Chapter 10

The Skysworn didn't refer to their enormous cloudship as a ship. It was more like a floating city on the clouds, and they treated it as such.

It looked like a jagged fortress of midnight-black stone, each building peaked and sharp. The largest facility was in the center of the cloud, a broad tower that loomed over all lesser structures. It matched the image Lindon had of a dark lord's stronghold, and the rest of the city was his evil fortress in the sky.

It was not at all the image he would usually associate with the Skysworn, a group of sacred artists dedicated to preserving justice and the rule of law.

Renfei and Bai Rou had come down to gather Lindon and the others to bring them onto the clouds above. Lindon wasn't sure if they were chosen as familiar faces, or if they were simply the only two with free time, but he was strangely glad to see them. He didn't know them well, but at least he knew their names.

The massive Bai Rou, his face shaded beneath his woven straw hat, marched in front of them down the paved streets. He pushed his way through the crowds, clearing the way for the people behind him.

Renfei followed behind, the cloud over her head bobbing with every step. She seemed far less serious and more relaxed now that they were aboard the heart of Skysworn power, and she quickly explained why.

“We call this city Stormrock,” she said, as they walked past row after row of tall obsidian buildings. “Costs a fortune in wind scales to keep it aloft every second. If the empire didn't have so many Underlords on wind and cloud Paths, we would never be able to fly it at all. This is the home to almost two million people, when it needs to be, and only about five thousand of those are Skysworn or trainees. The rest are our families, as well as the merchants and farmers and such that we need to be self-sustaining. The Redflower family has quite a presence here, and in times of emergency it actually serves as their family headquarters as well.”

Lindon vaguely remembered the Redflower family: just as the Arelius served to clean and sanitize the Empire, the Redflowers provided food and irrigation, even to those corners of the Blackflame Empire where farming would usually be impossible.

Sure enough, the streets were bustling. People cried out greetings when they saw the green armor of the Skysworn, or else they tried to entice Renfei or Bai Rou into buying some trinket or another. If not for the fact that their party needed medical attention, Renfei said, they would normally have stopped and interacted with at least a few of the city's people.

Yerin lay on Lindon's rust-colored Thousand-Mile Cloud and Cassias lay on a green one provided by the Skysworn. Yerin insisted that she could walk on her own, but she didn't get up. Cassias didn't struggle at all, and Lindon thought he might be asleep.

The people swarmed around them, all going about their ordinary lives, and only the passage of a couple of Skysworn could break their routine.

Well, that, or Orthos' irritation.

The sacred beast had woken up sore and irritated. Not only was he bruised and battered from the crash, but now he was on another cloud instead of solid ground. Only the size of this cloudship had appeased him; when he was inside the city walls, he couldn't tell that he was in the sky at all. Still, he snorted smoke at anyone who passed, and every once in a while pulled up a chunk of the street and munched on it. No one stopped him.

Lindon had thought they would make a strange sight; they had two Skysworn with them, a giant lumbering dragon-turtle, and an old woman drifting on spider's legs. Even he and Yerin would stand out in a crowd, and Cassias was always visible thanks to his golden hair among the sea of black. Not to mention that two of their number were covered in blood and using floating clouds as stretchers.

But despite the admiring looks at the Skysworn and the fearful ones at Orthos, they didn't stick out as much as he would have imagined.

Paths of all kinds were represented here on the streets of Stormrock. A woman passed over their party without looking down from a book she was reading, a half-dozen tentacles extending from her back and swinging her from building to building. A pack of fiery dogs passed through the middle of the street, following their leader, who had a golden crown on his head. They were conversing in quite ordinary human speech about which of them should guard their territory that night. A set of triplets wrapped in identical white ribbons watched the party pass, their eyes in eerie sync.

Words floated in midair, as though the characters had drifted up of their own volition: “Mother Lin's Parlor,” “Goldhammer Soulsmiths,” “The Restaurant in the Sky.” It took Lindon longer than he cared to admit to realize that they were floating business signs, and that realization explained the other signs that were etched in physical material above each building's mantle.

“Second-ranked Soulsmith in the city available for commissions.”

“Ranked number one of all mixed bowls in the city (vegetable-only category)!”

