Chapter 14

On the fourth morning since starting the Trials, Lindon slid the Sylvan Riverseed’s case out of his pack, holding out a pair of freshly Forged scales.

The Sylvan waved at him, smiling cheerily.

He stared back.

Someone had replaced his tiny, faceless spirit with a miniature woman Forged out of water madra. Until she opened her mouth at the sight of Lindon’s scales, waiting to be fed, he suspected it was a different creature entirely.

Where once she had been a translucent bright blue doll, now she was a deep azure woman with long, flowing hair, a dress that swirled around hidden feet, teeth that showed clearly when she smiled, and curious eyes.

Those eyes were now scrunched closed as she held open her mouth, waiting for her meal. Lindon thought he could see her tongue.

She had a tongue now. And eyelids.

Dazed, he ran his eyes along the edges of the case, looking for changes. He found one immediately: a spot in the corner where the scripted glass didn’t fit perfectly together.

That was certainly a change. He’d spent hours searching the tank for any imperfections, trying to figure out a way to open it without breaking the glass. He ran his thumb along the flaw, and that corner of the case popped open. He repeated the process on the other side, and the lid of the case rose.

The Sylvan was still begging for food, so he slipped the madra coins inside without taking his eyes from the case itself. They dissolved as soon as they reached the Sylvan, flowing down her throat in streams of light.

Eithan. Eithan did this.

Either he had to accept that the Sylvan had drastically changed her form in the week since he’d fed her—and that someone else had figured out how to open her case and then closed it again—or the Underlord had done something. But what? And why?

He was itching to investigate, but he wasn’t even sure what questions to ask. If he had a drudge, he could examine the composition of her madra and see what had changed. Fisher Gesha could tell him, but if he left the mountain, he was considered to have given up.

In the absence of any clear answers, he placed her back into his pack. He’d inspect her more closely later, to see if Eithan had left any obvious hints for him.

Putting the Sylvan out of his mind, he and Yerin challenged the Enforcer Trial a second time.

Lindon cradled the red-and-black crystal in his arms, dashing through the stone forest with Burning Cloak active. Every second sizzled as his muscles burned from the Blackflame madra, every step sent dirt flying behind him and drove splinters of pain through his knees, and every breath came slow and heavy, as though he were trying to suck air through a wet blanket.

It was like running through a nightmare: gray shapes chased him from every direction as pain wracked his body. Though he knew he was moving faster than he ever had before, he still felt as though he were slogging through mud.

Finally he dropped the breathing technique, heaving a deep breath of pure air that sent sweet life flowing through his veins, but then his madra channels couldn’t handle the burden of the Burning Cloak. It flickered and died, the seal dimmed, and a soldier’s blade knocked the crystal from his hands.

A silver blade of madra blasted from the woods, slashing the soldier in half, but the gong had already sounded: failure.

***

The soldiers changed.

They always carried stone weapons, but sometimes those weapons blazed with sword aura until they could take a slice out of the surrounding pillars.

Not all the soldiers ever carried the gleaming silver weapons, but Yerin preferred the ones that did. She could sense them coming thanks to the aura gathering around their weapons, and the Endless Sword technique would mince them. When those showed up, she could eliminate them in a blink, and she and Lindon could make it deep into the columns before a living statue slipped past her and caught him.

But they never made it any further.

The frustration grew until she wanted to take a sword and carve her way out of this valley by pure fury. She could do so much better than this. If she could use her true ability, she would split every single sword-carrying soldier open on their own aura and then carry Lindon through to the end like a baby.

Not that Lindon was a burden anymore, which was enough shock for a lifetime in itself. He had surprised and impressed her in the days since they’d started the Trial. The Burning Cloak fit him like a good sheath, giving him everything he’d lacked before: explosive speed, bursts of strength, and enough confidence to stand against his enemies fist-to-fist.

Truth was, fighting next to him was a treat, now that he could keep up with her. They could only challenge the Trials every three or four days, when they were in their best condition: his spirit didn’t recover as fast as hers, and her injuries stuck around longer than his did. She looked forward to the Trial days, because that meant fighting together, as a pair.

