Lindon looked from the constructs to Yerin. “You want to fight?”
“I want to clean this place out.” Her razor-straight hair shook as she turned to look at him, punctuating her words with a grave look. “Sacred arts cost a bundle. Go now.”
Lindon didn’t need to be told again.
The priority was the spirit-seal, of course, but how could he pass up a room full of sacred artifacts? Yerin obviously agreed, because when the first construct blasted out a stream of golden light, she reflected it with her sword into another case, shearing the top off the glass without touching the artifact inside. The second construct fired, and she moved so that it wouldn’t pierce the case behind her.
She was fighting a Heaven’s Glory elder and his two security constructs, and she intended to do so without damaging any of the treasures around her. And judging by her words, she had complete confidence.
One day, Lindon hoped to be more like Yerin.
A plane of glass condensed from light behind her, boxing her in, as Elder Rahm joined the fight. Lindon left them to it. He couldn’t fight, so the least he could do was focus on his task.
It was hard to concentrate with the sounds of battle behind him, but he knew he had only seconds until someone arrived to back Rahm up. He had to work smart. He needed something to break the cases as fast as possible, and something to speed up their escape later.
First, to break the glass. He ran to the racks at the side of the room, where halfsilver weapons were displayed on open shelves. They were comparatively less valuable than the other artifacts in the room, so they didn’t rate a case.
Lindon snatched a halfsilver dagger away. It looked like ordinary silver, but veins of some brighter mineral shimmered beneath the surface, as though the blade contained a constellation. It would shear through madra faster than through half-melted butter.
Still, he didn’t rush straight for the spirit-seals. He ran to the back of the room, where Rahm had shown him a rust-colored cloud.
The Thousand-Mile Cloud filled its case like a bloody mist, and Lindon’s halfsilver dagger worked even better than he’d hoped. It shattered the glass directly, which released a wave of heat—the glass had golden edges, and it must be crystallized Heaven’s Glory madra. The Striker technique released a lance of focused golden light, so their Forgers must create this glass with burning shards. That seemed useless, except perhaps in constructs.
Out of confinement, the cloud inflated to its full size. It was round and fairly large, about three feet in diameter, and dense enough that he couldn’t see through it. It didn’t look solid enough to support solid matter, but he’d grown up with a mattress stuffed with cloud madra. He pressed on it, and it was like pushing on a pillow. It only gave to a certain point, and then it was solid.
This would be their getaway.
A deadly gold beam flashed by his head for an instant, five feet away but still close enough that he could feel the heat, and he dropped into a crouch. Madra trickled from him into the Thousand-Mile Cloud, and it drifted forward according to his direction.
He vaguely remembered where the spirit-seals were, the collection of paper seals painted with scripts that would help bind and manipulate Remnants. He half-crawled through the aisles, circling around the outside of the room to avoid the slashing sword-force and the deadly light flashing overhead.
As he did, he helped himself to the treasures of Heaven’s Glory. Even the danger of the fight around him couldn’t mute that thrill. In his most daring daydreams, he would never have imagined that he could one day choose freely from the vaults of a prestigious school of sacred arts. A smile crept onto his face as lethal madra flashed over his head.
With resources like these, even an Unsouled could rise.
He glanced at everything he grabbed before he stuffed it into his pack. First, he snatched the folded white Starlotus Bud and the tank containing the Sylvan Riverseed. The little blue spirit inside darted around its tree, standing on top of its tiny hill to glance at him curiously. The parasite ring went into his pocket, as he wanted to keep that on his person in case he had to abandon everything else. Only then did he reach the spirit-seals.
The dagger destroyed the glass with ease, and Lindon reached up to snatch a heavy sheaf of palm-sized paper seals, stacked like a deck of cards and tied at the top. Each seal was covered in layers of profound brush-strokes, forming scripts according to principles he couldn’t begin to grasp.
He slid over to the display containing the flying sword, which had caught his eye before. Once he reached Iron, he could use it, and now that he would be traveling with Yerin it was even more valuable. A sword artist like her would be able to work miracles with such a weapon.
No sooner had he broken the case than Yerin came sliding down the aisle on her back as though tossed there by a heavy blow. Her sword was still held in front of her, and the edge of her hair was smoking.
“This is taking a notch longer than I’d thought,” she said.
Lindon risked a glance outside. Sure enough, a small crowd of disciples had gathered at the bottom of the steps. They were murmuring among themselves at the moment, but they could rush forward to assist Elder Rahm at any second.
He looked down the aisle at the dozens of cases he hadn’t broken and spoke through gritted teeth. “Let’s…just…take what we have.” It grated on him to leave so many riches behind, but they’d die if they stayed.
She grimaced and rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding another beam. “Once I ease him on his way, we can go.”
While she struck out at the construct with another ripple of sword-madra, he stared at her. “We don’t need to fight him at all. Get on the cloud and let’s go.”
“The strong don’t run,” she said.
The elder himself stepped into view at that moment, waving his sword. Madra followed the motion, and transparent madra walls bloomed to either side of them. They were trapped in a column, one row of artifacts with Rahm and his two constructs on one side and Yerin and Lindon at the other. Behind them, a group of enemy disciples waited out the open door.
The old man pointed his blade at them. He must have given the constructs an instruction, because they were both silent as he spoke. “We want you alive. Swear yourself to my keeping, give us answers, and we won’t kill you. We’ll allow you to take your own life.”
“Can you keep me alive?” Lindon asked, voice low. “Because you might survive that crowd rushing in here, but I won’t. And you swore to keep me safe.”
She shuddered, expression flickering between anger and agony, but eventually she nodded.
Yerin knelt next to the case with the flying sword, her own blade pressed against the ground. She had lost her Heaven’s Glory robes at some point, leaving her own tattered black clothes, though the stolen iron badge still hung around her neck. “Did your messenger tell you what Path I follow?”
Suriel’s ghost had given him that information, but he couldn’t remember. He shook his head.
“Grab that sword,” she said, pointing at the case. “Then throw it at him.”
Lindon glanced nervously at the battle-ready Jade. “Now?”
“Now.”
The elder faced them impatiently, constructs hovering over each shoulder and weapon in hand. With as little movement as possible, Lindon slid the scripted blade off of its stand.
“Your answer,” Rahm demanded.
Lindon hefted the blade.
Yerin took a deep breath. “This is the Path of the Endless Sword,” she said.
Lindon threw.
As the sword tumbled end-over-end in the air, Yerin tightened her grip on her own weapon. Her blade rang like a struck bell, and suddenly the air was filled with flying splinters as the floor tore itself to pieces. It was as though a thousand hatchets struck the same point at the same time.