Chapter 18

Elder Whitehall had never felt so miserable in his life. He’d long since closed the bleeding sword wound on his shoulder—such injuries were only minor irritations to anyone with Jade madra and an Iron body—but his spirit was exhausted, and an eight-year-old’s legs were not suited to trudging through snow. He felt as though his knees would buckle with every step, and the few scraps of madra he could scrape up were spent melting his way forward with beams of hot gold.

Especially grating was the knowledge that he could have been back at the school by now, a hot mug of tea in his hand and hundreds of disciples rushing out to find Wei Shi Lindon and the sword girl. He would have reached the Heaven’s Glory School long ago.

But that wasn’t where he’d decided to go, and he clung to that decision with dogged resolve. He was heading to the Ancestor’s Tomb.

The Tomb was actually closer than the school, but the way was anything but clear. There were no roads out here; he had to scale rock faces and push his way through snow. With no madra. In a child’s body. If he’d known, he would have brought a Thousand-Mile Cloud.

With every agonizing step, he was tempted to turn back, but he never did. The Sword Disciple had been making her way closer to the Tomb for the better part of two weeks now, and now that she had help from that Unsouled, he had every reason to believe that they’d head straight for her master’s body.

He could bring in help, give away the credit, and never see a single one of the Sword Sage’s fantastic treasures. Or…

Samara’s ring was a bright line in the sky when he reached the Ancestor’s Tomb. The Tomb predated their school by unknown centuries, a titanic monument to an age long past perched at the edge of the mountainside. Behind it was a sheer thousand-foot drop and a picturesque view of distant snowy peaks. The building itself was bigger than anything in Heaven’s Glory, a square mausoleum that stood proudly on vast pillars. Far above Whitehall’s head, a mural of four gigantic beasts locked in battle rose over the entrance.

A man and a woman in Heaven’s Glory colors waited on the steps at the bottom, huddled behind the pillars against the wind. They wore purple sashes, only a step away from Whitehall’s gold, and their badges were jade.

Every elder was a Jade, but not every Jade was an elder. These two had no problems in their mastery of the sacred arts, but they were too young to actually administrate the school, so Whitehall outranked them both. He’d counted on that.

Once he knew they’d seen him, he allowed himself to pitch forward and fall into a patch of snow. It didn’t require much acting.

Footsteps crunched rapidly through the snow, and the male guard shouted something to his partner. Seconds later, a pair of hands scooped up Whitehall’s whole body and carried him to the steps.

Ordinarily he would resent the indignity of being treated like a child, but his relief outweighed any irritation. At last, he was off his feet.

“Elder Whitehall?” the woman asked anxiously. “Are you wounded? We’ll send for healers now.”

Whitehall reached out blindly and seized her hand. “No!” He wasn’t pleased by how young and weak his voice sounded. “Please. I will recover soon, and my pride could not stand the blow.”

Through half-closed lids, Whitehall saw the Jade guards exchange glances. “Of course we will shelter you, elder. If I may ask, why did you come to us? Why not return to the school?”

Whitehall struggled up to a sitting position, grimacing in pain that was only half-feigned. “It was my shame that I was wounded by the Sword Disciple before I could defeat her. How could I show my face as an elder if I returned without victory? I couldn’t. I will rest here for a night or two, and when I am recovered, I will show her the wrath of Heaven’s Glory.”

The guards bowed to him. “Your words are wise, elder,” the woman said. “We have a hut just to the side of the Tomb. It is nothing much, but you are welcome to it.”

Whitehall returned a seated bow. “When the Sword Disciple is dead, I will remember this favor.” They brightened; if Whitehall killed the Sage’s disciple, he would instantly gain status in the school, and a favor from him would become that much more valuable.

A screech like a razor sliding along rock echoed from the Ancestor’s Tomb, ringing in the air and stabbing his ears. The guards winced and backed up together, turning to face the Tomb. The sound faded a second later, but Whitehall already wondered if his ears were bleeding.

“Is that the Remnant?” Whitehall asked.

