Overlords didn’t need much sleep, but they’d all had an exhausting few days.
Charity’s eyebrows tightened. “What makes you think I was going to hurt them?”
Lindon absolutely thought Charity would use violence to make them listen, but he didn’t say so.
Mercy ground her staff and raised her chin, as confident as if she were giving an order. “They’ve earned the right to go where they want.”
Maybe she was delivering an order, though Charity still outranked Mercy in their family hierarchy.
The Sage was unmoved. “Even if we ignore the Dreadgod, there are other threats. If an enemy Monarch or Sage finds them, they will be slaughtered.”
“Then aren’t they going to the safest possible place?”
“Not from the Wandering Titan.”
Yerin waved one crimson-tinted sword-arm. “Malice owes me a prize.”
“The Monarchs collectively do,” Charity pointed out. “Our clan owes you a debt of gratitude that we will gladly repay, but it is poor compensation to send you into certain death.”
“Then help us,” Lindon said. “You said we could organize something to evacuate Sacred Valley without us going in person. Why don’t we do both?”
He had pushed her for help before, but now he felt he had an opening. “It can only be faster than going alone. And safer.”
Charity looked to Mercy, who eagerly nodded. The Sage searched the faces of Lindon and Yerin, and then she closed her eyes.
Lindon couldn’t tell if she was communing with her Monarch, looking through her own memories, or even gazing into the future, but he sensed nothing.
After a few breaths, she opened her eyes.
“I can only mobilize perhaps two dozen passenger cloudships,” she said. “They have a maximum capacity of six thousand apiece, so depending on the size of your valley, you may need to make multiple trips, and that may not be possible if the Dreadgod is too close.”
Lindon’s spirits soared, but before he could thank her, she continued.
“Furthermore, the cloudships cannot operate inside the valley’s security field. The ships will have to wait at the border. I will leave their crews under your command, and they can help you evacuate, but they will have standing orders to leave immediately at the first sign of the Wandering Titan. Even if they have no passengers aboard.
“Finally, in order to reach the territory in question, we will need to pass through the portal to Sky’s Edge. Where the Dreadgod is currently feeding.”
A chill passed through Lindon’s spine. He remembered the massive humanoid figure of dark stone, its shell rising from the ocean like an island.
He had felt its thoughts crashing over his mind in an avalanche of hunger.
He could imagine what it was like when it was awake, active, and focused on destruction. He could imagine it all too well.
“I will enter the portal first,” Charity continued. “If I believe the situation is too dangerous, I will not allow you to pass. Once I have escorted you through, if the situation is too risky for the other cloudships to follow, then I will leave them behind and you will be on your own. Even if everything goes perfectly, I expect you to be wise enough not to throw your lives away and to return as quickly as possible. If these conditions are not acceptable, then I cannot allow you to go at all.”
She spoke as though she expected resistance, but Lindon couldn’t understand why.
Not acceptable? That was perfect. She was offering more support than he had hoped for, much less expected.
Now, he had a real chance of success.
Dross folded his arms. [That seems convenient, don’t you think? Awfully convenient. You’ve got some kind of plan for us, don’t you? A secret Sage plan. I’d trust you a lot more if you gave me a peek inside your memories. Just a quick—]
“It’s perfect,” Lindon said in a rush, forcibly cutting off Dross. He bowed as deeply as he could. “My sincere gratitude. I cannot thank you enough.”
[Something I’ve noticed about you,] Dross said to Lindon from inside his head. [You’re so agreeable once you get what you want.]
“Thank me when you come back alive,” Charity muttered. “It will take some time to arrange the cloudships, and my father is about to ascend. The earliest we can leave is tomorrow morning, so in the meantime I will put you to work. Disembark your cloudship and return to the tower. Dress for a formal occasion.”
Lindon chafed at the delay, but ultimately this should save him time. If it meant two dozen more cloudships with which to evacuate the population, then he could wait.
Charity rubbed at the center of her forehead as though to soothe a headache. “Now, do you have any other business with me?”
If he said he did, Lindon thought Charity might transport him to the bottom of the ocean. “Apologies for taking up so much of your time, honored Sage. We will see you tonight.”
She waited a moment longer, purple eyes looking him up and down. “You’re a Sage yourself now,” she said at last. “Even if you have a long way to go. Call me Charity.”
Mercy sputtered while Lindon tried to formulate a response, but the Sage didn’t wait.
In a fold of shadow, Charity vanished.
2
The cold weight of Lindon’s wintersteel badge hung against his chest as he stood witness in the trial.
This room in the Akura tower of the Ninecloud Court had been shrouded entirely in shadows. The edges were totally black, creating the impression that the circle of people in the center existed in the one well-lit island in a sea of endless dark.
Purple eyes glowed in the darkness, all filled with rage, all focused on the three figures bound and kneeling in the middle.
Meira, Underlady of the Seishen Kingdom, looked largely unharmed. Her gray hair, unfitting for her age, hung messy behind her, but her skin was untouched. Her pink flower Goldsign shone over one ear.
Her eyes were weary, fearful, and resigned over the gag that trapped the entire lower half of her face. It was a contraption of metal and scripted leather, and it suppressed almost as much power as the halfsilver cuffs that encircled her wrists.
An older man, built like a noble bear, was bent and bound next to her. Unlike her, he bore obvious wounds, with blood trickling from his salt-and-pepper hair to stain his short beard.
King Seishen Dakata breathed heavily through his nose, obviously trying to keep up a breathing technique, but Lindon had seen the Akura Overlords carrying him in.
They had not been gentle.
In the worst shape by far was Dakata’s remaining son, Seishen Daji. One of his eyes was swollen shut, his clothes were torn and looked to be somewhat burned, and instead of handcuffs, both his arms were wrapped in halfsilver chains. That had to be spiritual agony.
He wore no complex scripted muzzle, but had a dirty rag stuffed in his mouth to gag him. While he trembled in fear and pain, Lindon would call his expression sullen, even defiant.
Whatever fate the Akura family was about to decide for him, it would be no worse than he deserved.
Akura Charity stepped forward, her young-looking face cold as usual. “Kingdom of Seishen. You stand accused of conspiracy to assassinate members of the Akura head family.” She pulled a scripted spike from a void key and held it up.
It resembled a long tent stake made of stone and ringed with runes, and Lindon had seen it before. It was the spatial anchor Daji had tossed into Lindon’s team to summon the Blood Sage. Leading directly to their deaths.
The anchor would be dangerous to carry around, lest someone else use it to teleport into their midst, except that Charity had sealed off the runes with scripted straps. Only once the straps were removed could the device be used again.
“A trusted witness testified that one of you used this device to summon assassins,” the Sage continued. “The traces of madra remaining in the script have aspects similar, possibly identical, to your Paths.”