“Number four purveyor of Thousand-Mile Clouds for civilians, but number one in value!”

The experience of the city reminded him of his first arrival in Serpent's Grave: he'd been overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and smells of the city then too.

But this time, it didn't take him long to notice a key difference: a level of consistent unease. They were high enough that the red light was beneath them, so there were no bloodspawn here, but they must have picked up on something.

Each salesman who called out to the Skysworn also asked them what was going on. Almost half the shops they passed were in the process of packing up and closing. And most of the looks they encountered were nervous and unsteady rather than hostile or curious.

It remained so until they made it to the center of the city, where the Skysworn's true headquarters were. That overwhelming spire that Lindon had noted earlier towered over the rest of the city, and its entrance was guarded by a quartet of men and women in green armor. Two of them also had emerald wings, and they were spread as though to stretch them.

Orthos snorted smoke at one of the guards, but the young man didn't seem to notice. Instead, he asked Bai Rou if there was any news from outside. He seemed as nervous as any of the civilians outside, but Bai Rou reassured him in a steady voice.

Renfei had been keeping up a steady history of the city as they walked in, but Lindon paid closer attention now that they were within the heart of Skysworn power.

She whispered to one of the guards, who flew off over the wall. Skysworn hurried everywhere, the courtyard bustling like a wasp's nest, but Renfei stood calmly in their center.

“We wait here for the healers to arrive,” she said. “Ordinarily we could take them right in, but we're preparing for a new class of Skysworn applicants, and we don't have anyone in urgent danger of death.” She glanced at Cassias as she said this.

“In the meantime, let me tell you about the Starsweep Tower. All these facilities are exclusive for Skysworn and trainees.” Jerking her thumb over her shoulder, she indicated a door of swirling blue light behind her. Lindon only knew it was a door because of the bronze framework and the goldsteel handle at the center. Otherwise, he would have thought it was a portal or a barrier of madra.

“Soulsmith's foundry,” she said. “State-of-the-art. All of our Thousand-Mile Clouds and our weapons are made and maintained in there. We have the most complete dream tablet library of Soulsmith legacies in the entire empire, including one left by an ancient Herald for his descendants.”

Fisher Gesha's breath caught. Lindon wasn't sure what half of that meant, but he was still aching to take a look inside.

“Our armory is over there,” she said, indicating a door banded in steel. “We offer public tours, because our weapons cannot be stolen. They're keyed to either the individual Skysworn using them, or to the Skysworn armor in general. They can all be located or deactivated remotely. Confiscated weapons and our suits of armor are stored elsewhere.”

Lindon wondered how the weapons could be deactivated remotely. He could imagine how you might track a unique weapon down, but how would you deactivate them? Unless they drew from a central power source, instead of being powered by the substance of the weapon itself, and you could simply shut off the power link.

Speculation was useless. There was too much he didn't know. Perhaps there was a Path with a technique that could reach across the city and disable any weapon. But the question intrigued him, and he longed to open the door.

She nodded to a tall set of copper doors. “That's our technique library. It's more extensive than our Soulsmith library, but it's only ranked third, Soulsmith tablets being so rare. There are Paths that exist only here in the city, thanks to original techniques we managed to salvage in our library.”

Lindon realized he'd taken a step toward the door. When had that happened?

“We've also assigned as much space to cycling rooms as we have to bedrooms,” she continued. “Skysworn can't spend all their time focusing on advancement, like many sacred artists do. They have combat training, study, and assignments. We have to accelerate the advancement process as much as we can, so our cycling regimens are brief but intense.”

Lindon wondered if there was a cycling room that would work for the Path of Black Flame. He imagined there would be—it was a Path unique to this empire, after all. But maybe they had gotten rid of it after the Blackflame family fell. Would it be sealed up? He could probably find it...

“It's thanks to these facilities, and the prestige of the Skysworn, that our recruitment has gone so well,” Renfei said. She seemed as proud as if she'd built the city herself.

“You're recruiting?” Yerin asked.

“Only a week ago, our dream-readers agreed that we would soon need to add more to our ranks, so we opened ourselves to applications. In that week's time, we have received over six hundred qualified Lowgold and Highgold applicants, both from inside the city and outside.”

