Chapter 7

When the moon rose on their thirty-second night of traveling, Cassias Arelius walked away from the control board of Sky's Mercy. The script didn't need constant maintenance, but he felt better with someone watching the sky. If a Three-Horned Eagle rose out of the clouds, they would be in trouble without someone close enough and quick enough to steer out of the way.

Not that any Arelius would miss the approach of a threat like that, even with his eyes closed. His web of madra showed him nothing but clouds and empty air for a quarter-mile around them.

And the Arelius Underlord was aboard. Even the wind couldn't sneak up on Eithan.

“Would you like to take the last shift?” he asked Eithan, who was sprawled out on the couch with a book in hand.

In less than ten hours, they would arrive at Serpent's Grave. If he could have drained his core dry to push Sky's Mercy any faster, he would have—his wife and son were waiting for him down there. They'd left their home back in the capital to follow him, and then he'd abandoned them for two months to chase down their delinquent Underlord.

This was his job now, however much it strained him to be away for so long. Eithan was the reason he'd been able to marry Jing in the first place; only an Underlord’s word had convinced their families to agree to the match. Even putting up with Eithan for the rest of his life wouldn’t be enough to repay that favor.

Though he had taken Cassias’ place.

Cassias was born to be Patriarch of the Arelius family. He was a direct descendant of the bloodline, his appearance and conduct were impeccable, and from an early age he had impressed everyone with his skill in the sacred arts.

But none of that had been good enough for Jing’s family before Eithan took his side. He’d traded away his position as Patriarch’s heir with a smile on his face, but the occasional reminder could still…sting.

Eithan yawned and shut the book. “Nothing but clear sky between us and a safe landing.”

A web of invisible power stretched throughout Sky's Mercy, bringing Cassias little snippets of information: Fisher Gesha's sheets rustling as she turned, Yerin's eyelids crinkling in a disturbing dream, Lindon's chest rising and falling evenly. There was no privacy when an Arelius was around, but it was polite to act otherwise.

Everyone knew what the Arelius could do, but they didn't know about the limitations. Publicly, the family liked to pretend they had none.

Now that he'd confirmed the outsiders were asleep, Cassias spoke freely. “They can’t hear us. Tell me when we’re really close enough for you to guide our landing, please.”

He’d known Eithan for six years now, and worked closely with him for most of that time. He could tell when the man was bluffing. Usually.

And one of Cassias’ first tasks after Eithan’s arrival had been to determine the limit of the Underlord’s senses.

Stretching, Eithan spoke through another yawn. “My father used to say the First Patriarch could watch over his descendants from another continent. Maybe even from…beyond the grave.” Eithan waggled his eyebrows up and down.

“Do you often listen to myths?” Cassias asked lightly.

“Yes. That's the secret to reaching Underlord: studying old tales. That, and bladder health.” Eithan headed to the back, to the side of the bar. “If you'll excuse me, the house can fly itself for a moment.”

Cassias was left alone in the central room of Sky's Mercy. It had been his home for the last two months, and over the course of his life he'd spent even longer inside, but he'd grown up expecting it would belong to him.

Now, it was Eithan's. Cassias was only borrowing it.

Everything in life was a trade.

Before heading upstairs to his own bedroom—there were six aboard Sky's Mercy, as well as the washroom, the bar, a training room, and a silent chamber for cycling—he stopped.

Over the month since departing the Desolate Wilds, he'd built up a certain curiosity. Now that the other three were asleep, and the two children had both left the circle of wooden dummies alone, he had a perfect opportunity to indulge that curiosity.

Eithan would know what he was doing, of course, but it was best to operate as though Eithan knew everything. The Underlord could stretch his web to a target miles away, if he was focused on a specific spot, but he saw everything within a hundred yards without even trying.

Cassias pushed the door open, took two steps on cloud through the bitter, cutting wind, and entered the repurposed barn.

Only slanting bars of moonlight cut through the shadows, but Cassias could see all eighteen dummies with his bloodline powers. An arm here, a slice of head there, a piece of a circle, but it was enough for him to fill in the gaps. As he moved, strands of his detection web swept through each of the dummies in turn. It was as though he could run his fingertips over everything in the room, slowly gaining a picture.

