Sure enough, Eithan gave the marble a curious glance, but that was all. Lindon held it up, took a deep breath, and began to cycle as he ran.
Behind him, Yerin protested. “He's about as sturdy as a newborn kitten. If there's anything up there, it'll tear him to rags.”
“Remember my thousand eyes,” Eithan said. “These Ruins may as well be my own home.”
The blue light of the marble was faint, but it was enough to show Lindon when he reached the end of the stairs and found himself in a large room. He couldn't see anything beyond the patch of floor at his feet.
The jog hadn't been long, but his lungs were still burning with the effort of holding the breathing technique. He started to shout back that he'd made it, but when something hissed in the shadows, his words died.
It was only about as big as his arm. A tan centipede with a carapace the color of a sandy dune. It had a head like a snake and two rows of insect claws, and its tail arched up into a scorpion's stinger.
He’d never seen one in the flesh, but their Remnants had left him with an impression all too clear. The first sandviper hissed at him, baring fangs…as a second scuttled up, keeping a wary distance from its twin, angling toward Lindon.
Eithan's voice came from the stairs beneath him. “I know what's up there, and he can handle it.”
Then came the growl of stone, like a lid scraping over a coffin, as the door slid shut.
Chapter 14
Lindon's shouts and pleas came muffled through the stone door, and Yerin gathered what little madra she could onto her fingernails. Sword madra gathered onto sharp edges, so her nails were not the best container.
She would have used her Goldsign instead, but the scripted collar was choking her madra at the source, and she was still shaky from the Sandviper venom earlier. Her muscles squirmed like snakes in a bag, and she barely had enough focus to hold the technique together. If she tried to control the steel arm on her back, she might end up cutting her own head off.
But she'd die and rot away before she gave up without a fight.
She held her fingers up like claws to Eithan's eye. “Pop it back open.”
He didn't flinch, looking at her like a wronged child. “But he's not finished yet.”
She slashed at him, but he'd already started walking to the side, as though he'd picked exactly that second to take a stroll. Her technique rippled through the air, almost invisible without her spiritual sight, and madra cracked against the stone.
“I came here to find some promising recruits,” Eithan continued, pacing around her. She turned so he didn't have a shot at her back. “I was also bored, but the recruits are important too. You see, the families of the empire compete largely on the strength of the younger generation, because disciples are the indication of a clan's future power. Since we’re looking fairly sparse in the disciple department, I'm keeping an eye or two open for outside talent.”
Lindon's cries for help were filling the hall now.
“I’ll go along with you,” Yerin said quickly. Eithan wouldn't have been the first to try and forcibly recruit the Sword Sage's apprentice—even while her master had been alive, every sect and school they'd crossed had tried to make her a better offer. But none of them had taken a hostage.
If she went with him now, she could break out later. Her master would have loved it.
Eithan paid no more attention to Lindon's screams than he would to a chirping bird, brushing some dirt from his shoulder. “It would be irresponsible of me to turn you down. As I said, we've been backed into something of a corner. But there's a saying where I come from: 'a bad student is a weight around his teacher's neck.' I'd rather go back empty-handed than take someone who isn't ready.”
Yerin still couldn't control her Goldsign well under the collar's influence; the bladed silver arm wobbled as it rose into the air, and she couldn't keep it straight. But it was ten times easier to funnel sword madra through the blade on the end than through her fingernails.
She gathered her power into it and fixed Eithan with her gaze. “He dies, and I'm not going anywhere.”
Eithan's eyebrows lifted. “Oh, you're more than good enough on your own. A Sage is a Sage after all; he had the good fortune to pick you up early, and your foundation is flawless. It would be an honor to pick up where your master left off.” He swept his arm toward the stone door. “But I find myself intrigued by your Copper friend.”
Yerin's focus wavered, and some of the madra in her Goldsign dissipated. “What is it you want from him?
“To teach him.” Eithan patted the door like a favored pet, even as Lindon shouted on the other side. “It's so rare to find a truly blank canvas.”
“You’re looking for pure madra? Raise your own kid.”
“No no, that's easy enough. The quality I’m looking for, indeed the most important quality for any sacred artist, is drive. He needs the resolve to push through any obstacle in his Path, and that kind of focus is very difficult to teach. But here we have someone who split his own core, a Copper working side-by-side with Golds. Something’s driving him, and it might be enough to take him to the top.”
She found herself speaking through clenched teeth. “He’s blind, you hear me? The world’s all jade beds and silk sheets for him. He’s never seen how ugly it gets. He doesn’t know.”
He’d been mistreated by his clan, that was true. But he’d never fought for his own life. He’d never clawed his way out of a pile of bodies until he was elbow-deep in blood. He’d never woken to find that his only family was dead…and pushed through that crushing weight to draw his sword anyway.
Eithan leaned one shoulder against the wall, considering her. “What do you think I’m trying to teach him?”
Suddenly, he sounded just like her master. It brought up memories she’d just as soon have left buried.
A white forest, long ago. A ring of swords in the snow.
Yerin ran a thumb across one paper-thin scar on the back of her hand, remembering. Her madra dissipated, her Goldsign retreating.
Eithan was smart enough not to crow about his victory. If he had given her so much as a smug look, she’d have peeled his face away. Instead, he spoke as though nothing had happened. “Your foundation is excellent, as I’d expect from a master like yours. But I’m sure you know your advancement is lacking.”
She didn’t even need to nod. Within Lowgold, she could call herself strong. But the gap to Highgold was a chasm. She could barely control her Goldsign, much less the powerful madra that had come with her master’s Remnant. She’d left it mostly alone so far; when she touched that reserve of inherited power, she felt like an infant strapped to the back of a war-trained stallion. She didn’t even like to think of it.
“I’m sure the Sage of the Endless Sword would have had greater insight in regards to sword Paths, but I can offer a few observations of my own.”
She looked from his pristine hair to his expensive, unstained clothes. “You think you’re a sword artist, do you?”
If he said he was, she wasn’t listening to another word from this liar’s mouth.
“I prefer not to use a weapon at all. None of them seem to suit me. But sword Paths are common because they’re very simple.”
She was still trying to figure out if he needed his teeth punched out for that insult when he continued. “You need to push yourself.”
She gave that some measured thought. True, she’d felt something when she fought off three Sandviper soldiers on the slopes of Mount Samara. Not comfortable, exactly, but like she was moving along a familiar road. And it hadn’t been long ago when she’d honed herself to the peak of Jade by engaging in endless battle with the Heaven’s Glory School.