Ch10

Chapter 10 At first, Yerin thought the trip across the island would be quick. The Sage had marked the basic locations of the other factions on the map. Most of the island was uncontrolled, but there were a few places where they'd have to travel around the territory of the Beast King or the dragons. The portal leading into Ghostwater was on the edge of Redmoon Hall territory. She was tempted to hit them, but forced herself back on track. To be safe, she thought it might take as much as a week, stepping lightly and using veils. She suspected it would be more like two nights. The first day, she pushed them so hard that Mercy had to take some elixirs from her storage to stop from collapsing. After midnight passed and they hadn't taken a break, Mercy grabbed Yerin's arm. The Akura's hair was plastered to her forehead, and she breathed like a whipped pack-mule. "We're not going to get there tonight," Mercy said, a hint of begging in her tone. Yerin glanced down at the map. She chafed at the delay, but Mercy had a point. They could use some time to rest and cycle. "Four hours," Yerin allowed, and Mercy sagged to the ground, leaving her staff to topple beside her. When Mercy had caught her breath, she looked into the darkness around her. Distant howls and whispers on the wind told them that these woods were haunted by predators. "I've never spent the night in the woods before," Mercy admitted. Yerin nestled into the crook of a tree, pulling her outer robe around her. "You can thank the heavens it isn't snowing. Some places, this is practically summer." There was a biting chill on the wind, but nothing that would kill a sacred artist above Iron. She had piled up a little mound of leaves and dirt, and the roots rose high enough around her to break some of the wind. It wasn't an Arelius guest room, but she'd slept through worse.

Mercy fiddled with the end of her hair, looking from herself to Yerin nervously. "I'm not sure there will be enough room for us both." Yerin's elbows were scraping roots on both sides. Her Goldsigns were folded up over her shoulders. "A hair smaller, and I'd have no room for my arms. You can find your own—" A small door opened in the air. It was a square opening about four or five feet to a side, sitting on the ground like someone had opened a box without bothering with the actual box part. Without hesitation, Mercy rummaged around inside, pulling out fluffy padded blankets and a metal box that radiated fire aura. A heater. "It won't be comfortable," Mercy said, voice downcast. "The tent is really meant for one person." "The tent," Yerin repeated. Mercy held up a palm-sized square of dark green Forged madra, which snapped into a pyramid-shaped tent. Scripts on the outside provided an extra veil and warded away spirits. Mercy stared at the shelter like she couldn't imagine how they'd ever squeeze both people inside, but to Yerin it looked like a palace. "If the heavens gave me one wish, I'd ask to be reborn as a Monarch's kid." Yerin still wasn't sure how she felt about Mercy, but at least the Akura girl came with supplies. Mercy's brow furrowed. "It's just a tent." Yerin was already climbing inside. After a night in the tent, Yerin was certain that the journey would be easier than she had ever imagined. They started well-rested, they made good time that first morning, and they had a map. More than once, on her journeys with the Sword Sage, Yerin would have killed for convenience like this. Their first delay came when they sensed a Redmoon Underlord a few miles ahead of them. They ended up having to stay in the tent, veiled, for a full day before they could confirm the enemy had withdrawn. Then a flock of Truegold-level vultures caught their scent, forcing them off the path. Then there was the mammoth that grazed on trees. They had to go around him. A zone of shadow and darkness covered another hillside as Redmoon Hall skirmished with servants of the Akura family, and they had to sneak

past. Before she knew it, the days flowed like water and they still hadn't reached their destination. Their speed dropped to a crawl, and they were forced to wait for hours at a time. So Yerin did what she always did when the hours pressed in on her: she trained. As he fell through the air, the Sword Sage continued to fight. One of his opponents flew on currents of air, his Ruler technique commanding the wind aura as he soared with no wings. That one produced halfsilver darts, whipping them at the Sword Sage to try and disrupt his madra. The other rode an eagle like a horse, carrying a long spear in one hand and a shield in the other. Her eyes blazed the same color as her sacred beasts, and sword aura gathered around the eagle's claws. Her lance-strike carried the putrid, sickly energy of death madra. The wind artist hammered him with gusts of wind madra to keep him offbalance, to knock him into the halfsilver darts. He took a look at the deadly lance an inch from his skin, the furious eagle rearing to strike behind it. He sensed the bludgeon of wind madra from beneath him, the glimmer of sharp chaos as the halfsilver darts closed from behind. With a tap of his madra, his sword rang like a bell. As she advanced through the Highgold stage, Yerin had unlocked more memories that had been ingrained into her master's spirit. Some of them were personal or too short to make anything out of them, but some contained the insights into the Path of the Endless Sword that he'd never been able to share with her. She chewed on these like a cow with a mouthful of grass, meditating on them morning and night. In this case, the Sword Sage's Endless Sword technique had met every attack at the same time. The eagle's claws, the deadly lance, the halfsilver darts—they were all knocked aside at once as though deflected by invisible swords. Only the green column of wind madra was unaffected, and the Sage sliced that in half with a wave of madra from one of the six sword-arms on his back. The rest of the scene faded, leaving Yerin to replay it over in her mind.

The Endless Sword was the Ruler technique for which her whole Path was named. It was the root and branch of her master's fighting style. But she hadn't even used it in her fight against Bai Rou. The truth was, hers was a pale shadow of her master's. Her master could use the Endless Sword to cut one page from a closed book. She just hit the aura around her weapon as hard as she could with her madra. It spread out like ripples in a pond, cutting everything in its path, and when it passed through another source of sword aura, that aura burst too. Her master had called it aura resonance, and with enough madra behind it, it could start a cascading reaction that could tear a city to pieces. But in her case, it didn't pack enough punch. She could only use it effectively against enemies weaker than she was. And what good was a weapon that couldn't be used against real opponents? She'd focused on other pieces of her Path instead: advancement, her other techniques, physical swordplay. For too long, she had neglected the namesake of her Path. She had hoped that, as she grew in insight and experience, the Endless Sword would begin to make more sense to her. Now Yerin was out of time. She needed more power...and her Blood Shadow was right there. If she didn't find a new weapon, she'd be forced to rely on the Shadow every time the battle became tough. It had tormented her for too long; she couldn't lean on it. Frankly, it turned her stomach when she so much as thought about it for too long. If she never had to use it, that would be the real victory. Which meant she needed to win without it. In that vision, the Sword Sage had demonstrated the second level of Endless Sword mastery: sword like the wind. Yerin was stuck at the "storm" stage. Her aura exploded out from her weapon in a furious, uncontrolled storm. But he'd revealed a much greater level of control. His sword-aura was quiet, invisible, and everywhere. There were three higher levels of mastery. He'd barely mentioned any of this to her before his death. She'd discovered most of it from the visions he'd left behind in his Remnant, paired with some of her own memories of him in combat. Technically, her skill in the technique wasn't connected to advancement. She could reach

Archlord if her Endless Storm still looked like a hurricane. With enough power behind it, it could do damage. But her madra was already dense enough to cross the barrier to Truegold. A deeper connection to her master's Remnant could give her that last nudge she needed to get there. She hoped. From the branches above her, a brown leaf drifted slowly to the ground. With a deep breath, she delicately tapped the sword in her lap with her madra. The dense silver aura around it flared, pushing out into one direction. She could control that much, at least. Directing it one way or the other was an advancement for her. Now, her goal was to cut that falling leaf in two. The leaf exploded into shreds. It fell to the ground as a fistful of dust. After another hour, she gave up, stretching her legs and standing up. "We clear to move on yet?" she asked. Then she saw that Mercy had begun training of her own. The Akura girl was hanging upside-down from a limb at the top of a tree. She held a short wooden bow, arrow nocked, and her eyes were closed. Her breathing was even, and though Yerin was close, she couldn't sense the girl's presence at all. After she had held that position for several minutes, three leaves fell from her tree at once. Purple eyes snapped open, and she slipped her legs out of the branch. She fell, arms blurring as she released the first arrow, pulling a second from the air, stringing it, and loosing it. Then a third. Only then did the first arrow pierce the first leaf, pinning it to the ground several yards away. The second followed suit. The third arrow brushed by its target, sending the leaf spinning in the wind of its wake. Mercy's head cracked as it hit the ground, and she crumpled. Yerin folded her arms and waited. Iron bodies could take more punishment than that. Mercy hissed as she sat up, cradling her head with one hand. "Aaaahhhh ow ow ow." Through watering eyes, she looked up to Yerin. "When I do it right, I land on my feet." "You expect to fight upside-down a lot?"