He finished in a few seconds, confirming what he'd suspected. Because he knew Eithan was listening, he shook his head and sighed.

“You're not trying to kill him?”

When he re-entered Sky's Mercy, he found Eithan standing at the control panel. “Of course I'm not,” the Underlord responded. “When a mother bird pushes a chick from the nest, is she trying to kill her child?”

“That's a Lowgold course,” Cassias said, his tone dry. “I trained on something similar until only a few years ago.”

“It should be similar indeed. I took the plans from your training room back in the main house.”

Cassias cast his web back over to the barn, sweeping his sensations through the dummies. It wasn't as quick or as detailed as it had been when he was standing an arm’s length away, but it was still thorough.

With very little surprise, he realized Eithan was telling the truth: the two courses were virtually identical. It would be a relief if he ever caught the man in a lie instead of a half-truth, bluff, or exaggeration.

“You're teaching a child to wrestle by locking him in a closet with a wolf,” Cassias said. His tone straddled the line between polite subordinate and stern caretaker.

He had gotten to know Lindon over the last few weeks—the boy was earnest, quick, and almost entirely ignorant about the sacred arts. Cassias didn’t want to see him hurt.

Someone had raised him completely disconnected from the real world, and he needed a thorough, solid education. It would take years to prepare him with all the knowledge he needed to face society, especially as a representative of the Arelius family. Their enemies would tear him apart, if he weren’t ready.

Eithan seemed determined to cram those skills into him in a matter of months. That wouldn't help him or stretch him; it would burn him up like dry tinder.

“Jai Long is dangerous, even for a Highgold. Best to start Lindon on something as safe as a wolf, wouldn't you say?” Eithan was sitting on the control panel, reading his book again as the night sky stretched out the windows behind him. He didn’t even bother to face the glass.

“You really want him to fight against a former Jai clan heir? Still?” It wasn’t technically proper to question the Underlord, not even in private, but Eithan had never been one to lean on propriety. Besides, dealing with him was a trial that would stretch anyone’s manners.

Eithan flipped a page. “You've been watching Lindon and Yerin both. What do you think?”

“Yerin is a treasure vault,” Cassias said immediately. “I can't imagine completing a Lowgold training course using a Goldsign like hers, but she almost has it. Her madra is incredibly stable if she really reached Lowgold only a few months ago, and at this rate she could reach Highgold inside a year. She was born for the sword arts.”

“Not just born,” Eithan said. “Made. And Lindon?”

“He's...talented,” Cassias said hesitantly. In truth, he didn't know what to make of Lindon's ability. His mind and attitude were admirable enough, but his spirit...

He had two half-sized cores filled with Iron-quality pure madra, a few very interesting trinkets in his pack that Cassias had respected his privacy enough to ignore, and an Iron body that was far beyond his capacity to support.

He knew Eithan must have led Lindon to that particular Iron body, but he didn't know why. Lindon having to carry that body was like a child trying to control an Underlord's weapon; they might be able to flail it around a little, but in the end, it would do more damage to them than to anyone else.

“He's a mess,” Eithan said, flipping another page.

“I wouldn't put it quite like that,” Cassias said, but he was relieved he hadn't had to spell it out.

“His Bloodforged Iron body takes too much madra to sustain, and he's weak as it is. No matter how physically resilient he becomes, he's no more than half a sacred artist.” Eithan looked over his shoulder and showed Cassias a grin. “Have I hit the mark?”

Cassias lowered his voice. They were still all sleeping, but this was the sort of subject matter that should be discussed discreetly. “Why train him, then? The branch heads will worship you for bringing home the Sage’s apprentice. You don’t need a second disciple. And I can name you a dozen sacred artists Lindon’s age with twice his skill.”

Eithan hopped down, tossing his book onto the control panel. He walked over and threw an arm across Cassias' shoulder. Then he turned so they were both looking out over the night.

