There was no one on it.
A great, hot, overwhelming power loomed up from behind. Enkai turned, dagger raised, and a white fist caught him in the jaw.
In his conquest, Enkai had taken blows from Highgolds before. The power of the egg had strengthened his body until he felt like he had leather for skin and stone for bones. He could catch a hammer-blow with one hand, standing as firm as though his boots were nailed to the ground.
This time, he felt nothing but a flash of pain and a tremendous rush of noise. Then he realized he was lying on the inn’s floor in the middle of a pile of splinters. Groggy, he tilted his head up; there was a hole in the front wall big enough to ride a horse through.
The stranger stood there, a silhouette against the sky holding a ball of black fire. More flame blazed around him in a hazy corona. His shadow fell over Enkai like the specter of death.
No. Enkai would not allow himself to die here. Not to a Lowgold.
The power of the egg was much greater than this.
In an instant, Enkai drew his core dry. He pulled so hard that it might cause permanent damage to his madra channels, but he was beyond caring. He pulled up all the power of his spirit, drinking thirstily from the madra of the egg.
Between his hands, a red light bloomed. This didn’t look anything like flame; it was a pure crimson light that hung in the middle of his palms like a red sun. This was a technique worthy of the egg. It sang with power, an echo of the Phoenix’s song that had turned the sky red.
In triumph, he pushed forward, releasing the technique on the Skysworn’s servant. A river of light, straight as an arrow and thick as a man’s leg, blasted forth with all his rage and fury.
The stranger lifted his left palm in response, his ball of dark madra hovering in front of him. It erupted into a bar of liquid fire, black streaked with red.
The two streams of fire clashed head-on, only a foot from the Skysworn apprentice’s outstretched hand.
Enkai was prepared for a direct clash of their spirits, pushing the egg’s madra into the technique so he could blast through the stranger’s technique.
It wasn’t enough.
The dark flame devoured his, melting through an inch at a time. By the time Enkai started to panic, the stranger’s power was almost at his chest.
“You can’t—” Enkai started to say. Then the bar of black fire burned through his stomach.
And the egg was gone.
Dark flames spread through him, and he collapsed to the floor like a straw doll. It didn’t hurt like he would have expected. It only tingled, as though he faded away like a Remnant.
He had time for one last, jealous thought. This stranger had so much power, but he acted like a servant. If Enkai had sacred arts like that and combined them with the egg, he could have ruled the world.
Seconds later, Mu Enkai was nothing more than a pile of ashes.
Unsatisfied, dark fire spread from his body, consuming the ruined inn. The screams coming from around town slowly died while the survivors huddled in silence and darkness, hoping to be overlooked.
In the midst of the black flames, the apprentice Skysworn stood alone.
Chapter 1
On their clouds, Lindon and the two Truegold Skysworn returned to Stormrock, the black city in the sky. They alighted in the tallest tower, presenting entrance codes to the Skysworn on guard.
This was Starsweep Tower, headquarters of the Skysworn. For them, it must be like coming home.
It was only Lindon’s second time inside.
Numb, he followed the two green-armored figures inside, past a few other scattered Skysworn. They all looked as exhausted as he felt, and the smell of blood hung heavy in the hallways. More than once, he saw a servant in the dark blue uniform of the Arelius family mopping up a puddle left by a bloodspawn. Or one of its victims.
The Bleeding Phoenix hadn’t even attacked directly. It had only risen for a few days.
They would be cleaning up the aftermath for years to come.
All the Skysworn were either on a mission, preparing for a mission, or too injured to work. They were stretched so thin that even the Lowgolds didn’t have a moment to rest.
Without a word, the two Truegolds brought Lindon to a single, sparsely furnished room behind a black door. It was lit by a stark white circle of script on the ceiling, and filled with only one round table and nine surrounding chairs. There was a three-foot gash in the wooden table, and it looked fresh.
Lindon slid his bulky brown pack into one of the chairs, then turned to leave the room.
Bai Rou held up one armored hand, his eyes burning yellow in the shadow beneath his hat of woven reed. “Stay here,” he commanded.
Lindon wanted nothing more than to sink into a chair, but he had more pressing concerns. “Pardon, but I will return. I’d like to go see Yerin.”
Renfei, a slight woman with a resolute air and a black cloud hovering in the air over her, jabbed a finger at the table. “Sit. We’ll be back. Do not leave this room.”
“I would like to check on her for myself, if you don’t mind.” The last he’d seen her, her soul had been exhausted, but her Blood Shadow was stable. That was the main reason why he wanted to make sure she was all right; the Skysworn were not likely to leave someone with a Blood Shadow to herself. Especially not now.
Bai Rou stepped forward. He was a brick wall of a man, and the armor only added to his silhouette.
“Sit,” he said.
Though, as big as Bai Rou was, he only had an inch or two on Lindon. Compared to the difference in their spirits, that didn’t seem like much.
How would that armor help him against the Path of Black Flame?
Lindon realized he was meeting those yellow eyes glare for glare, and dark madra was creeping into his vision. Blackflame flowed through him, angry and defiant.
He looked to the side, blinking his eyes clear, and focused on his pure core. With the clarity came the cold shiver of reality setting in; he had almost started a fight with a pair of armed and armored Truegolds in their headquarters.
“Apologies. I have been...stressed.”
Lindon couldn’t have called Renfei’s expression sympathetic, but at least she hadn’t pulled the hand-sized hammer hanging at her hip. “Don’t be. The target is dead, the parasite neutralized. Mission accomplished. Don’t think about it more than you need to, just do as you’re told.”
He sunk into the nearest chair, trying not to just collapse and sleep. He tried to brace his right arm on the table, but he forgot to cycle madra through it, so his Remnant arm sank right through the wood. “I apologize for my disrespect, but I am concerned about Yerin. Please, I need to know that she is being treated well.”
Yerin was being treated like a prize pig hauled in front of a bunch of butchers.
Her hands were manacled in halfsilver and chained to the stone wall behind her, while a bunch of unarmored Skysworn prodded her spirit with theirs. It was hard not to shake like a shaved bear in the snow under the tickle of their scans.
“And you feel that you were treated...poorly by the Skysworn?” the voice of this green-hooded man made it clear that he thought a knife across the throat and a shallow grave was better treatment than she deserved.
“What put that in your head?” Yerin asked, glaring at him.
She didn’t say any more, but one of the hooded figures in the back scribbled onto a little board. She figured they were making sure she was still herself, and not a shell the Blood Shadow happened to crawl into. She just wasn’t sure how they were doing that, when they didn’t know her from a bullfrog.