Chapter 2

Lindon looked up into the purple leaves of the orus tree. This one felt right—he was calmer somehow, standing in the shade of this particular tree, as though it exuded an aura of peace. Wizened white fruit waited among the leaves, far out of reach, and he sensed an ancient eternity behind its gnarled bark.

Or maybe that was his imagination.

He raised his hammer and chisel, carving away the outer layer of bark. Then, with utmost care, he chiseled a simple rune into the soft wood.

When he finished, he compared the symbol he'd left in the tree to the tablet his mother had given him. He wasn't much of a scriptor, but he could at least copy simple scripts, and this particular circle should glow if carved into an ancestral tree. So long as he copied the runes perfectly.

There were seven runes in this script, and he carefully began chipping away at the second. This was the twenty-fifth tree he'd found and tested over the last three days, ever since his mother had found out there was a tree somewhere in the forest that was about to advance. The Fallen Leaf School kept a monopoly on most trees with any possibility to produce a spirit-fruit, but Lindon had a chance to beat them to this one. As long as he worked quickly.

Plants had to live much longer to advance than animals did. If a fox or a turtle survived their first century, they would absorb enough vital aura from the world around them to ascend into sacred beasts. These animals cycled madra, advanced in power, and left Remnants just as humans did. The oldest of them could even speak, and legends said some could take human forms.

Plants did the same, but it took several times as long. Some trees had to stay undisturbed for five hundred years or more before they absorbed enough vital aura to develop a rudimentary spirit, and they would never learn to speak. The orus tree he was looking for had lived at least three centuries, and was on the cusp of ascension.

Centuries of vital aura concentrated in the wood would nurture its fruit, giving it a potent spiritual power. Even sacred artists at the Iron or Jade stage would pay a small fortune for such an advantage. For Lindon...he only dared to imagine it. This spirit-fruit might strengthen him enough to make up for whatever his soul lacked at birth.

Before he knew it, he'd finished the script circle. With wary hope he watched his handiwork, rough symbols in pale wood.

Several breaths later, the runes remained dull and lifeless. This was always the worst part. Had the script failed because there was no madra in the wood to fuel it, or because he'd made some mistake? Careful scrutiny of his mother's tablet didn't show any obvious error, but he could never be sure.

With a sigh, he looped the hammer and chisel back onto his belt, picking up the bottle that was his day's supply of water. A few out-of-season orus fruits had been his only meals, but he couldn't take the time to travel all the way back to the Wei clan. He'd be fine for a few days.

As he took his first step away from the tree, a flash caught his attention. Lindon scanned the depths of the forest first, looking to see where the light had come from. It might be the sun reflecting off a piece of metal, maybe a forgotten tool or coin.

The script flickered, sending out a spark of light. It was dim, and it guttered like a candle in the wind, but there was no mistake: his circle had worked. He'd found an ancestral tree.

Like a fish on a hook, his gaze was pulled up to the specks of white amid the tree's purple leaves. A normal orus fruit was like a pure white peach, and grew only in Sacred Valley. Lindon had grown up eating them in everything from pies to juice, but apparently the outside world considered them delicacies. They had no special properties, only a unique flavor.

Fruit from an ancestral orus tree looked no different, but a bite would deliver him years' worth of purified vital aura that he could process into madra. He wanted to claw his way up the bark, but the nearest branch was far too high to reach. He should come back with his sister, or at least a ladder. If only he could find his way back before the Fallen Leaf disciples did.

Lindon was still staring up into the tree when something shook the underbrush to his left. Seconds later, a snowfox darted out of the bush and froze, examining him.

With pure white fur and three tails waving in the air, the snowfox was as unique to Sacred Valley as the orus tree. The symbol of Lindon's Wei clan was a White Fox, in honor of the valley's snowfox. One in particular.

Like Lindon, this fox was miles north of his home. It gazed at him for another breath before something larger crunched closer, and it darted off.

A young man emerged from the woods, hair mussed and covered in scratches. A copper badge hung pinned to the right side of his chest, and he wore a jacket lined with white fox-fur.

Lindon knew him. Wei Mon Teris, a member of his clan a year younger than Lindon. He was a danger.