Mercy examined her bow to make sure it hadn't broken. "Do you not practice Striker techniques this way? Trains accuracy, precision, reaction time..." "Pain tolerance," Yerin suggested. "Only when you miss." She stood up, brushing herself off. "I had a few more rounds to go, but now you're awake. Dinner?" "Is the barrier gone?" One of the factions—Yerin hadn't been able to determine who—had raised up a barrier of blue light that stretched across half the island in front of them. It was hard to see through the tree cover, but if you went far enough forward, you could see nothing but a sapphire wall. She wasn't sure what the barrier formation would do to people inside, but she wasn't curious enough to find out. Mercy's eyes widened, and she snapped two blackened fingers. "Oh, that's right! I have news!" Hurriedly, she scrambled over to their camp. They had spent three days in this place, so it was starting to look a little too permanent for Yerin's liking. As she looked over the stump they used as a table and the stone-lined firepit they'd dug, the impatient itch returned to her heart. Lindon could be running from Truegolds, and here she was locked out. Mercy tripped over a root, landing belly-down in the dirt, but she held the Sage's folded map over her head in triumph. "Got it!" she said into the ground. A moment later, she was explaining her excitement to Yerin. "I was at the top of the tree, checking on the barrier, and I realized what we thought was a hill was just that mammoth sleeping. And the mountain is farther away than I'd thought." Yerin's stomach fell. Every time they'd made a mistake navigating, it had resulted in days' more delay. "So, we're not here, we're here," Mercy said, stabbing her finger at a spot on the map. A spot just below the portal. "If the wall wasn't there, we could see it from the tree," Mercy said brightly. "It's fading away. You can see through it now, and you couldn't this morning." Yerin leaped.

Her Steelborn Iron body drew thirstily on her madra, fueling her flatfooted jump so that she launched herself to the top of the tree. She bent the top of the tree as she landed, but she had no trouble keeping her balance. The wall of blue light still rolled on the horizon, but if Mercy was right, then it was covering the beach and the edge of the island more than another expanse of forest. When the boundary came down, they would be only a few hours' run away from the portal. She strained her eyes to try and see if there was some change in the boundary, but she could tell nothing. She hopped back to the ground, and was surprised to find that Mercy was starting a fire instead of packing up. "You cracked in the head? Let's go!" "Dinner first," Mercy said firmly. "It won't come down any faster just because we're closer." Yerin paced like a tiger in a cage. She just wanted to feel like she was making some progress. Even moving an hour closer would mean an hour's less travel time when the light did disappear. She started to say so, but a deafening, bestial scream covered the island out of nowhere. It was joined by more and more, until it sounded like a choir of raging spirits howling at the heavens. A furious, burning presence lit up her spiritual senses like a flying bonfire. "It's not the vultures again," she muttered, opening up her perception. The roars had been deeper than that, and she thought she felt fire. But that sense could be slippery. Mercy grabbed her staff, which hissed into the sky. Its violet eyes flared. "Not vultures. Dragons." As she said so, a golden cloud descended from heaven, bearing a complex of palaces on it. The Thousand-Mile Cloud that had hovered outside the Akura fortress about two weeks before, from which a woman had argued with Old Man Lo. "What's rustled their scales?" Yerin asked. They were still roaring, and she thought she saw golden flames rising from the Cloud. Mercy shivered. "I think we should get in the tent." A second later, Yerin felt it too: someone's spiritual sense was sweeping the forest. The Cloud was still many miles away; to search them from that distance would take an Underlord at least. "I'd contend we should," Yerin allowed with a sigh. She took a last, regretful glance in the other direction. Hiding was the smart thing to do, but

she'd rather move closer to the boundary. After all, it wasn't like the dragons were looking for them. The heavens couldn't hate her that much. ~~~ "You're just having a little break? Having some time to yourself? That's okay, nothing wrong with that. You've just been through a fight, haven't you? But now you're rested, you're refreshed, you're ready to get yourself up and move on! The road doesn't get any shorter while you wait, as they say." It had been five minutes. Lindon was still sitting cross-legged on the floor, cycling his madra to try and bring power back to his spirit before his Bloodforged Iron body took it all and left him spiritually drained and helpless. Little Blue lay sprawled on top of his head, sleeping, and he held his spine straight to avoid disturbing her. Now Dross was growing impatient. "I told you about the Spirit Well, didn't I? I'm pretty sure I did. Well, that's our next stop! No need to waste time trying to restore your madra now, when the Spirit Well will do it with just a sip! Well, I mean, I suppose you should strengthen yourself just a bit. There are quite a few giant, hungry beasts between us and our destination, but uh...it sounds worse than it is." Lindon held out a broken necklace with a copper key dangling from the center. It was only the size of a fingernail; too small to unlock anything bigger than a dollhouse. But it was a sacred treasure, he was sure of it. Using as little madra as he could, he reached his spirit out and activated it. He was confident that this was the device that he'd sensed before, and his curiosity was too ravenous to wait until he had finished stabilizing his soul. If he really did run out of madra, he might not be able to trigger this for hours. And that would be unacceptable. Fortunately, it didn't take much effort to start. Little more than flipping a switch. A doorway bloomed in front of him, seven feet tall and about three wide. It led into a closet, hanging there in midair.

The closet was only a few feet deep and mostly empty. A few chairs were stacked in the center, with pillows and blankets stuffed beneath them. Three sealed clay jugs sat in the corner, and based on a quick glimpse of their contents, they seemed to contain water. He was still on his knees, weak and injured...but not too weak or injured to rummage through a closet that he'd summoned out of nowhere. A few scripted bundles were revealed to hold dried meat. Rations, water, furniture, and bedding. Practical things to hold in a magical storage space, except perhaps for the chairs. Orthos walked around the other side of the portal, speaking with a tone of awe. "A void key! I've only glimpsed them from afar. It's rare for even an Underlord to have such a thing. It contains a private space, accessible only by the one who holds it. Whatever you keep in here, no one can touch it unless they steal the key." Lindon wished there was a tear running down his face so that he could wipe it away. "I've never seen anything so beautiful." Even Little Blue woke up, sitting up on his head and cooing in wonder. He almost wanted to thank Ekeri. Besides the more mundane objects, there were a few eye-catching treasures shoved into the corners of the closet. A sculpture of a woman in smooth white jade, a mirror of pure gold, a jeweled star, and a teacup that seemed to be made from a paper-thin eggshell. None of them gave off the slightest aura of power, but Orthos suggested they were valuable enough that they could fund Lindon's entire advancement to the end of Truegold. Assuming they could escape this pocket world and find a buyer. "The real treasure is that necklace," Orthos said, and Lindon fervently agreed. "If you were lucky enough to find anyone willing to sell one, that would cost as much as half the Arelius family. Sages are the weakest beings who can create void keys." "There was a void key storage room in this habitat," Dross told them. "Room upon room full of them, each key filled with specialized equipment." Lindon seized him. "…yes, it was the first thing the Heralds looted," Dross continued, and Lindon's heart crashed back into his chest.

His spirit and body were both still unstable after his fight, but he wobbled to his feet. "We should leave soon. As soon as we're prepared." As it turned out, their preparation took two days. The first thing Lindon did, once he could move his arms freely, was to smash the chairs and toss them back into the closet. He didn't need furniture, but as a fire artist, he could always use kindling. He placed the chest with all of his belongings next to the bundle of kindling, then emptied all the water jars and filled them with water from the Well of Dreams. The well was only a few inches deep now, but that was still far more water than Lindon wanted to leave behind. He filled all twenty-four vials they'd found in the storage room, placed them in their racks, and stored them in the void key as well. A few of the Silverfang Carp had been killed by his battle with Ekeri without being reduced to ash by the Void Dragon's Dance, so he found their corpses and stripped some meat. Thanks to the fires burning all over the habitat, he was able to roast them without tainting them in the flavor of Blackflame, then wrap the fish steaks up in leaves he cut from the remaining forest of stalks. Even after two days of preparation, he was reluctant to leave. There was still water in the Dream Well, and plenty of food from the Carp. He and Orthos could cycle easily in the smoldering wasteland they'd made, and the return to regular cycling was helping heal Orthos' spirit. Dross kept up a steady complaint, but he couldn't go anywhere without Lindon. He wasn't what finally pushed Lindon to leave. Yerin was out there, somewhere. He had no way of knowing what she was doing, if she was safe, if Bai Rou had attacked or abandoned her. He wondered about her sleeping and waking, and whatever he did, the worry stuck in the back of his mind like a splinter. But if she knew this place was good for his advancement, she would surely tell him to stay here as long as possible. Little Blue was more urgent. He was using everything he could spare from his pure core to feed the Sylvan Riverseed, but she was still pale as a winter's sky and he could see straight through her. She spent most of her day sprawled on his shoulder, silent. He was no expert on spirits, but she couldn't stay here much longer. Even Orthos, despite his good humor, couldn't fully recover just from cycling. If he could, he would never have gone insane in Serpent's Grave. He needed to move on.

But there was one last reason that shook him enough to push him out of this habitat. The cracks in space, which once had been the size of Ekeri's body, had now spread to the size of a room. The web of nearly invisible fissures was growing. Dross said it had to do with the decay of the pocket world. Any forced spatial movement would fracture the world's boundaries until the whole thing decayed. And, as usual, he turned that into an argument for reaching the Spirit Well as soon as possible. This time, Lindon happened to agree. He tied the tiny copper key to the shadesilk ribbon around his neck, so that it hung behind his gold hammer badge. Opening it one last time, he walked into the closet and pulled Little Blue from his shoulder. "Wait for me in here," he said, lowering her to the ground. She scrambled up his arm, chirping in distress. "I'll let you out as soon as I can. We're going through dangerous waters; if I lose you, I might not be able to find you again." She clung to his forearm and chimed like a bell. Lindon sat down in the extra-spatial closet, lifting his arm so he could look Little Blue in the eyes. Her pale face was the picture of panic. "I'll come back for you," he assured her. She shook her head. "You want to come with us?" Silver bells rang. "Are you more scared of being locked in here than coming with us?" Another long, sad note from a flute. Lindon couldn't blame her. He'd been locked into tight spaces…too many times. So he walked out and tucked her into his pocket, next to Suriel's marble. "Try not to fall out," he told her. She was already playing with the glass ball. Another wisp of madra shut the door to the closet, and Lindon was ready to leave. He looked over at Orthos, who held Dross in his mouth. "Great, we're ready to go! Fantastic! Don't worry about the two days worth of essence I lost, each of which was a memory. As I decay, I lose more and more of who I am, but don't you worry about that now, because we're leaving!" Lindon ducked his head to the construct. "Lead the way."

