Chapter 5 - 11

Chapter 11 "Vital aura is the power of the world," Orthos said, limping up the tunnel. His left foreleg wasn't visibly injured, but the pain he felt at every step flashed through Lindon's soul. "Even a hatchling understands this." Despite the turtle's injury, Lindon still had to hurry to catch up. Based on his limited Jade perception, he would say Orthos' power was comparable to a Truegold, and he had speed to match. "Please excuse my ignorance. I am honored to have a teacher with such power and wisdom." Orthos' head rose slightly, pleased and proud. "I have never lowered myself to teach Coppers before, but you have latched yourself onto my soul. I should at least treat you like a descendant. Hm. Vital aura. It builds in everything, over time, and can grant great power. "A stone is a piece of the earth, and it builds earth aura. An ordinary stone has only a mouthful of aura, but as the centuries pass, it grows stronger and stronger. It will continue absorbing power from the earth until it transforms. If left undisturbed, an ordinary rock will grow into a nugget of Titan's Bone: all but unbreakable." "Forgiveness, but surely all stone should be unbreakable by now, if this is only a function of time." Lindon reminded himself to ask Eithan about Titan's Bone. "Sacred artists have an endless appetite," Orthos grumbled, scooping up a mouthful of rocks nearby and crunching them like candy. "A vein of vital aura piling up in the ground is a treasure trove for earth artists. They will stop at nothing to harvest it for their own advancement. A single candleflame might be enough for you to cycle, but for a true expert, such a weak source is useless. They might as well try eating air." Orthos lumbered up the path, his emotions growing distant as he drifted into a memory. "Advancement is an endless hunt for greater and greater sources of power. You start by feeding on the aura in candles and campfires,

but sooner than you think, you'll be hunting for dragon hearts and sunreaver stones and sacred flames. Always climbing…" Back in Sacred Valley, the Wei clan had cycled aura at dawn, when the light from Samara's ring and sunlight had intermingled, and when dreams still lingered in their minds. Lindon had never thought of aura as something that could be taken away; light and dreams were not stationary objects that could build up vital aura over time. The explanation made sense. The Transcendent Ruins had drawn in vital aura from miles around, leaving the surroundings dim and washed-out in his Copper sight. Lindon had thought of that process as something like taking in a breath: the Ruins may have inhaled, but that didn't mean there was any less air outside. Now, he imagined it more like draining a bucket and waiting for rain to fill it back up. "We cycle aura to trap a portion in our souls, adding to our power," Orthos continued, returning to the present. "It changes the nature of our madra, and over time, it teaches your core to generate madra of that aspect." That much, Lindon understood. "Is there such thing as pure vital aura? With no aspect?" Orthos rumbled deep in his throat. "There are more aspects of aura than sparks in a wildfire, but they always take some form. Always. Asking for pure aura is like asking for dry water." "And Ruler techniques?" "Madra controls aura, and aura controls nature. Water artists can walk on the ocean, call rain, and so on. Earth artists open doors in stone. Force artists can make a feather hit with the power of a collapsing boulder." Lindon thought he understood. The Path of the White Fox could craft an illusion out of madra, but its Ruler technique affected the mind and eyes directly so that the target believed they saw something. But he was still testing his Blackflame core, running his awareness over it like a child unwilling to release a new toy. "What use is there for fire aura? Surely you can set things on fire with madra, rather than bothering with a Ruler technique." Orthos was quiet for a full minute, chewing on the occasional stone. Lindon was considering how best to apologize when the turtle finally spoke.

"For some Paths, this is true. For ours…" One red-and-black eye swiveled to meet Lindon's gaze. "Imagine you have finished a battle. Your breath has driven your enemies before you, and now their corpses lie smoldering on the field. Smoke and flames rise in testament to your power, and courage has left your foes. They flee. You know you cannot catch them all." A dark, twisted root stuck out from the wall. Suddenly Orthos snapped at it, tearing a length of wood the size of Lindon's arm out of the stone. He spat it onto the floor, where it burst into smoky, black-streaked flames. "They trip over the burning bodies of their comrades as they run," Orthos said, "but there is no flight from your fury." He turned to glare at the floor. And in a great explosion of heat, the root burst into flames. Lindon had to take a step back; the fire reached the ceiling and filled the tunnel for an instant. It was the healthy orange of a natural flame, not the dark stain of Blackflame, though it was spotted with the odd blotch of black or red. The fire roared for a second, lapping up the walls as though looking for something else to consume, and then died in an instant. Of the arm-length root, there was nothing left but ash. "We called it the Void Dragon's Dance," Orthos said, crushing the ash beneath his paw. "In one moment, the flames devour everything on the battlefield, leaving only smoke and dust." "As long as there's enough fire around to begin with." Lindon pointed out the distinction automatically, his mind distant. Half of him was overcome with awe at the raw power Orthos described, and couldn't help imagining turning that frightening weapon against Jai Long. The other half was quiet and subdued, afraid of the deadly possibility locked in his own core. "Hm. And as long as you have enough time," Orthos added. "Taking control of aura takes time and concentration. You can toss Striker techniques out with every breath, but a widespread Ruler technique takes time to build." The tunnel had ended, opening onto a chamber with a yellow skeleton curled at the center. Unlike the bones in the city outside, this set was complete: a long serpent's body with four clawed limbs and one reptilian

head filled with fangs. A delicate matrix of bones draped over the ribs must once have supported wings. This dragon's skeleton also wasn't large enough to house a building. It was twice the length of Orthos' body, at most. But it flickered with black fire. The flames crawled along each bone like worms, occasionally sending up a dull red spark that gave off just enough light to see. Lindon's Jade sense told him the room was filled with power, so he cracked his Copper sight. He shut the sight again immediately. The dark radiance of destruction and the fiery aura of heat crowded out everything else, so he couldn't even see the power of earth in the rocks beneath. This was a wellspring of Blackflame energy. "Sit," Orthos commanded, and Lindon scrambled to the ground without hesitation. "Cycle as the Underlord has taught you, but this time, reach to the vital aura around you. You have my power; Blackflame aura will come as you call, and will merge easily with your core." Orthos turned to go, snapping up another rock and swallowing it whole. "Cycle for three days, and then the next stage of your training will begin." "Thank you for the instruction. Please, stay with me just a moment, until I get the—" His contracted partner had already left. Lindon could feel the turtle's soul moving swiftly down the corridor. At least he had packed food. But where, in these dark, broiling tunnels, was he supposed to find water? *** Jai Long waited at the end of a dead-end street in Serpent's Grave, Shiryu Mountain looming over him like a titanic gravestone. The shop to his left belonged to the fourteenth-ranked tailor in the city, while to his right, a family ran the ninth-ranked restaurant. Both buildings were immaculate constructions of newly painted wood, their signs colorful, their lanterns smelling of fresh oil. Even the alley between them was spotless except for a light coating of sand, and he was sure the Arelius family would sweep even that away before dawn. Every stranger who passed the alley's mouth looked like they were on their way to an imperial feast: the women had their hair pinned up and ornamented, their

faces painted, while the men wore so many layers of color that they looked armored. Even their Goldsigns were ornamental. Jai Long saw silver bracers, golden haloes, polished horns, emerald eyes, gleaming tails, and a single pair of broad green wings that marked a member of the imperial Naru clan. After so long away, Jai Long had almost forgotten. Appearance and rank were everything in the Blackflame Empire. The more of one you had, the less of the other you needed. With one hand, he tightened the red bandages wrapping his head. The other hand clutched the case for the Ancestor's Spear. Stellar Spear madra flashed somewhere up the street, and white light bloomed. The crowd he could see through the alley cast disgusted looks backward, speeding along to their destination. Jai Long flared his madra, cycling it rapidly and signaling Gokren and the Sandvipers that he was about to engage. Then he walked out of the alley. Some of the passersby sensed the power of a Highgold and gave him curious looks, but they quickly looked away again when they realized he'd covered his face and failed to display any of the hallmarks of a famous faction. Just a nobody. A few yards down the street, three Lowgolds of the Jai clan were harassing an Arelius street-sweeping crew. Right on schedule. The Jai spears were still slung over their backs, so they hadn't managed to provoke a fight yet. Their metallic black hair gleamed in the light of the dying sun. The blue-clad servants of the Arelius family were huddled against a wall like trapped deer. One of them clutched a broken broom. "You struck him," a young Jai woman said, pointing to her clansman. "Everyone saw you, just admit it. Say it." The Arelius family workers scanned the nearby crowd, looking for a way out. Out of curiosity, Jai Long turned to an old woman standing outside the tailor's shop, holding a bolt of cloth. "Did you see that?" She looked him up and down, sneering a bit at his face. "You could do better than that, you know. We could weave you a mask that an Underlord

would be proud to wear, even on a…budget." The Jai fighter blasted Stellar Spear madra into the sky again, still demanding something from the Arelius servants. Jai Long nodded to them. "Did you see what happened there?" The old woman frowned. "It's as you see. The Arelius family attacked the honorable Jai warrior from behind, breaking a broom over his head." With a thought, Jai Long quickened his madra again, doing nothing to hide his power. The force of a Highgold echoed up and down the street, and even the Jai clan cut off mid-sentence to turn and look. "Ah, I believe I was mistaken," the old woman said, bowing until she stared straight down at the bricks of the street. "If I think back, yes, I may have seen the Jai clan corner these Arelius servants unprovoked." She peeked up hesitantly. "Unless…is honorable sir from the Jai clan? I am prepared to swear that the Arelius dogs—" Jai Long turned and walked toward the Jai clan fighters, slinging his spear case over his shoulder. He wouldn't need to use the Ancestor's Spear after all. The three Jai Lowgolds dipped their heads in his direction. "Good evening to you, Highgold," the woman said warily. "Are you perhaps from a branch family?" The white lines of Flowing Starlight began creeping over his skin. The world slowed. His original plan was to find a team of Jai Lowgolds and kill two of them, capturing their Remnants, and letting the third report him to the Jai clan. As long as no one saw the Ancestor's Spear, they would only send a single Highgold after him next time. If he couldn't let one live, he would use the Spear to drain all of them and eliminate all witnesses. But there were too many witnesses on the street to eliminate, and plenty to bring word back to the Jai clan that a rogue Highgold was hunting their people. So long as he didn't draw his spear, the clan would hear exactly what he wanted them to. These Lowgolds might not have been high in the rankings, but they were at least trained. Before the marks of Flowing Starlight were visible, they'd already sensed him, pulling out their spears and assuming aggressive stances. Too late.