“Cousin Teris,” Lindon greeted him, bowing formally with two fists pressed together. “This one is honored to see you here.”

“Out of the way!” Teris shouted, bowling past Lindon. Behind him, another young man and a young woman followed. Both of them were fourteen- or fifteen-year-old members of the Wei clan, and both of them Coppers.

Lindon's wooden badge hung heavy on his chest, but to hide it would be to accept his shame. He stayed bowed over his fists as they ran past him.

Deliberately casual, he backed up against the tree. If they saw the script shining, they would ask him what it was for. His only chance to take the fruit was to keep them occupied with something else.

He cursed the fate that had led three members of his clan here, so far from home. At least they had ignored him, continuing their hunt for the fox.

Which was, strictly speaking, illegal.

When he heard someone making their way back, Lindon gathered his few belongings and started running. He had hoped they would leave him alone, overlooking them according to their usual habit, but he wasn't even lucky enough for that.

Nor was he lucky enough to make it three steps before Teris caught him.

Upon reaching the Copper stage of the sacred arts, one's spirit opened. Teris could harvest the vital aura of the world, processing it into his own madra. He could use that power to fuel his body, so when he grabbed onto Lindon's elbow, there was no possibility of resistance.

Lindon was jerked around, but he kept a smile on his face. “Cousin Teris, how can this one serve you?”

Teris wasn’t tall enough to look Lindon in the eye, so he spat at his feet. “We've hunted that three-tailed snowfox for a day and a night. Thanks to you, we might lose it.”

“Excuse my ignorance, Cousin, but has Elder Whisper blessed this hunt?”

Teris' ugly look was the only confirmation Lindon needed. Elder Whisper did occasionally allow the hunting of snowfoxes, but only under carefully controlled conditions. He most certainly would not tolerate three young Coppers running down a snowfox at the foot of Yoma Mountain.

Whisper was the reason the symbol of the Wei clan was a white fox.

But even his eyes couldn't see everything. Myth said the meat of a snowfox would strengthen the madra of those following the Path of the White Fox, as virtually everyone in the Wei clan did.

There was no logical reason it should be true, as far as Lindon knew, but many believed it. So Elder Whisper had therefore banned all hunting of snowfoxes without his explicit permission.

Teris formed a fist, and the air around it rippled as he gathered his power. “Are you being impertinent, Unsouled? I don’t like that look on your face.”

Lindon's heart tightened. Teris was only Copper, but the shield on his badge showed he was an Enforcer: born to focus his madra into physical strength. He could kill Lindon with a blow, even if he probably wouldn’t. Murdering someone below your level was an unspeakable shame. If Teris killed him, and the news made it back to the clan, Teris would remain a dishonored pariah for the rest of his days.

But there was something uniquely terrifying about facing down someone capable of caving in his ribs with a punch. No one was close enough to save him.

Lindon bowed again, and spoke even more humbly. “This one begs your pardon, Copper Cousin. Please, this one has gathered a few chips together, and it would be an honor if you would take them.”

He glanced up to gauge if Teris would take the bribe, but the Copper boy was looking past Lindon. Something had grabbed his attention.

And unless the snowfox had returned, there was only one thing back there. The ancestral tree.

Though it was a cool spring day, sweat gathered ran down Lindon’s back.

“What is this script, Unsouled?”

“This one is practicing his scripting, Copper Cousin. At the request of this one’s mother.”

Hopefully invoking his mother would grant him some mercy; unlike Lindon, Wei Shi Seisha provided a valuable function to the clan. She was widely respected among all the families.

Teris gave an ugly laugh, taking a step closer. “Oh, you look like you want to fight. Did you want to fight me?”

Lindon’s parents were…statuesque. They had both once been famous fighters, and he had the misfortune of inheriting their physique with none of their actual strength. He was taller than anyone else his age, broader across the shoulders, and people often thought they saw aggression when he thought he was being perfectly friendly.

He bowed even more deeply, hoping Teris would see it as a cowardly show of fear. Which, of course, it was.

Teris did ignore him, which was a success, but unfortunately he returned his attention to the tree. “You've set me behind on my hunt, so it's only fair that I set you behind on your practice.”