Purple light sketched a line out of the bubble, into the dark water outside. The line extended into the darkness, then sank lower. And lower. "The tablet library, and the Spirit Well it contains, is a tad deeper than we are," Dross explained. "Not to worry, though, because I am both map and key. It will be a straight shot from here." A line of bright blue spots slid by the bubble, close enough that Lindon could have reached his arm through and touched them. In the light of the still-burning fires, he saw a glimpse of silver scales between the blue. Dross cleared a nonexistent throat. "There's the one complication. Diamondscale Sea Drakes. You remember when I told you the Silverfang Carp were raised like cattle? Well, this is what those cattle were meant to feed." The last blue light slid around the bubble, and Lindon traced its path until it moved out of sight. It was circling the whole habitat. "The refiners kept them in captivity, but the facility records say they broke free decades ago. They've been breeding in the wild ever since." Lindon reached a hand out to the bubble-wall. "Was this meant to keep them out?" "No, the boundary formation is meant to keep out the water. It doesn't keep them out at all, they just prefer it out there." Lindon took a few steps back. "Is there any way to avoid them?" "Some believe that hope is the strongest force in the universe," Dross said. "Although that is objectively untrue." Lindon looked back. He couldn't see the blue lights anywhere in his vision. "Can we form some kind of—" he started to say, but Orthos had already stepped into the water. With a deep breath, Lindon joined him.

Chapter 11 Dross' purple light and the deep red of Orthos' shell were the only sources of illumination out here, in the icy deep. Swallowed by cold and dark, Lindon almost turned back on instinct, but the red and purple were his only guides. He swam after them, reaching a hand into his pocket to make sure that Little Blue was secure. Satisfied that she was, he pulled out Suriel's marble, adding a faint blue candle-glow to their procession. To his surprise, Orthos was a capable swimmer; the turtle's feet acted more like flippers in the water, and he outpaced Lindon in seconds. Lindon had to strain to keep up, and only because he suspected Orthos was waiting for him. They had only swum a few yards before they reached the edge of a cliff and looked down. Warm, inviting light spilled up from below: a new habitat. The bubble was shaped a little differently than the previous, like a wide circle rather than a dome, but the top was only a dozen feet straight down. The relief was like a breath of air; he could swim that distance. No problem. He was honestly surprised that they hadn't seen the light from this place before, when it was so close. He glanced back to judge the distance between himself and the habitat, and saw two points of blue light coming at him out of the darkness. He looked for the other lights instinctively before he realized they weren't spots. They were eyes. Blackflame madra raged through him, and the Burning Cloak ignited. When he couldn't breathe freely, controlling madra was like pushing mud through a straw, and it strained his channels to bursting. Primitive, crippling survival terror made it easy: he'd tear his soul in half to defend himself from those approaching eyes. The Diamondscale opened its maw, revealing even more saber-sharp teeth than the Silverfang Carp, as well as a light welling up from its throat

like a blue furnace. Lindon kicked off the sand, twisting desperately, hoping that the Enforcer technique would give him enough speed so that the great serpent wouldn't just turn and snap him out of the water. It twisted, but he scratched at its face with both hands, seizing ridges on its head and plastering himself to it like a monkey clinging to a tree branch. The Sea Drake bucked like an earthquake, rumbling with a fury that Lindon interpreted as a roar. Every quake threatened to shake Lindon loose, until he was holding on only by the pointed tips of his Remnant hand. Red light shot through the darkness, and Orthos sank his jaws into silver scales. Now the serpent's ferocious twist threw Lindon free, and for a moment he was lost in an aimless blur of bubbles and darkness. Lost, disoriented, he clawed in the direction he hoped was the ocean floor. He found himself staring down at a purple light from ten feet above: Dross lay on the sand, helpless in his gem. Lindon pulled through the water, scooping up the jewel in his left hand. He faced a wall of dust kicked up by two massive, thrashing bodies. Red and blue lights flashed from within the cloud. His lungs were starting to burn as badly as his madra channels, and now he was faced with a choice: forward or back? The choice was made for him when Orthos came hurtling out of the dust cloud, righting himself in the water and charging back in. The Diamondscale Sea Drake flipped back to stare at him once more. Then it rushed at Orthos, seizing him in its jaws. Orthos wrestled with it, sinking his own teeth into its snout, and they struggled in the water for a long instant before plunging over the cliff. Lindon followed them. If he could reach the bubble, he could use his madra properly, and then maybe he could help Orthos. Through the bubble, the dream tablet library looked like a series of stone shelves, resembling bookshelves, only instead of books they contained points of soft multicolored light. Orthos and the Drake fell into the center of the ring, kicking up another cloud of sand, and Lindon pulled himself to the edge of the habitat. He clawed through the bubble, pushing his head through, getting a deep gasp of breath that brought life back to his madra.

His head was sticking through the ceiling of the bubble, and he looked down onto the stone libraries. After a disorienting moment of shifting gravity, he started to fall through into the air. He allowed it, Blackflame still flowing through him, and twisted in midair to land on the floor. Unlike the ground in the last habitat, this one was laid with polished tiles. And it wasn't empty. From down the curving row of shelves, a man stared at him. Bright green horns grew from his forehead, pointed up, and he wore a road-stained cloak of gray. His expression was so worn and weary that he initially looked older, but a second glance made it clear that he wasn't much older than Lindon. Lindon recognized him as one of the young Truegolds. The one who had saved him back in the portal room. He heaved a sigh as he saw Lindon, reaching out to a hammer leaning up against a nearby shelf. Its haft was as long as he was tall, its head the width of his body, and Lindon braced himself for sudden battle. Instead, the stranger pulled the hammer behind him as though it weighed as much as a mountain. The head dragged against the tile with a horrible scraping noise. Each step cost him visible effort. There had once been an emblem dyed into the back of his cloak, which Lindon thought resembled a lotus flower or perhaps a web, but it was too faded with age to be clear. Lindon pressed his fists together and bowed, saluting the man's back. No need to be unnecessarily rude, even if the man couldn't see him. After all, Lindon was the one who had burst in out of nowhere, dripping water all over the tile. Then he shot off. Orthos was still in trouble. When he cleared a few rows of bookshelves, he saw what the center of the ring looked like from the inside. It appeared to be a column of dark blue water in the center of the facility, extending from the floor to the ceiling as though it supported the weight of the ocean overhead. Now, that column was filled with flashing scales, billowing dust, and leathery skin. Lindon watched for a moment. Dross was babbling something, but Lindon was too focused on the battle to hear it. The Burning Cloak burst into being around him again, its power flowing through him much more

easily. He started gathering dragon's breath in his hand. If he got a clear shot, he was sure he could turn the fight in Orthos' favor. Then the water exploded in his direction, drenching Lindon as Orthos and the serpent spilled out of the bubble and into the library. Orthos smashed into one of the shelves shell-first, cracking stone and releasing hisses of colored light from two of the broken tablets. The Sea Drake flopped around in midair at first, but after only a second it righted itself. And started swimming through the air. Sure, the Carp had done it, and they were huge. But this creature was ten times bigger; it didn't seem fair that its mastery of water aura was great enough to allow it to swim through air so easily. It struck at Orthos as the turtle forced himself upright, and Lindon extended his dragon's breath. The stranger was standing there, between Lindon and Orthos, holding the haft of his hammer in both hands while the head still rested on the floor. Lindon hadn't seen him arrive, but now he had to abort his Striker technique to avoid hitting the newcomer. He stood before the serpent with eyes closed, like a man embracing the approach of death. For an instant. A blink later, the Drake slammed to a halt like a fist hitting a steel plate. There was a sickening crunch that echoed through the library and a brief flash of green light, and the huge serpent's head exploded under a titanic hammer-blow. Blood and gore sprayed over the floor, gushing over Orthos and splattering the tablet shelves behind him. The stranger was only speckled in dark red; a floating script-circle hovered in the air in front of him like a shield Forged out of green light. It pushed the tide of carnage to either side, preventing the man from becoming drenched in blood. The rest of the Sea Drake's body sank to the floor, twitching, and its tail slid out of the column of water to land on the tile with a meaty slap. The stranger's eyes were still shut. He lowered his bloody hammer to the floor and, without a word, started dragging it off again. Orthos shook himself like a dog, spraying yet more blood everywhere, and laughed freely. "You hit with the strength of a dragon! What is your name, human?"