Jai Long thrust both hands out, and a gleaming white snake shot from each palm. A spear would conduct the energy better, but he didn't require the aura of his weapon. The Stellar Spear had no Ruler techniques suited for battle. The two enemies at his side shouted and thrust out their weapons, the spearheads gleaming like stars, ready to break his serpents. He'd already moved, gripping the young woman in the center by the throat. White energy flared, and her head tumbled free. Her hair clinked as it struck the street. The Lowgolds were finding it harder to disperse his snakes than they'd thought, and now he was standing between them. His hands flashed out again, and two more heads rolled. Only a second had passed, and Jai Long stood in a pool of blood, bodies, and dissipating white madra. One woman lifted her skirts as she passed, though she was well clear of the blood, and gave him a disapproving look. A worker in the restaurant shouted at him for the smell. The old woman outside the tailor's shouted, "And no more than they deserved, sir!" Traffic didn't stop. The Arelius workers gave relieved sighs and rose to their feet, but they looked as though he'd saved them from a loudly barking dog. "Will you be dealing with the Remnants, honored Highgold?" one of the Arelius street-sweepers asked. "Or should we have a crew dispose of them?" Jai Long pulled some scripted paper seals from his pocket, which he'd prepared for exactly this occasion. He hardly had to stretch out his perception to feel the sources of toxic madra moving toward him: the Sandvipers, here to help him capture the Remnants for later consumption. "I have men coming," he said, and the servants bowed as they backed up a few steps. One of them had produced scrub-brushes and a bucket; they were already planning to clean the street as soon as he left. Someone shouted something about the Skysworn, but the white Stellar Spear Remnants had already begun to rise. They each looked different, but they were all thin and bony and looked as though they were sketched on the world in vivid starlight. He slapped seals on them before they had entirely left their bodies, and by this time, the fur-clad Sandvipers had found their way to the street. They

bound the Remnants in scripts and carried them off, taking them three streets over to a wagon they had prepared for exactly this purpose. As soon as they started walking, the Arelius family closed back in to clean up the mess. Fate was strange. In ambushing the Jai clan tonight, Jai Long might have done Eithan Arelius a favor. He started to laugh—the serpentine Remnant had left him with a disturbing laugh, cold and high, like crashing metal. Around him, the Sandvipers carrying the script-bound Remnants shuddered, but he pretended not to notice. *** Yerin dodged the black scissors racing for her face, cycling madra to her limbs to Enforce her speed as much as she could. She still almost took a slash across the cheek, but avoided it, feeling the sharp aura gathered around the blade as it slid past her. Eithan had overextended for the thrust, leaning onto his right foot to drive the scissors at her. His left arm was tucked behind the small of his back, into the dark blue outer robe that fluttered in the breeze behind him, and he still wore that small, smug smile. She returned a thrust of her own, punishing his extension, driving the blade at his ribs. He flared with power as his madra surged, and he vanished. She cut nothing but air. She spun to face him behind her; he hadn't veiled his presence, so she could feel him just as she would feel a bonfire. Simple trick to spin and keep the pressure on. A thought that wasn't her own floated out from her core: she was making a mistake. She shouldn't turn and waste that critical instant moving her body; instead, she should channel the Endless Sword through her Goldsign and whip it behind her, covering her movement and giving her enough time to turn. Without waiting for her permission, her Goldsign obeyed the voice. The steel-silver arm dangling over her shoulder whipped backwards on its own instinct, against her instructions. It strained to reach Eithan, stealing some of her madra to slash at the air, but she had already begun to turn. Her motion pulled the blade out of line even as it tugged her off-balance.

When she righted herself, she stared down the tip of black scissors. "It's hard enough to quiet one mind," Eithan noted, spinning his scissors around one finger. "All but impossible if you have to work with two." She ground her teeth, slamming her sword back into its sheath with too much force. Her unwelcome guest squirmed in her core, probing her selfcontrol, looking to use her anger as a crack. It was getting stronger these days; if she didn't advance soon enough, she'd be the voice in the back of its head. "Two would be sugar and peaches. I'm juggling three." Eithan flipped his hair over one shoulder. "That's two more than you have to. Your Remnant is not your counselor, it is your resource. You should strip it down and use it for parts." He didn't understand. He couldn't, even if he knew what this parasite around her waist really was. It made sure she understood what it wanted, though it didn't use words. It wanted to be used. Better than anybody else, Yerin could tell when something in her head was trying to talk to her. And her master's Remnant, sealed away in her core, felt the same. He had something to say, so it was on her to listen. Eithan might know sacred arts up and down. Maybe his advice would be right, for a regular Lowgold with a regular Remnant. But he didn't know what it felt like to carry somebody else's soul around with her. Unless he wore her skin for a day, he couldn't know. "What have you learned today?" Eithan asked. "Shouldn't turn when the enemy gets behind me. Should have sent an Endless Sword over my shoulder to keep the pressure on, but I tripped over my own feet trying to turn." That was the lesson her master was trying to teach her: he'd sent her a message telling her what to do, but she'd been slow to listen. "Hmm." Eithan flipped his scissors into the air and caught them, all while watching her. "You know, sword artists don't tend to be the philosophical types. Some sacred artists can think their way through bottlenecks and roadblocks in their advancements, but those on sword Paths...they tend to prefer fighting through their problems." "That's a truth," she muttered.

"Well then, how fortunate for you that you have a teacher who is willing to engage all your preferences and whims." He glanced up at the sun. "We should be right on time, actually. How would you like to take your frustration out on an endless parade of artificial enemies?" "I think you'll have to race me there." He began walking across the sandy courtyard where they'd been practicing, still spinning the scissors, and Yerin followed him. "I've taken the liberty of restoring and preparing the three ancient Trials of the Blackflame family. I think you'll find them...invigorating." Yerin didn't ask him any questions—he wouldn't tell her anything he didn't want her to know, and anyway, she'd see about these Trials for herself soon enough. But she was curious. Lindon had been gone for three days, learning to cycle this new Path. Eithan's description had been impressive enough that she wanted to see it with her own eyes, but she had her doubts. On the one side, Lindon was finding it hard enough to progress on his own Path. Giving him more to practice was just packing more weight onto an overburdened mule. On top of that, she'd never trusted fire artists. They never met a problem without trying to burn their way out, which struck her as...crude, if that was the word. Simple. A sword was precise and controlled, but fire just burned everything. There was another side, though: the Blackflame family had been richer than a nest of dragons. Wouldn't surprise her if they'd left something shiny behind. They arrived at the base of the black mountain, where a circular hole in the rock was blocked by a copper door and a reddish haze. Golden sand blew against the stone, whipping against her exposed skin. "Welcome to Underground Chamber Number Three," Eithan said. He gestured to the two attendants in Arelius family uniforms, who quickly began opening the door and undoing the script. "Hang on there," Yerin said. "This is where Lindon went." "He's been acclimating to the aura in one of the side chambers, though he should be finished by now. We have to go…deeper." He wasn't kidding. They walked for an hour, through baking hot tunnels filled with smothering aura, lit only by the occasional red spot smoldering

like a bloody ember. Even just sensing the aura would have made her sweat; being down here was like wading through hot mud. Hot mud filled with needles—her skin prickled in the presence of all this destructive aura. After the hour, their narrow tunnel began angling upwards. "Let's pick up the pace, shall we?" Eithan suggested, and vanished. Yerin almost stumbled over her own legs in her haste to follow. She poured madra into her Enforcer technique, hurling herself through the dim tunnel, and twice she nearly cracked her skull like an egg on an outcropping. After a second hour of that, she finally emerged into blinding sunlight. It was enough to stop her like a slap to the face, wincing as her eyes adjusted. While she was panting and sweating—as much from the oppressive heat as from exertion—Eithan stood cool as a statue in midwinter, leaning against the side of the cave. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting," he said, and at first Yerin thought he was talking to her. "Not at all, not at all," Lindon said, and for the first time she noticed he was there, looming head and shoulders over her. He had his bulky brown pack on, both straps, and a black iron medallion showing a hammer. He stood straight as a spear, staring intently at Eithan. When she first met him, that stare was rare. Only when he was really interested. But ever since Eithan locked him in the Transcendent Ruins, his eyes had gotten sharper and sharper, like he thought he might miss the one key detail that would lead him to defeat Jai Long. He gave a shallow bow. "It took me all morning to climb up, and I was glad for the rest." Yerin swiped at her forehead with a sleeve and tried to slow her breathing. Losing a race to an Underlord was one thing, but she hated to look like she had lost her breath from a little run. Now that Yerin's eyes had adjusted to the surroundings, she took a look around. They were tucked away in a sort of cleft in the black mountain, open to the sky, but dark rock rose like spires all around them. This miniature valley seemed to stretch for miles, though she couldn't see far over the uneven ground. Most of it looked blasted and blighted, as though a lightning storm had scrubbed it raw, and the few plants she could see seemed like they'd been

dug out of the Blackflame caverns. The grass was black, stringy and tough, and the flowers had dark petals covering dim spots of smoldering red. The bushes were scraggly with glowing red at the edges, as though they had been half-burned and were ready to burst back into flames at any moment. When she switched to her spiritual sight to glance at the vital aura, the Blackflame power was so thick it choked out everything else. She could barely get a glimpse of life or wind through the overwhelming miasma of black destruction and red heat. At the other end of the valley stood a free-standing red doorway, just a couple of painted logs with a tiled archway over the top. It was wide enough to admit a team of horses, and dragons of black paint coiled up each support. Through the doorway, the land was choked with stone columns, so thick they looked like a dense forest. She extended her perception to see if she could sense where the columns ended, but her sense was stopped at the doorway. By some kind of script, she guessed. "Are there two courses out here?" she asked doubtfully. "Just the one," Eithan responded. "It's divided into three separate Trials: one for the signature Enforcer technique of the Blackflames, one for their Striker technique, and one for Rulers. Blackflame madra is hard enough to Forge that they never developed an official Forger technique." He cleared his throat. "But yes, to answer the question on both of your minds, you will be taking it together." She gestured to the red-and-black gate. "We're intended to walk in there together, then?" Eithan gathered them up with one hand on Lindon's shoulder and one on hers, ushering them closer to the gateway. "These are the ancient Trial grounds for the first generation of Blackflame sacred artists. For centuries, this was how they passed their Path down to their descendants, preserving their legacy. "Once you enter, the script will seal behind you, and you won't be able to leave until you complete the three Trials." Eithan considered a moment. "Or until you admit defeat, but where's the fun in that? You will find food, water, and shelter here, outside the entrance, and once you've defeated a Trial you can retreat freely. No need to take the same test twice, is there?"

