He nodded to Yerin. “First, I'd like you to take turns on the training course. Yerin, you will try to beat your previous time...”
She rose from her seat, ready to try immediately.
“...using only your Goldsign.”
The bladed metal arm hanging over her shoulder twitched. She turned to stare at him in disbelief. “I'd have a better chance of clearing it with my bright smile and winning personality.”
Eithan turned to Lindon. “And Lindon—”
“Oy. Hey. Don't ignore me.”
“I at least expect you to clear all eighteen dummies after a month. Don't worry about your time, for now. While you’re working on that, you can bring your second core up to Iron, and brush up on your Soulsmithing. Fisher?”
Gesha leaned back inside, shutting the window with one hand and dabbing at her mouth with a cloth in the other. When she spoke, her voice had an extra rasp. “You should be able to identify all the properties of the seven basic aspects of Forged madra, as well as their combinations. I have the books with me.”
Yerin slapped the flat edge of her bladed Goldsign against the wooden bar. “You want me to fight with this thing? Why don't I just tie a knife to the end of a string and use that?”
Eithan studied her over the rim of his bowl. “You think, perhaps, that I don't know what it takes to reach Highgold?”
“No, that's not...” Yerin’s ears started turning red. “I'm the last one who would...”
“You think you know better than I do which exercises will allow you to integrate your Remnant's skills and abilities into your own? If your master left you a more complete training regimen for you to follow after Lowgold, then by all means use that.”
Yerin's ears had turned bright red. “I didn't aim to say that, Underlord.”
“Hmm.” He smiled. “You're young, and I'm unaccustomed to explaining myself. I'll try to be clearer in the future, but do as I tell you.”
She kept her eyes on the floor, tilted away from Lindon, but she nodded. “It's not so far apart from what my master used to have me do.”
“The only difference,” Eithan said, “is that you trusted him. Trust comes with time. And during that time, you will clear that course with your Goldsign or I’ll tie you to a string and drag you behind the house like a kite.”
She straightened and marched for the door.
Lindon started to follow her, but Eithan stopped him. “Before you do your morning cycling, take...” –he reached behind the bar with one hand, balancing his bowl in the other, and rummaged around in a drawer— “Aha! Take this.” Eithan tossed Lindon a pill the size of his knuckle. It was smooth, with swirls of blue and white mingled together. “Behold, the Four Corners Rotation Pill.”
Yerin stopped with her hand on the door.
“It's a pill to make your madra easier to cycle, and it should help you raise your second core to Iron fairly quickly.”
Lindon itched to write the name of the pill down in his notes. He had to record every step of his advancement in The Path of Twin Stars manual. Which brought him a moment of panic, as he realized he didn’t have his pack with him.
He let out a breath of relief as he spotted his pack—with the manual inside—leaning up against the wall. A polished wood-and-jade chest leaked wisps of red from the closed lid, so he assumed his Thousand-Mile Cloud was inside.
“Use the pill together with your parasite ring,” Eithan said, pouring himself another drink. “The effects should complement one another, so that it feels like cycling normally, but you'll see twice the benefit. By the time we land, I hope to be able to take you straight to Jade.”
Lindon cradled the pill in both hands as though it was his key into the heavens. It smelled like honey and rainy days, and the only thing stopping Lindon from popping it into his mouth was his desire not to waste a single second of its effect.
Yerin had already turned from the door to look at Eithan. “How far did that lighten your wallet, would you say?”
Eithan shrugged, but Cassias called back, “About five thousand scales, the way they measure them out here.”
Fisher Gesha's eyes bulged.
“Well, that's a gem and a half,” Yerin said. “You got one for me?”
Eithan waved that away. “It's just a fundamental training pill. Lindon will be taking one of these every day, but I have some more interesting supplements for you. Right now, your best advancement material is your master's Remnant.”
Yerin grimaced, but accepted it. She would have preferred a pill of her own, Lindon knew, but at least Eithan’s reasons were good ones.
Lindon could barely pry his eyes away from the Four Corners Rotation Pill. This was worth more than every year's end gift he'd ever gotten from his parents, and he was supposed to take one every day. Eithan was like an endless treasure box.
Cassias stepped away from his controls, walking out of the glass room and toward the Underlord. “I would urge you to remember what happened when you took over the training of our family Coppers.”
“Oh, that's nothing to worry about.”
Cassias turned to Lindon. “I personally rescued a girl who ran from his training into a place called the Thousand Beast Forest. She survived by hiding from two-headed bears. I found her crouched in a cave, dirty and bleeding, but she begged me to leave her rather than take her back to train.”
Lindon moved his gaze from the pill to Eithan and back. “That does seem…harsh. Perhaps she may have been pushed a little too hard, don’t you think?”
“Don’t worry, I don’t train my students like that anymore,” Eithan said, holding up a bottle to the light. “I was far too lenient before. After weeks of my training, that girl should have been fighting those bears. With her fists.”
Yerin shrugged and opened the door. The wind grabbed the tattered edges of her outer robe, making them trail behind her like smoke. Her red rope-belt, tied in a broad bow behind her, was untouched by the wind.
“If you don't feel like you're going to die when you're training, then you're doing it wrong,” she said, and stepped outside.
Cassias nodded to her back as though acknowledging the point, Eithan laughed, and Fisher Gesha gave an approving grunt.
Lindon swallowed his own misgivings, pushing aside the sinking feeling in his stomach. This was the attitude of the strong. He had to focus on that, and not on what he imagined Eithan’s training had done to the poor Copper girl.
Popping the blue-and-white pill in his mouth, he followed Yerin.
Chapter 6
Jai Long entered his sister’s cabin to find her struggling into a set of sacred artist’s robes. She pushed her arm through one sleeve, trembling with effort, and cinched her robe with both hands as though the cloth belt was made of heavy chain.
She dipped her head when she saw him, though she had to grip her wardrobe to stand upright again.
He tried to sound cold, but instead his voice came out with a sigh. “What are you doing?”
“Going…with you.” She spoke as firmly as she could, but she was looking at the ground, unable to meet his eyes.
Even before the accident, she’d always been shy. And stubborn at inconvenient times.
“I have four Sandvipers staying behind to take care of you,” Jai Long said, gently taking her by the shoulder to lead her back to bed. “You’ll have to stay with the Purelake School for a while, in case anyone from the clan comes looking for you.”
She remained standing, and he was afraid to put too much pressure on her shoulder. Jai Chen glanced up at him like a guilty puppy.