Yerin marched over and snatched her master’s weapon from the dirt as Orthos squirmed to right himself. Her bloody fingernails sent sharp pain up her arms, but nothing she couldn’t ignore. “If you were making this mistake alone, I’d let you. But you’re not.” She leaped over the turtle, landing next to its head, and raised her blade. Her madra flowed into it, gathering along its edge, gathering aura.
The target’s black-and-red eyes rolled in their sockets, searching. Not furious any longer.
Lost.
They stared at her as though begging for an answer. A low groan rumbled in the turtle’s throat.
“Do…what…you…must…” the sacred beast said, in a voice both ancient and heavy.
Yerin paused with her white blade against the black, leathery throat. Everything in her told her to split the turtle’s neck.
She sheathed her sword and jogged back to Lindon. He started running for his pack, and she joined him.
“Not even an enemy, really, is he?” she muttered, as they ran side by side.
“I’ve never thought so, no.”
“The Path makes him crazy?”
“His mind can’t compete with the feelings in his spirit.” He gave a sheepish smile. “That’s the impression I get.”
“Well, if it happens to you, I will cut your head off.”
The Sword Sage taught her not to show mercy to her enemies, but he also taught her to act in a way she wouldn’t regret. Well, if his bloodthirsty Remnant and her blood madra parasite agreed on something, she could bet she’d regret it sooner or later.
They spent more than a minute chasing Little Blue around the cave and scooping her back into the tank. Otherwise, packing up was easy as a breath; Lindon kept his stuff so organized it would make a librarian jealous, and Yerin didn’t have anything. Everything she owned, she kept on her body.
They returned to the Ruler Trial, Lindon cupping a quivering Sylvan in his hands. He was certain the Riverseed’s power could calm Orthos’ spirit, but Yerin kept a grip on her sword.
She didn’t want to kill someone she’d just spared, but Lindon could be too trusting.
When they returned and found Orthos gone, he tucked the Sylvan away as though he’d expected as much, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Nothing left for us here,” she said, grabbing him by a shoulder and dragging him toward the exit. When he didn’t move fast enough to suit her, she pulled him into a run.
“I doubt we can clear the Ruler Trial now,” Lindon said as they ran, looking like a turtle himself with the pack bouncing on his back.
“I’m feeling a little doubt myself,” Yerin said, voice dry. A chunk of the ninety-nine dummies had been ravaged by the aftermath of their battle, either destroyed by Blackflame or shredded by the Endless Sword. Good thing for them that the course hadn’t activated, or the mannequins might have joined in.
“You think Eithan will understand us leaving early?” He sounded anxious.
Yerin was still picking up flares of chaos from the city. They’d been driven out of the Trials by a wild sacred beast while Serpent’s Grave was breaking into a war zone. Eithan was cracked in the head if he expected them to stay where they were.
The exit arch was black, not red, but its script flared at the touch of Lindon’s Blackflame madra. It took him visible effort to activate the circle, and his core felt like the spark at the end of a fizzling incense stick.
Not that she was in much better shape herself. Madra sloshed in her core like the last drops at the bottom of a bottle, and her fingers throbbed like she’d run over her hands with a wagon.
They emerged onto a cliff overlooking Serpent’s Grave. A path cut into the rock sloped steadily downward.
But they both froze at what they saw. And what they felt.
As she’d expected, war had come to the city.
Streaks of deadly white light tore through homes. The dragon bone held up, but even at this distance, they could see holes in everything else: wood, plaster, and paint showed smoking gaps where they’d been torn apart by the sacred arts.
Gouts of stone, blasts of wind, and flares of color marked sacred artists fighting all through the streets. The ceaseless ringing of bells reached them even up on the cliff, along with the occasional drifting scream. Smoke hung over everything, and the vital aura of blood, fire, and destruction spread through the city like red and black ink seeping into a painting. Here and there, Remnants crawled over and through buildings.
Lindon looked horrified, clutching the jade badge hanging from his neck as though for comfort. Yerin loosened her own grip on her sword, because she was squeezing blood from her fingertips.
“Eithan’s not in the city,” she said.
“How can you be sure?”
“This wouldn’t be happening. There’d be heaps of dead Jai clansmen piled up all over the city.”
“We can go back through the Trials,” Lindon said, voice low and determined. “Circle around. We’ll come out in the back of Arelius territory. Eithan or Cassias will find us first, we can be sure of that.”
Yerin patted her pockets, making sure she still had a flask of water, a wrapped packet of dry food, her knife, and the gold badge her master had left her. Those, her robes, and her sword were the only belongings she needed.
“We should get started for the capital,” she said. “Never been to Blackflame City, but I’ve been everywhere else, and a couple of sacred artists with no name, no clan, and decent Paths can find work anywhere.”
“Eithan wouldn’t be too happy about that, I’m sure,” Lindon said carefully.
That was something to chew on. If anyone could track them down in the mass of a big city, Eithan could.
“That’s sharp thinking, but he couldn’t blame us for striking out on our own after…this.” She swept her arm to encompass the ruined city. “Somebody wants to fight with me and mine, you know I’ll draw swords. But the Arelius family hasn’t given us so much that I’d want to die on their account. Nobody there would shed a tear if they saw my Remnant.”
For most of her life, the only one who would remember her at all would have been her master. Now…Lindon would cry for her when she was gone. He’d remember her name.
Even more reason not to go down there.
“We should go back to the Trials,” Lindon said at last, though he didn’t sound too happy about it.
“Big turtle’s somewhere back there,” she pointed out. “If it goes crazy on us again, we’re—”
Her spirit warned her, and she shoved Lindon back against the rocks.
Two sacred artists landed in front of her, their backs to the cliff, but there were more up above who hadn’t shown themselves. One was a man about her height, packed tight like a coiled spring, draped in black fur. His gray hair was slicked back with grease, a pair of spear butts poked up over his shoulders, and he glared at Lindon in a way that reminded her of a snake baring fangs.
Next to him, a head taller and wrapped in red, stood Jai Long. Last time she’d seen him, his spirit felt deadly but contained, like a sheathed sword. Now the sheath had been removed—not only was he Truegold as well, with power that pressed against her senses, he felt dangerous. Like he’d cut her just by standing near.
The strips of red cloth covered his face, each bandage filled with flowing script. Dark eyes glittered in the center of the mask.
This time, he carried no spear.
Two Truegolds. ‘Show me a fair fight,’ her master used to say, ‘and I’ll show you an opponent who has lost his mind.’ Even so, there were rigged games, and then there was suicide.
The old Sandviper snarled and swept his hand through the air. A handful of finger-length needles, Forged of acid-green madra, flew out in a spray.