Lindon turned his gaze to the west, and Yerin followed it. In a deep crag, she caught sight of a narrow waterfall. Something scuttled behind it. "If you don't mind me asking, how long will we be living out here?" "These Trials have been known to take months, or even as long as two years in some cases." He gave Lindon's shoulder a squeeze. "I trust you won't spend quite so long. And when you emerge, you'll be considered a Blackflame sacred artist in truth." There was Lindon's goal, all nice and bright and clear, but what about hers? She wasn't likely to dig anything of value out of a course that an Iron could run. "If you're looking to teach me another Path, I'm happy with the one I've got," she said, words dry. "Lindon can run this maze on his own." Eithan turned to Lindon. "Orthos was supposed to deliver a package to you." Lindon hurriedly reached into his pack and pulled out a leather-wrapped bundle, which Eithan took from him. He unrolled it on the ground before Yerin. Half a dozen fine swords had been strapped to the leather. From the way the aura played over them, they must be sharp as razors—even the Blackflame aura tickling the edges had started to gleam silver. They were perhaps too sharp to use as weapons, but to gather sword aura? Perfect. "That's a sweet enough gift, but I'm still not seeing why I should stay here. Could just carry these down the mountain." He waved a hand. "I tried my best, but predicting people's actions is harder than I make it look. Now, you may be wondering what kind of training ground is designed to work for both a Jade and a Lowgold." Surprised, Yerin's eyes flicked back to Lindon, and she opened her spiritual senses at the same time. Sure enough, he felt like a Jade: his spirit had a weight to it, a gravity, that no Iron could fake. He could actually sense what he was doing now, where before he'd been working blind. On top of that, his core was packed with burning, dangerous madra. More than he could have possibly harvested from aura in just a handful of days. Elixirs. Eithan must have stuffed him full of the good stuff. He saw her notice, and a little bit of a proud smile touched his lips. Well, he was right to be proud—wasn't long since he'd been happy enough to reach Copper.

Her chest tightened. She was glad for him, but…her unwelcome guest was tickling the back of her spirit. If she didn't advance soon, she wouldn't keep ahead of it. And here Lindon was, hopping from Copper to Jade in three months like nothing. Sure, breaking from Lowgold to Highgold was like smashing through a thick stone wall compared to the rickety wooden gate blocking Iron from Jade, but even so. Why was she the one standing still? "That's call for cheers and celebration!" Yerin said, forcing a smile. His shoulders straightened, and he brightened until you'd have thought she'd given him a crown. Eithan beamed along. "Yes, one step closer to survival! Hooray!" Lindon's smile withered. "Now then," Eithan continued. "The Blackflames had attendants and even family members on many different Paths, but they all trained together. This course was meant to be passed as a team. I have no doubt that you'll both learn many—" A dark blue Thousand-Mile Cloud passed over the cliff towering over them, moving with a speed that left it a blur in the air. Eithan sighed. "If I had my way, everything would go according to plan, and no one would ever surprise me." That sounded like a pretty rotten future to Yerin. Cassias knelt on the surface of the blue cloud as it came to rest on the earth, with his right hand pressed against the cloud and his left resting on his sword. The silver bracer on his arm gleamed in the sun, and his curly hair reflected gold. He faced his Underlord with determination. "Do the branch heads know you've opened this course, Eithan? Does the Naru clan? I thought we'd agreed—" "Obviously I did not agree," Eithan said, steepling his fingers together. "Now, I'd like you to leave before you ruin any of the surprises for our new recruits here." Lindon was focused like an arrow again, but Yerin was the one to speak. "Let's hear some more about those surprises." Cassias turned to her, but then Eithan's power flared. He appeared in front of Cassias in a flap of his blue robe, his hand clapped over the other man's mouth.

"That would be cheating, wouldn't it?" he said, shaking his head at Yerin. Cassias' eyes went flat, and something dangerous stirred in his spirit. He reached for his sword, straining to get enough leverage to draw on Eithan. It was the first time Yerin had seen a real scrap of steel in him. That was the attitude a sword artist should have: if spirits stand in your way, cut them down. If an Underlord stands in your way, well, you do your best to cut him too. Her master would have approved. Suddenly, Cassias' body shook. All strength leaked from him, and he went limp, sagging to the ground. Eithan pulled a cloth from his pocket, wiping the hand he'd held against Cassias' mouth. "Now then—" "Whoa, let's back up a step or two," Yerin said. "He had a message for us. You just want to sweep that away?" "As I've said before, I'm very good with a broom." He overrode Yerin's objections by raising his voice and simply talking over her. "As I was saying, I have no doubt that you'll both benefit in many ways from this experience. You should acclimate yourself to your new home before attempting the course." He gestured to the wall next to the waterfall, where there were a handful of room-sized holes in the stone wall. "You can leave whenever you'd like, but if you leave the way you came in, I'll take that as an admission of defeat." Eithan turned to meet both of their gazes as he said that. Yerin didn't know what Lindon was thinking, but she wouldn't be backing out. Even leaving them a way to escape was soft work, by her thinking. The Sage of the Endless Sword would have backed her into a corner and made her fight her way out. "Very good, then!" He waved them over. "Away you go! And you'll be spending quite a bit of time in there together, but do keep your hands off one another. I need you focused, not distracted. I will be watching to ensure your…compliance." Yerin couldn't look at Lindon after that, but she glared at Eithan. "Sacred artists are disciplined. If I got distracted, I'd have been dead and buried years ago." "You're…sixteen years old, I'd say, give or take a year." He pointed to his own eyes, and then to them. "I'm always watching. Now, in!"

Lindon bowed to the Underlord. "I'm grateful for the opportunity. In the interest of training as quickly as possible, did you happen to bring any pills? Elixirs?" Eithan grimaced. "We'll be light on elixirs for the next few months, I'm afraid, but I'll come deliver you whatever we can spare. The Jai clan seized our last refinery in Serpent's Grave." Yerin wasn't about to let that pass. "Hope you don't forget me, once you've got something to spare." "As I believe I mentioned before, I have something special in stock for you. You'll simply have to wait and see." On the ground, Cassias stirred, his glassy eyes taking on a spark of awareness. He mumbled something through thick lips, trying to speak. While Lindon and Yerin were both distracted by the fallen man, Eithan vanished again. Yerin jerked her eyes up, sweeping her spiritual sense out to catch the Underlord, but he was gone. Eithan and Cassias had both vanished. Lindon hitched his pack up onto his shoulders. "Does it worry you that he just left before explaining how this course works?" "Not a special worry, no," Yerin responded. She'd have been pleased with a few straight answers, but she was used to working without them. Her master treated explanations like they were made of wintersteel and crusted with diamonds. "You get pushed into more than a few impossible challenges, and you start getting used to it," she said. "What itches at me is that he's keeping secrets." Lindon rubbed the back of his neck. "He can't tell us everything, though, can he?" She checked the leather-wrapped roll of swords under her arm and marched over to check out one of the caves. No sense wasting time. "When my master told me to do something cracked in the head, I marched in step because I knew he could be trusted. Eithan, though? I don't even know what he wants us for. Won't be much help in cleaning up the city, will we?" Lindon followed her to the caves, frowning as he pondered. He looked so grim and serious when he was thinking. The five caves were dug into the back of a little alcove in the shadow of the black cliff. Nearby, the waterfall streamed down into a crystalline pool,

and a cluster of scraggly black bushes held berries nearby. "I'll take what I can get," Lindon said at last. "If he's willing to sponsor me on my Path, the rewards are worth the risk. I just have to hope he's not looking for anything too terrible." "I've never liked betting on hope," she muttered, but that wasn't entirely true. When you got swept up in the nets of someone powerful, you didn't have much left to your name but hope. Hope that they were looking out for you, and not just using you as grain in a mill. *** Cassias' body had deserted him, and by the time he could move again, Eithan had snatched him away from Lindon and Yerin. They were deep in the caverns now, and Eithan wouldn't let him crawl back. But his bloodline powers were still working. He'd heard everything. Eithan still stood there in his fine outer robe, hands tucked behind his back, smiling in self-satisfaction as he waited for Cassias to stir. It was black as tar in the tunnel, but he could still see well enough through his detection web. The Underlord, he was sure, could see perfectly. "How did they offend you, for you to make them suffer so?" Cassias asked, his voice weak. Eithan raised one eyebrow. "Offended me? Quite the opposite; they have impressed me again and again. I might actually have placed a winning bet this time." Cassias had heard Eithan talk about a bet before—one that had gone wrong. Which had resulted in the destruction of the Arelius family main branch, over six years ago. "They won't win anything in there," Cassias said, struggling to his feet. "I can't say why you directed Lindon to this Path at all, but there are safer ways to teach him." "You think safety is one of the values I hold most dear, do you?" Cassias stabbed a finger in the direction of the exit, assuming Eithan could see it. "The Black Dragon Trials were designed for a team of five Lowgolds, all trained to work as a unit. They were supervised by the elders of the family, who would call off the Trials or order breaks for the participants, as necessary." "I seem to recall reading about that, yes."