“Imagine with me, will you?” Eithan extended his free hand as though presenting a glorious future. “Imagine if he could restore each of those cores to full size and raise them to Lowgold. With pure madra in one, he'd be a unique resource, and he could still follow a combat Path in the other. That’s two full cores, so he could bring out the full capabilities of the Bloodforged body with energy to spare.”

“It’s a delightful vision,” Cassias said. “He would throw the Lowgold rankings into chaos. In ten or fifteen years, he could grow into a pillar of our Arelius family, and follow me and Jing to the top of the Truegolds.”

Cassias shrugged out of Eithan's arm and turned to look him in the eye. “But he won't be ready in a year. Even if he were, he would be no match for the Jai clan exile.”

Eithan's eyes sparkled. “But you haven't heard about his second Path.”

When Eithan told him, Cassias was speechless for a moment. After a pause, he forced himself to start breathing. The Underlord was just needling him again, to watch him squirm.

“Please don’t worry me like that,” he said at last. “I almost believed you.”

“Then you were almost correct.”

The horrifying possibilities of Eithan’s plan started to creep into Cassias’ mind one by one, but he refused to consider them. “He’s not born of the Blackflame line. He couldn’t handle the madra.”

“Didn’t you wonder why I’d given him a top-grade Bloodforged Iron body?”

“But you can’t get him the aura though, surely, unless you’ve tucked a dragon away…in the…”

He trailed off. Horror dawned on him as he realized where they were going.

Eithan beamed. “Serpent’s Grave. We’re heading right into the dragon’s mouth, as it were.”

…that might work.

Heavens help him, but that might actually work.

“No,” Cassias said, still refusing to acknowledge the truth. “The branch heads will never allow it. The Skysworn will never allow it. The Emperor will never allow it!”

“There’s an old saying about asking forgiveness rather than permission,” Eithan said, “but the essence of it is, ‘I’m going to do what I want.’”

Cassias had given up his spot in the family for Eithan. He’d suffered for Eithan’s mistakes, taken the heat of the family’s anger over Eithan’s childish whims, and hauled his family halfway across the Empire to Serpent’s Grave…and then left them again, because Eithan had wandered off.

But even he had limits.

His shouts woke Fisher Gesha. She made it to the top of the stairs to see the Underlord with a hand over Cassias' mouth, stopping him from calling out to Lindon.

Cassias hadn’t even gotten a chance to draw his sword; Eithan had seen every movement coming, broken his techniques before they formed, broken his stance, and broken the flow of his madra. It had taken him no more effort than scooping up a kitten.

Cassias stopped struggling, his shoulders slumped. There was no standing against an Underlord.

As Lindon and the entire Arelius family would soon realize.

***

It was their last day before landing in the Blackflame Empire, and Lindon was up early to train. Not earlier than Yerin, who was sitting with legs crossed outside the circle of wooden dummies at dawn, already cycling.

And now, this was to be his final attempt at the eighteen-man course before landing in Serpent's Grave. He slipped the parasite ring into his pocket and cycled his madra, standing in front of the first dummy.

He glanced at Yerin so that she would start counting. She nodded. “Run it.”

Lindon moved with a speed born of habit, striking at the targets on the right arm, torso, left arm. Without looking, he raised his forearm to block the counterstrike.

He could hear the bone creak.

The sudden pain was a flash of lightning down his arm, but he'd already moved to the second dummy. The injury cooled just as quickly, his Bloodforged Iron body drawing his madra directly to fuel his recovery.

It had been impossible for him to complete the course. Even if he'd executed each step perfectly, every hit that landed on him took too much of his madra. He'd asked if he could stop the drain, and Eithan had looked at him as though he were crazy. “Can you stop your body from healing? No. That's what bodies do. Yours just does it a little too well.”

With two Iron cores and three weeks of training under the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel, he could barely, just barely, finish the eighteenth dummy.

This run went smoothly all the way up to number sixteen, where he placed his foot too wide and didn't have the footing to take the overhead blow. He blocked with both arms crossed, but he was supposed to stay on his feet. This time, thanks to his misstep, he went down to a knee.

He couldn't allow his last attempt to end in a failure.