The green-horned man stopped. He wiped blood from his eyes with a thumb, though he didn't bother cleaning the rest of his face. "Ziel," he said. Then he kept walking. "Ziel," Orthos said to his back. "I will remember you." He continued chuckling as he walked past the body of the Diamondscale Sea Drake, taking a bite of its meat as he passed. He was still chewing when he walked into the column of water, washing himself off. Dross, keeping his voice to a whisper, spoke as soon as Ziel was out of earshot. "Ziel of the Wasteland. We're not exactly flush with records about him, sorry to say, but there are plenty of rumors. I can tell you he's under the Beast King's protection, and you know what that means." "I don't," Lindon said. He was still in awe at what Ziel had done with a single blow from his Enforcer technique. And he was supposed to be on a level with Ekeri. "The Beast King," Dross said, as though it was something obvious. "He's been a legend for centuries. A crippled boy who befriended some ancient sacred beasts and eventually rose to the level of a Herald. He's one of the guardians who stands in the Wasteland between Akura territory and the land of the dragons, protecting human civilization. Or so they say. Without him and others like him, the Blackflame Empire would be a wartorn desert." "So what does it mean that Ziel is under his protection?" "The Beast King spends all his time in a wasteland of endless battle. He cares about nothing but his war. If he's taken on a human, then that means he thinks this kid will be a critical weapon against the dragons. Not too surprising, seeing how he dealt with that Diamondscale. Maybe that was a secret anti-dragon technique." "A dragon hunter," Lindon mused aloud. It sounded exciting, like the myths he'd heard as a child, but he had trouble putting the pieces together. Ziel hadn't turned on Orthos, though Orthos was clearly using the power of a dragon. And he hadn't showed any hostility toward Ekeri in the portal room, nor had he followed her when she left. He didn't act like someone whose sole purpose in life was a war against dragonkind. Orthos emerged from the water clean and radiating satisfaction. However, his soul told a different story: the battle had scarred him further, his spirit throbbing with deep pain.

"Not that this will surprise you," Dross said, "but Ziel headed in the direction of the Spirit Well. Just follow the bloody footsteps." Those footsteps led past shelf after shelf of dream tablets, some of which had gone dark or flickered with age, but most of which shone brightly. After a few minutes, they reached a vast gray wall, featureless but for a keyhole identical to the one in the other facility. The door must once have been hidden, but now it was shattered, revealing another blue hallway. Rubble had been sprayed all over the downward-sloping floor, almost as though someone had smashed their way in with a hammer. "Ah, why don't you hold up for a moment?" Dross said as Lindon was about to enter. Ziel's footsteps led into the hall, and Lindon had intended to follow them. "I don't know much about how these facilities were constructed, but I can tell you that they're not supposed to be something that a Truegold can break." Dross slid out of his gem, drifting across the space as a floating purple cloud of light and phantom gears. "If we're not dealing with a Gold, but a Sage in disguise, that would be...less than ideal." Orthos kept walking, crunching over the pebbles in the doorway. Clearly, he didn't intend to cower at the entrance. Lindon stopped. He hadn't done anything to antagonize the stranger, but it still seemed prudent to let Dross investigate first. After sinking himself into the keyhole, Dross let out a sound imitating a breath of relief and floated back to Lindon. "We're okay! False alarm! The protective scripts in this wall were already failing. Good thing that didn't happen back in the Dream Well facility, eh? That dragon-girl could have just blasted her way in to us." Lindon shivered. His hand moved unconsciously to the still-healing wound on his chest. "Now all we have to worry about is the facility crashing down around us," Dross said brightly. "Should be several weeks before that happens, though. We can be fairly certain. At least...let's say sixty percent." This storage facility was much smaller than the one in the other habitat. It only had four rooms besides the one at the end of the hall, where Lindon soon saw Orthos drinking deeply from a shining blue well. Though nothing had happened to the turtle, Lindon still entered hesitantly, looking around for Ziel. His footsteps led to the corner, where he

sat with his back against the wall and his hammer propped next to him. He sat with arms on his knees, saying nothing. Lindon bowed to him over a salute. "Ziel of the Wasteland, this one thanks you for your protection." Ziel waved a hand. He was staring at the floor as though watching a memory. "We humbly request your permission to drink from the well, if you don't mind." The Truegold, still stained in blood, looked to the well and then raised weary eyes to Lindon. "Plenty to go around," he said. It was true. The Spirit Well was at least ten times bigger than the Dream Well, and looked more like a pond than what Lindon would call a well. "Gratitude," Lindon said. "We will try not to bother you more than necessary." Ziel stared at the floor again. The well gave off a blue glow brighter than the hallway outside, and hazy purple shapes drifted through the air above it. At first, he thought they were constructs meant to defend or inspect the place, but they looked vaguely like ghostly animals. Fish swam in schools with spirits like butterflies and some like snakes. They were all pale pink or purple with no fine details, and they all pulsed slightly as though on the verge of shifting shape. Little Blue pushed out of his pocket and cheeped at the sight. "Sylvan Dreamseeds," Dross explained. "Just like Riverseeds are pure spirits that are born in areas with a strong balance between water and life aura, these little guys are born under the influence of dream aura. From the dream tablets, you see. The library and the Well are here purely to create the right conditions for their birth. Right now they're weak. Not much better than pure madra acting like dream madra. They only wish they could hold all the memories I can." He darted aggressively at the nearest Dreamseed, which ignored him, drifting through the air like a frozen bird. As interesting as the Dreamseeds were, it was the Spirit Well that held Lindon's attention. He dipped both cupped hands into the water and lifted them to his lips. While the Dream Well had carried a slight mineral taste, this water was sweet. The mouthful went down easily, and he cycled its power to his pure

core. The effect was instantaneous. His core crackled with lightning, reminding him of the orus spirit-fruit Lindon had consumed back in Sacred Valley. Only this was a hundred times more powerful. It felt like a whirlpool had formed in his core, refining his madra with every revolution. It was almost like his madra was cycling itself. Not only that, but the water's power seeped into his madra channels like rain on dying grass. He gasped at the sudden pain, which reminded him of splashing icy cold water on a burn. Only when this hit his channels, it left them stronger than before. Lindon didn't hesitate to dunk his face into the well. It was like a high-grade madra-refining pill mixed with Little Blue's touch. Every drink rinsed his spirit, helped his core refill itself, and refined his madra. He could feel his pure power growing denser, richer, thicker. He came up for air, gasping. "Jars. We need jars."

Chapter 12 The Spirit Well was Lindon's greatest dream made real. It was like a heavenly feast set before him; an endless spring of power from which he could literally drink. Cycling had never been so rewarding or so effortless. He and Orthos moved into another room that was filled with garbage—the wreckage of long-abandoned crates and barrels that smelled like vinegar and had been smashed years if not decades before. They set the garbage on fire, leaving Dross to open the vents and get rid of the smoke. It became their cycling room for Blackflame. After a mouthful of Spirit Well water, each revolution of madra produced twice the result for half the effort. Lindon missed his parasite ring; the scripted halfsilver ring would have filtered his madra even further, resulting in even faster growth. But the water was just as much of a boon for Blackflame as it was for his pure core. After the first few hours, he was pushing the barriers of Lowgold. If Lindon ever met Northstrider face-to-face, he was going to prostrate himself at the Monarch's feet in gratitude for building this place. Ziel left the well room for an hour or two at a time, but always returned to sit in his corner. When he came back, he would dip his bowl into the Spirit Well, take one halfhearted sip, and then dump the rest over his head so that it washed the blood away in finger-thin rivulets. Lindon almost choked at the waste. "Forgiveness, but why don't you drink more?" Ziel didn't open his eyes, but gestured at his abdomen. "Take a look, then tell me if you think it'll do any good." Lindon opened his Copper sight. A venomous, toxic green ravaged his body, dimming the aura of his blood and life. He extended his perception, scanning the man's spirit; he didn't resist at all. His core, a hazy green light, had been destroyed. Something had deliberately sliced it into pieces, then stitched the pieces back together. Half

his madra channels were dark, and the other half were twisted and knotted into chaotic patterns. Lindon closed off his perception, horrified. A Truegold with that much damage to their spirit should either be dead or Unsouled. But he had the power of a Truegold now. How powerful had he been before? Lindon bowed to him in silent apology and turned back to the pool. Little Blue's touch could cleanse and reinforce madra channels, but the Spirit Well had a similar effect. If it wasn't helping Ziel, neither could she. At this point, Lindon wasn't sure if a team of spirit healers could help the man. He was ashamed to have looked. Outwardly, Orthos wasn't as thrilled with the well as Lindon was, but he went back and guzzled deeply whenever he could. Slowly, Lindon felt the turtle's spirit improving, like a knot unraveling or a stain shrinking. Little Blue was hesitant to leave Lindon's side at first, staring warily at the newcomer and the Dreamseeds overhead. But after she dipped a hand into the Spirit Well, she cooed in wonder and then dove in headfirst. She had taken to it like a fish, swimming around happily and growing deeper in color with every passing minute. A night in there, and she would be back to normal. Dross had returned to his vessel and demanded to be dropped into the pool, just as he had been in the Dream Well for over fifty years. Lindon didn't spare any more thought for him until the first night—which was what they had chosen to call the half of the day when the overhead scripts dimmed. The water outside the habitat was just as black as always, and of course the dream tablets and Spirit Well glowed constantly. Lindon was just starting to wonder if he should drink a vial of Dream Well water to shake off sleep when he heard a loud sigh from the azure pool. Dross' spirit-form drifted up from the water, an ethereal ball of slowly turning gears and spinning violet lights. "It's great in there, it really is, but uh...I don't know that I want to spend fifty years in there again. Do you know what I mean? I wasn't conscious for most of that time, but once I was, it got very boring very quickly. Not sure I want to do the whole thing wide awake." Lindon rubbed his chin, looking at the Spirit Well. "What do you think this will do for you?"

