Circulating the Rippling Sword technique, Yerin stepped forward to meet him.
Her core might have been filled with hopes and wishes and nothing else, but she squeezed out every drop of power she could get. The needles crashed against her arching sword like a wave against stone, but that wasn’t the end of her technique.
Her madra flashed out, a crescent-shaped slash of colorless power sheathed in silver aura. For a moment, shock flashed across the Sandviper Truegold’s face, and he pulled spears into his hands with blurring speed.
Then Jai Long was there, his hand glowing white and crashing into her technique. The Rippling Sword broke like a bubble, sword aura dispersing into the air.
“Yerin Arelius,” Jai Long said evenly. “Disciple of the Sword Sage. The Underlord told me who you were. If you’d told me last time, I would never have drawn weapons, out of respect for your master.”
“The ‘Arelius’ part is still all shiny and new,” Yerin said, still channeling the dregs of her madra into her sword. “Guess you might say I was adopted. If you wanted to use words instead of weapons this time, I could show mercy and let you.”
The Sandviper lifted a spear, eyes glued to Lindon, and Jai Long started cycling madra. In that blink where they weren’t focused on her, Yerin spun.
She kicked Lindon in the chest, sending him back into the tunnel and closer to the Trial. A Sandviper technique shattered into green light on bare rock where Lindon had been standing, and the gray-haired man was dashing past her, a frustrated growl turning into a shout as he ran.
Above her, the other nearby Sandvipers grew closer.
She turned back, and Jai Long had already charged.
Yerin had a clear obstacle. She had a fight. Now, she just had to do as her master taught her…and cut right through it.
In the dark shadows of her mind, the fear of death reared its head again.
Jai Daishou, Patriarch of the Jai clan, stared through the bubble of aura at the blurred figure with yellow hair and blurred robes.
Ordinarily, sound would not travel well through this boundary formation, but Eithan would be able to see him and hear him. He raised the spear of his honored ancestor, displaying it before the enemy.
Then he shook his head, showing sadness on his face to mask the triumph in his heart. “Your path of recklessness led us here, Eleven. You have done as you wished, acting on the whims of youth without respect or consideration. This is a harvest you have planted.”
The elders around him nodded along. They’d gathered close to the Underlord, like children gathering around their father.
Well, let them. This was Jai Daishou’s moment of victory, and the more people who witnessed it, the better.
Eithan’s face was unreadable through the haze of the aura. He held his broom out to one side; it was hard to make out details, but it didn’t seem to be a weapon or a construct. Just a broom.
Jai Daishou’s grip on his spear tightened as he grew irritated. “You could hear me if I were on the other side of the mountain, Eleven. Speak like a grown man, for once in your life, and perhaps we can come to an accord.”
Eithan spun the broom in a lazy circle, like a staff, and still didn’t speak.
Finally, Jai Daishou’s self-restraint broke. For the past six years, since he came from the other end of the world, Eithan Arelius had been a walking disaster. He’d disrespected the Jai clan, ignored the words of his betters, and insulted Jai Daishou to his face. In front of the Emperor once, and the honored Emperor had said not a word.
A man could tolerate only so much before patience reached its end.
Jai Daishou leveled the Ancestor’s Spear, shifting his stance and letting madra flow freely into his limbs. “Then you’ll forgive me for testing the skills of the youngest Underlord in the Empire.”
This formation had been designed with Eithan in mind. No one knew what Path he used, but there were no reports of his ever using a Striker technique. Most reports agreed that he used a Path focused on Enforcement, probably focused on the force aspect. He might have even trained with the Cloud Hammer School, though he lacked their Goldsign.
Eithan’s hair blew behind him in the wind generated by the force of the boundary formation. He faced Jai Daishou squarely, until the Jai Patriarch was sure they were locking gazes. The Arelius held the broom in one hand, pointing it toward one of the Jai elders.
No, not to the elder. To the boundary flag.
“Whose idea was the boundary?” Eithan asked, and though the words sounded distorted, Jai Daishou could hear them clearly.
“I knew I would need something to prevent you from running for your life,” he said. The truth was, this barrier would allow the passage of madra. He intended to skewer Eithan with Striker techniques while the Underlord couldn’t fight back.
Jai Daishou had spent most of his life building up a reputation of honor and respect that anyone in the Empire would envy, but as death approached, he found that saving face in the eyes of his peers had less and less appeal.
What could their ridicule do to him? Ruin his clan? His clan would fall apart the moment he was buried. Now, only results mattered.
The Jai Patriarch’s spearhead blazed like a white sun as he prepared a Star Lance. The other elders spread out around the dome, doing the same.
Eithan nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Now there are no witnesses.”
A dull gray spark passed from the middle of the broom where Eithan gripped it, washing along to both ends. Soulfire: the signature of an Underlord. Where the blaze passed, the broom’s color darkened, remade in the fires of condensed vital aura. It would conduct energy almost perfectly now, and would be tougher than steel. All the best weapons were imbued with a Lord’s soulfire.
That was all within Jai Daishou’s calculations. And it was still just a broom.
Jai Daishou hesitated before launching his Striker technique. Maybe Eithan Arelius really was arrogant to the point of madness. The young Underlord had always seemed brash with the overconfidence of youth, combined with pride in his admittedly high natural gifts, but now…
No Truegold was a match for an Underlord, certainly. Soulfire itself, and the process of weaving it from vital aura, gave Lords powers that no Gold could access.
But it wasn’t as though a Truegold could do nothing. Where a lone wolf was only prey, a pack of wolves could bring down a tiger. Skilled as they were, these six Truegold elders working together could bring Eithan down on their own. With Jai Daishou added in, the Arelius Underlord was already dead.
He was just speaking out of pride, that was all.
Just pride.
As Lindon stumbled back through the Trial gate, slapping his hand against the script to reactivate the aura barrier, he tried to remember how many times Yerin had knocked him out of danger.
It had to be at least six by now, he was sure. It wounded his dignity, being kicked away like a wild dog, but if he had to choose between wounded dignity and a spear through the chest, he knew which he’d pick.
All those times, and what could he do when she was in danger? Nothing. Just run.
Hating himself, Lindon ran back into the Ruler Trial. His first hope was dashed when he realized Orthos wasn’t there; he was still nearby, but he could be anywhere in the Trial grounds or back in the tunnels.
A green flash of light shattered the aura barrier and the gray-haired Sandviper crashed through, a short spear in each hand. Endless Sword madra still flickered outside, so Yerin was fighting, and at least she didn’t have to face two Truegold opponents at once.
Lindon ran for the Trial entrance. If he could make it back to the Enforcer course, he could hide in the rubble of the columns that Orthos had left behind. Then—