If she could have used her full skills, fighting next to Lindon as they learned to train and grow as a team, she’d have been on holiday. It would have been the best time in her life since the Sword Sage plucked her out of the ashes of her childhood home.

But she was hobbled. Weighted down.

Her uninvited guest strained against its seal, gaining on her day after day as she remained stuck at the barrier to Highgold. She had to dedicate half her attention to keeping it under control, so it didn’t squirm further into her core. Every night she tied the bow tighter around her waist, trying to reinforce the Sword Sage’s seal, feeling the bloodthirst of the red rope seeping into her.

On its own, that wouldn’t be enough to cripple her—she’d dealt with this parasite most of her life. But now even her own madra was fighting her.

Her Goldsign still slipped through her control sometimes, lunging against enemies when she wanted it to pull back. If anything, it was getting worse; now her own techniques were also trying to defy her. Her master’s instincts, buried inside her along with his Remnant, would tell her to Enforce herself and run into battle. Madra she’d been preparing to hurl at her enemies would flow into her sword instead, sharpening her weapon. She had to switch tactics, adapting to her master’s lesson and costing precious seconds in battle.

Together, it was like trying to fight with someone else’s hands. Some days it felt like she couldn’t take two steps without her own body betraying her.

She could tap into the silver Remnant in her core, and sometimes she was tempted. But even when he was stealing her madra, ruining her chance at passing the Trial, it was still another chance at hearing his voice.

She couldn’t give that up. And any insight into the Path of the Endless Sword was rarer than diamonds for her; without her master’s voice, she would be the only expert remaining on her Path.

She’d cross over to Highgold eventually, even without silencing her master again, she was sure of it.

Every day, the gong seemed to grow louder.

***

Lindon knelt, driving an Empty Palm deep into the ground. He’d raised his pure core to Jade, and the technique penetrated deeper than he’d dared to hope, almost disrupting the script that powered the Trial. If he could break it, that would disrupt the function of the Trial long enough for them to pass through.

But it wasn’t enough. The soldiers swarmed him, beating him until he dropped the crystal. He screamed as the gong sounded.

The cool winter breeze that had once flowed into the valley had long since grown hot. Lindon and Yerin gathered food with wordless efficiency now, choking down the oily, gritty crab meat and retiring to their own caves to cycle.

Lindon cycled Blackflame for two hours every night, drawing aura of heat and destruction into his endlessly grinding stone wheel.

It would burn everything, that aura. Lindon came to think of it as a hungry power: the blazing drive for more, more, more. It filled him as he cycled, until he wanted to tear the Enforcer Trial apart with his teeth.

The dragon advances. That was what the Enforcer tablet had said, and those seemed like the words of the Blackflame madra itself. It wanted to advance like a furious dragon, tearing apart everything before it.

If only he could.

The parasite ring weighed down his spirit. He knew that in the long run it would help his training, but every day he almost threw it into the pool.

The Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel made his breath so heavy and long that it burned his lungs, every cycle of madra so torturously slow that his spirit ached like muscles cramped and trapped. Whenever he caught a normal breath, free of the technique, he almost sobbed with relief.

His own Blackflame madra ate away at his madra channels, leaving black residue like soot in his spirit. If he didn’t cleanse it, he’d be leaving injuries and blockages in his soul, harming his future development. After using Blackflame too much, he had to spend several hours cycling pure madra to clean out his madra channels. It was hard to sit there all afternoon, cleaning his spirit, and not feel like he was wasting time.

Real Blackflames probably had a method to deal with that problem, but he had no one to ask. Orthos had kept his distance, circling through the mountain but never intruding on their Trial grounds. Sometimes Lindon felt him in the distance, his spirit burning with madness, and other times he was calm as a dying fire. In both states, he stayed away.

The Sylvan Riverseed’s appetite had increased since her transformation. She begged him for pure madra even when he was exhausted and could barely push his spirit through a single cycle.