Dross made a coughing sound. "That's the question. The Soulsmiths who made me tried to make a construct that could work alongside a person's brain, but they failed, didn't they? Ended up just making better memory constructs. "Well, this facility was run by a collection of scholars after the same goal. They theorized that they could create a kind of super-spirit, an advanced hive of Dreamseeds that would handle thoughts so that Northstrider didn't have to. It would make it so that he wouldn't have to think to solve a problem, but he would always know the answer, bam, just like that. The Dreamseeds would do the mental work for him." "And it failed," Lindon said. That wasn't a guess; if it had succeeded, Northstrider would never have abandoned Ghostwater in the first place. "Like a snow fort in the desert," Dross said sadly. "Turns out, when they pumped power into a Dreamseed, what they got was a more powerful Dreamseed. Not sure how else they expected that to go, really." He waited a breath before continuing. "I may have been born a little differently than these little guys, but surely a construct that's come to life can't be too different than a natural spirit." That made sense to Lindon. And he wanted to see what Dross was becoming; it might end up useful. This was the chance to learn something that even Northstrider's expert Soulsmiths hadn't understood. "We could try and come up with a script that might focus the power on you," Lindon said doubtfully. If he was a more knowledgeable scriptor, it might work, but he had never done much research on that front. "It's a pity you can't just drink it." Dross glowed brighter. "That's it! I can borrow your body!" He saw the look on Lindon's face and hastened to add, "Don't worry, I'll share." "You can do that?" Lindon asked. That was intriguing. Could he send Dross to take over other people's bodies? "Don't see why not. There's a Remnant inside you right now, or at least all the ingredients to make one when you die. Plenty of room inside your spirit, so I'll just squeeze in there." He pushed into Lindon's chest, but bounced off the madra running through Lindon's skin. "Excuse me, you have to move aside. Just for a minute. Don't worry, it shouldn't hurt. Me. I don't know what it will feel like to you." Orthos pushed past Lindon on the way to the Spirit Well. "There are some sacred artists who take in the power of natural spirits as part of their

Path. It is safe." "See! Perfectly safe, he says." Dross tried to push into Lindon's head this time, but slid off. Lindon wanted to see what Dross would become, but he was still uncomfortable with the idea of letting a self-aware construct inside his soul. "Is this the only option we have?" "Don't worry," Orthos said. "If the tiny spirit tries some mischief, I will burn him out of your body." Now Lindon had more worries, but his curiosity won out. Lindon extended a hand to Dross. "I'll still my madra as much as I can until you're inside." Dross whooped in excitement and zipped into his palm almost before Lindon had withdrawn his spirit. It felt like something swimming up his left arm, and Lindon instinctively recoiled. He focused his spiritual sense on his own body, and in the blue-white loops that normally represented his spirit, now a purple ball slid around his madra channels and settled into the center of his pure core. "Wow," Dross said in his head. "Roomy in here. Were you born with two extra-large cores? I'm sorry, that sounds rude. But do feel free to answer." Since Lindon had used the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel to advance, it still had an influence on his cores even when he wasn't actively practicing it. His madra recovery was slow, but he had much more madra than he would have otherwise. And a good thing, too; his Iron body and his techniques took a lot of power. If Eithan was any indication, his cores would only get deeper as he advanced, until he had a truly ridiculous amount of madra. But he suppressed the Purification Wheel as much as he could, with Dross inside. It was inconvenient, but Eithan's warning still made him hesitant to let the technique's existence leak. Orthos eyed him. "Seems like it worked." "It's messy in here," Dross sent to him. "You're so…squishy." Lindon walked over to the pool, scooping up some shining blue water in a cracked teacup. He drank it and cycled it straight to the construct, who instantly let out an excited whoop. "It's working! My memories have so many connections I didn't see before; this must be what having a brain feels like! Only, you know,

less...mushy." Lindon had cycled all the power to Dross, leaving none for his own channels or core. He spoke aloud, because he wasn't sure if thinking the words would get through to the construct. "How is it? You need more?" "I'll chew on this for the rest of the day," Dross said. "At that rate, maybe…two more weeks? Three? Compared to fifty years, it's like a drop of water in the ocean, isn't it?" "Three weeks? Do we even have that long?" Lindon gave an aching glance at the Spirit Well; he wanted to take as much time in this room as he could, and didn't want to waste a minute of it on Dross' advancement. Yerin would kill him if she knew he'd found an inexhaustible source of power without her, and would kill him twice as hard if he didn't take advantage of every second. A weary voice spoke up from the corner of the room. "If nothing else accelerates the decay in the pocket world's structure, we have at least a month." Ziel spoke from his position leaning against the wall, eyes shut. "Could be longer." Lindon didn't have any reason to believe a Truegold's word about the structure of a pocket world, but he spoke with the utter confidence of an expert, so Lindon thanked him. "There you have it," Dross said, relaxing himself into a more comfortable position within Lindon's core. And so Lindon settled in. He was looking forward to seeing Dross' transformation, but he couldn't deny a little bitterness about having to share the power of the Spirit Well. How much would this delay his advancement? A week? A month? Lindon reached Highgold on the Path of Black Flame in two days. Surrounded by burning trash, he was cycling fire and destruction aura as usual, regretting that he couldn't use the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel with Dross sitting in his soul. Without warning, his madra started running back from the rest of his body into his core like he'd opened a plug and it was starting to drain out. "Hey, would you look at that!" Dross said, from his vantage inside Lindon's pure core. "Are you trying out a new cycling technique?" Lindon couldn't open his eyes, struggling as he was to focus on his madra, but he heard Orthos rise to his feet nearby. Suddenly, madra poured

into him from outside, guiding his power and easing the burden on his spirit. All of his madra pushed together, squeezing to occupy the same space, and it seemed to shrink together. After several minutes passed, he had only a third of the madra he'd started with, but it was more dense and potent. If his madra before had been water, now it felt like syrup. When it finished, all of his Blackflame madra concentrated into a thick drop at the center of his core, a pulse of uncontrolled power rippled out from him and activated the aura. Fires flared up all around the cycling room, consuming their fuel in an instant, creating a cloud of smoke. Lindon let his new Highgold madra run through his veins. At last, he was on the same level as Yerin. She had years of practice and experience he didn't have, but finally, they were standing on the same ground. "Highgold," Orthos announced. "It is the role of a Highgold to think more deeply on the purpose and nature of your Path. At this stage, sacred artists that have bonded Remnants often begin to inherit insights from their predecessors." "There's no need for insight before Underlord," Ziel said. He stopped in the doorway on his way down the hall, as though he were a construct that had simply run out of power. Green horns were cast in shadow—his Goldsign was so condensed as to look completely real. "Highgold only indicates a certain density of madra. You could go from Lowgold to the peak of Truegold with two pills." "Shortcuts are for the weak," Orthos said. "You walk a Path one step at a time, and this is the step of a Highgold." Ziel raised two fingers as though holding something very small. "I used to have those pills. They were this big. They smelled like fresh berries and summer leaves..." He cast his glance down at the floor and dragged himself down the hallway. "Really brings down the mood, doesn't he?" Dross observed. Not Lindon's. After reaching Highgold, his smile was iron-plated. He didn't care what the stage meant, just that he had taken another step. And there was plenty of water left in the blue well. Orthos and Ziel carved every meal from the corpse of the Diamondscale Sea Drake, but one bite of the cooked meat had knocked Lindon out for six

hours. It nourished his body even more than the Silverfang Carp had, but it was at the brink of what his body could tolerate. After eating it, his Iron body had consumed so much madra that it delayed his training, even with the Spirit Well's help. After reaching Highgold, he could keep himself conscious while cycling one bite of the Drake's meat to his body, but it took everything he had. He couldn't afford to have more than one bite a day, so the rest of his meals came from Carp steaks stored in his void key. He was clearly reaching the limit of what that meat could do for his physical condition, but food was food. Other than spending his time in the corner of the Spirit Well room, Ziel wandered the shelves of dream tablets. Each of the shining, multicolored stones was labeled with a name, a stage of advancement, a Path, and a subject. After a few days, Lindon began following him. He touched six dream tablets while Lindon watched, and all of them belonged to Archlords. Those were the most advanced subjects in the library, and Ziel seemed to have no interest in anything beneath them. For Lindon's part, he didn't try anything above Underlord after a single touch of an Overlord tablet had left him flat on his back and sweating, with no memory of what he'd seen. When he activated a dream tablet with his spirit, he was taken into a memory of a particular scene, as though he were living it. The devices were less useful for recording information than he had imagined, but they were ideal for containing experiences. He had heard of portable dream tablets before, but these were either of a different sort, or were secured to prevent thievery: each dream tablet was sealed to the stone around it. She held out one palm, Forging a spear of red ice. From her vantage point among the clouds, she looked down on the great spider that crouched over her city, spreading its webs from building to building. She let soulfire bleed into the Forged spear, its gray fire tempering the technique, smoothing it, nourishing it. Now, the spear shone like a polished shaft of diamond. This was the strongest technique she could conjure. She only hoped there was anyone down there to survive this. Meiyen Teia, Underlord on the Path of Glacier's Birth: the Devastation of Whisperbark.

