Chapter 19

Yerin dashed up the black slope, headed for the other peak, but Jai Long followed her.

He was playing with her, she could see that clear as glass. Maybe he wanted to hammer out a new technique, and maybe he thought she wasn’t worth his best. Whatever the truth, it stung.

She had clawed the last drop of madra from her core, and was running on prayers. But there was a mass of silver power left in her spirit, and she begged it for more power.

Her master’s instincts told her to attack.

I can’t, she thought. Give me something, and I’ll use it.

The Remnant had no other advice for her. Just a few wispy memories of running straight at an enemy, weapon and techniques primed and ready.

Someone else had a word for her, though.

Her long-time guest, unwelcome and uninvited, sat there in her core in a knot of deadly power. If she unleashed it, it could save her. If she released it, she could save herself.

As always, she reminded herself what would happen if she released her guest. Unless Eithan popped out of the ground, her guest would destroy everything. And everyone, probably including her. Unless it hollowed her out and used her as a husk, which was worse.

No, she didn’t need that parasite’s help. She needed her master to step up.

A twisting snake shot out from Jai Long’s palm, and she met it with the edge of her master’s sword. Only the sheer quality of the weapon saved her, because she had no madra left to pour into it. Her bloody fingernails drummed with pain to the beat of her heart.

Show me what to do, Yerin begged.

The Remnant still urged her to attack. The unwelcome guest still pleaded for freedom.

And Yerin’s heart bled, because she finally accepted the truth: this wasn’t her master. Breaking him open wouldn’t be a betrayal, it wouldn’t mean abandoning him. If she dug into the Remnant and sucked its power dry, she wouldn’t be losing her master’s voice.

She’d lost that almost a year ago, in Sacred Valley.

So, as Jai Long kicked her body down the mountain with a bored sigh, Yerin reached inside herself. Her master’s Remnant was just a mass of silver power in her core, but she visualized it as it had appeared when she adopted it: a ghost of silver chrome, armed with six bladed limbs.

She reached for that ghost and crushed it with the power of her will.

As though she’d lit a beacon, the aura around her ignited. Silver light blazed into the sky, a column of razor-sharp power that turned all the vital aura in the area to sword aura.

Beneath her feet, a thousand invisible blades slashed at the stone, pebbles whipping up to sting her skin. Even the air whistled by her ears as it was cut, the wind lashing at her hair and her robe.

As the power of the sword raged within and without, she was devoured by a memory.

The girl stood before the Sword Sage amidst the wreckage of what had once been a prosperous family.

Her power blazed in his spiritual sense, half of it raw and unshaped, half bloody and murderous. She was only seven or eight and scrawny, and she looked like she’d missed more than her share of meals. Ragged hair hung into her eyes.

She hauled on a rope of blood madra that stretched from her stomach as though the far end was tied to a runaway horse. Her bare feet were planted, her teeth gritted, arms straining against the power of the parasite.

Which stretched out, its end forming into a blade, trying to cut him. She had managed to halt it while the blade was still an inch from his throat.

The world came back into focus as Yerin found herself scraped and bloody and surrounded by a furious storm of silver light. Even the droplets of blood running from her wounds splashed up, sliced by aura, covering her with a scarlet mist.

A column of light rose into the air from her body, like she was a falling silver star.

She grasped at the Sword Sage’s memory like the fading edges of a dream; her master remembered that moment more vividly than she did. That moment: their first meeting. When she’d tried to save him from the power of her unwelcome guest.

Jai Long stood over her, and she found enough energy to stare defiantly back. He was far enough back that the sword energy didn’t cut him, but he was a sword artist himself—he could fight through the violent storm of her advancement to continue the fight while she was vulnerable.

But he merely crossed his arms and waited.

He could defend himself from this weapon, this seed of a true Blood Shadow, with only a fraction of his madra. He was in no danger.

But she didn’t know that. And she forced her body to its limit, muscles straining, blood running from the lip she was biting to keep the parasite from stretching any closer to him.

He was a stranger to her. The Blood Shadow had already consumed everyone she knew. All the others he’d seen in her position had given up—they had lost all reason to live, and thus all reason to fight. Their parasites thrived in such situations, filling their bodies like husks, stealing their power to bring it away.