“What does an applicant need to be qualified?” Lindon asked, eyeing the Soulsmith's door.

“Twenty years of age or younger for Lowgolds, thirty years or younger for Highgolds, and they have to be ranked highly enough. Top one thousand for Highgolds, and top three thousand for Lowgolds. Even so, they have to pass our application process.”

“What if they aren't ranked by the Empire?”

She gave him an odd look. “Everyone is ranked.”

“I'm not.”

Renfei pulled a purple card from a slot over her wrist, touching her fingers to it. Wisps of purple rose from it, and Lindon thought he could see shapes in it. Dream madra.

“After your duel with Jai Long, you are ranked...” She shook her head, sliding the card back in. “Twenty-fourth among Lowgolds. They must value you highly. Though that only takes individual combat power into account, of course. Your skill, aesthetics, and influence are all lower.”

“Twenty-fourth,” Lindon repeated. He couldn't suppress a little excitement. “I don't mean to overstep myself, but that sounds high.”

“Too high,” Bai Rou grunted.

“It's high,” Renfei confirmed sourly.

“Forgive me if this is a rude question, but what are most Skysworn ranked?” He really wanted to ask them what their ranks had been when they were Lowgolds, and from the look on Renfei's face, she knew it.

“Lower than that,” she responded.

He wanted to dig for more details, but his Thousand-Mile Cloud zoomed around, and Yerin's scarred face peeked into their conversation. “While we're all singing and sharing together, why don't you tell us about Redmoon Hall?”

Bai Rou straightened and folded his arms, yellow eyes blazing within the shadow of his hat. Renfei's businesslike mask returned, and she glanced around as though looking for listeners. Within the headquarters of the Skysworn.

“That's for your Underlord to tell you,” she said firmly.

Lindon wanted to learn more about his ranking, but he couldn't pass up an opportunity to dig up sensitive information. “Underlord Arelius was the one who shared the information with us. He said it was important for us to know, but unfortunately he was wounded against one of their members before he could give us all the details.”

Renfei hesitated, the cloud above her head rolling as she glanced at her partner. Lindon sensed weakness and pushed.

“We only wish to serve. We can't contribute to the Arelius family if we don't understand the situation.”

Lindon didn't know much about Renfei, but he assumed that a woman who proudly served as a Skysworn would accept a plea based on duty.

Reluctantly, she leaned in. “It's the cult of a Dreadgod,” she said, so softly that he wouldn't have been able to pick up her words without his Iron body. “Usually, they operate beyond the Empire's southeastern border. They are people who sought out a fragment of the Bleeding Phoenix. They call it a Blood Shadow.”

She shook her head, in disgust or sympathy. “They're betting they could control it, but nine out of ten can't. Those are just puppets, little better than bloodspawn themselves. The ones who can control it...they're the ones to watch out for. They're still in the thrall of the Phoenix, but they have their own goals as well.”

“What is it they want?” Yerin asked, eyes sharp.

“To feed their master,” Bai Rou responded, but before he could say more, a third Skysworn reappeared. Renfei spoke to her for a moment, then turned back to them.

“We've cleared out a pair of rooms for your wounded, and our healers will see them within the hour. The rest of you can follow me.”

A new Skysworn walked in front of Cassias and Yerin, controlling Cassias' cloud directly and leading them through a plain-looking door that Lindon had overlooked before.

Fisher Gesha followed Renfei, as did Orthos, though he took a bite from the frayed end of a nearby tapestry as he did so. Lindon hitched up his pack and prepared to join them...

Then he thought once more about Yerin's reaction to seeing the bloodspawn.

“I'm going to join the wounded for a while, if that's permitted,” Lindon said, following Yerin's cloud. “I'll find my room later.”

Renfei looked as though she would object, but Bai Rou just waved his hand and kept walking. Eventually, she said, “Settle in before sunset,” and followed her partner.

“They can't all be Underlords,” Yerin muttered from her cloud. “You don't find an Underlord under every rock and tree stump.” The Skysworn in the lead was probably close enough that he could hear them over the clanking of his armor, but he was polite enough not to say anything.

