“Were you watching the tournament?” Jaran asked.
While Lindon was trying to think of the best way to dodge the question, Yerin popped in. “He fought himself. Top sixteen. There are recordings of his fights, or you can get a memory from the audience. Now I think of it, Dross could…”
She trailed off and looked at Lindon hopefully.
[I could give them Lindon’s memories, but they might be too…ah, what’s the word…heavy for them. The recordings released by the Ninecloud Court are appropriate for all advancement levels. I could try reproducing them myself, but it might be better to get one from the Court.]
Jaran grunted. “Sixteen. Out of how many?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lindon said. “Yerin won, and the woman fighting up there is queen over most of the continent. She came here as a personal favor to Yerin.”
Yerin’s cheeks tinged red, but she glanced at Lindon’s parents, clearly eager to see how they would take the news.
Lindon was hoping to keep the topic of conversation away from himself. He couldn’t explain anything he’d done in simple enough terms to get his parents to understand it without looking like he was desperately bragging.
[Maybe I could do a better job than the Court,] Dross mused to no one in particular. [I could add my own special flair to it.]
“You brought her here?” Kelsa asked in awe. She could have watched the battle through the projection construct, but instead she was craning her neck to watch Malice out the windows with her own eyes.
Seisha dipped her head to Yerin. “This one thanks you for going to such lengths for our home.”
Jaran inclined his head too, though he was looking slightly in the wrong direction. “Yes, we are honored to have you go so far for your student.”
The console flared a little too brightly as Lindon’s madra became disordered.
Yerin’s mouth dropped open. “Yeah, student, not…I mean to say, uh, bleed me. Lindon, did you tell them—”
“No!” Lindon steadied his breathing. “I haven’t spoken with them much at all. There’s been no time. There isn’t much time now, in fact. We should be arriving soon.”
The colossal sounds of battle had grown distant, though the occasional flare of madra suggested that Malice was still fighting the Titan on the other side of the mountains.
Jaran frowned, but Kelsa and Seisha had caught the scent of blood.
Orthos chuckled and opened his mouth wide to take a bite out of a nearby chair, but he reluctantly closed his jaws again. “You don’t have a snack, do you?”
Lindon quickly opened his void key, pulled out a bundle of firewood, and tossed it to the turtle, who snapped it out of the air.
Little Blue peeped up in agreement, and Lindon flipped her a scale of pure madra.
“So she’s not your teacher,” Kelsa went on. Her back was to the window now, and she settled into the chair that Orthos had been about to eat.
Lindon’s mother smiled kindly. “Yerin, wasn’t it? Why don’t you come here so I can get a better look at you?”
Yerin breathed like she was facing down an executioner, but turned stiffly on her heel. Her six Goldsigns quivered behind her.
“Well, Lindon.” Jaran’s mood had markedly improved. “You must have grown into yourself since you left. Tall, strong, good shoulders. I bet you have my jawline, too. How’s his chin?”
“We could be in for a rough landing,” Lindon said anxiously. “We’ll have to be ready to move quickly. Now would be a good time to get prepared.”
Dross piped up. [Oh, right, you haven’t seen him! Here, I can show you. Consider this a sample of what I can do with the memories of the tournament.]
A moment later, Jaran’s eyebrows lifted. “Makes sense now. Advancement does the body good.”
“She’s a powerful sacred artist,” Kelsa said. “She doesn’t care about his jawline.”
Seisha shrugged. “I’m sure it didn’t hurt. So, Yerin, you must know Lindon well.”
“Yes.” Yerin’s Goldsigns were trying to tie themselves in knots.
“We haven’t gotten to know the new Lindon much ourselves. I’d be very grateful if you could fill us in on what we missed.”
It was his mother’s way of asking “What do you see in him?” without sounding rude, and Lindon was honestly relieved. Yerin wouldn’t answer that question.
Either she would hear an implied insult to Lindon, in which case she would strike back, or she would be embarrassed by the question and dodge it.
[Oooohhh you should have asked me for a simulation on that one,] Dross said.
What do you mean?
[That’s what Yerin would have done. Before.]
Lindon didn’t figure out what Dross meant before Yerin responded. “Might be you know this already, but he doesn’t give up. If you cut off two legs and an arm, he’d fight you with one hand and his teeth. If there’s a way to win, he’ll hunt it down or he’ll die on the trail.”
Lindon was too stunned to be flattered.
Yerin went on smoothly. “Haven’t spent long in your valley, but everybody I met tripped all over each other to see who could stab me in the back first. Guess you taught him right, because he’d twist himself inside out before he turned on me. If my core popped tomorrow and I was no better than a Copper, he wouldn’t leave me alone until he found a way to put me back together.”
The room was very quiet except for Orthos munching on firewood.
“He could have set himself up like a king in some corner of the world. Could have scooped you three up, set fire to Heaven’s Glory, and left. But he stuck around for people who treated him like their least-favorite whipping boy. Don’t know who he was before, but that’s who he is now.”
Her Goldsigns twisted again, and she coughed. “That’s what I contend, anyway. In my view. Might be I’ve polished him up too much.”
Lindon finally understood what Dross meant. Not long ago, Yerin would have been too embarrassed to say any of that.
But Ruby wouldn’t be.
Red eyes moved to his, and she gave him a shaky smile.
He couldn’t return it. He stared into her, thinking about how she saw him. He wasn’t as great as she described.
But he wanted to be.
She saw through him, and her smile became more genuine.
“Heavens above,” Kelsa muttered. “I should have left too.”
When they landed and left the cloud fortress, there were even more people flooding out of Sacred Valley. With the Akura cloudships gone, the number of people seeking refuge seemed endless.
Many of them had given up on the cloudships and now ran out into the world themselves, crossing the mountains and foothills east of Mount Samara on foot or in whatever vehicles they had brought with them.
Lindon wished them luck. There was no way he could go after them himself; he was going to have enough trouble with the people waiting for rides.
Hopefully, none of this would end up being necessary. Malice would drive off the Wandering Titan, and there would be no further damage to Sacred Valley or the other mountains.
If the only problem Lindon had to deal with in the aftermath of a Dreadgod attack was locating everyone who ran and bringing them home to rebuild, he would thank the heavens.
As their fortress began to fill up, he received another piece of good news: Mercy flew in unharmed, bobbing on her staff and waving eagerly to him.
When she reached him, she began to speak before she finished drifting to a halt. “So…who called my mother?”
“Don’t know why I needed to,” Yerin said. “I’d take it personal if a Dreadgod stomped around my back yard.”
“At least she came! But don’t be too grateful. She wouldn’t have shown up here if there wasn’t something in it for the family.”
Mercy leaned against the base of their cloud fortress, which she sank into like a giant pillow. As she did, she surreptitiously pushed something into the ground with the heel of her foot.