Lindon figured out what the other boy intended when Teris drew his fist back. “Stop!” Lindon shouted, but it wasn't soon enough.

Teris had not yet reached Iron, so his body wasn’t actually any stronger than Lindon’s. But Enforcers bolstered their strength with madra. When Teris drew on his Copper madra, he would be stronger than other sacred artists of his level, tougher, and faster. His punch landed on the ancient fruit tree, shattering the bark and leaving the imprint of his fist in the wood. The impact echoed through the forest, smashing Lindon's script.

Teris stepped away. Behind him, the tree bent in the middle. Deceptively slowly, it splintered and fell apart.

Icy cold shivered through Lindon's body, and it had nothing to do with the loss of the fruit. His odds of survival had just plummeted sharply.

“You idiot,” Lindon half-whispered. Teris froze.

“What did you say?”

Lindon dropped to his knees, hurriedly scratching symbols into the dirt. His tablet didn’t cover this script, so he only hoped he could remember correctly. “You've killed us both. That was an ancestral tree.”

Teris frowned at him, then looked at the broken trunk. Precious seconds passed as he digested the news.

Lindon had almost finished the circle, scratching frantically at the dirt with his finger. “Get behind the circle!” he shouted.

Then the Remnant rose from the tree’s corpse.

It was made from lines of vivid purple, like color sketched on the world by a celestial painter. The Remnant was thin and free of details like bark or leaves, as though it were the purple skeleton of the tree that once had been.

In reality, it was more like a ghost. A spirit without a vessel.

Remnants were constructions of pure madra, freed from their physical bodies. Whenever a sacred artist of enough power died, he left his soul behind him as a living force.

If Lindon died, his madra would dissipate into the vital aura in the atmosphere. The same would go for ordinary animals, or even Copper-level sacred artists. But sacred beasts and ancestral trees were on another level altogether. It would take an Iron- or Jade-stage practitioner to face one of these in combat.

And before Teris could react to what he was seeing, the purple tree-Remnant clenched a branch like a massive fist and slammed it into the boy's midsection. The young Copper flipped through the air before landing facedown on the forest floor.

Wei Mon Teris’ clothes tore where the tree-Remnant had struck him, but he was on his feet and stumbling away within seconds. Even in a possibly lethal situation like this one, Lindon had time for a brief flash of jealousy. A blow like that would have killed or crippled him, but Teris must have been drawing on his madra. He scurried off like a roach.

The Copper ran deeper in the woods without a glance back, rushing in the direction his friends had gone. Lindon fought the urge to hurry, finishing the last rune in the circle, knowing that precision was his defense rather than speed.

It was impossible to calmly take his time as the Remnant lumbered over to him, a skeletal ghost of purple madra in the shape of a leafless tree. Its branches swayed as it lurched forward in a pathetic parody of a man’s walk.

Lindon put his thumb to the final rune and closed his eyes.

He visualized his madra as a blue-white light, moving along lines like veins all through his body. He sped the flow of the energy, cycling it according to the Foundation technique he’d learned as a child. This technique was supposed to eventually become the basis for an entire Path, but Lindon had never progressed further. Any child in the Wei clan could do as much with their madra as Lindon.

But he could activate scripts.

The circle flared to life at the touch of his power, each rune burning with the same blue-white energy he’d seen in his mind.

When the Remnant loomed over the script, reaching out a long branch like a grasping hand, it passed through the light easily. No barrier stopped its movement. Lindon hopped backwards, out of the circle, and the Remnant stepped forward to follow him.

Lindon’s limitations were many, but he knew them well. He could never empower a script to block the Remnant of an ancestral tree directly, at least not with a script as crude as this one. But he could draw the Remnant in. Once inside, the spirit’s own madra would power the circle.

And the Remnant was much stronger than he was.

The script’s light turned from blue to purple, and the tree’s branches bristled like spikes. It tried to step away from the circle, to reach for Lindon, but drew up short like a dog at the end of a chain.

Sweat soaked Lindon’s clothes, and he flopped to the ground well out of the Remnant’s reach. He caught his breath, shivering at the close call. If he’d been a moment slower…

Then something caught his eye that drove all thoughts of danger from his head. On the highest of the Remnant’s purple branches, a single spot of white. A spirit-fruit.