“They're from outside the Empire. Maybe where they come from, everyone's an Underlord.”

She tried to sit up, winced, and ended up rolling onto her side and propping her head up on one arm. “My master's feet started to itch after two nights in the same place, so I've spent more time outside this empire than in it. I've never seen a place where Underlords are common as Lowgolds. Besides...” One hand drifted down to her stomach before she stopped it.

“I wouldn't call us strangers,” she said at last. “They wore a different name, but they still had—” She glanced up at the Skysworn. “Some things in common. My master used to fight against these people. It was how he found me.”

Lindon looked from their Skysworn to Yerin. “Is this a conversation we should have in your room?”

“Won't be easy, no matter where we have it,” she muttered, but she didn't object. Cassias was taken to his own room, where a healer was already waiting. Apparently Renfei had communicated that he was the more urgently injured.

Yerin's room was more like a closet, or a prison. It had a single red-painted mat against the wall, blankets folded on the surface. A lidded chamber pot sat nearby, and that was all.

When Yerin drifted inside and the Skysworn guide left, it was actually difficult for Lindon to step inside for a moment. He had spent too much of the last year and a half locked inside small spaces. He was irrationally afraid that he would walk inside and be sealed within, though the only entrance was a sliding door of flimsy wood. He could break through it without an Enforcer technique.

Yerin eyed him, then the door. “You want me to send you a formal invitation, you'll have to write it yourself.” Ever since revealing that she couldn't read, she had made several jokes about it. The subject was starting to make him uncomfortable.

Finally, he took a deep breath and stepped inside, sliding the door into place behind him. He fixed his gaze on the small window high up in the wall, though it just revealed another nook of the complex. Focusing on the outside let him forget how small the room was.

Yerin clambered from her cloud to her bedding, wincing and hissing at every movement. He would have helped, but he was still trying to keep the queasy sensation in his stomach under control.

When she had finally settled herself, she looked up and began again. “You remember my...uninvited guest, true?”

“It was your belt, wasn't it?” Lindon asked. He had come to that conclusion through implication and inference, but she'd never told him.

She grunted, and he took that as affirmation. “Some people call it a Blood Shadow.”

A few things slid into place for Lindon at that moment: her reaction to the bloodspawn, the Redmoon Hall emissary looking straight at her, Eithan sealing her belt.

One of the silver blades sprouting from her back began tapping lightly on the wall, and Lindon wondered if that was a nervous gesture while she waited for him to finish thinking, or if the Goldsign was out of her control.

“But you'd never heard of Redmoon Hall,” he said.

“Not by that name. Sacred artists would sometimes hunt down these parasites and take them like pills. Hoped they would get stronger.” She sneered as though she were looking down on those sacred artists right then. “Only one in every ten made it, but every sacred artist thinks they're the special exception. For them, it'll work. Problem is, it doesn't just put you in danger.”

“You didn't do that,” Lindon said confidently. That seemed more like something he would do than something Yerin would. In fact, he'd already started wondering what specific benefits a Blood Shadow offered. Longhook had been strong, certainly, but he was an Underlord. Or did the Shadow perhaps allow you to create bloodspawn? No, that seemed to be an effect of the red light. Could they generate that red light?

A flicker of a smile crossed her face. “You're starting to learn. A little. No, I didn't look for it. It looked for me.” The smile faded as quickly as it came. “The Dreadgod gives birth to...a litter, I guess you'd say...of Blood Shadows at one time. They run around like Remnants, looking to find a host before they starve. When they find somebody, they usually drain them dry and take their power back to the Bleeding Phoenix. Every once in a rare moon, you run into somebody who takes them over instead.”

“When did it get to you?” Lindon asked, kneeling to face her.

“Can't be sure how old I was. Seven, maybe? Eight? They called me a genius.” She smiled bitterly. “Everybody in town said how shiny my future was going to be. The star of my town. Made me stick out, as it ends up. Even to a Dreadgod.”

She was silent for so long that he wanted to prompt her with a question, but he curbed his curiosity and sat quietly, waiting.