And here, a little girl fought with all her body, mind, and spirit. She held on, her eyes furious and determined, resisting to the end.

And the fragment of a Dreadgod was no easy foe.

Yerin climbed to her feet, madra filling her, seeping into her weapon. Sword aura was so thick in the air, bright silver even to the naked eye, that it had started gathering on the edges of her blade. With half the effort it normally took, she executed her weapon Enforcer technique: the Flowing Sword. The technique collected aura with every slash and thrust, making the weapon stronger as it moved.

Everything in the Path of the Endless Sword revolved around vital aura. Most sword Paths could be used without a sword—their madra itself was sharp enough to cut old oak, so who needed the weapon itself? You could Forge whatever you needed for a fight.

On her Path, every technique was half a Ruler technique. Made her more powerful, gave her techniques extra heft…so long as she held a sword. If she didn’t have a weapon with a sharp edge, she was worth less than any other sacred artist.

That’s what her Goldsign was for.

Looking down on her, Jai Long must have felt the power building to a crescendo. He stood just beyond the silver light that poured as a torrent into the sky, and debris scattered by aura blades crashed against his chest.

Still he waited, arms crossed. Obviously, he expected more.

He had come to kill her, but here was a child who stood against a Dreadgod’s madra. She had power of her own—otherwise, the parasite would have chosen someone older—and enough resolve to keep on fighting even when the battle was lost, when she had no one left, when there was no hope of victory and nothing to fight for.

She was perfect.

Her master’s memories and attitudes soaked into her, washing over her with a palpable sense of his presence. He had chosen her because she fought to the last breath. Because, when backed into a corner and given no path to victory, she would still attack.

The Path of the Endless Sword had no defense. Sword aura could not shield her, it could only cut.

Whether she fought to escape, to kill her opponent, to protect herself, or to save someone else, she had to do so by attacking. That was the one weapon in her arsenal, the one road forward.

She’d studied the Path of the Endless Sword for years, and she knew exactly what it could do, but now she felt it. Bone-deep.

The silver light around her faded from a blaze to a halo and then died. Pebbles and droplets of blood, held aloft by the force of her spirit, scattered on the ground. The vital aura had carved out a smooth crater in the stone beneath her, and many of the rock pieces now drifted in the air as a fine dust.

“Congratulations,” Jai Long said, in his flat voice.

Yerin stretched her second bladed arm, which loomed over her other shoulder. With the pair of them, she looked like she’d glued a couple of steel fishing rods to her back and strapped knives to the end.

“Highgold,” she said, feeling the new resonance of her spirit. “Well, that’s got a kick to it.” She pressed her fists together, a sacred artist’s salute, and noticed her fingernails had stopped bleeding—Lowgold to Highgold wasn’t a big advancement, but advancing always did the body good. “Thanks for waiting.”

“I need an opponent,” he said softly. “Not a victim.”

Madra flooded through her flesh and into her skin, fueling her Steelborn Iron body, sinking into her muscles like water into thirsty soil.

She kicked off, and the leap took her over Jai Long’s head. He lashed out with a hand glowing like a star, but her Goldsign blurred and met his technique. They clashed with a sound like steel on steel.

Her second Goldsign whipped out, and he had to turn it with his other hand. When she followed up with a hit from her white sword, he took a step back.

Aura flashed out from her sword, slashing one of the strips of cloth from around his face, and he backed up again.

This time, he thrust a palm forward, and a Forged snake flashed through the air to bare fangs of light in her face.

He was following up with more snakes, defense and offense in one, and his spirit still hummed against her senses. She was far from being able to compete with him in raw power.

At least, as far as madra went.

While she was suffering through the birth of her Steelborn Iron body, her master had painted a rosy picture of its future. ‘It grows with you,’ he’d said. ‘Our body Enforcement techniques aren’t worth a chip of rust, see. So you need a body that Enforces itself.’ She’d seen him bend a steel door in half and crush a rock to powder. ‘You won’t notice at first, but it’ll be sharper every stage.’

For the first time, Yerin could feel the gift her master had left for her.

***

Something had changed for Yerin at Highgold, and it wasn’t her spirit. Jai Long had fought dozens if not hundreds of Highgolds, and it wasn’t that her spirit was so much stronger than usual.