The male guard kept a hand on his weapon. It was a club, Whitehall noted, not the sword he would have expected. “The Sage has been quiet for over a week, but last night he started up again. Elder, when you return to the school, I humbly request that you send reinforcements to us before our shift is up. If he escapes, we will not be enough to contain him.”

Whitehall rapped his knuckles against the man’s wrist, as he would discipline a student. “Cowardice is not fitting for warriors of Heaven’s Glory. That is not the Sword Sage, it is only a Remnant.”

“I do not mean to contradict the elder,” the woman said, “but last night the Remnant did that.” She pointed to the top of the Tomb, just above and to the side of the beast mural.

In the harsh light of Samara’s halo, colors were muted and edges sharp. He squinted at the corner of the building, along the side of the roof, trying to distinguish between the folds of shadow.

Finally, he saw it, and he took in a breath of freezing air. Between the roof and the wall, there was a crack. It was difficult to see if you weren’t looking for it, but now that he stared directly at the spot, he could see it: a slice of deeper shadow where the Tomb’s ancient walls had been split open. It looked as though a massive blade had slipped into the top of the wall, opening a wound.

“That’s…” he began, but he had no words. The Ancestor’s Tomb was set with deep, ancient scripts that had gathered vital aura into those walls for centuries. They should be next to indestructible by now.

A Remnant had done that?

“The elder knows best,” the male guard said, without a trace of mockery in his tone. “But I thought he should be made aware.”

“After I recover, I will return here with reinforcements,” Whitehall promised. He actually meant it.

He let them guide him back to their hut on the edge of the cliff, drape a snowfox pelt around his shoulders, and heat fish soup for him. If he understood the Sword Disciple’s character correctly, she would be here tomorrow, or a day later at the most. And if he grasped the scope of her power, she would tear through these two Jades.

He hoped they would survive—they had been kind to him, after all—but death in combat was the most honorable end for a sacred artist. If they died for their weakness, he would not be to blame.

And once the girl opened the Ancestor’s Tomb, she would have to face the Remnant of her formidable master. Either it would kill her unassisted, or Whitehall would take advantage of her distraction to kill her himself.

After that, there was no losing scenario for him. A Remnant of the sword aspect was powerful in combat but weak in pursuit, so he would be able to escape. Either he would retrieve the treasures on the Sword Sage’s body, or he would return to the school with the Sword Disciple’s head. In that case, he would have rendered such merits to the Heaven’s Glory School that he should end up with some prizes regardless.

As for the Unsouled, if he knew what was good for him, he would never show up here. There was nothing he could do but die.

***

With his pack on, Lindon crouched in the shadow of the Lesser Treasure Hall as it glistened in the pure white light. There were no guards on the porch this time, just a locked door with security scripts and deadly constructs behind it.

He glanced over at Yerin, who stood openly in the street. He’d already explained the security measures to her, but he wasn’t sure she’d heard him. “The script will trigger if we break in,” he reminded her.

She adjusted the blood-red ropes at her waist, which stood out in stark contrast to her white Heaven’s Glory clothes. “And the script’s in the doorframe?” She didn’t whisper.

Lindon nodded.

With a sigh of steel, she drew her sword. It shone in the white light, steady and straight. He thought she was going to explain her plan, but without even opening her mouth, she whipped her blade forward.

Colorless light rippled out of her sword, as though her cut moved forward of its own volition through the air. It was so thin it was practically invisible, like a half-loop of fishing line sliding forward.

It sank into the middle of the door and vanished with no apparent effect.

Yerin’s sword was already sheathed, though Lindon hadn’t seen it, and she strode forward. “I’ve seen these scripts before. You break them before they trigger and they don’t bother you.”

With that, she pushed on the door. The left half swung inward, having been split cleanly down the middle by her sword madra. The side with the lock was still attached, but the side with the hinges was now separated. It slid open easily and soundlessly. As Lindon followed her inside, he looked down at the script on the floor. One of the runes was cracked in two just as the door had been.

Unless the rune was broken instantly, breaking this type of script would trigger it. He couldn’t imagine the sort of speed, the degree of control, it would take to do something like this to a script six inches away, much less from a distance.