As the Remnant raged, it was not silent. Its fury sounded like snapping twigs, like the crunch of splintered logs. It was at least three times Lindon’s height, crowned by that single spot of white.

The fruit hung from the same place on the Remnant as it had on the tree’s body. Now the fruit was forged of flawless white madra, glowing on the spirit like a crown. The physical reality was still nestled among the branches on the forest floor, shriveled and pathetic.

Still thinking, Lindon walked over to the withered material fruit and plucked it, slipping it into the cumbersome pack he carried on his back. He was no longer wary of the Remnant; if it were powerful enough to break his script, it already would have. Now, he had something else to worry about.

If he could retrieve the Remnant version of this fruit, his mother could bind it back to its physical vessel. She was a Forger and a Soulsmith, a specialist in manipulating madra as a physical material. She could turn this lifeless vegetation back into a powerful spirit-fruit, good as new.

If he wanted that to work, he’d need to bring the Remnant fruit back with him. And it was attached to the head of a crazed spirit monster.

He wished he had a better plan.

With reluctance, he reached into his shadesilk pockets of his pack and withdrew a glimmering gemstone the size of his smallest fingernail. It was hollow on the inside, like a stoppered flask carved for a doll, though this one was filled with a few drops of blue light that danced through the crystal’s facets.

When there’s only one road forward, take it with a smile. It had taken him weeks to fill up this crystal flask, which was capable of storing and purifying madra. He hated to waste weeks of his time here, but if he could restore the orus fruit, it would be worth more than a year of cycling. If he failed, though…

He slowed his breathing, cycling his spirit in a rhythm with his steady, even breath. When he could feel power filling all his limbs, tightening his focus, and drawing his body into a unified whole, he acted.

Lindon placed the tiny flask, glowing blue-white, at the very edge of the Remnant’s reach.

The purple tree turned to him as though it could smell the energy, silence falling over the woods. Lindon hurried to the side, but the Remnant’s attention was all on the miniature crystal.

This was the main way his family used crystal flasks. They had other uses, but for a Soulsmith, this was by far the most practical purpose. All Remnants hungered for pure human madra, which could become virtually anything. On such a diet, a Remnant could even develop its own consciousness, independent from whatever it had been in life.

As the tree lunged, so did Lindon. He ran for the circle, leaping as soon as the tree bent down.

He might not have the strength of a true sacred artist, but Lindon still trained his body the same as the rest of his clan. He landed on the back of the Remnant, clutching its branches.

It felt more like clinging to slick, oily bone than wood, but he didn’t waste time examining the sensation. He reached out, grasping for the glowing white fruit, hanging like a full moon.

A branch slammed into his arm with the force of a kicking horse, and he heard something crack.

The impact knocked him off the Remnant’s back, and he had the presence of mind to roll away from the script as he fell. If he kicked one of the runes, the circle would break, and he would likely die.

But the Remnant didn’t seem to have noticed him. It tossed the empty crystal flask to the ground, having finished its brief meal, and then stilled. The wind was the only sound now, and the spirit looked like nothing more than a thin purple tree planted in the earth.

Lindon saw all this through tears of pain. He clenched his jaw to keep from screaming and potentially drawing the Remnant’s attention back to him. His forearm was broken, his hand dangling loosely, and it felt as though the weight of his own flesh would tear the arm apart. The pain kept him on his knees, drawing huge breaths in his lungs.

He forced a smile through his agony. In his uninjured fist, he gripped a shining white fruit.

It didn’t feel like a natural orus fruit any more than its source had felt like a natural tree. Rather, it squished in his hand like jelly, but as soon as he stopped applying force it snapped back into form. He wasn’t sure what aspect this madra held, or even how powerful it would be, once his mother restored it.

But he’d made it.

He tucked the Forged fruit into his pack next to its physical counterpart, plucking the transparent crystal flask and tossing it in next. Now he was only faced with the task of traveling a dozen miles through the wilderness, on foot, with a broken arm and a bulky pack.

Triumph made the journey easy.

***

Almost a million people called Sacred Valley home, and the Wei clan alone accounted for over a hundred thousand of those. Even so, the one resource no one lacked was space.

