. "You're pushing against Highgold, and you're complaining that it's too slow?" Lindon asked, exaggerating his surprise. "You're disappointed because you're not a Highgold by...sixteen summers? Seventeen?" She shrugged. "Thereabouts. The count gets a little thrown off for a while." "And you're not just a Gold! You were hand-selected by the Sword Sage himself! Compared to Eithan…" He hesitated, because he wasn't sure how powerful the Sword Sage was. He'd never heard of the man until Suriel had mentioned him as Yerin's master. "He was much stronger than an Underlord," she said quietly. "Underlords and Sages are fighting over you. It wasn't until this year that I could push an eight-year-old Copper off his feet, while you could carve your way through a mountain with a dull spoon." "I have more than one reason why I can't just drift merrily along," she said, but a smile had started to creep onto her face. "You don't have to polish me up, you know. I'm just venting smoke." Lindon tucked the parasite ring into his pack, making sure all the pockets were closed and fastened before he hoisted it onto his shoulder. "I'm not 'polishing' anything. The heavens opened up and showed me visions of all the greatest people on the planet, people who can wrestle dragons and strike down armies. Then they brought me to you. You're all so far above me you might as well be stars." The words hung in the air for a moment before he heard them, and then some heat rose into his cheeks. He didn't look away, though. Yerin gave him a lopsided smile, and this one sunk into his memory: her smile, the thin scars standing out against her skin, her black hair mussed from training so it didn't look straight anymore. "That has a sweet sound to it, now you've said it," she said at last. The instant passed, and she turned to open the door onto the screaming wind. "Heavens never came down to show me anything, and that's the truth." *** Eithan stopped in his tracks even as the front windows filled with crags of black stone: Shiryu Mountain, the peak where the last of the dragons had gone to die. He'd intended to leave the children to their little moment—they
would need to trust each other even more than they trusted him, and trust was always built on small, personal moments—but a phrase caught his ear, carried to him on threads of power. The heavens opened up and showed me... He tended to smile by default, but now his grin stretched his lips to the breaking point. He'd wondered. From the first glimpse of that little glass ball in Lindon's pocket, the one with the steady blue flame, he'd wondered. Some of the boy's comments, some of his actions, had made him more and more certain. And now...now he knew. The heavens opened up... Very interesting indeed.
Chapter 8 With Cassias actively working at the control panel and Eithan standing proudly in front of the windows, Lindon and Yerin looked down over the city of Serpent's Grave. "This," Eithan announced, "is the birthplace of the Blackflame Empire. The imperial capital has moved over time, and moved again, but here is where it all began: where the last of the dragons who once ruled this land were finally brought down." "Dragons?" Yerin asked, unsettled. "That's where the empire got its name. After the dragons were destroyed, a certain family found a source of their power, ruling for centuries like dragons themselves. That source lies beneath us, although of course it's been all but tapped out over the generations." Lindon had been raised to believe dragons were myths—or if they did exist, only in the heavens. But Suriel had shown him a dragon beneath the sea. And besides, something had left all those bones. The black mountain beneath them rose from a desert like the crest of a dark, frozen wave. A vast spine, yellowed with age, twisted and curled around the rock, with a serpentine skull resting at the mountain's foot. It was the most complete skeleton in Serpent's Grave, but far from the only one. A claw here, a pile of sharpened fangs there. And Sky's Mercy had yet to begin its descent—if he could see them from here, what would they look like on the ground? "Serpent's Grave," Lindon said aloud, and Eithan pointed to him. "Well named, isn't it? I have to applaud the empire's straightforward naming sense." The floor fell out from Lindon's feet.
He caught himself on the edge of a table, which was bolted to the floor, and sank into one of the chairs. He'd discovered over the course of the journey that it was best to take a descent sitting down. Yerin joined him, and Cassias was braced against the control panel with eyes locked on his landing, but Eithan stood with his hands in the pockets of his red-and-gold outer robe. His head was almost pressed against the glass, which reflected his smile. As they fell lower, Lindon started to make out details among the bones. Dark spots in the bones resolved into holes—windows and doors, through which people streamed. The streets wound around the biggest bones but cut through others, which had been hollowed out or stacked together to make buildings. Lindon leaned forward in his seat. Over the years, these people had carved a city into a dragon's graveyard. A long, straight bone, sticking out of the earth, was covered in windows and ringed with stairs. A fractured skull had a huge gong mounted in the eye socket. Four claws reached out of the ground with man-sized lanterns dangling from their tips. The city had even crawled up the mountain, so that the black stone bristled with towers. More bones rose like a thorny crown from the mountain's peak, with palaces nestled between its spikes. Lindon was overwhelmed at the sight of it all. Sacred Valley had what they called towns and cities, but this city dwarfed his imagination. Even leaving aside the size, he had never heard so much as a legend about a city of dragon's bone. This was the world Suriel had opened for him. His myths didn't even come close. Sky's Mercy was circling one location: a rib cage, with the gaps between each rib closed by pale stone and mortar. A pair of banners—blue and black and white—flew from the highest peaks, proudly displaying the Arelius crest. Cassias descended until they were almost on top of the bones, then drifted to the end closest to the mountain. Massive greenhouses stretched in rows behind the buildings, their glass roofs letting in sunlight and allowing Lindon to see the fields of crops growing inside. Scripts shone along the outside walls, and rain fell from one of the ceilings.