The Burning Cloak had cost him weeks of training before he could use it naturally. The explosive bursts of strength and speed it provided meant he had to learn to do everything over again: run without hurling himself into a tree, throw a punch without breaking his own elbow, cut food without slicing off his own fingers. Yerin had even set him up with a juggling routine until he could keep three stones in the air without losing the Burning Cloak, dropping a stone, or hurling one of the pebbles out of the valley. Every day they spent perfecting his precision felt like a day lost; a day when he could have been challenging the Trial.

Even his body betrayed him, leeching his core every time he was wounded, draining him dry and leaving him limp and powerless on the ground. The Bloodforged Iron body was the only reason they could challenge the course as often as they did, but it also crippled him after every failure.

Over it all, Jai Long loomed like a specter. This Trial was supposed to be the first step to defeating him, but Lindon had tripped and fallen at the first stair.

…though as painful as each day was, as miserable as he felt in those nights when he wept alone in his damp cave, he couldn’t deny the results.

After months of work, his Burning Cloak covered him in a thick blaze of red and black. He could keep it active for twenty minutes, so long as nothing cut him and activated his Iron body, and he could drive his fist straight through a Forged soldier.

His cores felt like a pair of lakes now, where they’d once been buckets. They didn’t look any larger than before, but they felt deeper, like the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel had drilled down to profound depths. He spent more madra in a single Trial attempt now than his entire spirit could have contained only months before.

The improvement kept him going, got him out of his cave in the morning, kept him from abandoning his breathing technique as a trap, made him pick up the Trial’s activation crystal again and again even though he’d sooner embrace a venomous snake.

Continuing meant taking another step forward. Giving up meant accepting death at Jai Long’s spear.

Between them, he and Yerin were now destroying fifteen or sixteen soldiers every run, getting closer and closer to the end of the Trial.

But they never made it.

He’d tried every answer he could think of: hurling the crystal, digging to break the script, building a simple construct out of half-formed soldier parts, running straight through the columns without stopping, altering the script that ran the Trial. Nothing worked. It seemed the Soulsmiths who built this course had thought of everything.

Time blurred and faded away. Only the endless cycle of day and night mattered, because the Trial only worked during the day.

He stopped hearing the gong. When the soldiers caught him or his Burning Cloak flagged, he simply walked away.

***

It had been four months since Eithan had first opened the temple at the top of the mountain, and Cassias had grown used to his duties.

Since Yerin and Lindon usually needed two or three days of rest between attempts, he could bring his work with him. He’d moved a table up to this peak, writing letters and reading reports while keeping half of his detection web on the children. After sixteen weeks, this hidden temple looked more like an office than his actual office did.

Cassias spent most of his time alone with paperwork or his own training. He found he enjoyed it; letting Eithan handle the bulk of Arelius affairs suited him. He’d needed a break.

In contrast, the children were having the most stressful experience of their lives.

He sipped tea as he watched the children cycle in the morning, through the scripted window. He no longer expected they would give up—if they hadn’t done so by this point, they likely never would. They would die in an accident during the Trials before they surrendered.

Cassias had given himself over to that prospect with weary acceptance. In four months, you could grow used to almost anything.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he still hoped that today would be the day Eithan would grow tired of this project and pull him away. Almost half of the allotted time to Jai Long’s duel had passed, and even a blind Copper could see that Lindon wasn’t ready.

Certainly, he’d improved during his time in the Trials. Cassias almost couldn’t believe a Jade could improve so fast. Yerin was straining against the limits of Lowgold, perfecting both her skill and her advancement, but Lindon was reaching the point where he could almost—for a brief breath or two, with the Burning Cloak active—match her in a fight.

That itself was a feat worthy of pride, but he was far from defeating Jai Long. In fact, if Yerin could finally break through that last barrier to Highgold, Cassias would suggest that Eithan pit her against the Jai exile instead. She would still be a stage behind him in advancement, but Cassias wasn’t sure that would matter.

He could recognize a prodigy when he saw one.

Still, neither of them had received any instruction in the last months, besides whatever was written on that tablet the Blackflames had left behind.