“Didn't know what it was, but I fought it,” she said at last. “It was trying to...burrow into me. To my spirit, more than my body. My dad tried to pull it out, and it cut him. His blood fell on the ground.”

Lindon had fought the bloodspawn only a few hours earlier. He could picture what happened next, and the bottom fell out of his stomach.

“Spawned those...things,” she said, though he'd guessed it already. “Cut through town like fire through a dry wood. I'm just standing there, holding on while everybody died. If I let it get inside of me, I figured something worse would happen, so I just held it off. Don't know how long I sat there, holding it, before Master found me.”

She had started to shake.

Her wounds had been wrapped, but not thoroughly bandaged, and some of them had begun to bleed again, but she didn't notice, staring into the distance.

There was nothing Lindon could say to help her. The past had already left its wounds.

But he could do something she'd done for him once before.

Without a word, he squeezed in next to her, sitting side-by-side though her Goldsign jabbed him in the side of the head. Sweat covered his palms, and he eyed her for any sign that she was uncomfortable or in pain. She didn't even seem to notice him, staring ahead with a blank gaze.

He reached across her shoulders and gave her a light squeeze. When she didn't object, he just sat there, holding her with his one arm. Reminding her that someone was there.

Back in Sacred Valley, when things had been at their worst, this was all he had wanted. Someone to sit with him and remind him that they were with him, that everything would be okay. Sometimes his sister or his parents filled that role. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes, they were the problem.

But today, Lindon could give that to Yerin.

After a minute or two, she leaned into him. “We're going after them,” she said at last, her voice confident. “They can't all be Underlords. I'd say we could stop any of them under Truegold, or we could find a way to deal with them. Together. We have to stop them.”

Lindon leaned away, turning to see her expression. “Yes, we should do whatever we can. We just need to be…careful.”

She turned to him and the blades on her shoulders shifted. He had to withdraw his arm or risk getting cut.

“You’re in this with me, true?”

“Of course,” he said without hesitation. “But we should have a plan.”

She nodded, her eyes focused intensely on some point beyond him. “Yeah…we have to track down a Truegold, don’t we? Cassias could tell us where it is. He points it out on the map, and we slip in like a shadow’s whisper. Maybe we could get Orthos in, too, that would ease the fight somewhat.”

Lindon cleared his throat. “That could certainly work, but I’d like to propose an alternative. We could push Eithan to make us Truegolds. He must know a way to do it, don’t you think? If the Ancestor’s Spear could take Jai Long from Highgold to Truegold so quickly, there has to be some solution for us.”

His new arm might be exactly that solution, but there was no telling until the construct was completed.

She backed away, turning to face him head-on. “You want me to sit around on my hands until I advance again? If Eithan can make me a Truegold tomorrow, sure, I’m not going to spit on that. Short of that, I’m not waiting. I’m going with whoever’s raising their swords against Redmoon Hall.”

“But who is that?” he countered. “Who’s going to take us? Who can use us? What can we even do? We have to know what we can do before we—”

“The Skysworn,” she interrupted, folding her arms. “They’ll jump to take us.”

Lindon wasn’t sure they would jump to take him, but he had to admit he was tempted by the facilities he’d seen in Starsweep Tower.

Then again…what did the Skysworn have that Eithan wasn’t already giving him for free?

“Let’s not rush into anything,” he said in a reasonable tone. “We can wait until Eithan gets back, at least.”

“Eithan’s out there fighting Underlords and emissaries and heavens-know-what right now,” she said fiercely. “When he gets back, we’re out of time.”

A bearded man in hooded green robes slid open the door, peeking his head inside. “Excuse me, I'm here to see the patient?”

Yerin gave Lindon a razor-sharp stare, but she took a breath. “Turn over what I said, see if it looks any better to you. I’m going to see Cassias tonight. If I don’t hear what I like, I’m gone. The door’s open for you to join me.”

After Lindon left, he continued turning her words over in his mind. She was rushing to a decision too quickly. There was no reason to take this fight personally; Redmoon Hall wasn’t after them. At least they could weigh out their options, they didn’t have to dive straight in.

No matter how he thought of it, there was nothing to gain from going after Redmoon Hall. It would be a foolish move.

Maybe Cassias could talk Yerin around.