Lindon came out of the memory gasping, his last sight a storm of bloody ice shredding a great spider...and the city over which it lurked. He sat down and focused on the vision, drinking down a vial of Dream Well water he'd brought with him. "What do you call that feeling she was having?" Dross asked. "Grief," Lindon responded absently. "I don't like it," the constructed decided. "It's too heavy. Go back to the one with the man who had just cured his daughter's disease." Lindon couldn't spare the effort to reply, instead focusing on the Underlord's memories. How her madra felt as it ran through her, the rhythm of her cycling technique, the feel of pulling soulfire from the center of her soul. Buried in these memories was the key to developing his own Path. The Path of Twin Stars needed a real Enforcer technique, he knew that. Over the last week, he'd checked dozens of dream tablets, and he'd discovered a greater variety of Enforcer techniques than he'd ever imagined. Full-body Enforcer techniques were the standard, but they were only one type. Many of the techniques he found were single palm-strikes or sword slashes, concentrating their Enforcement on a single blow. Those gave him the shadow of an idea to improve the Empty Palm, but they weren't what he really needed. He focused on another category: movement techniques. He needed something to close the gap between him and his opponent if he wanted to land an Empty Palm. Until this point, he'd been forced to rely on letting his opponent come to him. Some of the memories contained single steps or leaps that ate the gap between opponents in one burst. Others held full-body Enforcer techniques focused entirely on speed, or Forger techniques that carried their users where they needed to go. After viewing several of them, he'd started trying to apply the principles of the Burning Cloak to his pure core. The Blackflame Enforcer technique burned his flesh and spirit for a contained explosion of madra, which resulted in a burst of power. What he learned was that pure madra was about as combustible as a snowbank. It felt like a still pond, only even less substantial. So, since he'd found no records of anyone on a pure Path, he started looking up water artists.

These were almost all scenes of battles or intense training, so none of them were designed to explain the principles behind the techniques the subjects were using. He had to extrapolate based on the feeling of the technique. His image of Ekeri helped as much as anything. He had a clear understanding of what her Enforcer technique looked like from the outside; when she had fought with it active, she had bent and flowed effortlessly, like a stream. Blackflame was furious, and he had to match that fury and give it an outlet in order to control it. Pure madra, like water, had to be slowly guided and gathered until it had enough momentum to become a raging river. Time fell away as Lindon focused on his madra, building it up and up to a rushing crescendo through his veins. When he thought it had reached its peak, he controlled it into a new pattern. He had spent days theorizing this technique, based on adapting pure madra according to the principles of the Burning Cloak. But this was the closest he'd gotten to a real test. Finally, something happened. Madra flooded through his body, giving him a sense of steady strength, and blue-white power flared in the air around him. His excitement soared along with it, until the madra dissipated a second later and his pure core returned to stillness. It had taken half of his Twin Stars madra to activate even that much, and it had only lasted a breath. He sighed and started stretching his legs—meditating on his madra so long was a good way to get cramps. Only then did he notice Ziel sitting across the aisle from him, on the floor, back leaning against another shelf of dream tablets. His eyes were closed, his head tilted back, and his green horns glimmering in the light of the tablets. "There's no one around to see," Ziel said. "You can take a break." Lindon looked down at his outstretched legs. "That's what I'm doing." Ziel opened his eyes as though his eyelids were heavy. He looked as though he hadn't slept in days. "You push yourself to the brink of collapse, then you drink your potion and you keep going. Almost two weeks now, and I've never seen you stop working." "This is a rare opportunity for me," Lindon said. "I'd hate to miss it." "You're killing yourself for nothing."

He didn't look any older than Lindon, but he spoke like he carried the burden of ages. "The prize is an illusion," he continued. "The mountain has no peak. You keep climbing and climbing until you fall off and break yourself at the bottom. Highgold is one step, Truegold is another step, but there's no end to it. You could walk forever, but every Path ends in a fall." His bloodshot eyes pierced Lindon, who shifted uncomfortably. "...two years ago, I started at the bottom," he said at last. He told Ziel about his life in Sacred Valley as briefly as possible, skipping over Suriel and making it sound like they had a dream artist who had caught a glimpse of the future. "Now, I have a chance I never had before. I would be a fool to waste even a second of it." Ziel watched the dream tablets shifting over Lindon's head. "Just make sure you have something else to keep you going. Sacred arts are not enough to live for." With that, he pushed himself to his feet and started shuffling down the row of shelves. When he reached the end, he turned and looked back to Lindon. "Keep up," he said. Lindon followed. Dirty cloak fluttering behind him, Ziel paced down the shelves until he found the tablet he wanted. The Script Lord, Archlord on the Path of Whispering Wind: the Creation of the Seven Principles. Ziel nodded to it. "For you." Lindon hesitated. "Gratitude, but I am not advanced enough to tolerate the memories of an Archlord." "Try it." He had not been swayed at all, so Lindon took a swig of water from the Dream Well. His thoughts sharpened, and he braced himself, inserting a thread of pure madra. He stroked his long, white beard, his body tender and aching in the chair. He would have to stand soon, but inspiration was upon him, his quill pen scratching feverishly on the scroll in front of him. For too long, the Foundation children had used the same cycling techniques. Now, he had applied his long years of experience to revising his

sect's Foundation theory, and he had found it an unexpectedly rich area of research. No one with any knowledge had ever reevaluated the principles of pure madra; why would they? No one advanced without harvesting aura. As a result, the children used inefficient techniques. Now, his principles would revolutionize how the sacred arts were taught to the least disciples. Lindon's eyes snapped open, his mind racing with thoughts. He fell to the floor in a cycling position, focusing on his pure core. He wished he had a book on the Seven Principles; the Archlord in the vision hadn't spelled out his thought processes for a stranger. Why would he? This was his own memory. There was much more to the vision that Lindon didn't have the insight to catch. But he understood enough. Even a brief glimpse into an Archlord's revision of pure madra cycling techniques gave him a better sense for the mechanics involved. That vague, intuitive feeling was invaluable. He tried running the technique again, this time modifying his cycling pattern based on the Archlord's thoughts. He had been trying to cycle pure madra like water, but it wasn't water madra. It simply felt more like it than like Blackflame. Pure madra was lighter, more delicate, more adaptable. But it still strengthened the body naturally. It was the foundation on which all other aspects of madra were layered. This time, he gathered up the momentum in minutes. Rather than a furious white-water froth, his madra now flowed smooth and steady. He began executing the new pattern, making alterations wherever it felt wrong; he would have to write down these insights later, but for now, he had to seize this moment of inspiration. When he opened his eyes, white-and-blue haze hung in the air around him, billowing like steam. Strength pooled in his body, steady and calm. He walked down the hall, marveling. He was just walking. When he activated the Burning Cloak, he had to suppress its power with every step, lest it launch him ten feet into the air. With this technique, the strength waited until needed. He punched the air, and his body moved like a dream. His every movement was smooth, easy, perfect, as though his brain had absolute control over even the tiniest change in balance.

It didn't have the explosive strength or speed of the Burning Cloak, that was certain. The technique dissipated in five or six breaths this time, and it guzzled his pure madra. But this was the first time he'd used it. He could do better. "What will you call it?" Ziel asked. He was seated nearby, hands on his knees, as though he'd been cycling himself. Lindon had given this some thought. "The Soul Cloak," he said. "I used to have poets name techniques in my honor," Ziel said distantly. "They would never have allowed such a plain name. Each character was a poem in itself. My bed was stuffed with phoenix feathers." "Your insight is appreciated," Lindon said, bowing over his salute. "This dream tablet was invaluable. I am overwhelmed with my own weakness; advanced sacred artists must have a thousand techniques." If Lindon could come up with a new technique in a few days, even with the help of a tablet library, an Underlord would surely have hundreds of techniques at their disposal. Ziel shook his head. "They develop a thousand ways to use the same seven or eight techniques. When you practice a technique, it becomes engraved in your spirit in the form of a binding. With use, it grows, until it is far stronger than any new technique you could learn." He flipped his palm up, and a ring of green runes bloomed over his hand. It flickered and fuzzed for a second before disappearing. "A Monarch might invent a new technique every five seconds," Ziel went on, clenching his now-empty hand into a fist. "They do not spread themselves so thin. A new technique would be a thousand times weaker than an ability they have spent centuries honing. For this reason, old Truegolds are often stronger than young Truegolds; their techniques are so practiced that they are faster, more flexible, more powerful...superior in every way." He rubbed his wrist as though pained. "However, young Truegolds are more respected. They have a better chance of advancing farther." Lindon bowed to him. "Thank you for your instruction." It was valuable information, but he was aching to withdraw his Twin Stars manual and take notes. Ziel waved a hand, dismissing him. "Time grows short. Advance your second core."

