“Little Blue?” he asked.
“Can’t keep calling her the Riverseed. She’s got a face.”
Lindon lifted his eyes as though trying to see the Sylvan sitting on top of his head. “Ah, you’re right. We should name her.”
Yerin rolled up her sleeve and held out a wrist. “Call her what you want, but get her to hop on over here.”
It took Lindon almost a minute to coax the Riverseed onto Yerin, and she scurried off as soon as her job was done. Once again, even a spark of her power was enough to scrub Yerin’s spirit clean of the Blackflame aura buildup. On top of that, her spirit was peaceful and refreshed, like she hadn’t fought in days. Yerin couldn’t feel a particular aspect to the madra, but it was calm and soothing.
If only Little Blue didn’t hate her so much. Maybe it wasn’t her; maybe Sylvans could smell the unwelcome guest inside her.
Yerin adjusted her blood-red belt. Would only make sense, if spirits didn’t like that. Meant Little Blue had good taste, more than anything.
That was an answer she could live with.
Cassias vaulted out of his chair and over the table, landing in front of the wooden console. The script in the window flared with the touch of his spirit, showing him a heaven-down view of Lindon and Yerin fighting their way through half-formed soldiers. The smoky gray crystal in Lindon’s hand pulsed red, and they’d made it further into the course than they had in the morning: most of the soldiers still hadn’t formed, including the giant guardian in front of the exit.
It was only a half-hearted scan of his spirit that had let Cassias know the course was active. Yerin and Lindon had never attempted two runs of the Trial in the same day, and the ancient training course simply wasn’t designed for it. Its power was already running dangerously low, and there were clear consequences: the soldiers were forming much more slowly, and their combat power was weaker. Lindon smashed through one in a single punch, moving into the latter half of the pillars.
If Cassias had been any slower to notice, they would have torn through the unsupervised and weakened Trial, and they might have passed before Cassias realized anything was wrong.
Well, not any longer.
Cassias poured his madra into the correct scripts, the interlocking circles carrying his power down and into the Trial itself. His core, usually shining silver with the light of sword madra, dimmed—transferring his power down through so many scripts was terribly inefficient. He would save more power by hopping down there and fighting them both in person, two against one.
But he couldn’t let it be said that Naru Cassias Arelius picked on the weak.
His power flooded into the projections, making the soldiers form faster, Enforcing their weapons. He strained his spirit.
Slowly, Lindon and Yerin’s advance ground to a halt.
Lindon turned in midair, kicking off a pillar and launching himself higher. An archer clung to the stone fifteen feet up to snipe at him from above; he grabbed it by the throat and dragged it down to the ground, slamming it into the earth, ignoring the silver arrow that had pierced all the way through his thigh. Blood ran down his leg, costing him a bolt of pain with every step, but the burn of the Blackflame madra and the rush of his Bloodforged body let him ignore it.
The columns thinned, revealing the red arch of the exit.
Three soldiers stood between him and the gateway, spreading out and keeping their sabers level—they were getting smart now, moving to encircle him, to keep him trapped. They knew where he was going.
Or they thought they did.
The fury of Blackflame filled Lindon. He tore the arrow from his leg, hurling it at the nearest warrior, who knocked it out of the air with a gray shield.
But it cost the soldier a moment of its attention. Lindon had dashed after the Forged weapon, projecting a pulse of Blackflame madra into the soldier’s midsection. It blew apart like an over-inflated bladder.
The next one closed the distance to swat the crystal from his hand with its sword, but Lindon seized a dissolving blade from the broken enemy, snatching the blade from midair and using it to knock aside the other weapon's attack.
Then he gripped the sword and drove it through the soldier with sheer force, pinning it to the ground.
The third and final enemy dropped its sword and shield for a spear, which it could use to keep him at a distance and poke holes in him until he ran out of madra. If he let it get that far.
Flaring the Burning Cloak, he leaped. His legs screamed at the strain, but the ground beneath him exploded.
At the top of his jump, he twisted to grab the soldier’s head with one hand, and his momentum continued carrying him forward. The Forged warrior smashed into a stone column, bursting with the force, dissolving in his hand.
Lindon shouted with the exhilaration of the moment, landing on both feet. Soldiers collected themselves in chunks of gray madra, and he ground his teeth, ready to tear them apart.
The dragon advances.
He could see the exit, and his Blackflame madra was ready to push him forward still, Orthos’ core pulsing with the eagerness of a predator before the kill.
But the huge stone giant with the spiked helmet still stood in front of him, a trident in each hand.
Yerin stumbled up next to Lindon, scratched and bloody, panting in the even rhythm of a cycling technique, pale sword clutched in her hand.
He looked at her and they both nodded, turning to face the giant together.
Then Lindon let the crystal ball fall to the ground, and the test ended.
“Looked a lot shabbier that time, that’s a truth,” Yerin said, resting drawn blade on her shoulder.
Lindon’s Blackflame core was down to one smoldering red-and-black ember. “I think I can manage one more.”
“Third try,” Yerin said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 15
Panting, Cassias fell back against the wicker chair. He'd exhausted his madra so quickly that his soul felt numb, and his limbs trembled.
Four months. The Enforcer Trial was only supposed to take a few weeks, but considering the circumstances, Cassias would find it hard to say they’d failed.
Even after the fall of the Blackflame family, the Naru used this course to train their disciples. But they only ever trained teams.
This Trial had been built to test a single disciple on the Path of Black Flame, fighting with four of their closest protectors. None of the participants would be higher than Lowgold, but the five would have been trained to cooperate since childhood.
The bodyguards would fight as a unit to keep the soldiers away so that the Blackflame could concentrate on holding their Enforcer technique—what Lindon and Yerin called the Burning Cloak—for the duration of the course.
In this Trial, the Blackflame was never supposed to fight. It was a test of teamwork and spiritual endurance.
No one had ever thought to make it a rule that you couldn’t challenge the Enforcer Trial twice in one day. Theoretically, it was impossible: the Burning Cloak put too much of a strain on the body to maintain for long, and even the Blackflame family had to cleanse their madra channels after an attempt. When you added in the injuries that a team would inevitably collect during a run of the course, it was a rare five-man squad that could complete a Trial run once a day.
‘The dragon advances’ was the advice for anyone attempting the Triaclass="underline" they had to act so that the dragon, the Blackflame sacred artist, continually advanced. If they slowed, they would inevitably get bogged down in combat and lose control of the Burning Cloak.