Lindon slammed the heel of his hand into the dummy's chin, pushing an Empty Palm through the bottom of the circle and into the center. The madra penetrated, even though the hit had been off-center, and the circle glowed.

He lunged for the next dummy, clearing the last two without incident.

As soon as the last bell rung and the last light shone, he draped himself over the wooden frame, panting and sweating. Both his cores were weak and empty, and it would take him half an hour to refill them even under the effects of the pill.

But that wasn't the important part. He looked to Yerin expectantly.

“Twenty-one, by my count.” She chuckled at his relief as he sagged off the dummy, collapsing to the floor. “That's more than nothing. I'd have been proud of that at Iron.”

“I don’t believe you had a course like this when you were Iron,” Lindon said, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

“No, I had to fight half a dozen starving wolves with a shaving-razor.” She sighed and moved into the center of the ring. “You got a count going?”

He hesitated. “Yerin, we're already there. I don’t mean to suggest anything...”

“Start the count,” she said, steel in her voice.

He started counting.

She leaned into the first dummy, her Goldsign blurring silver. First target green, second target blue, third target white. One-two-three and she was onto the next one. Even with just the bladed arm, she was faster than Lindon.

Yerin complained that she couldn't make the Goldsign do what she wanted it to. Over and over she said that, until Lindon was sick of hearing it. To him, she always looked in complete control.

She reached the ninth dummy in seven seconds, and this one had a target low in the abdomen—where the core would be, in any sacred artist but Lindon—one in the chest, and one in the center of its head. It was one of Lindon's favorites, because it only moved its arms defensively; it never hit him back.

Yerin struck the lowest circle easily, the second a little slow, and her third blow was knocked aside by a wooden hand.

All the previous eight dummies, which had remained lit until then, dimmed slowly as though the light leaked out of them.

She stood there panting, glaring at her wooden enemy, and Lindon thought the red rope around her waist had brightened from dark red to the pure crimson of fresh blood.

Finally, she screamed, her Goldsign striking forward and taking the dummy's head.

She didn't look at Lindon or excuse herself, dropping to the floor right there and beginning to cycle. Her cheeks and throat were flushed with anger, her scars standing out in stark contrast to her red skin.

Lindon was already walking to a box in the corner, which was filled with replacement heads. They'd picked up some extra wood on one of their landings, and every time Fisher Gesha said he needed practical experience, he hollowed one out and filled it with the simple scripts and basic constructs the dummies needed to function.

The outer scripts and core constructs of each dummy were all unique, but the heads were the same, which fortunately made them easy to replace.

He screwed it on—the original wood was lighter than the replacement, and he would need to carve a target circle onto it. He pulled out a short-bladed knife to start, but Eithan threw open the door.

“Twenty-one seconds is fairly good,” Eithan said with a broad smile. “Now, if you'd gotten below twenty seconds, then you'd have done something.”

Lindon bowed, accepting what little compliment there was. After weeks of working with Eithan, he'd started to realize exactly how high the Underlord's standards were. If he used a technique to blow a hole in the moon, Eithan would ask why he hadn't taken care of the sun, too.

“As for you, Yerin...” She didn't open her eyes at Eithan's words, apparently still cycling, but Lindon was sure she was listening. He'd gotten to know her better over the last few weeks too.

“...you're still trying to get your Remnant to guide you. You’re making things harder for yourself.”

“He’s talking to me,” Yerin said stubbornly, eyes still closed. “If I could hear him clear, I’d be two stages stronger by now.”

Eithan’s smile was filled with pity, as though he looked down on a dying old woman. “No will of your master remains in the Remnant. You’re hearing impressions that echo from his remaining memories.”

“It’s him, so I’m listening.”

“The easiest way to reach Highgold is to break down your Remnant for power. You are staring at a feast from afar while wondering why you’re so hungry. All other paths to Highgold are—”

She bounded to her feet, cutting him off. “I’m not going to bury his voice. You know how much of his teaching I’d be giving up? You think you can make up for that? Are you a Sage?”

“If only I were,” Eithan said calmly. “It would solve many of my problems.”