Cassias wasn’t sure exactly what date Eithan had in mind for the duel, but Lindon had at most seven months remaining. Even with a teacher, Cassias couldn’t imagine a favorable outcome for them.

Without one, Lindon would certainly die.

Cassias gave a heavy sigh and sipped his tea. He would have to appeal to the branch heads, get them to rein in Eithan’s…enthusiasm about this duel. But he doubted they would go against the Underlord for the sake of a Jade. Cassias himself would have thought the same, if he hadn’t spent so much time in the last half a year watching the children struggle. Now, he couldn’t help but wish them success. No matter how unlikely it was.

When Yerin and Lindon had finished their morning meal and cycling session, Cassias set down his tea and prepared himself. They would be challenging the Trial now.

But instead of dragging himself through the archway, as he usually did on Trial days, Lindon went back into his cave like he’d forgotten something.

A few breaths later, he dashed back out, seizing Yerin by the arm and dragging her inside.

Cassias extended his awareness, reaching in to watch the cave.

***

Lindon pulled Yerin inside and gestured to the Sylvan Riverseed, who scampered around the cave, curiously examining his bedroll and the occasional rock.

“Did she break out?” Yerin asked uncertainly.

“No, she’s…it’s…watch my soul!” Lindon wouldn’t have understood what happened if he hadn’t seen it for himself. Instead of explaining, he called Blackflame into his channels.

But instead of guiding it, he let it rampage through his spirit. The result was an uncomfortable spiritual pain, like a red-hot iron pressed against his stomach while a bird screeched next to his ear.

It was only a little madra, and it burned out quickly, but he hadn’t controlled it at all. His madra channels felt scorched at several points, and a black substance had built up like rubble in a tunnel. This was the effect of Blackflame corrosion, and the reason why he had to cleanse his spirit with pure madra every day.

When the madra was controlled, the blockage wouldn’t build up so quickly. But if he slipped, it would happen in seconds.

Yerin glared at him and snatched her arm out of his grip. “Are you cracked? Now I have to burn my time away while you sit there and cycle your spirit clean.”

Lindon reached his hand out to the Sylvan.

Grinning like they were playing a game, the Riverseed darted up and slapped her palm against his. A blue presence dripped into his spirit, rolling through his madra channels.

Wherever that deep blue light ran, the corrosion of Blackflame vanished. Even his madra channels felt refreshed, as though they’d never been scorched by out-of-control power.

The spirit paled to the color of a summer sky, leaning against Lindon’s shin to stay balanced. With one hand, she pointed to her gaping mouth, and he fed her a fistful of pure scales that he’d prepared for that purpose.

After using her power, she grew pallid and weary on her own, and then demanded even more scales. She would sap all the power in his pure core and then beg for more before she was back to her usual state.

In seconds, Yerin went from irritated to speechless, which gave Lindon more than a little satisfaction. He had almost collapsed when the Sylvan had reached up and grabbed his fingertip while he fed her, scrubbing his spirit clean.

Somehow, it felt better not to be the only one surprised.

Yerin darted over to the Riverseed, scooping her up in her bare hands.

The spirit squirmed out of her grip, scuttling over to hide behind Lindon’s leg. She bared her teeth at Yerin in a threatening grimace.

Yerin’s face fell. “She doesn’t like me?”

Lindon was as surprised as she was. The Sylvan had never interacted with anyone but him, as far as he’d seen, but she’d always seemed active and curious. Whenever she saw Yerin through the glass of her case, she had pointed and waved.

He extended his perception to the Sylvan. A sacred artist would feel a scan as a light brush, but it usually seemed to comfort her. She was weaker after expending her power, but she had enough madra for a second attempt.

“Go to Yerin,” he said, gesturing. “Go on. Do to her what you did to me.”

The Riverseed shuffled a few steps forward, but turned over her shoulder to give Lindon a doubtful look.

“It’s okay. I’m right here.”

The Sylvan dragged herself over to Yerin, keeping her eyes on the stone floor. When Yerin stuck out a hand, the spirit slapped her finger once and then scampered back to Lindon, climbing up to sit on his shoulder. She had lightened some more, and she swayed as though dizzy.

