Mercy used her communication construct again, and this time she spoke a command. “Unveil.”
It took a moment for the message to reach the others, but when it did, the Akura Golds revealed the full extent of their power immediately.
The Li Jades gasped, and the Matriarch’s eyes bulged in their sockets. “Jades? All of them?”
“Scan me,” Mercy ordered.
When the Matriarch hesitated, Mercy lifted her bow again.
Immediately, a scan shivered through Mercy’s spirit. This time, the older woman’s breath caught. Color drained from her skin, and she dropped to her knees. Awkwardly, as her wrist was still pinned to the wall behind her. “Gold,” she breathed.
The others on the roof were face-down in moments.
“No,” Mercy corrected. “Gold is what they are.”
“Forgiveness, please. This one has offended you. If only you had revealed yourselves, we would have given you our entire clan at a moment’s notice.”
“We’re not here to take your clan. We’re here to save your clan.”
The Matriarch trembled. “Then…there’s really…”
“I would not tarnish my own soul by lying to a Jade. Now, how fast can you evacuate your clan?”
“We can have nine out of ten at Heaven’s Glory by the setting of the sun, honored…Sage.” Mercy made a face at the title, but the Matriarch took it as displeasure and hurried on. “Apologies, but that is truly the fastest that our lacking abilities will allow.”
“No, that is faster than I expected of you,” Mercy allowed, still holding on to her impression of Malice. “Do not overestimate your own abilities because you think it will please me. If you say you can reach Heaven’s Glory by sunset, that is the standard to which I will hold you.”
“It is the pride of the Li clan that we have the greatest number of clouds and flying chariots in Sacred Valley, outside the Holy Wind School. As we had been preparing for an attack since we first began feeling the unnatural earthquakes, we are ready to mobilize as soon as this one gives the signal. With your permission, of course.”
Mercy reached out and touched the arrow, which dissolved into motes of black essence rising into the air. The others on the roof murmured when they saw that it had left no wound, which almost made Mercy roll her eyes. Even they had seen more impressive feats of sacred arts than this one, they were only trying to flatter her with a show of awe.
“You have more than my permission,” Mercy said. “It is my command. My soldiers wear black and violet. Let those who cannot reach Heaven’s Glory by sunset tonight report to them, and they will be carried. Everyone else is to travel for Heaven’s Glory at all speed.”
The Matriarch bowed deeply. “This one will comply. And this one thanks you once again for you—”
“Go. You all are no exceptions.”
The roof cleared as though Mercy had pushed them. The old man covered in jewelry actually leaped down to the streets.
Only seconds later, a horn signaled all throughout the Li clan. A moment later, the Matriarch’s words echoed out, repeating Mercy’s orders.
Once Mercy was alone, she collapsed.
She leaned up against the low wall around the rooftop, pulling up her legs and hugging her knees to herself.
All along, she had known this would work. In most places in the world, sacred artists were used to taking orders from the stronger. Even those like the Matriarch who were accustomed to power had spent their Iron years bowing before Jades, and their Copper years bowing before Irons. It was behavior ingrained so deep that it was practically instinct.
Malice wielded that instinct like a club, which Mercy hated. She had always tried to avoid it, whenever she could.
But this time she couldn’t. She’d had no choice, and this was for their own good.
Which was exactly what her mother always said.
When the sky turned gold, Ziel and the Kazan clan were caught off-guard. The change in color had been accompanied by one last, great heave of the earth, and their group had already been making their way across the uncertain footing of rocky foothills.
The Kazan clan stretched off in sinuous lines, and at the shaking of the earth, Ziel couldn’t count the number of people who fell.
From carriages losing their grip on the edge of a gravel road to rocks falling out from under marching feet, people slipped or slid or tumbled in a dozen different ways.
Some of the Akura Golds reacted, diving on their clouds to catch those nearby, but none of them were faster than Ziel.
A ring of green runes appeared beneath the first carriage he saw, catching it on a gentle plane of force, but he was already throwing out another. And another.
He didn’t have time to evaluate who was in the most danger, or even who was closer. He just Forged rings as fast as he could, straining himself to the limit in only a handful of seconds.
Then the quake was over. Anyone who was going to fall had already done so.
He hadn’t caught everyone. He hadn’t even been able to see everyone. But at least a dozen people were climbing out of his rings and back to safety.
“We don’t have time for a head count,” Ziel said, his eyes on the western sky. “Grab anyone who fell, but we have to keep moving.” Some of those who’d fallen would be safe, thanks to an Iron body or simply the luck of the fall.
The Akura Truegold looked at him strangely. “Regrettably, we have to leave. The Sage told us to prioritize our own lives at the first sign of the Titan’s approach.”
Some of the other Golds had already begun flying away, but she glanced to the Patriarch and his family. “We can take a handful with us,” she said. “Including you, of course.”
Ziel was already watching the nearby Patriarch and his family give orders and instruction. The column behind them stopped, as most people Ziel could see stared at the golden sky in horror, and their four children clustered around their mother’s knees.
He could guarantee they, at least, were safe. But if everyone saw the Patriarch’s family flying to safety, there would be even more panic.
“Make the offer,” he said to her in a low voice. “And please, don’t leave without taking some of them with you. Emphasize families with children.”
The Truegold woman reached out to a construct strapped to her wrist. “I’ll call them back. But once we fill our clouds, we’re leaving.”
“Good. Don’t take chances with a Dreadgod.”
Ziel settled wearily down on his own cloud, shutting his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the Titan’s tinted sky.
“You can lead the way,” she said. “We’ll catch up to you.”
“I’ll stick with them a while longer. Don’t know how far they’ll make it without me around.”
There was a long pause before she said, “Yes, Archlord.”
“I’m not an Archlord,” he said automatically.
Though, he realized, his channels hadn’t felt like they were full of needles when he’d tossed out so many techniques in a handful of seconds. That wouldn’t make him an Archlord, even outside—he’d settle for being as capable as an Underlord—but it was a cheering thought.
Or it would cheer him, once there wasn’t a Dreadgod looming overhead.
“Of course, Archlord.”
She was mocking him. He cracked one eye, where the Truegold woman took a moment from staring worriedly at the western horizon to give him a brief smile.
She was young, if she still had the spirit to needle him with the Wandering Titan bearing down on them. Although, now that he thought of it, she couldn’t be more than five years younger than he was.
What a difference a life made.
“What’s your name?” he asked, for the first time.
“Akura Shira, Archlord.” So a close enough relative that she got the clan name, but not close to the head family. Otherwise she would have been named after one of their virtues, and she probably wouldn’t be stuck at Truegold.