Her techniques became sharper, like she’d spent a month practicing, but Jai Long could understand that. Highgold was a journey through the skills and experiences embedded in the Gold Remnant, so she’d have inherited some insight from her master.

It was her sheer physical strength that baffled him as she crushed his serpents, shoved his attacks aside, and matched his movements even through Flowing Starlight.

She drove his Enforced punches apart with her twin Goldsigns, which now moved as quick as her hands. He ducked her sword stroke, which she’d telegraphed by shifting her weight…but then she caught him in the side with a kick.

The force of it strained his Iron body and sent him rolling; he gathered himself and vaulted over from one peak to another. Now he was on the slopes of Shiryu Mountain’s main peak, beneath the Jai family palaces.

When she saw how far she’d kicked him, she looked more stunned than he was.

Jai Long’s whole purpose in allowing her to reach Highgold had been to measure himself against her. He was still ahead. The power of his techniques, his precision and timing, his speed: these were all beyond her.

But they should be. He was Truegold.

He shouldn’t feel any pressure from her attacks, but he did. He should be so much faster with his Flowing Starlight that she couldn’t keep up, and yet she did. She shouldn’t be able to threaten him except with her weapon, but that kick had nearly broken his ribs.

There was less of a distance between them now than there had been six months ago. He’d used the Ancestor’s Spear to gain power faster than any other sacred artist could, and she was still closing the gap.

Fear crawled up his spine, and for the first time, he focused his full power. He had to kill her now.

If he didn’t, then the next time they met, she would kill him.

He gathered points of light on the tips of his hands, forming Star’s Edge techniques. It would have been more effective with a weapon, but he worked with what he had.

Yerin leaped over to the slope with him, slashing out in a Striker technique. He broke it with one Star’s Edge, sending a Serpent’s Shadow at her to cover her movement as he leaped up the slope.

She followed, of course. Only when he reached the cliff and stood beneath the Jai clan homes did he turn and wait for her.

When she landed on the cliff, tattered black robes fluttering in the breeze, she sheathed her sword.

“You’ll need that,” he warned her.

She shrugged. “Still better armed than you are.”

A hand-sized Striker technique shot out from one of her Goldsigns, and though he crushed the madra immediately, she’d closed the gap.

He drove a Star’s Edge at her throat.

They exchanged a dozen blows in an instant, his Enforcer techniques crashing against her Goldsigns. His core had finally started to weaken, dimming from a bright moon to a fading star, and hers couldn’t have been much better. Her breaths were still in a cycling rhythm, but they were ragged.

She flicked her eyes to his hands, watching for his next attack, and he took the opening. He squeezed one last burst of speed out of Flowing Starlight, dashing behind her.

This was his chance. He didn’t have the power for a prolonged battle with her, certainly not without a weapon. She wasn’t even a priority target; if he’d known she would grow so fast, he would have taken Gokren’s suggestion and crushed her with the full power of their numbers.

He had one chance to end the threat she represented, and this was it.

Her back was open and unprotected. In one invisible motion, he slashed a razor-sharp Enforced palm at the back of her neck to sever her spine.

As he moved, his spirit cried a warning. He leaped back as the air rippled, and sword aura tore the space where he had just been standing

Yerin’s Goldsign had twisted behind her, launching a Ruler technique in her blind spot.

She spun, face red with anger—at herself for letting him get behind her or at him for trying to stab her in the back, he wasn’t sure—and sent another rippling slash at him. With his Star’s Edge, he broke that technique, and the next one, but she seemed to be trying to empty her core in one breath. The Striker techniques kept coming.

His Star’s Edge shattered too early.

There was still a rippling silver-edged distortion in the air, heading right at his face. He needed a moment to call his Enforcer technique back, but he didn’t have time.

Before he had time to think, he acted on instinct.

Jai Long used his Goldsign.

His jaw unhinged like a snake’s, tearing the red bandages away from his face. He bared a mouth full of glowing white fangs: his inheritance from the serpentine Remnant that had nearly taken his sister’s life. They twisted his face, reshaping his jaw, and anytime he opened his mouth he looked like a nightmare.

