He waved a hand as though brushing aside two hundred years.
“The story of her death is a long one, but it's enough to say that the Ruins rose on the day of her death. She entered, taking the spear, and never emerged. Some say that she received the spear from the Ruins in the beginning, and she was only returning the power she had borrowed. I believe that it was a test, that she locked her strongest weapon into a secure vault to safeguard her legacy until a descendant could claim it once again.”
“Will you retrieve it yourself?” Lindon asked. Though it was clear that Jai Sen wasn't the most powerful young sacred artist in the Jai clan—no matter how different the outside world was from Sacred Valley, he wouldn't believe that any clan would send its elites out to guard the gate from dogs—but a little flattery could only help him.
Jai Sen clapped Lindon on the back so hard that Lindon thought he would bruise. “You sure know how to speak. I should keep you around just for that. But I know my place; I'm only here to bring some small glory to my clan, as much as I am capable.” He smiled over at Yerin, and Lindon wondered how much glory an esteemed visitor was worth to the Jai clan.
The tall spearman drew up short next to a cube of gray stone blocks very similar to the ones he'd seen the girl cutting barehanded. They were stacked one on top of the other, bound without mortar until they formed a square house bigger than the entire Shi family complex. Horses and stranger animals filled a fenced area nearby, and men and women with the spears and robes of the Jai clan entered and exited freely.
“This is the Inn of the Drifting Light, an establishment that sprouts up whenever and wherever promising members of the Jai clan need a place to stay.” Jai Sen presented the enormous stone cube with a proud flourish. “As my friend, you are welcome to a room inside. Humble as it may be, I guarantee you won't find better anywhere in the Alliance.”
Yerin gave Jai Sen a shallow bow. “I regret that my exhaustion prevents me from thanking you properly,” she said, in the most formal sentence Lindon had ever heard from her. “I owe you a debt for every favor you've done on my behalf.”
“Not at all, Yerin, not at all. There is no need for such formality between us, not when we will soon work side by side.” He ushered them into the wide, doorless entrance, where a matronly woman had taken up a seat behind a wooden table.
She raised eyebrows when she saw him. “Jai Sen, have they closed the gates already?”
He cleared his throat. “Honored aunt, this is Yerin of no clan. I greeted her arriving at the gate, and she expressed an interest in working alongside our clan during her stay here. She is a guest of mine, and her friend is under her protection.”
The woman appraised Yerin for a moment before giving her a broad smile. “I hope that my nephew hasn't worn out your ears on the way. Finding you shows more insight than I would have expected from him, and it's a credit to your wisdom that you accepted. You have a bright future here, with you so young.”
To Lindon, she said nothing.
Clearly pleased with himself, Jai Sen swept his spear out to the side as he bowed to the room in general. “Aunt, honored guest, I am sorry to be so rude as to leave, but they need my presence at the wall. Sister Yerin, I hope that we might share a meal at sunset tonight, once you have a chance to refresh yourself and to rest.”
Yerin bowed to him in response. “I'm sure I'll have a mouthful of questions once I've wet my throat a little more.”
Jai Sen laughed. “More water for the thirsty travelers!” he said to his aunt. “And a bath, if I may be so indelicate as to suggest it.” The woman nodded firmly and scribbled some words on a tablet.
“Then I'm off!” Jai Sen announced, spinning on his heel—almost catching Lindon in the head with the shaft of the spear—and walking out the door.
As Lindon had expected, a room in the inn was a hollowed-out stone block the size of a closet. A bed stood against one wall and a pile of blankets against the other—Lindon assumed that was for him—with a tiny table crammed into the corner balancing an unlit lamp, a paper covering what he guessed was a bowl of food, and four bottles of water beaded with condensation. As soon as they opened the door, Lindon and Yerin didn't even bother dropping their belongings before they darted for the water. The Thousand-Mile Cloud hovered in the hallway like a lonely puppy.
The woman at the entrance had told them baths would be heated within the hour, so once Lindon had finally slaked his thirst and devoured a bowl of rice, he started flipping through his pack for a clean change of clothing. The ones he was wearing were more appropriate for the fireplace than the wardrobe, after so many days in the wilderness, and in the tight confines of the room he was starting to notice the smell. His longing for the bath sharpened, until it was almost as powerful as his thirst had been earlier.
Yerin, meanwhile, was looking at the square hole in the wall that served as their window. “Think you could squeeze through this?” she asked.
Lindon looked up with his hands full of clean clothes. “The window?”
“If we get caught because your shoulders are stuck and you're dangling half out of the wall, I can tell you I won't be smiling.”
“You want to leave?”
She lifted her sheathed sword, placing it across his shoulders as though taking a measurement. “I'm not staying here, you can take that for true.”
Just when he'd been looking forward to a bath and a bed, even curled up on a stone floor. “May I ask why?”
“If Jai Sen mistook us for Remnant, he's dumber than a sack full of hammers. He wanted to know if I had a sharp enough edge on me to take his attack, and if I didn't, he planned on looting our corpses clean.”
Slowly, Lindon replaced his clothes into the pack. “How do you know?”
“See something enough times, and you start looking for it. Unspoken rule of the world: you kill the last person to own something, it’s yours, and nobody asks too many questions. That's not where it ends, either. He insulted you to see if I'd take it, because the farther I'll bend, the farther he can push me. Those Sandvipers at the gate were supposed to be his friends, his allies, however you want to say it. But he didn't stop them when they were going to make trouble, or stop me from beating on them. That sound friendly to you?”
Lindon had noticed that, but he'd taken it in stride. That was how many in the Wei clan had treated an Unsouled, after all.
“Now he's taken us to a place where we're stoppered up like flies in a wine bottle. Don't know if he still wants to rob us, or kill us, or maybe just what he said: get us working for the Jai clan. But I'll dance to his tune when he makes a puppet out of my corpse, and not a second before. We're leaving.”
She held up her sword to the window horizontally, considered a moment, then nodded. “You first. I’ll push.”
Chapter 6
The Sandvipers had their own corner of the Five Factions Alliance territory. The space wasn't assigned to them according to some plan or design, as would have been rational, but instead consisted of all the ground they could seize and hold. Typical of sacred artists, in Jai Long's opinion: so consumed with gaining strength that they never considered how they should use it.
Most of the Sandviper territory was taken up by a single, garishly red tent of many peaks. While the lesser minions settled for huts made of twigs and scavenged boards, their future chief reveled in luxury. Sounds floated out of the tent on a warm wind—mingled laughter, the clink of glasses, splashing of water.
Jai Long could have joined them. He had the status, and he'd contributed more merits than the Sandviper heir. But if he was honest with himself, he preferred it out in the cold night.