He hungered for such skill. If Suriel’s promise held true, he would have the opportunity to learn sacred arts like this. Power even the Wei Patriarch had never imagined.

“Is that something you can teach me?” he asked.

He assumed she would laugh at him, but she turned to face him properly without the trace of a smile. “A disciple is not worthy to take a disciple.”

If she was only a student, how could anyone call themselves a master? “You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen. If you stayed here, you could open a fifth school.”

This time Yerin did laugh, but not at him. “Sacred Valley is too soft. Only storms turn fish into dragons, and there are no storms here.” She turned to the treasures behind their display cases before adding, “If you didn’t know that yourself, you wouldn’t be leaving.”

That was true enough.

“Fill your eyes with this!” Yerin exclaimed, moving past him. “Bud of a Starlotus! It’s a miracle before Copper, but it’ll do wonders for anybody’s madra base. Where’s your pack?”

She stared at the spirit-fruit with a hungry look, holding a hand over it as though she wanted to reach straight through the Forged glass. Just as Lindon had done before. He was going to politely offer her his pack, but she’d already moved to another display.

“A Sylvan Riverseed? That’s a gem and a half. Even if we can’t use it, we can sell it.” She put a hand on her sword.

Lindon considered warning her, but he’d told her about the security measures before. Rahm had Forged these cases himself, and he would have countermeasures in case one was broken. But he’d told her that already, and he had to trust she knew what she was doing.

In one smooth motion, Yerin drew her sword and sheathed it again. The case split in half.

A gong sounded, filling the Lesser Treasure Hall in echoing alarms. Runes in the corners flared ominously red. Two constructs rose through the floor, head-sized eggs of shining gold. Plates on the bottom rotated, spilling blue light, keeping the constructs aloft. Those would be made out of different types of madra, but everything else would be Heaven’s Glory, serving as both power source and physical material.

Light coalesced on the tip of the eggs, and Yerin shot him a sheepish look. “Sorry.”

“I warned you!”

“Yeah, this one’s on my account.”

“I said there would be an alarm on the cases. ‘Don’t break the cases,’ I said!”

“Next time, I’ll give you a shout first.”

The constructs were focused on Yerin, so Lindon was backing away, glancing from case to case in search of something that might save them. “Why would there be a next time?”

A door in the back swung open, revealing a shadowed set of stairs, and Elder Rahm entered the room. They must have disturbed his sleep, because he wore only a shapeless white robe. He didn’t even have on a badge. His hunched, aged figure leaned on a cane in one hand and held a slender sword in the other. The sword didn’t tremble at all.

“If you think you’re getting another chance, you’ve underestimated me,” Rahm said. He shot Lindon a glance. “I thought I told you not to steal from me.”

“This one regrets it already, honored elder,” Lindon said, pressing his fists together in a salute. Manners couldn’t save him now, but they couldn’t hurt.

“He’ll have friends coming,” Yerin said, one hand on her sword and her eyes on the constructs. She hadn’t even looked at Elder Rahm. “Grab the prize, then stuff your pockets while I bury the old man.”

“You don’t have to bury him,” Lindon hedged. “He’s treated me well.”

She didn’t loosen the grip on her sword. “If he lives, I won’t finish him off. That’s the best I can promise you, ‘cause I’m not leaving without a fight.”

The constructs still hadn’t attacked, which meant they were primarily designed to contain thieves until Rahm could deal with them personally. But they wouldn’t remain so passive if Rahm gave the order to attack, or if Yerin showed herself as a threat.

Lindon looked from the constructs to Yerin. “You want to fight?”

“I want to clean this place out.” Her razor-straight hair shook as she turned to look at him, punctuating her words with a grave look. “Sacred arts cost a bundle. Go now.”

Lindon didn’t need to be told again.

The priority was the spirit-seal, of course, but how could he pass up a room full of sacred artifacts? Yerin obviously agreed, because when the first construct blasted out a stream of golden light, she reflected it with her sword into another case, shearing the top off the glass without touching the artifact inside. The second construct fired, and she moved so that it wouldn’t pierce the case behind her.

She was fighting a Heaven’s Glory elder and his two security constructs, and she intended to do so without damaging any of the treasures around her. And judging by her words, she had complete confidence.