Cassias longed to break something in his frustration, but his training and upbringing only allowed him to grow more stiff. His back straightened, his jaw tightened, and the grip on his sword hilt whitened his knuckles. "The Jai are strangling us. We cannot throw away recruits when we're short on manpower as it is. Not to mention the sheer time and expense it must have taken to open this place back up and power the Trials. Underlord, this is irresponsible to the point of negligence." It was the most openly he'd ever contradicted Eithan, but Cassias couldn't say he was sorry. Eithan had finally cleared his way to marry Jing, and Cassias would always be grateful, but he couldn't watch the man run his family off a cliff. Eithan turned his head, looking into the darkness, and his whole demeanor seemed to shift. Cassias knew that Eithan had grown up in Blackflame City, but they had never met. He'd never even heard of Eithan Arelius until six years ago, when the man stumbled through a portal to the other side of the world. Already an Underlord. Life and blood artists beholden to the family had confirmed that he wasn't far past thirty. That was partially what had created such an impact in the Blackflame Empire: Underlords so young were not unheard of, but they were rare as phoenix feathers. Eithan had the potential to advance to Overlord, a stage that only the Emperor, Naru Huan, had currently reached. During the time Cassias had known him, Eithan had behaved like a child playing with toys, like a rich man indulging his idle whims, like a genius in the grip of his eccentricities, and—very occasionally—like a powerful and dignified Underlord. But now Cassias found himself watching a new side of Eithan. He looked weary. Uncertain. It shook Cassias more than he cared to admit. "We settle for so little," Eithan said at last. "We protect what we have instead of reaching for more. Even when the door is open, we refuse to walk through it." He clenched a fist in front of him. "Cassias, I can take this family through that door. I can drag the rest of them, kicking and screaming, into a future better than you or I could ever imagine." He sighed, and his arm dropped back to his side. "But I can only see so far. I think these two could be the sails that carry us far beyond this

empire…but what if I'm wrong? I could squeeze this family dry, betting on a glorious payout fifty years from now, and the Jai could devour us tomorrow. "I feel blind." Speechless, Cassias sat with Eithan in the silence. And the endless dark.

Chapter 12 The five caves dug into the side of the black cliff were each identical. They were just deep enough to provide shelter from the rain—though not the wind—and they were stocked with a single reed mat and blanket each. Yerin took the first one they came across, stabbing her row of swords into the soil outside the cave's mouth so that they would start gathering aura. Lindon had no need to do anything of the sort—the vital aura was thick with the power of Blackflame here. He felt like he would harvest it if he took a deep enough breath. After placing his pack into the cave next to Yerin's, Lindon went into the other three caves and gathered the extra mats and blankets, bringing them back to his cave. Might as well have spares. Then, together, he and Yerin explored their basin. It didn't take them long. They were restricted to an alcove against the side of the mountain containing the five caves, a waterfall and pond, and twenty-four dark, thorny bushes with black-veined red berries that burned to the touch. The pond and waterfall were warm and tasted of sulfur, but after a short examination, Yerin said the falling water should be safe to drink. While Lindon took his own turn inspecting the water, Yerin nudged him. "Looks like we won't be alone after all," she said, pointing to the cliff wall. Mud-brown crabs the size of dogs clung to the rock, so dark that they almost blended into the black rock. At first he only saw the one she'd pointed out, but his Jade sense weighed on him until he could feel more sets of eyes on him. He looked more closely, and realized that dozens of the crabs were clustered all over the wall. As if it had sensed the attention of humans, one of the crabs peeled its legs away and scuttled down the wall, sliding into the pool beneath the waterfall and vanishing.

Lindon scooted away from the water. "He said we'd find food and water inside," Yerin said. "Guess we have. I'll leave it to you to roast one of them up, when we get hungry." "Then I'll leave it to you to bring it down, when the time comes," Lindon responded. He thought he could capture one, but he couldn't rid himself of a vision of all those dozens of crabs swarming down the cliff at once, crashing into him like a many-legged wave. Which made him realize there was no stone to block the cave entrance. He'd have to find a way to keep the giant crabs out while he slept. Once they had inspected the camp to their satisfaction, they moved back to the red archway. Yerin and Lindon stood side-by-side, looking through. Beyond was a dense forest of smooth pillars, packed close enough together that Lindon could see nothing else between them but shadows. They stretched up to the height of the rocky cliffs above, where they merged with the black stone. Just on the other side of the archway, between them and the pillars, there were two other objects. One, a rectangular slab standing roughly Yerin's height, was etched with writing and pictures too distant to read. The second was a waist-high pedestal holding a gray crystal ball. Lindon had left his pack back in the cave, and now he slid off his parasite ring and put it into his pocket next to Suriel's glass marble. His madra immediately moved more easily with the parasite ring gone, the Blackflame power burning merrily within him. "This is the first Trial, I'd guess," Yerin said. Lindon nodded to the two characters painted on the archway pillar, above the dragon design: 'Trial One.' "That, or they're playing a sadistic trick on us." They traded a look and then, together, stepped through the archway. Sure enough, there was a script embedded between the pillars: he could feel it ignite as they stepped forward. Icy power washed over his skin, and then he was through. He stood before the stone tablet, which was crammed with diagrams and ancient characters. Lindon examined it for a few long breaths, committing segments to memory and wishing he'd brought paper and ink. Yerin cleared her throat. "What's it saying to you?"

Lindon scooted over, making room for her at the tablet. He gestured to the outline of a man, filled entirely with intricate loops. "This looks like the madra pattern for their Enforcer technique." He brushed dust from the four characters comprising the name. "Black…fire…fierce…outer robe?" "That has a nice sound to it, doesn't it? The legendary Black Fire Fierce Outer Robe technique." "Well, what would you call it?" With a thumb, she rubbed a scar on her chin. "Couldn't tell you. Can't read a word of it." She sounded defiant, as though daring him to make a comment about it, but he was immediately ashamed. "Forgiveness. I was fortunate enough to learn the basic characters of the old language as a child. It's not so different from our language, though it looks much more complicated. You see—" He was about to point out some of those similarities when she interrupted him. "Doesn't make a lick of difference. Can't read my own name." Lindon stared at her for too long before realizing how awkward that must be for her, then he shifted his gaze and pretended he'd been examining the stone all along. "That's…ah, I'm sorry. Did the Sword Sage not…" "Not much writing to be done with a sword," she said, in a deliberately casual tone. In the Wei clan, everyone learned to read before they learned their first Foundation technique. But it fell to the individual families to teach their children; he'd never considered what it might be like for someone raised outside a family. "Well, ah…this section at the top is a simple sequence. It explains the history of the Blackflames." His fingers brushed the vertical lines of writing, each column separated by pictograms: a dragon flying over a human, then a human standing over a dragon, then a human with a dragon on a leash. "When the humans came to this land, the dragons ruled. They burned through all opposition, ignoring all defenses. No one could stand against them. Finally, a...I think this means 'great disaster'...came to this land from the west, bringing the dragons down from the sky." That was interesting; Sacred Valley and the Desolate Wilds lay to the west. There were no pictures illustrating the great disaster, to his

disappointment. "Once they fell, the humans began to learn the sacred arts of the dragons. It helped to even the score, but their understanding was incomplete. While they were still studying the arts, the dragons discovered a way to..." Lindon hesitated. "It says here they leashed the humans, but it seems to imply that the humans were the ones to benefit. Maybe a deal? A contract." Understanding sparked. The first Blackflames, at least, had bound themselves to the dragons just as he had done with Orthos. "Some Paths bind their kids to sacred beasts," Yerin said. "It's like gluing a sword to your hand so you don't drop it, if you ask me." Lindon spent a moment wondering if she was trying to insult him before he realized she didn't know. He hadn't seen her since making his contract with Orthos…who was drifting around the mountain as the mood took him. If Lindon wasn't mistaken, Orthos would probably check on him before he finished the Trials. "Not to ask too much of you, but if you happen to see a giant, flaming turtle wandering around out here…please don't attack it." Yerin stared at him like he'd started babbling nonsense. "Well," Lindon continued, "it seems that the remaining dragons linked themselves to the Blackflame ancestors for some reason. With the power of the dragons..." He tapped a picture of a man with a dragon standing over a large crowd of humans, and Yerin nodded. "Yeah, I can figure that one." There was a line of text just beneath the story, separated from everything else. These words were engraved more deeply, so the passage of time had hardly touched them. "The dragon advances," he said aloud. "That's a long stretch better than 'Fierce Robe Burning Fire,' true?" "It's not a technique name. It looks like their family words, or maybe the philosophy of the Trial." Yerin looked bored, so he moved down to the next section. "Now it's talking about the Trials, and the language gets harder. The Blackflame ancestors placed three Trials here for the three basic techniques of the Path, that much is clear. This one is the...you know, the Fierce Fire Robe. It's their Enforcer technique. Seems like it burns..."

He trailed off. "You'd expect fire madra to burn," Yerin said. "No, that's...ah, it seems to burn away the body of the user." He searched his mind for another interpretation, but came up with nothing. That would explain why Eithan thought he needed the Bloodforged Iron body to handle the Path, but he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about burning himself from the inside out. "That's a gem for you, isn't it?" Yerin asked. "If a technique costs you something, means it must be a good one." Lindon grunted noncommittally and gestured to the smoky crystal ball on the pedestal. "I'm supposed to run the technique through the crystal, and that will activate the Trial. Apologies, but it looks like we can't move on until I'm familiar with it." She folded her arms. "I'll wait." He looked from the madra diagram to her. "This could take me days." "Really?" Yerin tapped a knuckle against the illustration of the madra channels. "This?" The diagram seemed to require him to make dozens of small directions and adjustments to his madra flow with every breath. To use it without thought in a fight would take him months. "I defer to your experience," he said, "but I think three or four days is reasonable." Yerin slid her sword around on her belt, then plopped down to the ground. She patted the dirt in front of her. "I'll be buried and rotten if I let you take days for something that simple. Have a seat, I'll walk you through it." Lindon took one final glance at the diagram and then sat with his back to the stone, his knees against Yerin's. Once again, he wished he'd brought paper and ink; tracing the madra pattern would have helped commit it to memory. "Do what I tell you, when I tell you, you hear me?" When Lindon nodded, Yerin straightened her back. "Close your eyes." He did so. "We're keeping this to a crawl, now. Deep breath in, and picture your madra running like tree roots through your whole body. You inhale, and the roots spread."

