Lindon lowered his weapon and spread the other hand, showing it empty. “Nothing more than a humble Iron, honored Highgold. There’s no blood between us, and I see no reason why any should be spilled.”
Kral nodded along with every word, then flipped his hand as though gesturing for a servant to leave his presence. Three liquid drops of green madra appeared in the air in front of him, splashing toward Lindon. He hastily raised the Remnant part, but the Striker technique still landed on the skin of his arms, burning like liquid fire.
He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming, tightening his knuckles around the weapon and forcing watery eyes on Kral. The bites of the real sandviper had been a hundred times worse than this. He focused on that thought.
But Kral had disappeared.
The young chief's black cloak was still dropping like an abandoned shadow, and hadn't yet crumpled onto the floor, but Kral was gone. As Lindon was still registering that fact, something slammed into his back. He crashed into the table across from him, his head smashing through the solid wood.
A thick shaft of vivid green madra stabbed into his shoulder, and his breath whooshed out at the blazing spike of agony. Only a few hours with a new Iron body, and he'd already ruined it.
He struggled up, instinctively trying to escape the pain, but a green haze covered his head. When he inhaled, it tasted like metal in his mouth, and burned like fire in his lungs.
Kral's boots padded away, leaving Lindon face-down in wreckage, pinned to a destroyed table on a spear of Forged Sandviper madra.
“The Copper's dead,” Kral said lazily. “Actually, I suppose he reached Iron, didn't he?”
“So he did,” Eithan said. His voice was pleasant, as though he was chatting with a friend. “If he died, then he has only his lack of ability to blame.”
“I…can only agree. You're more reasonable than I expected.”
The voices were hazy through the pain and the lack of oxygen, but Lindon found himself listening nonetheless. After the past two weeks, this level of agony was nothing. It was almost familiar.
In fact, it was fading quickly.
“Why don't we come to an arrangement?” Kral continued, his words almost swallowed by a thunderous crash behind him. Yerin and Jai Long, no doubt. “I've seen your ability, and I can recommend you directly to my father.” He paused as another crash echoed through the room. “In fact, I don't think we've been properly introduced. I am Kral, Highgold of the Sandvipers. My father is Gokren, Truegold and chief.”
“My name is Eithan.”
The Forged spear pinning Lindon's left shoulder to the table had already dissipated significantly, enough that he could push himself up. His head was starting to spin for lack of air, and he staggered to the side, inhaling a breath.
The burning venom in his veins had already subsided to nothing more than an uncomfortably warm tingle. Even his stab wound didn't scream quite so loudly, though his left arm was still dangling useless and blood dribbled down his side to the ground.
He was injured enough that he should have been senseless on the ground in pain, but every breath cycled madra through his channels and lessened the pain by another notch. In fact, his madra was entering his flesh and simply...vanishing, as though his blood had devoured it. His Iron core was emptying at an astonishing rate.
The Bloodforged Iron body. Sandvipers used it to combat their own toxins.
And Kral didn't know he had it.
The Sandviper heir was standing with his back to Lindon, an awl in one hand and his fur cloak in the other. Over his shoulder, Jai Long was pacing toward Yerin, who was leaning on her sword to stay upright.
“If you have no sect, Eithan, a sacred artist of your skill would be welcome among the Sandvipers.”
Lindon rushed over to the shattered wardrobe, dropping to his knees and gouging them on the debris. He didn't care, wrenching the lid open and dividing his attention between the box and the Sandviper leader. If Kral glanced around, Lindon was dead.
Eithan leaned casually against the wall, his gentle smile fixed on Kral. “I'm here looking for fresh recruits. I don't intend to be recruited myself.”
Lindon fumbled one-handed at the pile of garbage next to him, looking for the spear, but he grasped his stinger first. It would have to do. His fingers caught it on the bright green material instead of the hilt he’d wrapped, which burned his skin like acid, but this pain was just a breeze next to a thunderstorm. He set it aside, using both hands to lift free a scripted box.
Two white, spiraling bindings waited within. He slipped one into his pocket and picked up the stinger with his other hand.
“Especially not by a sect as weak as yours,” Eithan added.
Lindon could practically feel a winter breeze as Kral responded. “I suspect you may have misspoken, my friend.”
“I'm afraid not. If I belonged to your sect, which I’m proud to say I do not, I would be painfully ashamed of you. What kind of a Highgold fails to kill an Iron?”
Kral's spine stiffened, and he started to turn.
Lindon slammed into him with the end of his bright green stinger, the end digging into Kral's ribs. Blood splashed, and Lindon poured all of his remaining madra into his makeshift weapon. The energy was soaked up like rain in the desert, and the binding activated.
Three acid-green echoes of the stinger flashed into existence, stabbing into Kral from three different angles. They didn't penetrate far, only scratching him before dissipating, but that was enough to release their venom. Lindon knew that from experience.
Not that it mattered.
Kral had an Iron body of his own, and Lindon had hoped to find a better opportunity to attack than this. Eithan had rushed him, threatening to expose him with words, so he’d taken the angle he could get.
As a result, Kral steadied himself in an instant. His jaw was set in pain, but he was barely scratched. Madra gathered around his fist, and he started to turn and deliver the technique that would reduce Lindon to a pile of smoking bones.
With the desperation of a cornered animal, Lindon tore the drill-shaped white binding from his pocket and stabbed down.
The white spiral flashed as it touched blood, blinding bright, and drew Lindon’s Iron core dry like an alcoholic pulling at a bottle. Sandviper madra rushed out from the wound in Kral’s back, visible as bright green lines running up the drill, but Kral himself did not move. He stiffened like a man in the grip of a seizure, eyes peeled unnaturally wide. The technique withered and died on his fist.
The madra flowed into the binding…but not into Lindon. He’d wondered about that. The binding simply drew out the power, but it took the script on the spear to draw it into himself. The white drill rippled green, brighter and richer with every passing instant. It grew more solid, less like an object painted into existence and more real. In only a breath of time, it was so detailed that it looked as solid as a poisonous green seashell.
Then it exploded.
Lindon released the binding just in time to avoid losing a hand, but green light burst like a dying star, and he was launched backward. At the same time, something spattered him that burned like acid.
His vision blurred in the overwhelming sensation of being devoured by insects, and his mind couldn't keep up. He thought he blacked out for a moment, but he couldn't be sure.
When he came to, nothing had changed except the pain lessening slightly. His skin was red and tender, but as the last dregs of his madra vanished, healthy skin crawled into place.
He didn't have the strength to stand, and his spirit felt like a rag that someone had squeezed too many times, and he finally stopped healing when his madra was completely exhausted.