Chapter 13 Longhook staggered through the rain, limping on his twisted knee, cradling one ruined arm. He could only see through his left eye; his right had been all but blinded. His Blood Shadow coiled inside him, burned and twisted. He had fed it everything he could, but it would need days of uninterrupted treatment to recover. So would he. Since they had come into the Blackflame Empire, everything had gone wrong. To begin with, the Phoenix's awakening had caught them all by surprise. She wasn't expected to stir for years. When she rose, sending her compulsion through them all, they had scrambled to follow. Not only did their Blood Shadows prefer it when they listened to the Bleeding Phoenix, but following a Dreadgod was a simple pathway to power. The Shadow grew quickly in the Phoenix's light, and she left plenty of wreckage behind her. Redmoon Hall was largely made up of scavengers, feeding in the wake of a greater predator, but the idea had never hurt Longhook's pride. Sacred artists always pursued power. And this time, the Bleeding Phoenix had sought a prize. She pushed for something that filled her with hunger, a treasure she desired above all others. The Phoenix's longing had echoed inside her children, and they had rushed to fulfill her commands. Both for her, and for themselves; whatever was inside the Blackflame Empire's western labyrinth, Longhook wanted a piece of it. They had encountered resistance, but nothing serious. Not until Akura Malice took up arms against the Dreadgod. By then, Longhook and his fellow emissaries were at the gates of the labyrinth; they could taste success. When the Bleeding Phoenix fell apart, scattering her pieces across the land, it had ruined them.

Their army of bloodspawn had fallen apart. Their Blood Shadows weakened, and their great protector abandoned them. The Phoenix had returned to her slumber without warning, and then they were hundreds of miles deep into enemy territory. He had thought he was going to make it. These Underlords couldn't stand up to his Shadow. Then he'd faced that smiling Underlord. The streak of light had caught him out of nowhere, burning his flesh, practically crippling him. He still didn't remember how he'd landed. Now, days later, the same storm raged overhead. Their battle had unbalanced its aura, and it growled with unnatural fury, lightning flashing red and green. The rain sizzled against his skin, but his body had been reborn in soulfire. Something like this wouldn't faze him. But every bit of discomfort was adding up to a blinding haze of pain that covered his thoughts with every step. He focused his eye on the range of mountains in the distance. There was a pass there; it was normally guarded, but he and his fellow emissaries had destroyed its defenses when they came through the first time. He could slip out and make it to the Wasteland in only another day or two. Redmoon Hall had allies there. Their Sage of Red Faith was occupied, pursuing another project in the Trackless Sea, but they could find other protectors. It was their best chance. Assuming he wasn't the only survivor. He shook off that thought as he always had: by focusing on his destiny. His Path did not end here. The Hall had dream-readers, and they had singled him out years ago. Fate would reward him for his sacrifices, they told him. Even now, he did not doubt them. The sacred arts were all about sacrifices—the more you put in, in time or resources, the more you got out. And he had given up everything: his friends, his former sect, his children, even his name. He would continue walking this road he had paved for himself. And someday, the dream artists had promised him, he would become Redmoon Hall's second Sage. Longhook's weapon fell from his sleeve with a thud. He strengthened his grip on the chain again, dragging it behind him. The endless rain had

churned the dirt road to mud, so his hook dug a trench as he pulled it along. He didn't spare the effort to pull it back up. Squinting, he fixed his one eye on the mountain peaks in the distance. Soon, he would be out of this Empire for good. After he escaped and recovered, he could meet back up with the Sage and the other surviving emissaries. Then, they could figure out what had gone wrong. He couldn't extend his spiritual perception far without dropping his veil, so his Blood Shadow was the first to notice his enemies. It flinched and coiled up around his core, like a beaten dog flinching back from a raised fist. Longhook raised his weapon to defend himself from an attack from above, but it didn't come. He looked up at an emerald green Thousand-Mile Cloud floating a hundred feet up. He cycled the Path of Rolling Earth, funneling the strength of boulders through his arms and his weapon. He hadn't seen what happened to Gergen, but if all three Blackflame Underlords had survived, he would stand no chance even if he were at full power. He looked forward to seeing how he escaped this one. "Excuse me!" someone called from behind him, and Longhook spun instantly, whipping his hook-and-chain in an arc. Eithan Arelius leaned back, letting the hook pass in front of his nose. He held a blue umbrella of waxed fabric over his head, and even when he dodged Longhook's attack, he angled the umbrella so not a drop of rain fell on him. It was clear from his appearance that he'd never worked for his sacred arts. His blue robes were pristine, sewn with dragons in green thread wrapping up his sleeves and around the hem. His long, blond hair flowed smoothly down his back, and his smile was bright and unstained by worry. Longhook wished he'd killed the man the first time. "Slower than last time," Eithan noted. "Wounds catching up to you?" Longhook didn't respond, releasing the veil around his spirit, scanning his surroundings in an instant. As he'd expected, there were two more Underlords on the cloudship above him. But why hadn't they come down with Arelius? "I'd like you to know that it was a Highgold who operated the launcher construct that almost killed you. I reinforced it with my soulfire, of course,

but even so. Sometimes the simplest of tricks can bring down the largest game." "What do you want?" Longhook asked. It would be hard to hear him over the roar of the rain; the old injury to his throat had not even been repaired by his ascension to Underlord. Maybe one day, when he reached Archlord, he would be able to speak normally again. Eithan gestured upward with his umbrella. "They have agreed not to interfere. It was easy to get them to agree; I think they want to see me suffer." His smile brightened. "And you get to fight me in single combat! It's a win for all of us, isn't it?" "...why?" Longhook asked. No matter how he looked at this, it made no sense. This had to be another ambush. He had beaten Eithan Arelius in combat before without even unleashing his Blood Shadow. Now they had him at a three-to-one disadvantage, and they weren't using it. "On behalf of the Emperor of the Blackflame Empire, I charge you with the slaughter of innocents. He has judged you and found you guilty, and I am here to execute his will." For a man delivering a notice of execution, he sounded too cheerful. Especially for one who was so weak. "Why alone?" Longhook clarified. This was definitely a trap; there was no other explanation. Eithan cast his eyes up for a moment, then leaned in as though to share a secret with Longhook. "I want to show you something," he said. His umbrella snapped shut, and he rushed to close the gap with Longhook. The emissary had prepared for this since the instant the cloudship had appeared overhead. He pulled his chain back so he was holding the hook, driving its point up for Eithan's shoulder. The other Underlord slipped the point of his umbrella through one link of Longhook's chain. He pushed down with surprising strength, jerking Longhook's hand aside so his attack slipped through Eithan's hair. The Arelius Underlord seized the collar of Longhook's robe in one fist. Before he could respond, Eithan turned, heaving with all his strength. Longhook found himself hurtling through the rain. How had that happened?

He landed on his feet a hundred yards away, but his left knee screamed and buckled, leaving him standing on one leg. The rain matted his hair to his neck, and thunder cracked overhead. He stretched out his perception, searching for the Arelius. A finger tapped him on the shoulder. This time, his Blood Shadow unfolded from behind him, striking out with a copied Rolling Earth technique. A fist of blood madra, dense as a hammer, struck out from his back. Longhook turned to follow up, but saw only darkness and rain. Something hit him in the back, and he was flying through the air again. He landed with a new pain in his spine added to his collection. This time, he held nothing back. Rolling Earth madra flooded through him in the Mountain's Fist Enforcer technique. Power of force and stone gathered in his hands, and his Blood Shadow flew out into a rough red copy of him. It was still wounded and broken, but the Shadow could do its job for a short time. Certainly enough to take care of one pure madra Underlord from a backwoods country. Longhook hurled his hook with the power of the Mountain's Fist, strong enough to crack bones. His Blood Shadow mimicked him. Eithan arrived, holding his folded umbrella to one side like a sword, and the two Enforced hooks crashed into him. The Blood Shadow's red hook burst apart into madra as it hit; Eithan had dispersed it. But his own hook landed on Eithan's arm. It should have crushed the man's bone and caved in his ribs, but the Arelius just grunted and shoved away the hook. He winced, rolling the arm. "That's going to bruise," he said, looking back to the sky. "Now, I think we have a moment. In this storm, they won't be able to sense us clearly. And it will take them a minute or two to catch up." The rain had already soaked through Eithan's hair and robes, but he didn't seem to mind, giving his umbrella a few test swings. The Arelius gave a sigh of relief. "At last, I don't have an audience." Longhook hurled his Striker technique: the Meteor Breath. A comet of earth and force madra flew out from his fist, a rolling yellow ball of pure power. His Blood Shadow echoed him with a red copy of the same technique. In the brief instant before the madra hit him, Eithan leaned forward on the balls of his feet, his left hand coming up to the side. Madra flooded out

of him, bending the air so it looked like he was covered in a transparent bubble. It wouldn't work. He couldn't stop Longhook's technique with a shield of pure madra. He wasn't strong enough; Longhook's power would crumple his defense like a hammer hitting rotten wood. The Meteor Breath hit the edge of Eithan's shield...and was caught like a leaf in a whirlpool. The madra was spinning. Eithan seized the Meteor Breath with his madra, whirling it around and around his body like he stood in the eye of a hurricane. Then he released his grip, sending the Meteor Breath hurtling back at Longhook. Longhook met his own technique with an overhand strike fueled by the Mountain's Fist, punching the ball of yellow madra. It exploded against his fist; he felt like he had struck a plate of lead, and shards of his own broken madra pelted his face and arms like debris. When his sight cleared, the Blood Shadow's copied technique was hurtling at him too. This one hurt worse, breaking the skin on his knuckles and sending blood spraying into the air. Its power sank into his arm, striking his bones like a gong. Blood madra affected living bodies directly, so the Blood Shadow's copy of the Meteor Breath caused him much more pain than his own had. His breathing turned ragged, but he tapped the last of his soulfire, pouring it into his Enforcer technique. The strength of soulfire soaked into him, empowering his limb and his weapon. Eithan was Forging stars of pure madra in the air. They sparkled in the flash of lightning like birds of glass, but Longhook swung his hook through them, crushing the Forger technique before it was born. Arelius batted the hook away with his umbrella, but the Blood Shadow had reached him from behind. Its arm morphed into a hook, and it was filled with its own version of the Mountain's Fist. It slammed its hand into Eithan's back. The Blood Shadow's hand shattered like a hammer made of ice striking rock. The Shadow screamed, its agony flowing into Longhook's soul. Eithan stood untouched.