One day, Lindon hoped to be more like Yerin.

A plane of glass condensed from light behind her, boxing her in, as Elder Rahm joined the fight. Lindon left them to it. He couldn’t fight, so the least he could do was focus on his task.

It was hard to concentrate with the sounds of battle behind him, but he knew he had only seconds until someone arrived to back Rahm up. He had to work smart. He needed something to break the cases as fast as possible, and something to speed up their escape later.

First, to break the glass. He ran to the racks at the side of the room, where halfsilver weapons were displayed on open shelves. They were comparatively less valuable than the other artifacts in the room, so they didn’t rate a case.

Lindon snatched a halfsilver dagger away. It looked like ordinary silver, but veins of some brighter mineral shimmered beneath the surface, as though the blade contained a constellation. It would shear through madra faster than through half-melted butter.

Still, he didn’t rush straight for the spirit-seals. He ran to the back of the room, where Rahm had shown him a rust-colored cloud.

The Thousand-Mile Cloud filled its case like a bloody mist, and Lindon’s halfsilver dagger worked even better than he’d hoped. It shattered the glass directly, which released a wave of heat—the glass had golden edges, and it must be crystallized Heaven’s Glory madra. The Striker technique released a lance of focused golden light, so their Forgers must create this glass with burning shards. That seemed useless, except perhaps in constructs.

Out of confinement, the cloud inflated to its full size. It was round and fairly large, about three feet in diameter, and dense enough that he couldn’t see through it. It didn’t look solid enough to support solid matter, but he’d grown up with a mattress stuffed with cloud madra. He pressed on it, and it was like pushing on a pillow. It only gave to a certain point, and then it was solid.

This would be their getaway.

A deadly gold beam flashed by his head for an instant, five feet away but still close enough that he could feel the heat, and he dropped into a crouch. Madra trickled from him into the Thousand-Mile Cloud, and it drifted forward according to his direction.

He vaguely remembered where the spirit-seals were, the collection of paper seals painted with scripts that would help bind and manipulate Remnants. He half-crawled through the aisles, circling around the outside of the room to avoid the slashing sword-force and the deadly light flashing overhead.

As he did, he helped himself to the treasures of Heaven’s Glory. Even the danger of the fight around him couldn’t mute that thrill. In his most daring daydreams, he would never have imagined that he could one day choose freely from the vaults of a prestigious school of sacred arts. A smile crept onto his face as lethal madra flashed over his head.

With resources like these, even an Unsouled could rise.

He glanced at everything he grabbed before he stuffed it into his pack. First, he snatched the folded white Starlotus Bud and the tank containing the Sylvan Riverseed. The little blue spirit inside darted around its tree, standing on top of its tiny hill to glance at him curiously. The parasite ring went into his pocket, as he wanted to keep that on his person in case he had to abandon everything else. Only then did he reach the spirit-seals.

The dagger destroyed the glass with ease, and Lindon reached up to snatch a heavy sheaf of palm-sized paper seals, stacked like a deck of cards and tied at the top. Each seal was covered in layers of profound brush-strokes, forming scripts according to principles he couldn’t begin to grasp.

He slid over to the display containing the flying sword, which had caught his eye before. Once he reached Iron, he could use it, and now that he would be traveling with Yerin it was even more valuable. A sword artist like her would be able to work miracles with such a weapon.

No sooner had he broken the case than Yerin came sliding down the aisle on her back as though tossed there by a heavy blow. Her sword was still held in front of her, and the edge of her hair was smoking.

“This is taking a notch longer than I’d thought,” she said.

Lindon risked a glance outside. Sure enough, a small crowd of disciples had gathered at the bottom of the steps. They were murmuring among themselves at the moment, but they could rush forward to assist Elder Rahm at any second.

He looked down the aisle at the dozens of cases he hadn’t broken and spoke through gritted teeth. “Let’s…just…take what we have.” It grated on him to leave so many riches behind, but they’d die if they stayed.

She grimaced and rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding another beam. “Once I ease him on his way, we can go.”