He opened his mouth wide and bit down on the rippling slash of energy, his teeth shattering the technique like glass. The shards of madra slashed at his cheeks, tearing the rest of his mask away, and he glared at Yerin with open hatred.

She kept her eyes on his, hand on her sword. Her spirit’s power was fading, but she was the picture of resolve, prepared to keep fighting.

Jai Long cast his perception back over the city. The tide was turning against them, he could feel it in the ebb of Stellar Spear madra throughout Serpent’s Grave.

Shame overcame him in a moment. The Jai clan had lost a battle in their own city.

But as much as it pained him, he was part of the clan again. His oath tugged at him, pulling him to do the responsible thing, to preserve himself for the family’s sake. He was wasting too much time on an uncertain battle, and fair fights were a fool’s game.

As soon as the clan regrouped, Jai Long intended to suggest that Jai Daishou kill Yerin personally.

Because Jai Long wasn’t sure he was up to the task.

With one last glance at the Sword Sage’s apprentice, he leaped off the cliff to regroup with his family.

***

Even with her core emptied for the second time that evening, and both her spirit and body aching with exhaustion, Yerin tried to follow Jai Long.

“Get back…here, you…” Her voice was mumbled, and she wasn’t even sure the sounds that came out were real words.

She staggered after the enemy until her knees buckled, and then she sank to the rock, panting. The energy that came to her from her master’s Remnant would return, but for now, it was tapped out. Her brief burst of clarity and insight was already fading away like a dream. There was more to gain from the Remnant, but that sense of his presence had gone.

Leaving only a memory.

She was exhausted in body, mind, and spirit, and saying goodbye to the Sword Sage a second time struck her like a physical wound. His absence tore through her.

And there on the mountain, she wept again for her master’s death.

***

Orthos was wounded. His skin oozed dark blood, and Lindon could feel the pain of venom working its way through the turtle’s blood and spirit. His spirit was in chaos, and Lindon couldn’t sense whether Orthos’ mind was in control or not.

A massive black paw, the size of Lindon’s entire torso, smashed down onto his stomach, slamming his back against the ground.

Lindon tried to scream, but it came out as a rush of air. He clawed at the leathery leg, but he might as well have been slapping a tree.

The great turtle stretched out his neck, looking Lindon in the eye. He growled and choked into Lindon’s face, as though trying to speak, but no words came. The sacred beast gave a great scream of frustration that tore Lindon’s face.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Some deaths had to be faced with eyes open, but this was not one of them.

His core flared with a dark, bloody light.

Blackflame raced through his madra channels, scouring him from the inside out, making him gasp.

Is this what it’s like to leave a Remnant? he wondered. He’d always imagined it as a sensation of the spirit tearing itself away from the body, which was exactly what this felt like.

His spirit burned hotter and hotter, Blackflame racing along his channels, until he could bear it no longer. He screamed, and Orthos screamed with him, dark fire racing from the turtle’s mouth and scorching stone.

Lindon cycled furiously, trying to digest some of the power—not Eithan’s Purification Wheel, but the simplest, fastest breathing technique he could. He ignited the Burning Cloak, which raged around him, giving him the strength to lift Orthos’ paw and throw it off him.

But Orthos roared in response. A red-and-black corona flared around him, and suddenly the leg was pressed back down like a mountain collapsing, claws digging into Lindon’s chest.

Lindon built up power in his hands, pushing rivers of Blackflame out through both of his palms. The Burning Cloak raged, and he could feel red and black aura flaring all around him.

The power was too much for him, he could feel it; his channels and his core were stretched to the point of bursting. He hadn’t reached the end of Jade—his spirit wasn’t mature yet.

So he clawed at his pack, searching for the one thing that might help him: the Sylvan Riverseed.

He tore at his pile of belongings like a man on fire looking for a bucket of water. Tongues of Blackflame licked at the fabric of his pack, scorching away chunks, but he couldn’t care.

The glass case tumbled out and the Riverseed rubbed her head, as though she’d knocked a skull she didn’t have. Lindon didn’t wait to get her attention and draw her in; he felt as though his spirit was shriveling and blackening.

Instead, Blackflame burned through the side of the glass. It didn’t melt; it hissed and blew away in a cloud of grit like fine dust.