It was the same sort of visualization Eithan had mentioned while teaching him the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel. He followed along, and his madra responded with surprising ease. "Exhale, and burn it all up. There's a fire consuming those roots, you're burning them, and that fire is the fuel that drives you." When Lindon focused on the fire, it was as though the Blackflame madra leaped forward like a hungry beast. It spread from his spirit and sunk into his body, but the sensation was painless, just a hot and disturbing tingle as though his muscles were slowly fizzing away to nothing. He opened his eyes. "As expected of the Sword Sage's disciple," he said, saluting her with fists pressed together. "I almost felt it work. A few more tries, and I think…what?" She was wearing a smug smile. "Almost?" The silver blade over her shoulder inched forward, leaving a polished steel surface in front of his face. "Do it with your eyes open this time." It was harder to picture his madra flow with his eyes open, so this attempt took him longer. But this time he was watching when his madra flared and the tingling sensation washed through his veins. The reflection of his face was suddenly blurred by a haze of red-andblack fire. Lindon almost fell backwards. Yerin gestured to him. "That covers you all over, like burning smoke. It's got a menacing look to it, I'll tell you true. Jai Long will have to bring a diaper to the fight." He rose to his feet. "How? So quickly?" She drew her sword so that she could reach the stone tablet with its tip, pointing to little symbols next to the madra pattern. Lindon had taken them for reading directions in the ancient script. "Can't read a word, but you'd see these pictures on most old Path manuals. I had more talks about cycling theory with my master than we had hot meals." She shrugged. "You're just moving your own spirit around, aren't you? The feeling does you more good than remembering some directions." She'd left her Goldsign in place as a mirror, so Lindon flared the technique again. This time, he got a clearer look: a thin aura of black and

red rose around him in a haze of power. He would be shrouded in Blackflame madra when he used this technique. "What does it do?" "Ask your...stone book, there." She scratched her nose, then added, "But I could take a guess. Looks to me like a basic full-body Enforcement. Works different depending on your madra, but basically every Path has something like it. Your body's protected and powered by madra while you use it, until you run out of madra or have to drop it." He studied the stone, which seemed to agree with her. As far as he could tell. "If it's so simple, then why did they record it here?" "You're asking me, but who am I supposed to ask? Not every Path has complicated techniques—sometimes they're stone simple, and it's all about how you use them. Or maybe this was the Trial they gave to Copper kids." From the tone of the tablet, Lindon doubted this was something so frivolous as a playground for children. And Eithan would never have sent him somewhere easy, he was sure of that. Lindon flared the aura again, trying to see how long the sensation of painless, corrosive heat would last. He couldn't hold it longer than a blink before the technique fell apart; he'd need to work on keeping his madra control steady and predictable. "It protects me, you say?" "It Enforces you—figure you know what that means by now. But every Path's madra does something different. You'll have to play around with it." She hopped up, brushing her knees clean. "Hit me." He looked at her sword. "Got to try out your shiny new technique, don't you? Hit me." Not for a moment did Lindon think he'd hurt her. Quite the opposite, in fact: he was worried her counterattack would slice off his arm. "I will do as you say, then. Excuse me." The technique flared, and as soon as he felt the heat and saw the blackand-red haze around his body, he kicked off from the dirt. He'd been used to Enforcing himself with pure madra, and he had a sense of how strong his Iron body could be. When he kicked off, it sent a pain flaring in his knees. The ground exploded behind him and wind rushed by his ears as he launched into the air.

Lindon had an instant to scream before he slammed face-first into the packed dirt a dozen feet behind Yerin. Dirt ground into his eyes, into his lips, between his teeth. His body slapped down to the earth a second behind his head, and a brief moment passed before he could lift his face enough to spit out a mouthful of dirt. He groaned as he rose to his knees. It hadn't hurt as much as he'd expected, as though he'd taken a hit on a suit of armor instead of to his flesh. Worse was the internal strain. His knees ached and the bottom of his feet felt bruised. Yerin gave a low whistle. "Well, isn't that a kick in the pants? You always have to get used to a new Enforcer technique, but…bleed me like a pig, it looked like you strapped a couple of lightning bolts to your legs." That felt about right. His Bloodforged Iron body had already come to life, draining Blackflame madra to heal his strained knees. In fact...he hadn't noticed it before, but madra was trickling into every corner of his body for healing. His black-and-red core was already guttering like a spent candle. Had he really spent his madra so quickly? After a moment of thought, he realized the reason: the Enforcer technique strained his joints and burned away at his muscles, and his body responded by drawing on madra to heal him. He'd drain himself dry in five breaths. "What's got your tongue?" Yerin asked, walking over to him. "Didn't bite it, did you?" "This Fierce Burning Outer Robe costs me more than I thought." "First thing, we're not calling it that." She chewed on her lip as she thought. "Burning Cloak," she said at last. He cast a glance at the stone. "The 'fierce' character is core to the reading of the name, and there's a different symbol for a rain cloak than for a sacred artist's outer robe—" "Burning Cloak," she said, more firmly. "That's a real technique name. You want to call it Fierce Burning Clothes on Fire in your own head, that's on your account, but I'll cut you every time you say it out loud." "It will be an honor to use the Burning Cloak technique," Lindon said with a little bow.

"True enough, it will." She jumped, casually clearing fifteen feet and landing next to the stone. "Now, fire up that crystal ball and let's test the edge of this Trial." If Lindon spent any more madra, he would be crawling in the dirt instead of fighting. "Lend me a moment to cycle, if you don't mind." She gave him a wry look, but her scars lent it a sinister, threatening cast. "I'm not throwing you into a tiger's den, I just want a look at the enemy. We don't like what we see, we back up." She had a point. The arch hadn't closed when they passed through it, and there was nothing preventing them from heading back to their caves at the first sign of danger. Besides, he was curious himself. There might be prizes to this Trial beyond simple knowledge. He walked over to the crystal ball, cycling the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel to replenish his madra. It strained his spirit and his lungs, and he couldn't tell if it restored anything at all—sure enough, the technique was trash for refilling a core. Lindon rested his hand on the warm, smoky ball that sat on the pedestal. Now that he was close enough, he could see threads of red running through the gray, like the crystals he'd seen in Orthos' chamber. "The tablet says nothing about what we'll face when I start the Trial," he warned, but Yerin gave a heavy sigh. "Jabber jabber jabber, we're burning time. Light that candle." One breath in, one out, and a black-and-red nimbus flared around Lindon's entire body. When the crystal touched that light, it flared red. Beneath the ground, a script kindled to life. Though Lindon saw nothing, he could feel it, like a circle of fire ten feet beneath his shoes. He was aware of it in the same way he was aware of his own limbs. Yerin drew her white blade. "Eyes up." *** Cassias followed Eithan, because he had no other choice. The Underlord had seized his Thousand-Mile Cloud, and it was either climb on behind him or be left behind in the tunnel.

As soon as Cassias set foot on the cloud, Eithan took off, sending the construct straight up and out of the valley. Sheer black walls passed them on either side, but with an Underlord's madra propelling them, they reached the peak in seconds. This was really a secondary peak of Shiryu Mountain. The Jai clan main complex occupied the highest peak with the living quarters for the head family and their subordinates. Cassias could see glimpses of their palaces high above and almost a mile away. Serpent's Grave proper spread out far beneath them, a mound of bones in an ocean of yellow sand. But Eithan didn't take them down; instead, he flew them around this peak, overlooking the valley where the two children would live for the next few weeks. There was a temple carved into this peak. Not sitting on top, where it would be visible from miles around, but carved as though to seem part of the stone. Only from the back could you see the stairs leading up, the braziers resting to either side of the entrance, the polished archway leading into shadows deeper within. From any other angle, this place would be invisible. Cassias ran webs of Arelius power over the whole place, astonished. It seemed that this was connected to the Blackflame Trials below, but while the heads of the family had always known about the Trials, Cassias had never even heard rumors of something like this temple. How could there be secrets on Arelius grounds? Eithan landed the dark blue cloud at the top of the stairs, hopping out and strolling inside without a word. After taking another few seconds to scan the premises, Cassias followed. The room inside the temple was small and almost empty. Light streamed in from the far wall, which was made of glass—it angled slightly downward, which meant it wouldn't gleam and reveal its presence to Lindon and Yerin. A massive script-circle was etched into the glass, taking up most of the window, and a broad table of gold and ivory spread out beneath it. Dozens of smaller scripts covered the table, which told Cassias it must be a control array of some kind. A cheap wicker chair—obviously a recent addition—gave the person manning the table a place to sit. "What is this, Eithan?" Cassias asked wearily.