While she struck out at the construct with another ripple of sword-madra, he stared at her. “We don’t need to fight him at all. Get on the cloud and let’s go.”

“The strong don’t run,” she said.

The elder himself stepped into view at that moment, waving his sword. Madra followed the motion, and transparent madra walls bloomed to either side of them. They were trapped in a column, one row of artifacts with Rahm and his two constructs on one side and Yerin and Lindon at the other. Behind them, a group of enemy disciples waited out the open door.

The old man pointed his blade at them. He must have given the constructs an instruction, because they were both silent as he spoke. “We want you alive. Swear yourself to my keeping, give us answers, and we won’t kill you. We’ll allow you to take your own life.”

“Can you keep me alive?” Lindon asked, voice low. “Because you might survive that crowd rushing in here, but I won’t. And you swore to keep me safe.”

She shuddered, expression flickering between anger and agony, but eventually she nodded.

Yerin knelt next to the case with the flying sword, her own blade pressed against the ground. She had lost her Heaven’s Glory robes at some point, leaving her own tattered black clothes, though the stolen iron badge still hung around her neck. “Did your messenger tell you what Path I follow?”

Suriel’s ghost had given him that information, but he couldn’t remember. He shook his head.

“Grab that sword,” she said, pointing at the case. “Then throw it at him.”

Lindon glanced nervously at the battle-ready Jade. “Now?”

“Now.”

The elder faced them impatiently, constructs hovering over each shoulder and weapon in hand. With as little movement as possible, Lindon slid the scripted blade off of its stand.

“Your answer,” Rahm demanded.

Lindon hefted the blade.

Yerin took a deep breath. “This is the Path of the Endless Sword,” she said.

Lindon threw.

As the sword tumbled end-over-end in the air, Yerin tightened her grip on her own weapon. Her blade rang like a struck bell, and suddenly the air was filled with flying splinters as the floor tore itself to pieces. It was as though a thousand hatchets struck the same point at the same time.

The display of halfsilver weaponry echoed the sound weakly, and a few cuts appeared around their case, but they remained intact. Even the halfsilver dagger at Lindon’s belt rang softly, and he jerked as light cuts appeared on his robe. Around the room, three bells rung louder, and three cases burst.

Another bell, and Elder Rahm screamed. His sword had rung in sympathy with the others, and his sleeve exploded in blood. His arm and the right side of his clothes had been slashed to tatters, and his weapon fell to the ground from a hand that no longer had the strength to hold it.

In the air, the flying sword rang as well. Barely visible lines of sword madra reflected from its edge as it flew between the Heaven’s Glory constructs. They were still quiet, having been pacified by Elder Rahm, and so they did not protest as they were sliced to pieces that trailed golden smoke as they drifted to the ground. Only the blue circles on the bottoms remained floating, supporting nothing.

The sword finished its arc and clattered to the ground, nowhere close to Elder Rahm. The old man moaned as he fell to his knees, clutching his ruined arm.

Lindon stared.

Yerin pushed him toward the Thousand-Mile Cloud and the stuffed pack on top, still talking. “That’s called resonance. Uses sword madra to rile up the aura in the air, which gathers around sharp weapons. Doesn’t work so well with halfsilver.”

For that, Lindon was grateful. Otherwise, he might have been split in two by his own dagger.

He sprawled onto the cloud, pushing down the pack full of loot with his body. She hopped on in front of him, feeding her spirit into the cloud construct. It was off like an arrow, shooting through the door and away before any of the stunned Heaven’s Glory disciples outside could react.

“That’s the heart of my Path,” Yerin said. “All swords are one.”

While she spoke, she steered the cloud down the street. It only hovered about three feet over the ground, but under the influence of Yerin’s powerful spirit, it was faster than a galloping horse.

“I will do anything, anything, if you can teach me to do that.”

Streaks of light blasted after them, scorching rainstone buildings, as Yerin navigated them away from the school. Her scarred face was tight with concentration.

“He’s not dead,” she said, ignoring his comment. “But I’d contend that I won.” She nodded decisively. “Yeah, we’ll mark that one up as a win.”

They streaked toward the Ancestor’s Tomb, leaving their pursuers far behind.