Lindon stretched out trembling fingers, and the Sylvan Riverseed cocked her head to look at him. For a second, she seemed uncertain, like she didn’t recognize him.

Then, firmly, she seized his middle finger in both hands.

A surge of liquid blue flowed through his madra channels, quieting the flow of dark madra and soothing his channels like cool water on a burn. Blackflame madra kept coming, and Lindon kept cycling, but the Riverseed poured all she had into him.

Finally, the flow of fire slackened. Orthos pulled his paw from Lindon’s core and staggered away, unspeakably weary.

The Sylvan Riverseed sprawled on her back, chittering like a frustrated wind chime. She had lightened to the blue of a robin’s egg, and after a moment she squirmed back into his pack and started digging around for scales.

And Lindon lay there panting, spirit and body aching. Much of Orthos’ madra had been diverted into his Bloodforged Iron body, so Lindon’s smallest wounds had closed and the venom in his veins had been burned away, but he still hurt like he’d been beaten all over with hammers.

Then Gokren stumbled back through the exit, hair wild and furs burned off. He stared wildly around, fixing his gaze on Orthos, and leveled his spear.

Four Sandvipers entered behind him, moving to flank the turtle.

Lindon’s spirits fell like a sack of bricks. It just wasn’t fair. Suriel was playing a trick on him—surely every mortal’s trials had to end sometime.

“The dragon advances,” Orthos declared, eyeing Gokren. Lindon could feel the turtle’s spirit, strained to its limits, but he still roared and lumbered toward the Sandviper.

Lindon started to gather Blackflame madra between his palms, but he froze. His pure core was still empty.

He couldn’t make a shell around the Striker technique.

Orthos took a hit from the side and screamed, while Lindon hunkered behind the stone tablet explaining the Ruler technique, trying to condense Blackflame madra.

The Riverseed whined, shaking his knee with both her hands and pointing to Orthos, trying to get him to help.

Lindon tuned out Orthos’ screams and the Riverseed’s pleas, focused on the black fire flickering between his hands. This was a dragon’s technique. He needed to think about it like a dragon.

He poured more power into the ball, and when he felt himself about to lose control, he forced it into place. A dragon wouldn’t try to bend or shape its power; a dragon would make the power submit.

The dragon conquers.

When he finally succeeded, he almost didn’t realize it, dripping sweat over a fireball twice as big as his fist. He stumbled out from the shelter of the stone tablet, watching Orthos withdrawing all his limbs into his shell.

Sandviper madra crashed on the outside without leaving a mark, but Lindon knew the fight was over. Orthos would never have hidden unless he was prepared to die. His spirit was a mournful song, an aching wound of injured pride.

There was nothing in Lindon’s mind except his desire to push the enemy away from his partner. He shoved both hands forward, releasing the madra he’d stored up into a Striker technique.

If he could knock Gokren off-balance, even a weakened Orthos might be able to kill him. Maybe they could escape. But that assumed that Lindon’s pitiful Jade technique could even wound a Truegold.

An arm-thick bar of Blackflame madra streamed toward Sandviper Gokren, the technique dense and liquid smooth. The Truegold condensed a green spear out of madra, slamming his Forged weapon against the spike. Truegold Sandviper madra met Lindon’s Blackflame.

The dark fire washed over Gokren’s defense, taking his hand off at the wrist.

He stumbled back, eyes wide as he stared at the place where his hand used to be. Lindon stared, just as stunned. He had put everything he had into that Striker technique, to the degree that he was feeling dizzy from the strain on his spirit, but he had only hoped to take some pressure from Orthos. Even the Lowgold Sandvipers stepped back, turning their focus from the turtle to Lindon.

Orthos poked his head out of his shell. In the stunned, frozen moment after Lindon’s Striker technique, he extended the remainder of his madra. Lindon sensed what he was doing through their contract, but he didn’t comprehend it until he opened his Copper sight.

The red-and-black aura was rising like a tide, spreading to encompass all the Sandvipers.

The Sandvipers came to their senses, running from Orthos’ ruler technique, but Gokren bared his teeth and swung the spear in his remaining hand down. It glowed green, shining with toxic madra.