Eithan turned to face him; Cassias knew it was no accident that he was standing in the very center of the room. "Familiarize yourself with this room, because it will be your sole responsibility for the next…well, quite a while." Cassias ran strands of detection over the controls, as well as his spiritual perception. "This course operates independently. It doesn't need controls." "While that is indeed what we have always told the imperial clan when they used this course to train their students, it is not strictly true." He looked so pleased with himself that Cassias already missed the uncertain, vulnerable Eithan from the mountain below. "This—" Eithan spread his hands to indicate the whole room. "—is the control center for the Blackflame Trials. The courses will run themselves, but they will not carry out detailed or advanced maneuvers. With supervision and direction, the Blackflame elders could truly test their juniors far below." "I am to have authority over their training?" Cassias asked. If it were up to him, neither of the children would be here: the course was too advanced for Yerin alone, and Lindon's presence would only hinder her, if anything. "If you would like the authority to decide between making the course slightly more difficult than usual or truly sadistic, then yes. That is entirely within your power." Cassias continued scanning the control circles. "And if I wanted to deactivate portions of the Trials?" "That, happily, does not fall inside your purview. You can choose when and how to lend your power to certain constructs, or you can choose to do nothing, at which point the Trials will operate at their standard level of difficulty. Eithan gestured, releasing some madra, and the script-circle in the glass flared. Suddenly, the view at the window showed Lindon reaching for the activation crystal with Yerin standing beside him. As though they were only feet outside. Fascinated, Cassias ran a strand of his bloodline power through the glass. Scripts only manipulated madra; they wouldn't be able to change the magnification of glass. Unless… He found it only a breath after he started looking for it. A light-aspect binding intended to allow vision of faraway objects. The script merely

activated it and applied its effects to the window. That was still an incredible feat of Soulsmithing and scripting, though. How had Eithan managed to restore it? Surely a setup like this one, centuries old, would have decayed by now. Eithan looked fondly through the glass. "It will rest upon you to test the children. Push them. Hold them in the fire and hammer them, that they might be forged." Cassias straightened himself, waiting for the Underlord to turn around and meet his eyes. "I will not be part of breaking members of our own family. If you adopted them only to abuse them, I will report to the branch heads and have them removed from Serpent's Grave." Eithan didn't respond, so Cassias continued. "Besides, the Arelius cannot spare my absence. Not in times like these. The Jai clan will have free reign of our lands." Eithan rested a comforting hand on Cassias' shoulder. "I go to deal with the Jai clan myself." That really was comforting, though Cassias didn't say so out loud. "In the meantime, I will make you a deal. If you manage to push Lindon and Yerin so hard that either of them gives up, I will release them from the Trials. And Lindon from his obligation to Jai Long. In that case, you will also be allowed back to your normal duties in the shortest time possible." Eithan beamed at him. "So you see, the most prudent and merciful course of action is really to come at them with everything you have." A fist clenched Cassias' gut, but he couldn't argue. There was a fine line between preparing the young for a harsh world and abusing them, but it shouldn't be too hard to get them to surrender quickly. Lindon, at least. Once they did, Eithan would honor his word. The Underlord patted the ivory table. "Now, it seems we're in luck. They are trying the course for the first time. Let me show you how this works."

Chapter 13 Lindon hefted the crystal ball in his palm, Blackflame madra swirling around his body, and the crystal flared with a dark, bloody light. He faced the thick forest of stone pillars as scripts ignited all through the ground. Dark gray shapes started condensing in the shadows, like gravel pulled together by an unseen force to slowly build a larger figure. They gained definition as they formed, until they looked like statues of ancient soldiers: bulky, clad in layered armor, and carrying thick shields and swords or spears. Three of them were almost finished forming, but there were other halfassembled shapes in the darkness behind them. Yerin raised her sword. Lindon bolted for the pillars. Whether these were constructs or impossibly solid Remnants, his task remained the same. He had to keep the Burning Cloak up in order to keep the crystal active, and his Blackflame core was already on the verge of emptying itself again. But these soldiers were taking their time to form, so what would happen if he just…skipped them? He leaped over the first rank of soldiers, pain lancing through his ankles and calves, and the power of his jump almost carried him face-first into a pillar. He stumbled to an awkward landing but kept running, ducking around columns whenever he would run into a half-formed soldier. It was working. The soldiers at the front formed faster than the ones behind, so he could outrun the Trial. Even with the enhancement of the Burning Cloak, it took him five or six slow breaths to reach the end of the columns. When he did get past them, they vanished abruptly, leaving him standing in the sunlight again.

Another arch stood before him. It was a twin to the original entrance, with two exceptions. First, the air between wasn't clear. It was opaque and smoky, so he couldn't see what waited beyond. Second, the paint on the support said, 'Trial Two' instead of 'Trial One.' A sense of warning shook his soul as he considered that gray area in the center of the arch, which he took as an alarm from his new Jade senses. He slowed, examining the smoke more closely. It was dense aura that sent a shiver through his rib cage. He didn't know what aspect of aura that was, but he could be sure of one thing: he wasn't touching it. Lindon scooped up a handful of gritty dirt and tossed it at the barrier between the arch. The dirt sizzled and disappeared. He turned back to hear Yerin's shout, the sounds of metal clashing against stone, and a roar like rocky plates grating against one another. Forged gray madra started to gather itself in front of the arch. If the cores of the others had been pebbles, this one was a boulder, and in seconds it had formed into a towering stone giant with a horned helmet and a pair of tridents, one in each hand. It planted its feet firmly on the ground, and behind it, the aura barrier in the arch flickered and disappeared. Lindon had a fingernail-thin grip on his remaining madra, and the crystal in his hand was starting to dim. Nonetheless, when the giant struck at him with its trident, he had to do something. Roots of Blackflame madra slid through his channels, then they all exploded, igniting a shot of blazing hot power. The Burning Cloak flared higher, the air around his body crackling black and red, and he slapped the trident away with the back of his fist. The repelled trident dug a ten-foot groove in the ground, sending black dirt spraying everywhere, but he barely felt the impact—the strain on his elbow and wrist from moving his arm so quickly was far more painful than the little slap of the weapon. Lindon was in love. This was it—a power so great it required his Iron body to withstand. His elbow blazed with pain as though he'd torn it, but it was already healing.

But he couldn't exult in his power—he had a test to pass. The barrier had opened, which meant he could finish the Trial. Then he kicked the ground to move forward, and his Blackflame core guttered out. The crystal ball in his hand went dark. The aura barrier flared to life again in the arch. His legs collapsed, but he switched to drawing madra from his pure core before he buckled to the ground. And the giant soldier dissolved. Gray madra faded to essence and blew away, half-visible sparks on the wind. A brassy gong sounded from somewhere, its sound echoing through the canyon, and Lindon had to assume it meant defeat. Lindon spent a moment regretting that he hadn't passed on the first try, but the promise of Blackflame was like a sun that burned all disappointment away. He turned back to the columns, whistling and tossing the crystal ball in one hand. He'd already started cataloguing everything he needed to improve the Burning Cloak. It was good for explosive bursts of movement—punching, jumping, kicking—anything where a sudden burst of force would help. But for steady strength, for lifting or carrying or running long distances, he would need a different technique. To optimize the Burning Cloak, he wanted pills to refine his Blackflame madra base so that he could activate the technique more easily, practice keeping it active longer, and training to answer specific questions: how fast could he move? How much strain could his body withstand? Could he channel the technique through only a single part of his body at a time? This could be exactly the tool he'd needed to keep up with Yerin. He just needed to master it. As soon as he had the thought, he realized that he could still hear a battle: shouts, stone on metal, and heavy crashes. Lindon picked up the pace, jogging through the columns. The back ranks of stone soldiers had started to dissolve, and ignored him, but the ones closer to Yerin weren't banished yet. She was still fighting. Then he saw her. He hadn't even reached Copper when he'd watched her fight the Remnant of her master back in Sacred Valley. He had lacked the senses to truly appreciate the fight.

Now, he lost track of his surroundings as he watched in awe. She fought an army. Two soldiers whipped their swords at her with blurring speed, one fell toward her at the end of a leaping strike, and two pushed at her with shields in one hand and spears in the other. Javelins rained down at her from soldiers in the distance. Stone hands reached up from the ground beneath her, snatching at her ankles. All at the same time. Yerin turned them all. Invisible blades shredded the hands at her feet, churning the earth. Her Goldsign met one of the swords, her free hand the other, and her sword skewered the falling soldier and slammed him down like a hammer on the head of his comrade. He hadn't seen her use her Striker technique at all, but silver slashes of sword-light struck the javelins from the air, and a pair of kicks caught two enemies on their shields and launched them through the air to shatter on pillars. How long would it be before he could fight like that? An attack he hadn't seen slammed into his skull in a burst of pain and white light. His Bloodforged Iron body drained power, and he rolled to his feet in an instant, pulling the halfsilver dagger from his pocket. He could feel the presence of the gray soldier even as it dipped behind a nearby column. He would feel its attack coming, but whether his reflexes could keep up was another matter. And what he felt of the construct was even more interesting. In a way he couldn't entirely articulate, the soldier felt…mindless. He sensed no life within it. It was simply a mass of madra, acting according to direction. But not even the most complex construct ever designed could fight as a living creature without someone controlling it. At least, not as he understood constructs. The soldier ducked out, avoided his slash with the halfsilver dagger, and struck him a heavy blow on the shoulder with the butt of its sword. His madra drained again to his Iron body, until even his pure core darkened. The spiritual exhaustion was like a gaping hole inside him, leaving him limp and twitching on the floor. He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut, but instead he kept them wide, watching for the next blow that would land on his helpless body. Instead, the soldier withdrew. It joined the others in attacking Yerin.

He couldn't see the fight except for an occasional flash of black or silver, but after a few minutes Yerin let out a pained shout and hit the ground with an audible thud. The soldiers retreated, ignoring them both, and dissolved in the shadows of the stone forest. The script beneath them powered down. Lindon spoke into the dirt. He didn't have the strength to move, and he knew Yerin would hear him. "At least they didn't kill us." Yerin groaned. *** "In that case," Eithan said, "I didn't have to do much. I could have directed more of the soldiers to stop Lindon, but there was no need." "Maybe you should have sent more against Yerin," Cassias said, wishing he had a dream tablet handy to record the memory while it was fresh. As a sword artist himself, he was left in awe at the level of skill and control she'd already displayed at the Lowgold stage. He bitterly regretted that he couldn't meet her master. "She could reach Highgold any day now, if she could let go of that death-grip she's got on her Remnant," Eithan said with a sigh. "She might out-rank you fairly soon." Cassias watched the girl in the tattered robe as she sprawled out on the dirt, each breath rough and heavy. "Considering what it's costing us to run these Trials, I'd be disappointed if she didn't at least take my place in the rankings." Eithan gently pushed him into the chair in front of the control array. "The course only runs while the sun is up. Tonight, you can go back to your family. If you'd like to retire early, then by all means…push them until they break." Cassias gave him a wry look, but his spiritual perception was already moving over the console. If he was going to run these Trials, he needed to know the controls like his own sword. *** The crab meat tasted like ash and scorched oil. Yerin almost spat it out, but she'd choked down worse food out of necessity. She separated herself from the taste to chew and swallow out of pure discipline. Lindon did spit it out, making a retching noise. "That…that cannot be food," he said.

