Every eye turned to Eithan, disbelieving. Including Lindon's.
“He's a part of your family,” Jai Long said warily.
“A flower in the greenhouse is never half so beautiful as one in the wild. Don't you find that to be true? I like to think it's the added edge of danger. Nothing reaches its full potential unless it's threatened.” He placed a finger along the edge of his chin, considering. “Give me one year with him. After a year of my instruction, if he's not your match, then he has only himself to blame. Does that sound fair to you?”
“He's Iron,” Jai Long said. “I may as well kill him now.”
“Then you're waiting a year in respect for my wishes. In compensation, I won't strip this place to the bones and then break it looking for marrow. Everyone will receive the treasures that they have earned, in order of their contribution to the excavation effort.”
The sacred artists behind Jai Long brightened at that, especially the Fishers, who almost as one packed away their hooks and bowed to Eithan.
“As the first to arrive,” Eithan said, “the new members of my family will select their rewards.” He glanced over to the side. “As Yerin can't join us at the moment, I will choose for her.” He reached onto a nearby table and grabbed a bag seemingly at random. It clinked as he lifted it.
“Now, Lindon.” Eithan reached down and drove a stiffened finger into Lindon's core. Madra flooded into him, and Lindon sat up with a gasp. His newly revitalized spirit flooded through his body, making the pain sharper. He grabbed at Eithan’s shoulder, holding himself upright.
But his thoughts were already rushing forward. Before anyone could say anything, Lindon had scooted over to where the last remaining madra absorption binding was waiting in its case. He snapped the lid shut and raised it. “I'm not so proud as to try and take the spear from the experts of the honored Jai clan,” he announced. “I will settle for this small binding, to improve my meager skill as a Soulsmith.”
Jai Long might already hate him, but that didn't mean he couldn't build up some goodwill.
“Wise choice,” Eithan said with a nod.
Lindon scrambled for some of the papers nearby. “...and these research notes, which teach me how to use the binding properly.” It would be a waste if he couldn't be a little greedy. And he saw no need to mention the badges or the scripted black stones, which he'd already scavenged and placed in his pack.
Eithan turned to Jai Long. “I have no need of anything for myself. I already achieved what I came for. Jai Long, as the leader of the other party to reach the summit of the Transcendent Ruins, what treasure do you claim?”
“Hold a moment, honored Underlord,” an old woman piped up, and Fisher Gesha drifted in on her spider's legs. An old man who looked as though he lived on the street followed her, with a rusty iron hook on his waist hanging almost all the way down to his bare feet. Beside them walked a man in a blue sacred artist's robe, with steel in the wings of his gleaming iron hair: a Jai clan member, surely, and one who carried himself with a stately and commanding grace.
Jai Long ground his spear into the floor, knuckles white around the weapon's hilt. Lindon slid backwards and found his pack, where he crammed his prizes. Eithan seemed to have the situation well in hand, but Lindon wasn't about to risk someone taking these treasures away from him.
Fisher Gesha's wrinkled face folded into a smile as she drifted up to Eithan. “It isn't appropriate for juniors to eat before their elders have a taste, is it? Hm?”
The man from the Jai clan inclined his head to Eithan. “Jai Long has served our clan's allies well, but he is not in favor. The Underlord should rest assured that we will reward him appropriately, once we have catalogued the contents of the Ruins and distributed them according to the will of the clan.”
The ragged-looking old Fisher said nothing.
Gesha stabbed a gnarled finger in Lindon's direction without looking at him. “Besides, that boy and the Lowgold accompanying him belong to the Fishers. They were soon to take their oaths, and it would be such a shame to have invested so much in their futures, only to have someone else reap the rewards. That deserves some compensation, don't you think? Hm?”
Eithan chuckled good-naturedly, bowing in return. “Honored leaders of the Five Factions Alliance, it's a pleasure to meet you. I was born Eithan Arelius, and thanks to the good fortune of the heavens, I reached the stage of Underlord at quite a young age.”
Without warning, all three elders collapsed.
Gesha's spider-legs snapped as her drudge broke beneath her, and she shrieked as she fell to the floor. She barely caught herself with her hands, trembling as she tried to support her own weight. Hair flew free from her gray bun.
The old Fisher had gotten his hook out before he fell to his knees, and he braced himself against the ground with his rusty iron weapon, but his breath came heavily through clenched teeth. The man from the Jai clan remained standing, but only barely.
Eithan walked up to him and rubbed his hands in the metallic hair, running his thumb along the edge of a rigid black peak. “I've always wondered about the Goldsign for the Path of the Stellar Spear. Frozen hair? It's astonishing. Does it hurt?”
The Jai elder grunted out something that might have been a response.
“Does it hurt?” Eithan repeated softly, rapping his knuckles lightly on the man's frozen hair. Metal rang like a muffled bell.
“No...Underlord...” the Jai elder managed to force out.
“Oh, really? How does it feel, then?”
“...helmet...”
That was the only word Lindon understood, but Eithan nodded. “I see, I see. Thank you for indulging my curiosity.” He moved on to the old Fisher man, taking a knee in front of him. “Fisher Ragahn, I assume. It's polite to introduce yourself when you're meeting a superior, you know, but I know who you are regardless. It must have been hard on you, reaching Truegold, but you did what you had to. Anything you had to. A kind person couldn't inherit the Fishers, could he? And if he did, he wouldn't remain kind for long.”
Eithan lowered his head, making sure that his eyes were even with the Fisher's. “I can respect that, Ragahn. But there are things you should and should not say to your superiors.”
He moved over to Gesha, who looked as though she was suffering more than the others. She was Highgold, Lindon remembered, and the others must be a stage higher.
Eithan crouched next to her, fingers laced together thoughtfully. No one else dared to disturb his silence by moving.
“I've dealt with people like you all my life,” Eithan said at last. “You earned everything at the edge of a spear, so you’ve picked up some unfortunate habits. Oh, but you're a Soulsmith, aren't you? You earned it making the spears.” He picked up a severed edge of her drudge's cracked leg. “I can deal with you like human beings if I take the time to get to know you, to slide into the walls you've built, to slip through the cracks in your pride. But I don't have the patience for that today.”
He tapped her forehead with the edge of the spider’s limb. “I am picking up the pair that you discarded. Do you have any objection?”
Slowly, Gesha's head shook once.
“Splendid. And the rest of you. You take what you can keep, isn't that the law of the Wilds? Do you have any doubt that I own everything and everyone inside the Ruins right now?”
The Jai elder choked out a few words. “The...clan...head branch...”
“Do I dare to offend the head branch of the legendary Jai clan?” He paused for a moment as though thinking. “Why wouldn't I dare? If I cut off your legs and threw you from the top of the Ruins, I'd have to spend an hour writing a letter of apology to your clan's Underlord. Do you think I would back down from such a threat?”