But she held on to the feeling, committing it to memory. Experimentally, she closed her eyes and tried to bring back that state of heightened awareness, but it was like trying to catch fog between her fingers.
When she opened her eyes, Eithan was standing outside the booth, watching her with a proud smile on his face.
“That's more like it!” he said. “How did it feel?”
“You were the one who just won a match. I just sat here.”
“And yet your prize is greater than mine, as long as you can seize it.” He reached into the pocket of his shimmering gold-and-lavender outer robes, but hesitated. “...one way or the other, we'll be making House Arelius look bad here, but I suppose there's no helping it.”
From his pocket he pulled her blindfold.
Yerin looked at him sideways. “I go out there blindfolded, and you’ll be carrying me back in a bag. Think I can take their sword artist, but that’s if I’ve got eyes.”
The Ninecloud Soul was talking over select scenes from the battle, reproducing them in midair, to the approval of the crowd.
Eithan dangled the blindfold from one finger. “All right. Then what do you think you need?”
She needed that sensation of perfect awareness, where she was drifting on the Sage's instincts and her own spiritual perception. She could feel that she was only touching the surface of that state, and she wanted to dive down deep.
But first, she had to figure out how to call it at will. Her master would say that the best way to do that was in the heat of battle.
Yerin snatched the blindfold. “Don't blame me if this gets us a loss.”
“If you progress in this way, a loss in this tournament means nothing.”
It meant something to her , and if their advancement to the next round were on the line, she would never try something like this. In reality, even if she failed, Eithan would have his chance to redeem them.
But when she imagined herself throwing a match by blindfolding herself and then Eithan losing the next fight, she almost gave up.
It was the thought of mastering this mysterious feeling that kept the blindfold in her hand. It was worth a little risk if she could take a step forward. The more pressure she put herself under, the faster she would grow.
She walked up, and Northstrider had returned to his spot atop the maze. He looked from her to her opposite, whom she couldn't see. She guessed they would send out Altavian this time, but she might be fighting Veris instead. Either way, she would have to pray to the heavens that she could sense the future as they sensed her.
“Are you satisfied with your fighters?” Northstrider asked.
Yerin nodded.
“Very well,” the Monarch said.
An instant later, the image floating above the match changed. Seeing it from the bottom, it looked like a chaos of color, nothing like a real picture. She didn't know if that was a security measure designed to prevent contestants from looking to see what their opponents were up to or if this was just how illusions of light looked from below.
“Altavian Arelius,” the rainbow announced, “versus Yerin Arelius! The bloodline member of the core House against an adopted disciple of a branch family! One born with every advantage, the other fighting for every scrap, but both have made it to the greatest heights!”
Yerin steadied herself. She calmed her breathing. And she wrapped the blindfold around her eyes.
Noise from the crowd surged in response.
“What's this?” the Ninecloud Soul cried excitedly. “Contestant Yerin has—”
“Begin,” Northstrider said.
Yerin's spirit cried a warning, and then she was cut.
Chapter 17
Charity watched as Yerin blindfolded herself and had to push down a surge of anger. Sacred artists, in her opinion, tended to make the same errors when they pushed for advancement. One was to value progress over every other objective.
Not only was Yerin risking victory for herself, but the prestige of her entire country. The honor of Charity's family. A failure on her part would have costs Yerin could never measure, and success would mean benefits that Yerin couldn't imagine.
And yet she was hobbling herself, no doubt to train her spiritual perception in some way. She had not known the Sword Sage well, but she had known him, and this was absolutely something he would do.
But that didn't make it wise.
The thought was strong in her head as Altavian leaped over the entire maze, touching down only once, and brought his sword down hard on Yerin. He blazed with a silver full-body Enforcement, and the blinded Yerin reacted a second too late to avoid him completely. Altavian's goldsteel blade flashed as it cut her, dragging a slash down the inside of Yerin's left shoulder and gashing her thigh as she backed up.
It was a superficial cut, but it was a harbinger of the rest of the battle. She made a cage out of her Goldsigns, but he cut them from bottom-to-top, breaking the sword-arms open. Thrusting his left palm into the opening, he speared her with five needle-points of sword madra, a Striker technique that dug into her body. If she hadn't been a sword artist, she would have lost right there.
She blocked his next few hits with clumsy movements, bleeding from her pair of wounds, and Charity's irritation grew. Yerin was too slow and imprecise. Almost as though she were relying on her vague spiritual perception as an Underlady instead of her sight .
Charity had written this round off as a loss when Yerin slid away from the blade by a hair's breadth, flicking her sword casually against Altavian.
She cut his arm. Blood sprayed.
Then her sword rang like a bell. Instead of an uncontrolled storm, the aura erupting from both their blades struck precisely, knocking Altavian's sword away mid-swing and slicing him across both thighs.
Yerin moved confidently now, fluidly, as though a different person controlled her body.
Charity's annoyance faded, and she leaned slightly closer to her viewing tablet.
It was still somewhat annoying when a sacred artist risked everything for progression...but it was forgivable when it worked.
~~~
Min Shuei's heart seized in her chest as she saw Yerin knocking aside a three-part attack from Altavian Arelius with only her sword-aura, following up at the perfect moment to push him back and land a cut on his chest.
He leaped away and she followed, a blind hunter.
Emotion choked the Winter Sage, and she gripped her own sword, a twin to the one Yerin was using. The Underlady wasn't moving like herself anymore; her every step, every flick of the wrist, was a mirror of the Sword Sage.
The girl had taken Adama's Remnant. He had given up his life for hers.
Though Min Shuei yearned to hear the full story, she still couldn't forgive the girl for that. He should have had decades yet to live, yet to teach, and instead he had thrown it away on someone who didn't even appreciate his Path.
But here...it was like watching the man she'd loved come back to life.
~~~
Yerin drifted through a dream.
The pain of her wounds didn't hinder her in her dream. Even the pain in her spirit, caused by strained madra channels, couldn't touch her.
She moved on pure instinct, without thought, letting her training and experience move her body. It was like letting her Remnant take over, moving her body like a puppet. The sensation might have been uncomfortable if she thought too much about it, but conscious thought would shake her awake.
The dream only faded when her opponent's madra did, as her sword passed through him and he melted into light. Then her peace retreated, and she could do nothing to hold onto it amid the rising tide of cheers from the crowd.