"It's the fire that's rotten," Yerin said, ripping off another piece of vile meat with her teeth. It had taken Lindon until well into the night to start the tiny campfire that now smoldered outside their caves. He'd used Blackflame madra to ignite the tinder, and now that power lingered; the aura wasn't the healthy red-and-orange of a natural blaze, but was tinted with bloody scarlet and corrosive black. The flames gave off too little light, too much smoke, and a taste like burnt death. But Yerin had experienced the consequences of eating raw meat in the wild. Even a corrupted flame like this one was better than nothing—there was no telling what sort of diseases or parasites these wild creatures carried. Lindon popped another one of those red-veined black berries into his mouth, wincing as he chewed. Yerin had found them even less tolerable than the meat. They burned her tongue, leaving it unable to taste anything… although that might be an advantage, considering the crab. She was sure the berries must be low-grade spirit-fruits that would burn away impurities in madra, but she didn't have the energy to put up with a burned tongue on top of everything else. Lindon set aside his cracked crab claw, staring into the flames. "I'm sure we weren't meant to succeed on our first try," he said. Yerin's grip tightened around her own segment of crab. The shell cracked. "You'd contend so, huh? You think a real enemy would be soft enough to give you a second shot?" His eyes widened at her tone, but she wasn't feeling charitable enough to apologize. It wasn't fair to him, likely—he may not have grown up on the battlefield, but he'd faced plenty of real enemies just in the few months they'd known each other. "We'd have some information about a real enemy," he said reasonably. "That's all we were doing—gathering information. We have to know how that construct works if we want to defeat it." She shoved another strip of revolting crab meat into her mouth, tossing the empty shell in the fire. "Not a construct," she said, around the mouthful of food. He leaned forward, interested. "A Remnant, then? Compelled by the script?" "You're Jade now. Did that feel like a Remnant to you?"

"That that exhausts the possibilities I'm aware of, though my experience pales next to yours. If it's not a Remnant, and it's not a construct…" Yerin gulped water from a hollowed-out crab shell she'd filled at the waterfall earlier, trying to rinse the taste out of her mouth. She spat to one side of the fire. "It's a Forger technique." "A technique?" "Sure. Probably stole the binding out of some advanced Remnant, strapped it into a script circle, and tied it to that crystal." Lindon pulled out a brush, dipped it in ink, and began taking notes. What was he even writing down? This was the basic of basics. "Jai Long does it," she said. "Fought him for a breath or two in the Ruins, and his moves looked like snakes." He nodded along with her words, still writing. "How can a technique have a mind of its own?" He stopped, brush poised, waiting for her answer. "Plenty of the really powerful sacred artists can Forge something that looks like it's alive. Carries a piece of their Remnant with it, or so they say, but I can't speak to the details of it. My master could Forge a sword that would fly around and chase an enemy until they died or broke the technique." Lindon's brush dashed over the page. "So all we have to do is break the technique." "All we have to do," Yerin muttered. "Listen. Whoever left that binding behind was at least as powerful as Eithan. Better, more than likely. And it's meant to test your Enforcer technique, meaning you're intended to tear through it. That's a tall order when I've got to fight by myself." She slammed the shell full of water down next to her so that it sloshed up and over her wrist. He blinked, eyes wide and innocent as a child's. "You were amazing today; I've never seen anything like it. I would only have gotten in the way." That was the attitude that scraped her nerves. You couldn't always fight when you had a plan or a secret weapon. Nobody ever waited for you to sleep a full night, have a hot meal, and cycle your madra before they attacked you. No, you were more than likely to fight half-asleep, with a bleeding arm and a gut full of poison.

When she'd fought Jai Long herself, she'd just cut her way through a pyramid filled with dreadbeasts and crazed Remnants. Did he do her the favor of waiting until she was in her best condition? No, and neither would anybody else. "If I waited to fight until I was ready," Yerin said, "my bones would be rotting in Sacred Valley right now. You have to dive in there, or you might as well scamper back home." Well, at least he had the grace to look embarrassed. "I didn't expect we would fight right away." "Yeah, you thought the Blackflame Trials might be testing your foot speed?" "I was hoping to gather information. If we could just run past it, we might have been able to walk through to the next Trial. Wouldn't Eithan be amazed if we left here only a day after we started?" Yerin gaped at him. "You think Eithan wants us to run out of here quick? You don't think he'd drop us right back at the entrance if we didn't learn the lesson?" Lindon flushed, examining his inkwell as though it held the deepest wisdom of the sacred arts. "No, of course, but surely there's not just one way to solve a problem. If we come up with a solution on our own, then…" Yerin stood up, brushing herself off. "I'm going to cycle," she said abruptly, cutting him off. She walked off, storming past the swords thrust into the ground in front of her cave. The vital aura had finally started to gather around them, generating enough sword aura for her to harvest. Yerin knelt just inside, calming her breathing to cycle the aura steadily. It had the effect of calming her down as well, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Lindon hadn't lost the fight for her. Sure, it would have been nice to have a second person fighting alongside her, if only to split the enemies. As it was, she had been on the defensive the entire time, battling as hard as she could just to survive for a while longer. That was no way to win a match, and she knew it. But she'd had no choice. Her madra was squirming out of her control. Not due to her uninvited guest—it was quiet and placid for the moment, content without straining against the Sword Sage's knot.

No, it was the Sword Sage himself who was causing this problem. She had to force her Goldsign to defend her when all it wanted was to strike at the enemy. Her master had left her a second, buried set of instincts inside her that kept trying to teach her how to attack. Her master had been a predator for most of his life. It wasn't in his nature to stand back and protect himself in front of an enemy. Ever since she'd absorbed his Remnant, she'd only felt fully in control when she was attacking all-out. Eithan might be right that cracking open her master's Remnant was the fastest way to Highgold, but that meant there were other ways. Slower ones. As long as she worked hard enough, she could stay a step ahead of her unwelcome guest and keep her master's voice around at the same time. Her master was trying to teach her a lesson. And he was going to keep his hand on her sword, pulling her his way, until she learned what he wanted to teach. This was her last chance to learn from the Sword Sage. She couldn't waste that opportunity just because Eithan told her to. Besides….she wouldn't admit this out loud, but if she tapped into her master's Remnant, his voice would go away. It would just be her and her unwelcome guest in her head. Alone again. Yerin continued cycling, focusing on her breath to calm her frustration. She still had plenty of time to reach Highgold. This impatience could only hurt her progress. Besides, she'd get another crack at the Trial tomorrow. *** Iteration 217: Harrow Suriel landed on hard-packed sand next to a lake-sized plate of chrome. In Limit, this had been a piece of a giant machine. In Harrow, a desert. When Limit lost its grip on the Way and slammed into Harrow, the two worlds merged together and split the difference. On the horizon, mountains flickered in and out of existence, as they tried to stabilize in one Iteration or the other. Here, Suriel's presence was stability itself. Her connection to the Way anchored the world around her to order. For the most part.

A fractal distortion in space unfolded into a field of impossible shapes before blooming into a two-story creature of dark glass. It had the legs of an origami centipede and the body of a black mirage, and it strained her human senses just by its proximity. The creature of corruption reared over an upturned iron wagon, which had been half-buried in the sand. A woman crouched beneath it, filthy and ragged, having sheltered there for the better part of two weeks as reality crumbled around her. Drawn to her sentience, the monster would have devoured her to remove her connection to the Way and to extend its own existence in the material world. Suriel drew her Razor, now a meter-long rectangular shaft of blue metal, and blasted the creature apart. It dispersed into hissing shards of chaos that were difficult to perceive—they looked like burning nightmares. Suriel activated one of the many functions in her Razor and the armored wagon dissolved, leaving a terrified woman huddled in the sand, surrounded by what looked like a nest of garbage. Something hissed at the edge of Suriel's awareness, trying to get her attention, but she ignored it. [Mu Bak Ti Yan,] Suriel's Presence said, and the woman's head jerked up at the sound of her name. [You have been chosen to live. You will begin on a new world, where you will work to settle a wilderness. Do you accept this task?] Mu Bak Ti Yan stared at the Presence, a gray figure of smoke on Suriel's shoulder. Then she stared at Suriel. In her original world, Suriel had been a pale, scrawny woman with hair like seaweed and eyes that took up half her face. That woman was still there, only…perfected. Her hair was the color of sunlit emeralds, her skin ivory, her eyes a bright violet etched with vivid runes of Fate. Her childhood friends would have said she had the body of an immortal—flawless and statuesque— which was only appropriate, since they had died of old age more than four thousand years before. She wore the armor of the Abidan, smooth and absolutely white, as though it had been poured into place. Her correlation lines looked like smoke trailing from the fingertips of her left hand up to the back of her

neck, though they functioned more like an instrument's strings. And, of course, she had just used the meter of blue metal clipped to her hip to blast apart an incomprehensible creature of madness. In Limit, there were beings called Terava, which looked like perfect human men and women but possessed godlike power. The Teravan were natural energy projections that only took human form to feed, but Limit had never learned that. Mu Bak Ti Yan, born in the dead world of Limit, must have thought she looked like a Terava. Suriel raised one gauntleted hand in a gesture of peace, but the woman spooked and ran. She kicked up sand and fell to her hands and knees, still trying to crawl. For the past two weeks, Suriel had been trying to track the human living in this desert. Most of the planet was clear already—its population dead or rescued—and this was the only inhabited planet in this universe. As the sentient population fell, the power of chaos grew stronger. And the Way more distant. Which made precisely pinpointing anyone's location almost impossible, at least for an Abidan. She had relied on her old powers, following the trail of Mu Bak Ti Yan's life-force, but the corruption of reality interfered with that as well. Hunting one elusive prey through twenty thousand square kilometers of madness was more difficult than she remembered. Maybe she relied on the power of the Way too much; she was growing rusty. Suriel waved her hand, and a blue-edged portal flared into being just in front of Mu Bak Ti Yan. It showed a grassland on the newly formed world of Pioneer 8089, where clusters of crude huts surrounded a great silver bird. The woman stumbled through the portal, and the silver bird crowed, alerting the rest of the population. A tiny orange moon shone alone in the night sky; none of the stars had formed yet. That was normal. Iterations started from clustered world fragments and grew outward, like seeds. Suriel cut off the portal, and the door through the Way vanished, leaving Mu Bak Ti Yan trapped in a world far from her own. She had never gotten verbal agreement for the relocation, which was against Abidan protocol, but

