“We don’t…have to…go,” she said, each breath drawn with difficulty.
He couldn’t move her without her cooperation, so he folded his arms. “I’ve already jumped off the cliff. Six Lowgolds and an elder came to the camp looking for me last night, and none of them left.”
She didn’t need to know that they’d been looking for him because he’d been killing Jai clansmen in their homes. There were no civilians in the Five Factions Alliance; everyone who had come to the Transcendent Ruins had done so to try and pull profit from the jaws of danger. Those were sacred artists and warriors that he’d killed.
Though most of them hadn’t died like it.
But he didn’t need to tell his sister exactly how dirty his hands were. That didn’t matter; she was staying out of it.
“We could…go west,” she suggested hopefully.
He started to tell her no, but hesitated. She was referring to a legend. In the mountains to the west of the Desolate Wilds, there was supposed to be a hidden valley that occasionally emerged to trade with the outside. The inhabitants were weak, but protected by a curse.
Jai Chen had been obsessed with the legend since she was a girl. It seemed ideal to her: a hidden safe place.
In his experience, there were no safe places. He immediately wondered what terrible dangers lurked in the valley no one entered.
But even if the valley didn’t exist, the mountains were at the very western edge of the Blackflame Empire, and no one had actively controlled that border for fifty years. It was so remote that even maps drawn in his father’s day hadn’t bothered to include it.
The lands west of the Wilds were unknown to him, but they certainly wouldn’t have a Jai clan.
“We can hurt the clan if we go east,” he said. “We can take revenge for Kral. Do you really want to go west instead?”
The day before, he wouldn’t have asked her such a question. He wasn’t as sure of his course as he had been yesterday.
He had burned to avenge himself on the Jai clan for years, but now that he had the means, he was starting to realize what a monumental task he’d begun. To abandon it now, before he’d gone too far, had a certain appeal.
If they left, this would end as one minor attack on a branch of the clan. No one would look into it too closely, and in five years, no one would remember he or his sister were ever here.
Jai Chen surveyed the floor, clenching her hands together as she thought. Finally, she straightened her back and spoke with resolve.
“I will…go with you. No…running…away.”
He gave her a wry smile, though she couldn’t see it. “It will take weeks to get there, and we don’t have a cloudship this time. It will be painful, and messy, and you’ll hate every inch of the journey.”
“If you…hear me…complain,” she said, “leave me…behind.”
Once she was packed, he carried her outside, where Gokren had a motley collection of flying creatures assembled. Thousand-Mile Clouds, collared Remnants, strange constructs that looked like wide broomsticks, a sacred eagle with feathers like dawn, a hovering leaf wider than a man, a huge levitating cauldron, and two dozen gray-white bats.
Some of the sacred bats had been taken from the Jai clan, but the Sandvipers had a colony of the same breed of bat, and two of their trainers used to work for the Jai clan.
Gokren was supervising the collection of mounts and vehicles. He turned, smoothed back his gray hair with one hand, and eyed Jai Chen. After a moment he gestured to a white Thousand-Mile Cloud.
“Load her up,” he said, looking up to Jai Long. “We’ll get a canopy rigged to hold off the wind and give her some privacy.”
Jai Long bowed his thanks and settled his sister onto the cloud.
By the time he’d finished, the sun was setting, and most of the vehicles had gathered a load of packs and bags. Gokren lit his pipe, holding it between his teeth as he pressed the end of a scripted lighter into the bowl.
“You could fly me there and return,” Jai Long said, hating himself with every word. He needed their help; he shouldn’t be turning them down. “You don’t have to risk their lives for my revenge.”
Gokren let out a mouthful of smoke. “I’m not an idiot, son.” He paused as though he’d said something profound, letting bluish haze drift skyward. “I don’t throw my sect away for nothing.”
He took another breath, let it out. “Old powers like the Jai clan are as traditional as they come. After you hit them, they’ll send a Highgold after you. When you beat him, it’ll be a group of Highgolds next. Then whichever Truegold ranks the lowest, and only then will the elders start to move.”
If it weren’t for the Ancestor’s Spear, that plan would eventually work. The clan could afford to slowly drown him in sacred artists.
With the spear, he would feed on whoever they sent. To him, every Jai clan enemy was a treasure chest of scales and elixirs.
“I won’t reach Underlord that way,” Jai Long said, though Gokren knew that better than he did. If advancing from Gold to the Lord realm was simply a matter of stockpiling power, no one would ever be stuck at Truegold.
“That’s true enough, but I think I can get you there.” Gokren watched the best of his sect saddling their mounts and preparing to leave their home. “Took me forty years to reach Truegold. I’ll never be an Underlord, not in my lifetime…but I understand some things. By the time Jai Daishou moves himself, you’ll either be Underlord or the next thing to it.”
That was Jai Long’s plan, though he had expected it to take years. He had meant to wage a long, secret war against the clan, stealing their madra and slowly advancing. Once he could face Jai Daishou as a fellow Underlord, the game would change.
With Gokren’s help, his chances improved dramatically, and his timeline shot up. He might reach the peak of Truegold before the end of the year.
“It’s still a roll of the dice for you,” Jai Long pointed out. He had to be honest with anyone willing to risk their life for him.
Gokren removed his pipe, gazing into the bowl as though it would tell him the future. “I might be gambling,” he said, “but I’d say I’m backing the favorite.”
On the fourth day after they left, Sky's Mercy had to duck down to the ground to let the constructs recharge. The house landed in an open field, the blue cloud slowly dying away until both Sky’s Mercy and the training barn had settled safely onto the grass.
The barn creaked and moaned as it came to a rest, but the main house remained solid and silent. Lindon was glad he’d taken Cassias’ advice and stayed out of the barn during the landing process, or he would have feared for his life.
The second they landed, everyone left the cloudship and returned to the wonderful embrace of solid ground.
Eithan allowed Gesha and Lindon to look at the scripts and constructs sustaining the giant Thousand-Mile Cloud. It was intriguingly simple. Only one circle on the bottom of the main house to guide levitation, and four pillars—one at each corner—to produce and control the cloud madra. The controls were more complicated than the actual mechanism for flight.
But the madra involved...
Both of Lindon’s cores added together would only add up to a normal Iron sacred artist, but compared to his old self, he was a powerhouse. Even so, he couldn’t activate any of the scripts involved if he drained all the madra in his body.
The house drew vital aura from the sky to keep itself powered, but it could only drain so much while in flight. Cassias activated the collection script, and ribbons of white and green aura—visible only in Lindon’s Copper sight—streamed into the four pillars of the house. The only script Lindon had ever seen consume more power was the one that had activated the Transcendent Ruins.