“It’s only been a few days since she would come out of her case,” he said apologetically. “Did it work?”

“I feel like I should be more than a little hurt right now,” Yerin said, eyeing the Sylvan. “Worked, though, true and stable.”

Yerin had built up a slight blockage in her own soul—one of the hazards of cycling within such an ocean of Blackflame aura. It was nothing compared to Lindon’s, but she took longer to get rid of it.

Lindon patted the Sylvan on the head with a finger. He wouldn’t have to control his Blackflame madra so carefully during the Trial, and he could dive right back into another attempt without cycling pure madra to cleanse his channels.

Originally, he hadn’t even had enough madra to support one attempt, much less two. But after months of cycling the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel, he had the madra for two, maybe three attempts if he stretched it. The major bottleneck now was how much time it took for his madra channels to recover after being strained and scorched by Blackflame.

Which, now that they had the Sylvan Riverseed, was no time at all.

“If we don’t get hurt too badly…” he began, but Yerin cut him off.

“If I don’t hurt myself, that’s what you’re saying. It’s true. Long as I’m not cut too deep, I’ll be ready for a second try two breaths after the first one. If we don’t have to wait for you to coddle your spirit anymore, we can get some real work done.”

She was grinning by the end, but Lindon braced himself. Two attempts in a row.

Together, they walked through the archway.

***

Cassias fixed most of his attention on Yerin. She slaughtered the formation’s soldier projections, tearing them apart with her white blade, her Goldsign, her mastery of the sword aura. Any soldier he empowered with his own madra was only destroyed faster; their weapon gathered sword aura more efficiently, so Yerin’s Endless Sword tore them up.

Without the ability to empower the soldiers, he could only guide them. At the moment, his most efficient tactic was simply to throw projections at Yerin, hoping to bog her down.

When Lindon barreled through the middle, diving through the forest of pillars, Cassias was caught off guard. But only for a moment.

If he could bring down Yerin early today, he could take care of Lindon without much care. So he diverted two soldiers to slow Lindon down.

Cassias was so consumed by his task that he forgot his original goal. He had grown up a genius of the Arelius family, its heir, and he had won virtually every competition he’d ever entered. Even giving up his position in the family to Eithan hadn’t felt like a loss so much as a trade.

But he wasn’t used to losing. After four months, even the idea of letting the children win on purpose had entirely faded away.

He needed to make them give up.

***

The two soldiers pincered Lindon, each driving a silver-gleaming sword at him from a different direction. On a previous run, they had pierced through his hand, and it had taken his Bloodforged Iron body a week to restore the damage.

But this time, Lindon wasn’t trying to reach the goal.

Any formation like this one had to draw power from the local aura, which meant it took time to recharge. The more energy he could draw out of it this time, the weaker the Trial would be for their second attempt.

Well, the weaker it should be. The theory was sound, but they’d never been able to challenge it twice in the same day before.

He smashed the seal down on a soldier’s head, Burning Cloak flaring around him. The projection burst apart, leaving a Forged sword to dissolve on the ground.

A sword pricked him over the shoulder blade, but with Blackflame madra roaring through him, he barely felt it. He turned with such speed that it wrenched something in his back, seizing that soldier’s face in his palm.

Lindon hadn’t learned any Striker techniques on the Path of Black Flame yet, but he’d worked with the power enough over the last few months that he’d grasped a few basic tricks. He could kindle a black fire, though it was loose and uncontrolled, only spraying a few inches from his hand.

In this case, that was enough. He gripped the soldier and sent Blackflame madra flooding into it.

This was the most primitive Striker technique possible; it was more like an Empty Palm than a hurled fireball, but red-and-black power surged into the soldier, dissolving it, burning it to gray essence in seconds.

Without hesitating, Lindon advanced. Between his Iron body and the Burning Cloak, his spirit was burning down quickly, and he had to make sure the course spent more energy than he did.

***

Cassias couldn't project new enemies fast enough to deal with Yerin. She had given up any idea of moving forward, pouring everything she had into shredding her opponents. Even some of the stone pillars had been shattered, collapsing in a pile of boulders.