This time, Longhook could feel what Eithan had done. He'd projected a layer of pure madra armor, dense enough to stand against the Blood Shadow. It would do him no good against a sword, but against any spiritual attack, it would be a solid defense. But Longhook could hardly bring himself to believe it. Eithan would need to flood such a technique with madra. It was one of the biggest wastes of power he could imagine; no one would be able to maintain a defense like that for longer than a few seconds. When that armor fell, Longhook would have his last chance. His Blood Shadow was weak, falling apart. It would help him no further in this battle. He had one wisp of soulfire remaining, to empower one last attack. The cloudship—now a few hundred yards behind and above them— was starting to move. And Eithan stood in the rain, umbrella in one hand and a grin on his face. Longhook reached deep into himself, seizing the Blood Shadow with his will. It struggled, sensing what was coming. He had sworn he would never do this. It would set his growth back by years, especially after the damage the Shadow had sustained. It might never recover to its current level. But he needed an edge. Flexing his spirit, Longhook devoured his Blood Shadow. The red spirit let out a silent scream that cut into Longhook's soul, and from its position behind Eithan, it began to dissolve into sparkling particles of red essence. As though caught in a swift breeze, the blood essence gusted toward Longhook. The power flooded into him, supplementing his madra, knitting his wounded body back together. Blood madra stitched the muscle and bone in his broken arm, accelerating his healing. He stood tall, full of power, eyes flashing red. There was a gap in his spirit where once his Blood Shadow had rested, but for now, he was fueled by its power. His core was stained red, and it burned hot. Eithan watched, an infuriating smile still on his face. Longhook had been prepared for his interference, but he hadn't moved an inch. That would be his last mistake. Longhook lifted one foot, gathering up a Ruler technique and cycling it down. He stomped onto the ground, splashing mud onto his ankle and

delivering the pulse of madra into the ground. Golden earth aura flared beneath him, responding to his call. Fingers of stone rose from the earth, each the size of a man's torso. They closed around Eithan, grasping at him. He twisted to avoid each one, leaping and turning as new pillars of rock broke the mud and tried to grab him around the waist. Longhook felt the armor around Eithan fade away as the Arelius shifted his focus. Now, the Redmoon Underlord seized his chance. Holding his two palms a few inches apart, he crafted one final Meteor Breath. It gathered, a chunk of yellow earth madra tinted with the red of blood, and he poured the last wisp of his soulfire into it. The colorless flame soaked in, empowering it, and the technique became brighter and more solid, almost as dense as a Forger technique but raging with power. The rest of his madra, and the residue of his broken Blood Shadow, all of it went into this technique. The ball of power shone red and gold, brightening the shadows of the stormy night. It radiated such force that the mud and rain flew away from him. A Lowgold might have been struck dead with the spiritual pressure alone. Eithan jumped, avoiding Longhook's ongoing Ruler technique. The pillar of stone brushed the edge of his robe, but failed to find purchase, and now the Arelius was in midair. With the last remaining vestige of his spiritual strength, Longhook launched the Meteor Breath. It streaked through the night, trailing red-and-gold light, bright as dawn. It moved like a bolt of lightning, the force of its passage tearing a line in the ground beneath. With the technique only inches away, Eithan extended a hand. Longhook saw what happened as clearly as a painting. Pale gray soulfire swirled in Eithan's palm for an instant, vanishing as it soaked into a technique. Pure madra gathered, condensed and empowered by soulfire so that it shone blue-white. It drew to a point in front of Eithan's hand, then fired out in a finger-thick line. The bar of pure madra pierced his Meteor Breath, punching through without resistance. Longhook's technique burst like a bubble, exploding in a devastating wave of force that knocked Eithan off-balance and tore a crater in the earth.

But it hadn't hit. Eithan spun once in the air, but landed on his feet, umbrella braced on his shoulder. At first, Longhook thought the shooting pain in his spirit was a side effect of exhaustion. It was only by chance that he glanced down to see the line of pure madra spearing him straight through the center. It did nothing to his body, but his core shattered. A cold pain started sharp and only got worse, spreading through his spirit. His Ruler technique faltered and failed, stone fingers crumbling to the ground. He tried to cycle his madra, but nothing happened. He might as well have tried to catch a handful of air. Eithan's umbrella caught him beneath the chin, and his vision faded. A moment later, he was lying on his back in the mud, staring into the rain. Eithan Arelius looked down on him, umbrella unfolded and held over his shoulder. Power erupted from Eithan, rising like a pillar into the sky. He was gathering up a technique of such magnitude that it could shake the ground for miles around, though outwardly he was doing nothing but standing still. How could one man have so much madra? Longhook turned his good eye to Arelius. "My fate...does not...end here..." Eithan's smile softened. "Everything ends." The power rising from him tapered off, leaving a mass of pure madra hovering in the sky far over Eithan's head. He looked down on Longhook and pointed. The pure madra in the sky, vast as one of the stormclouds, gathered together into a single point. It was so dense it looked blue-white instead of colorless, like a newborn star. Longhook stared into it for a moment, enjoying its beauty. Then he closed his eye. Like a heavenly sword of judgment, the madra stabbed down into him, obliterating his spirit. And he knew no more. ~~~ Highgold-level dragons were just big lizards. In the days she and Mercy spent running from dragons through the woods, Yerin never saw them

breathe fire or use any flame arts at all. She only saw them use three weapons: their claws, their fangs, and their tails. "What is burning them up?" Yerin said for the thousandth time, as they crammed themselves into a tiny gully and drew a scripted blanket over themselves. The script only dispersed spiritual senses, so it worked on top of the veils in their spirits to keep them hidden. The blanket was starting to tear around the runes; the script had put too much of a burden on it. It would last a few more hours, if they were lucky, before the force of the activated script tore the fabric apart. One of the dragons, a gold-scaled lizard the size of a horse stopped nearby. Its head was barely visible in the crack of open air they could see. These weak dragons didn't look anything like the huge sky-crawling serpents her master had mentioned, but she supposed they changed as they advanced even more than sacred artists did. It sniffed, eyes flaring with light. It started snuffling around the forest floor like a hunting dog, looking for them. Some sacred beasts were no smarter than normal animals, but dragons were different. This one would be able to speak and use the arts of any Highgold sacred artist. But it was hard to remember that as it snarled and hunted by scent. Yerin braced herself, reaching for her sword. It almost took her by surprise when she realized she wanted the dragon to find them. If it did, there would be no more hiding. No more running. They weren't running from this thing anyway. They were running from its big sister; the Lord-stage dragon they'd felt coming after them. The barrier of cloud had faded days ago, and they had tried to make their way closer to the beach. But every time they did, dragons tracked them down in the time it took to boil a pot of tea. Yerin was about ready to throw the dice and dash for victory. She wasn't built for hiding and creeping. Her Blood Shadow agreed. While she was holding herself back, her Shadow slipped out of her back. It actually looked like a red-tinted shadow this time, sliding along the ground and closer to the dragon. If the sacred beast didn't notice, it was going to spring out of the ground and get the first strike. Yerin grabbed it.

A chill of terror passed through her as she caught it. Not because it had almost alerted the dragon; a large part of her welcomed that. It had almost escaped on its own. When else would it decide to do that? When she was with friends? When she was asleep? She hauled back on it with one hand and the full force of her will. Just touching it made her feel degraded, like she'd lost somehow, but she dragged it back. When she wrestled it back into her spirit, it boiled around outside her core, lashing at her from the inside. She sat there panting as the dragon moved a little farther away. That had been too close. Too close to her losing control. It tempered her will to steel: she needed to be stronger. Stronger without this thing. From beneath the scripted blanket, Mercy looked at her with concern. "Are you feeling alright?" she whispered. Yerin threw the blanket off and stretched all four arms. It felt good to stand up again. The gold dragon stared at her. She took a deep breath, feeling madra cycling freely within her spirit. Veils were a necessary sacred art, but they felt like tying yourself in a sack. Yerin hopped out of the tiny hole in the ground where they'd hidden. Mercy stared up at her from inside, eyes wide. Still stretching her arms, Yerin used one of her Goldsigns to beckon the dragon. "All right, you ready?" The dragon glanced from side to side, ready for a trap. But after a moment, heat flared in its eyes again, and it roared. Yerin put a hand on her master's sword and concentrated on the aura. She needed power that didn't lean on the Blood Shadow. Power that was hers alone. And she'd always learned better when she was pushed to the brink of a cliff. The dragon rushed at her, sword-aura gathering around its claws as it swept them in a powerful strike. The sound of a bell echoed through the air as she activated the Endless Sword. The sword-aura around his claws exploded, causing shallow white slashes to appear on his scales all over his body. His strike wasn't slowed at