Lindon shouted, spraying Blackflame madra in his direction. It didn’t even come close to reaching—he hadn’t taken the time to concentrate the technique and keep it under control. But Gokren, who had just lost a hand to Lindon’s deadly Path, flinched. His spear wavered.

And Orthos activated his Ruler technique.

Five roses of fire bloomed out of nowhere, centered on each of the remaining Sandvipers. The golden-orange flames flared, spotted with inky black and bloody red, devouring five bodies in an instant.

Not one of them managed to scream as the Void Dragon’s Dance consumed them.

The fight was over almost too quickly.

Five minutes later, Lindon still didn’t believe his own memories. First, the madra had obeyed him more easily than it ever had before. Then, his technique had worked on someone at the peak of Gold. Based on everything Lindon knew, the force of Gokren’s madra alone should have been enough to block anything a Jade could do.

Orthos dragged his massive body over to Lindon, chewing on a mouthful of bones as he went. “You’re not a Jade,” he announced. “I gave you more of my power than a Jade could handle.”

Lindon looked at the turtle, then down at his jade badge, then scanned his own spirit. “I’m stronger, certainly, but I don’t feel so different. Nothing like when I advanced to Iron or Jade.” The stone wheel at the center of his Blackflame core might have spun a little faster, and his spirit cycled with the force of a raging river instead of a trickling stream.

But Iron had come with a new body, and Jade with a new soul. Compared to those changes, this felt too simple. Maybe if he had adopted a Remnant, instead of taking in power through a contract, he would have seen a real difference.

Orthos gingerly stretched out a leg, wincing at the pain. “Humans make every stage into a legend. A Lowgold is just a Jade with teeth. The only difference between Jade and Gold is a mountain of power.” He gave Lindon a look that radiated smug pride. “Now you see the real glory of Blackflame.”

Lindon was still dazed, but he couldn’t argue with reality. Sandviper Gokren’s legs—the largest remaining parts of him—lay a few dozen yards away. His skull was sliding down Orthos’ gullet.

Lindon was Lowgold now. A real Gold.

This was the power of Gold.

But Orthos’ soul still pained him—if his condition went untended, he would lose himself again. That was a problem Lindon thought he could solve.

He placed the Riverseed on Orthos’ head and, after a moment of panic, the spirit placed both hands on the turtle’s skin. Blue light flowed into a Blackflame spirit, smoothing and calming as it went.

Orthos shouted like a man doused in icy water. The Riverseed gave a terrified peep, scuttling back up Lindon’s arm. She stumbled at his shoulder, her skin pale, and collapsed on his head to curl up in his hair. “Forgiveness,” Lindon said, bobbing a bow. “I didn’t think to warn you.”

“The insect stung me!” Orthos said, gnashing his jaws. The Sylvan trembled against Lindon’s scalp. He swept his perception through her and confirmed what he’d suspected: the tiny spirit was exhausted.

Orthos’ madra already flowed more smoothly, even weak as it was, and his madra channels didn’t pain him as badly as before. It looked as though it had calmed his soul without diluting his madra, and allowed his channels to repair themselves.

The damage would have returned in days, if he hadn’t shared his power with Lindon. Combined with their contract, the Sylvan’s attention might be able to—over time—make some real improvement in the turtle’s soul.

“You should feel a little better at least,” Lindon said, knowing he did.

“I have survived three hundred winters and the fall of the Blackflames,” Orthos grumbled. “I would have survived this.”

On his behalf, Lindon patted the Sylvan on the head with one finger.

Lindon extended his perception, and it unspooled much more easily than before, his perception floating over the mountain. He caught a trail of sensations that felt like Yerin, as though her voice still echoed behind her, but not her.

“While you were out there…”

Orthos finished the thought. “I felt her in battle on the main peak. Not now, but her spirit is likely weak.” Laughter rumbled out of his chest like aftershocks. “There is another familiar soul in that direction as well.”

Lindon let his perception float, and he sensed exactly what the turtle meant: Eithan was no longer bothering to veil his power, and the full force of an Underlord shone like a signal-fire only a short distance away.

As Orthos insisted he could walk, Lindon slid his pack on and headed in that direction. Where Eithan was, and where they’d last seen Yerin.

The Sylvan Riverseed rode on his head.