There were some earth-aspect Ruler constructs built into the course that could rebuild those columns, but they would take even more of the course’s stored power. Even if Cassias provided madra of his own, rebuilding the battlefield wouldn’t be cheap.

But the Trial had built up enough momentum. Yerin was on the defensive, Lindon was forced back, and they were surrounded by gray soldiers.

Once again, it was his victory. They wouldn’t surrender the Trial after this, but they were one step closer.

As Lindon dropped the activation crystal and held up his hands, Cassias leaned back in his chair. They’d given up especially quickly today, despite causing more damage to the course than average. Maybe they really were getting frustrated.

He found himself a little disappointed. They had learned and grown as sacred artists over the last four months, and it really would be for the best if they quit and trained normally from now on…but part of him had been hoping they would succeed.

Cassias sighed and triggered the course’s repair function. The stored energy would dip unusually low, but two days of drawing on the mountain’s powerful aura would restore it. Even if they tried again tomorrow, he would be able to funnel some of his own madra into the course to make up the difference.

Once it was done, he slid the chair over to his desk and began his paperwork. He’d have the rest of the day to himself, and there were work orders to be filled.

***

After about an hour of cycling, Yerin walked over to Lindon’s cave. He was sitting with legs crossed into a cycling position, breathing evenly. His little pet Sylvan sat on his head, mimicking his posture and playing with his hair.

The spirit grimaced when she saw Yerin, giving her a suspicious look.

That was more than a little unfair, in Yerin’s view. She’d never drawn swords on the spirit, nor even said a harsh word. Maybe Yerin should feed her, like a skittish dog.

Lindon hadn’t reacted to Yerin’s presence yet, his breaths still steady and measured. In her spiritual perception, he gave off the warm impression of a cycling fire artist, with the added air of danger that came from Blackflame. His jade badge hung from a shimmering silk ribbon and rested against his chest.

Now that they’d spent so long running up against the Blackflame Enforcer Trial, he looked like a real sacred artist. He’d burned off the last bit of softness left from his clan upbringing, his frame hardening and filling out. He was covered by a layer of dirt and ash from their run of the course earlier, his hair messy, his sacred artist robes torn, tattered, and singed.

He showed a sharp difference from the boy she’d met in Sacred Valley. He still had a long stretch of road left to travel, but now she could actually see herself fighting alongside him. Not just in the Trials, either; when she thought of her own violent, uncertain future, she could picture him standing next to her.

Nothing but wishful thinking on her part. If odds played out, he’d be killed by Jai Long and she’d end up as a snack for her unwelcome guest. No sense in planning for anything else until the knives weren’t quite so close to their throats.

She kicked his knee, and he blinked awake. “Oi. Get Little Blue to scrub me clean, and then let’s go.”

He was still gathering his thoughts after having broken out of his cycling trance. Now that she looked for it, he was breathing a little heavy, and his skin had a light sheen of sweat. Whatever cycling technique Eithan had taught him, it must have some weight.

“Little Blue?” he asked.

“Can’t keep calling her the Riverseed. She’s got a face.”

Lindon lifted his eyes as though trying to see the Sylvan sitting on top of his head. “Ah, you’re right. We should name her.”

Yerin rolled up her sleeve and held out a wrist. “Call her what you want, but get her to hop on over here.”

It took Lindon almost a minute to coax the Riverseed onto Yerin, and she scurried off as soon as her job was done. Once again, even a spark of her power was enough to scrub Yerin’s spirit clean of the Blackflame aura buildup. On top of that, her spirit was peaceful and refreshed, like she hadn’t fought in days. Yerin couldn’t feel a particular aspect to the madra, but it was calm and soothing.

If only Little Blue didn’t hate her so much. Maybe it wasn’t her; maybe Sylvans could smell the unwelcome guest inside her.

Yerin adjusted her blood-red belt. Would only make sense, if spirits didn’t like that. Meant Little Blue had good taste, more than anything.

That was an answer she could live with.