She stepped forward, glaring up at his chin. “A Sage’s Remnant can do things you can’t imagine. I’m telling you, he’s in there, and he’ll get me to Highgold in a snap.”

Eithan placed two fingers on her forehead and slowly pushed her back until she was standing an arm’s length away. “The path from Lowgold to Highgold is learning to use more than the excess energy your Remnant provides you. You normally break down the Remnant itself for power, digesting its skills and its madra. There are other ways past Lowgold, certainly, but this is the most direct path.”

Her face reddened even further, her Goldsign drew back as though to strike, but Eithan continued with his tone and smile still friendly. “We have time. Perhaps you’ll choose to feed on your master’s Remnant, or perhaps you’ll find another way. Or you could do neither, and Lindon and I will leave you behind.”

Lindon flinched. He had been perfectly happy to stay out of that conversation. For the past four weeks, Yerin had ranted about Eithan’s instruction and how he didn’t understand her master like she did.

Eithan clapped his hands together. “All right! Let's leave your failures and inadequacies aside for the moment. Even now, we are arriving at our destination. You should clean yourselves and join me in the sitting-room, because I suspect you'll want to see this.”

Eithan left Lindon and Yerin behind, which suspended them in silence as they toweled off and packed up.

“It's less than easy to keep a Remnant under control,” Yerin said after two minutes of quiet.

“I can't even imagine,” Lindon said honestly. Someday he would, though. He looked forward to it.

“I am trying. My master knows how to reach Highgold without cracking into his Remnant, I just need to hear what he’s telling me.”

Sometimes Yerin spoke like this when she needed to bounce ideas off Lindon, even when he had no clue what she was talking about. He usually nodded and let her work it out aloud.

But he could tell the difference between needing a sounding board and needing encouragement.

“You're pushing against Highgold, and you're complaining that it's too slow?” Lindon asked, exaggerating his surprise. “You're disappointed because you're not a Highgold by...sixteen summers? Seventeen?”

She shrugged. “Thereabouts. The count gets a little thrown off for a while.”

“And you’re not just a Gold! You were hand-selected by the Sword Sage himself! Compared to Eithan…” He hesitated, because he wasn’t sure how powerful the Sword Sage was. He’d never heard of the man until Suriel had mentioned him as Yerin’s master.

“He was much stronger than an Underlord,” she said quietly.

“Underlords and Sages are fighting over you. It wasn’t until this year that I could push an eight-year-old Copper off his feet, while you could carve your way through a mountain with a dull spoon.”

“I have more than one reason why I can’t just drift merrily along,” she said, but a smile had started to creep onto her face. “You don't have to polish me up, you know. I'm just venting smoke.”

Lindon tucked the parasite ring into his pack, making sure all the pockets were closed and fastened before he hoisted it onto his shoulder. “I'm not ‘polishing’ anything. The heavens opened up and showed me visions of all the greatest people on the planet, people who can wrestle dragons and strike down armies. Then they brought me to you. You’re all so far above me you might as well be stars.”

The words hung in the air for a moment before he heard them, and then some heat rose into his cheeks. He didn't look away, though.

Yerin gave him a lopsided smile, and this one sunk into his memory: her smile, the thin scars standing out against her skin, her black hair mussed from training so it didn’t look straight anymore.

“That has a sweet sound to it, now you've said it,” she said at last. The instant passed, and she turned to open the door onto the screaming wind. “Heavens never came down to show me anything, and that's the truth.”

***

Eithan stopped in his tracks even as the front windows filled with crags of black stone: Shiryu Mountain, the peak where the last of the dragons had gone to die. He'd intended to leave the children to their little moment—they would need to trust each other even more than they trusted him, and trust was always built on small, personal moments—but a phrase caught his ear, carried to him on threads of power.

The heavens opened up and showed me...

He tended to smile by default, but now his grin stretched his lips to the breaking point. He'd wondered. From the first glimpse of that little glass ball in Lindon's pocket, the one with the steady blue flame, he'd wondered. Some of the boy's comments, some of his actions, had made him more and more certain.

And now...now he knew.

The heavens opened up...

Very interesting indeed.