Each family received a generous portion of land, with a small house added on to the main complex for each member. Typically, children received their own house along with their wooden badge, as a mark of independence. Even Lindon, who could contribute nothing back to the clan, received a housing allotment inferior to no one’s.

His house was made of tight-fitting orus wood, pale and smooth, roofed in purple tiles. His bed lay against the wall opposite of the hearth, in which a fire burned merrily to ward off the spring chill. He lay in his bed, broken arm splinted and tied, with a scripted ribbon wrapped around his bicep to contain the pain. It would wear off in a few hours, at which point his mother would replace it with another one.

At the moment, Lindon was as physically comfortable as he had ever been. He couldn’t feel his arm, the fire was warm, and his bed was so soft it felt like lying on a cloud. He was used to that; his mother had packed his mattress with Forged cloud-aspect madra she’d purchased from one of her contacts. Even the Wei clan’s Patriarch didn’t have a better bed.

But Lindon couldn’t enjoy any of it. His family was here.

The fruit now shone with the bright color of a Remnant, but it held all the wrinkles and imperfections that showed it to be real. His mother had restored it to full power in minutes. It sat on the center of Lindon’s table, and the other three members of his family surrounded it like wolves circling a wounded deer.

“If I had found this years ago, I would take it,” Lindon’s father said. “But it’s too late for me now. Kelsa will fight for us in the Seven-Year Festival, so she needs it the most.”

Wei Shi Jaran had participated in the Festival before last, which had left him with a lip scarred into an eternal smirk, and a limp that required a cane. He hadn’t fought since.

“It wouldn’t have helped you,” Lindon’s mother responded. She was one of the more eye-catching figures in the Wei clan, with her long brown hair. Everyone else, including her children, had black. “This spirit-fruit has no aspect of life. It only purifies energy, helping you advance in your Path. It does nothing that months or years of regular cycling wouldn’t do.” Seisha scratched away at a portable slate as she spoke, her chalk pausing only rarely. Scripts wouldn’t check themselves.

Her drudge hovered over her shoulder, like a rusty brown mechanical fish drifting on invisible tides. It was a Soulsmith construct, madra Forged according to a particular pattern, and it served her as a box of tools served a carpenter.

“I’m only saying, Seisha, that if I had gotten this early enough…who knows?”

“I do. That’s not how it works.”

“You know everything about the soul? All the mysteries of the sacred arts? I could have changed my Path, studied with the Fallen Leaf School, and maybe their life aspect could have restored me. Your body is remade when you advance to Jade.”

“If you could have advanced, you would have done it by now. You’re hardly more likely to have done so by starting over on a different Path, even with some hypothetical elixir.” She rubbed out some chalk with the heel of her hand, never looking away from her notes.

Jaran’s scar-enforced smirk creased into a sneer, and he inflated as he prepared what was sure to be a cutting remark.

Lindon’s sister Kelsa took over the conversation before it could devolve further, as he had known she would. “I can’t do well enough for the Patriarch to notice us if I’m still a Copper. How will I fight Wei Jin Amon or Li Ten Jana without Iron strength?”

Their father snorted, crossing his arms. “That’s right. There will be at least half a dozen sixteen-year-olds with iron badges already, and Kelsa should be among them. With her Path, she can give them all a surprise. I did, and I was even younger.”

Kelsa nodded to her father, mostly to stop him from drawing the story out any longer. “I’m sure I can, if fate is kind. But we still have two months, and I am already close to condensing my Iron body. It’s possible I’ll advance on my own before the Festival opens.”

She rolled the white fruit toward herself, pulling a knife from her belt. “There’s no reason I should keep it all to myself. If one of you reaches Jade, it will do more for our family than anything I can show on the Festival stage. We should split it in three.”

Finally, Seisha looked up from her tablet. Her drudge whistled inquisitively, ready to be used, but she met her husband’s eyes. His scowl lightened, and he nodded, eager to take part of this treasure for himself. Kelsa’s blade met the skin of the fruit.

Lindon leaned forward until his bed frame creaked under him. His family turned, surprised to remember he was still there. In his own house.

“Would it be so hard to cut another piece?”