***

Cassias vaulted out of his chair and over the table, landing in front of the wooden console. The script in the window flared with the touch of his spirit, showing him a heaven-down view of Lindon and Yerin fighting their way through half-formed soldiers. The smoky gray crystal in Lindon’s hand pulsed red, and they’d made it further into the course than they had in the morning: most of the soldiers still hadn’t formed, including the giant guardian in front of the exit.

It was only a half-hearted scan of his spirit that had let Cassias know the course was active. Yerin and Lindon had never attempted two runs of the Trial in the same day, and the ancient training course simply wasn’t designed for it. Its power was already running dangerously low, and there were clear consequences: the soldiers were forming much more slowly, and their combat power was weaker. Lindon smashed through one in a single punch, moving into the latter half of the pillars.

If Cassias had been any slower to notice, they would have torn through the unsupervised and weakened Trial, and they might have passed before Cassias realized anything was wrong.

Well, not any longer.

Cassias poured his madra into the correct scripts, the interlocking circles carrying his power down and into the Trial itself. His core, usually shining silver with the light of sword madra, dimmed—transferring his power down through so many scripts was terribly inefficient. He would save more power by hopping down there and fighting them both in person, two against one.

But he couldn’t let it be said that Naru Cassias Arelius picked on the weak.

His power flooded into the projections, making the soldiers form faster, Enforcing their weapons. He strained his spirit.

Slowly, Lindon and Yerin’s advance ground to a halt.

***

Lindon turned in midair, kicking off a pillar and launching himself higher. An archer clung to the stone fifteen feet up to snipe at him from above; he grabbed it by the throat and dragged it down to the ground, slamming it into the earth, ignoring the silver arrow that had pierced all the way through his thigh. Blood ran down his leg, costing him a bolt of pain with every step, but the burn of the Blackflame madra and the rush of his Bloodforged body let him ignore it.

The columns thinned, revealing the red arch of the exit.

Three soldiers stood between him and the gateway, spreading out and keeping their sabers level—they were getting smart now, moving to encircle him, to keep him trapped. They knew where he was going.

Or they thought they did.

The fury of Blackflame filled Lindon. He tore the arrow from his leg, hurling it at the nearest warrior, who knocked it out of the air with a gray shield.

But it cost the soldier a moment of its attention. Lindon had dashed after the Forged weapon, projecting a pulse of Blackflame madra into the soldier’s midsection. It blew apart like an over-inflated bladder.

The next one closed the distance to swat the crystal from his hand with its sword, but Lindon seized a dissolving blade from the broken enemy, snatching the blade from midair and using it to knock aside the other weapon's attack.

Then he gripped the sword and drove it through the soldier with sheer force, pinning it to the ground.

The third and final enemy dropped its sword and shield for a spear, which it could use to keep him at a distance and poke holes in him until he ran out of madra. If he let it get that far.

Flaring the Burning Cloak, he leaped. His legs screamed at the strain, but the ground beneath him exploded.

At the top of his jump, he twisted to grab the soldier’s head with one hand, and his momentum continued carrying him forward. The Forged warrior smashed into a stone column, bursting with the force, dissolving in his hand.

Lindon shouted with the exhilaration of the moment, landing on both feet. Soldiers collected themselves in chunks of gray madra, and he ground his teeth, ready to tear them apart.

The dragon advances.

He could see the exit, and his Blackflame madra was ready to push him forward still, Orthos’ core pulsing with the eagerness of a predator before the kill.

But the huge stone giant with the spiked helmet still stood in front of him, a trident in each hand.

Yerin stumbled up next to Lindon, scratched and bloody, panting in the even rhythm of a cycling technique, pale sword clutched in her hand.

He looked at her and they both nodded, turning to face the giant together.

Then Lindon let the crystal ball fall to the ground, and the test ended.

“Looked a lot shabbier that time, that’s a truth,” Yerin said, resting drawn blade on her shoulder.

Lindon’s Blackflame core was down to one smoldering red-and-black ember. “I think I can manage one more.”

“Third try,” Yerin said. “Let’s go.”