people usually only refused resettlement until they realized that staying meant horrifying death or mutation. Of the two-point-one million survivors that had remained human through the merge and corruption of Limit and Harrow, she had saved onepoint-four million in the half of a standard year since she'd been working here. The others had either died or evaded her notice long enough that she had no hope of finding them before the end. On the first day, she'd sent half a million people to Pioneer 8089. They'd had to form orderly lines through the portal. By now, she was lucky to find one a week. And this world didn't have a week left. She could feel it: the Way was losing its grip on this Iteration. Before she could locate anyone else, Harrow and Limit would accompany one another into the void. Suriel lifted herself into the atmosphere, the land below her shifting from continent-sized machine to desert and back again. The atmosphere was even more chaotic than the surface, twisting like six hurricanes at war with one another, but she felt nothing inside the bubble of her isolation shell. She dove into stars under its protection; wind was not a worthy opponent. From above, the world was a rapidly shifting mass of images and impressions, like a nonsense puzzle with pieces that randomly rearranged themselves. It was straining at the Way, ready to break. And Suriel finally turned her attention to the hissing that had tried to grab her earlier. It sounded like a whisper just at the edge of hearing, like someone trying to call her name from a dream. [Further contact established,] her Presence reported. [Transmission location still unknown.] "Best guess," Suriel said. She liked talking to her Presence, and had chosen its form for that reason: it almost looked like a person. She enjoyed conversation, and that simple psychological trick was enough to cut away the pressure from the isolation of her job. Usually. [The most recent transmission raises estimate accuracy to fifty-four percent.]

It was better than the last three times she'd tried to find the source of the transmission. It sounded like an Abidan beacon, as though someone had left a call for help, but Sector Twenty-One Control would have heard about it before she arrived. And it should have been as clear as a voice in her head. It was quiet and hidden behind static, which meant that either it was not an Abidan beacon, or it had been broken during the violence of the merge. Suriel blasted through the atmosphere toward the coordinates her Presence indicated, not bothering to keep herself subsonic. No one would notice, and this world no longer had a connection to Fate that could be disturbed by legends of a flying goddess. She could have bent space and arrived directly there, but direct spatial travel was imprecise, better suited for very short travel—like range of sight —or very long travel where precision mattered little. Besides, the beacon had persisted for months in the most chaotic environment possible. It would last a few more seconds before she arrived. The flight brought her to an ocean. It had been an ocean in both worlds, so it was still an ocean, even if the chaos meant that it sloshed like a cup of water on a flying dragon's back. The whisper did seem a little louder here, though no more clear, so she dropped into the water. As soon as she did, a signal reached her Razor. This beacon triggered in response to her weapon, then, though she could choose if she allowed the Razor to respond. Curious, she let it transmit back, and a green light appeared in her vision. Coordinates a few hundred kilometers away, still within the ocean. Though her Presence warned her that finding something specifically keyed to her on the surface of a random dying world was dangerously suspicious, she followed it. There was only one person who would leave her a message here. This might even be Ozriel's hiding place. That would be just like him: predict where she would end up, and then hide there, waiting for her. Waiting on a dying world would just add style, as he saw it. She tore through the water, but was forced to stop in less than a second. A spatial crack the size of a finger stretched vertically for hundreds of meters, its edges sputtering with chaos, and its heart looking into the void.

Water gushed through it in an endless waterfall, but that wasn't what concerned her. Cracks like these were often left behind after an Abidan's battle. Extending her senses as far as she could, she found other cracks, getting wider and wider as they drifted into the sky. With the chaotic interference, she couldn't detect anything further than about a kilometer, but they might very well keep going. If this had been a battle between Judges, the spatial cracks could have gotten wide enough to swallow suns. There was no testing that now. This Iteration's stars had already vanished—there had only been one inhabited planet in each universe, so it was the last to disappear before the world fragmented. She flew on, dodging other spatial cracks. If not for the chaos of the merged worlds and Limit's corruption, she would have sensed these the second she landed in this reality. Finally, beneath a storm of spatial cracks, she found the location of the beacon. It waited for her beneath a city-sized dome of stone. There was Abidan technology here, because the dome remained stable and unaffected despite the chaos of the water above and the world outside. She slipped lower, but as she got closer, a hole opened in the stone. [It would be wiser to alert Sector Control,] her Presence said. If it really was Ozriel down there, and she turned him in before hearing what he had to say, he would never forgive her. She drifted in through the hole. The inside of the dome was very simple. It was all a single room, its structure reinforced by the Way to add stability, and big enough to swallow a city. But there were no streets or buildings inside. Only pods. Transparent, organic pods in rows for hundreds of kilometers. All filled with people, sleeping and drifting in liquid. The pods had been arranged in grids with space between them, so the people emerging could leave and walk away, but there were no other facilities. No shelters, no water, no plants. Each pod gave off a slight radiance, but that was the only light.

[Twelve million, four hundred forty-five thousand, six hundred thirtytwo people,] her Presence reported. [And some shipping crates containing culturally significant icons.] "Point of origin?" [Iteration Two-one-six: Limit.] Of course. The Abidan had evacuated the elite of Harrow, and she herself had saved a million and a half survivors of the combined world, but no one had saved the population of Limit. Their world was destined to end, so the Abidan had allowed it. Except for Ozriel. He'd saved enough to preserve the unique genetics and cultures of a doomed world. But there was one more feature of the space inside the dome: spatial cracks, which buzzed like a storm in the air. The structure of the building and the pods were still intact, but Ozriel must have protected them. Otherwise, the void would have swallowed them by now. Even so, the chaotic interference was so strong here that the air crackled with it, and Suriel had to move carefully around each crack. Not that they would threaten her, but she might stick to them like iron to a magnet. The cracks were thickest surrounding a door at the far end of the compound…a door marked with the image of a scythe. Well, that was simple enough. With one hand, she shoved the heavy stone door aside, and the chaos hit her like a stench. The room on the other side of the door was only as large as a one-room office, and positively black with spatial cracks, so that it looked like the weapons of two Judges had clashed in here. Except that a conflict like that would have destroyed this shelter and most everyone else in Limit. She couldn't see much in the room past the nest of hissing cracks in reality, but half of a desk remained in the center. A fist-sized ball glowed blue on that table: a beacon, though all the chaos in here must have degraded it. And on the far wall, a spray of ancient blood and flesh, as though a man had exploded right before the door was sealed for a century. [Impossible to identify remains,] her Presence reported. [Chaos and time have destroyed them beyond the point of analysis.] The beacon was still resonating with her Razor, indicating that it held a message. She reached out to accept it, but hesitated.

Not out of reason, or to buy herself a moment to think. She was scared. Ozriel had come here to prepare for Limit's death. He had left this message here for her after a battle…or had he prepared the message before the battle began, stretching out past the planet? Either way, it wasn't good news. This message was not about to tell her that Ozriel was safe, happy, and ready to return to work. She was afraid for herself, afraid for the Abidan, and afraid for the man she'd known even before she'd joined the Abidan Court. He had always been Ozriel to her, but there had been a time before she was Suriel, the Phoenix. They had been friends. She accepted the message, and her senses were consumed in endless white. This was a perfectly ordinary way to send a message in Sanctum, headquarters of the Abidan. Sharing senses and experiences was common, and crafting an experience like this would have taken Ozriel seconds. But the world of this message crackled, tarnished by damage and chaos. The world of white was speckled with imperfection, as though she watched it through grainy film, and interference was a constant hiss in her ears. At least she wasn't alone. Ozriel stood before her in his polished black armor, the Mantle of Ozriel streaming behind him like a boiling cape of shadow, and the white hair running down his back. But it was all fuzzy, like a half-forgotten dream. His face blurred, though she could fill in the gaps from memory: cold and distant and grim. In person, he had more of a sense of humor than any other Abidan she'd ever met, but he always wore an expression like a man bracing himself for terrible news. "Sur…looking lovely…get to the point, because…murdered." He was speaking, speaking to her, because he'd known she would find this. Of course he had. But whatever he'd predicted, it hadn't included a battle in this room ruining his message. The scene congealed for a moment, until she could almost believe he was really standing in front of her. "…didn't abandon you. I've identified the sixteen worlds…a facility like this one…" She could make out his lips moving now, but it was as though she'd gone deaf. "…sure you'll…quarantine. I sh—…actually kills me."

His expression darkened, and he looked over her shoulder. The Scythe appeared in his hand: a long, curved blade like an obsidian scimitar. At least, that was how it presented itself. She was sure this was the heart of the message, but she heard nothing but a whisper of static. Finally, his voice faded back in, just on the edge of her hearing. "…if I didn't act, it would all stay the same. I don't—" The dream world squealed with feedback, and colors twisted in her eyes as the message's recording was violently cut off. That wasn't interference. He'd been attacked while speaking, ending the message. So the battle had started here, but continued off into the world. Or had he recorded it elsewhere and the beacon survived the battle? …survived a battle that he, perhaps, had not. "Presence," Suriel ordered verbally. "Reconstruct the probable content of Ozriel's message. Authorization Suriel zero-zero-six." The Presence was more than capable of simple predictions, but interactions between Judges usually required verbal confirmation. Sanctum wanted any jurisdictional overlap to be well documented. [Incomplete information supplemented with standard Ozriel prediction model. Best recreation follows.]