Not that it mattered, in the end.
He’d counted on the disruption from the halfsilver dagger lasting long enough to let him land an Empty Palm, which would have bought him enough time to run. Whitehall would have recovered in seconds and chased him, but he’d planned for that.
He hadn’t planned for the elder grabbing him by the wrist. He tried to resist, but it was as though his arm had been planted in stone. Panic bloomed in his chest, and he had time for only one panicked thought. Too fast. He’d shaken off the halfsilver in an instant. Lindon had never had a chance.
Whitehall smiled, his lips bloody, and the expression looked demonic in a child’s face. Then he turned around without releasing his grip.
At the last second, when Lindon realized what was about to happen, he slipped his free hand inside his outer robes and gripped the stack of spirit-seals. He didn’t even have time for fear before he was launched into the air.
The elder hurled Lindon toward the fight.
As he tumbled forward, time came into absolute focus. Though the flight must have taken a second, it felt like minutes. The Remnant’s six bladed limbs flashed, Yerin’s sword wove a defensive tapestry, and around them stone was sliced to pieces.
With one clumsy effort, he flung the entire packet of spirit-seals into the Remnant’s general direction. They would most likely be cut to pieces in midair, and even if they landed, they had a better chance of slapping harmlessly into the ground than touching the Remnant. He needed something else.
He could still feel his spirit’s connection to the Thousand-Mile Cloud, so he poured madra into it desperately, clutching at anything that might save him. It would never reach him before he plunged into that deadly whirlwind, but he had to try.
When Yerin saw him, her eyes widened, then narrowed on the falling seals. She didn’t hesitate. Her defensive stance collapsed, and blood instantly sprayed up from her body in five lines as she took the Remnant’s attacks. Her sword gathered force like a heat haze, and as she sliced from bottom to top, a wave of colorless power tore out from her weapon. The madra struck the Remnant head-on, slashing a vertical gash in its pristine surface and knocking it back a few paces, into the falling seals. It shuddered as the scripted papers sank into its body, causing the Forged madra that made up its form to ripple like a slapped puddle.
The rest of Yerin’s slash whipped through the open door of the Tomb, dragging a line of destruction across the tiles and blasting a man-sized tear in the interior wall. Stone crumbled away from the triangular hole the size of a doorway, and he caught a glimpse of the mountains behind the Tomb before his thoughts caught up.
They had won.
He fell anyway.
Instead of slamming into the edge of a sword or the ragged corner of torn stone, he fell into a red cloud hovering three feet above the ground. It caught him on the right side of his body, flipping him over, and yet again Lindon landed hard on his back. The impact to his skull sent stars shooting through darkness, and he was sure something in his pack must have broken this time.
But he lived.
The battle resumed overhead, blades of invisible force whistling as they sliced through the air over his face. Covered in blood, Yerin forced the Remnant back step by step. It was leaking silvery motes of essence now, and the battle slid steadily away from the door.
As it did, Lindon maintained his spirit’s grip on the Thousand-Mile Cloud. Weakened or not, the Remnant’s attacks were still enough to kill him, and he wanted to put as much space between them as he could. With one hand on the construct for support, he half-crawled, half-limped into the Ancestor’s Tomb. There, he would be safe from the fight. There, he could think.
He’d just pulled his feet in past the doorway when a line of gold heat blasted after him, missing him by inches.
Part of his mind was still moving, taking stock of his options, but the rest of him was shivering terror. When Whitehall appeared in the doorway, a child in bloodstained white robes, Lindon whimpered.
The elder took a step inside, glancing from side to side as though checking to see what other trick Lindon had prepared. That sight was like dawn rising before Lindon’s eyes.
Elder Whitehall, a Jade leader of the esteemed Heaven’s Glory School, was wary of him.
Lindon straightened and rose to his feet, though he needed to lean on the Thousand-Mile Cloud to do so. Wind whistled between the open door and the gash in the side, whipping against his skin like ice, but he ostentatiously ignored Elder Whitehall and looked to the walls and ceiling as though checking on his traps.
The inside of the Ancestor’s Tomb was vast and empty, set with as many pillars on the inside as there were on the outside, and the ceiling was covered in another mural of four beasts: a blue serpentine dragon on a thunderstorm, a crowned white tiger, a stone warrior with the shell of a tortoise, and a blazing red phoenix. In the back of the room was an ornate door, presumably leading to the actual tomb, because there were no bodies here. Or perhaps that was the entrance to the labyrinth Yerin had mentioned.
Whitehall brandished the halfsilver dagger in one hand. “I’m not a fool, never think that I am. I’ve caught on to you. You’re no Unsouled.”
Lindon focused on catching his breath, and tried not to betray himself.
“Unsouled don’t have the madra to use a Thousand-Mile Cloud.”
Without the ancestral orus fruit, he would never have been able to activate the cloud. Or the White Fox boundary. Now that he thought of it, that fruit had saved his life more than once.
“Unsouled don’t win tournaments, not even among children.”
Without the Empty Palm, he never would have.
“Unsouled don’t beat Irons, with or without tricks.”
Whitehall had actually seen the hornet Remnants defeat Amon. All Lindon had needed was the strength to open a scripted jar, and the elder had to know that.
The Jade in the boy’s body toyed with the halfsilver dagger, studying him. “I believed you must have cheated to pass the Trial of Glorious Ascension, but now I understand. Anyone can put on a wooden badge. What are you really? Iron? You’re not Copper, a Copper body would have died by now. And a Jade wouldn’t throw away his pride.”
“Apologies, elder,” Lindon said respectfully. “This one is honored by the attention, but the elder surely has bigger problems than this humble disciple.”
Whitehall nodded slowly. “I will soon. Dropping seals on a Remnant in midair while calling a cloud? Those are not the reflexes of a Copper.”
This time, Lindon did allow himself a small smile. He was proud of that one.
“Whoever you are, you’re traveling a fool’s path.” Then Whitehall did something that Lindon hadn’t predicted: he flipped the halfsilver dagger around, offering Lindon the hilt. “Work with me.”
Chapter 20
“I have no grudge against you,” Whitehall said, the expression on his face far colder than anything a child should have produced. “I don’t even need the girl dead. I want the treasures of the Sword Sage, and nothing more. Here and now, with the heavens as my witness, I’ll swear an oath on my soul to leave you both alive. Furthermore, I will take you as my personal disciple. Whatever you are, you’re not a Jade yet, and in my care you will be.” He held the dagger out in a steady hand, waiting for Lindon to take the hilt.
To win, all Lindon had to do was delay while Yerin harvested her master’s Remnant. “Forgiveness, elder, but it seems as though…” He considered saying ‘this one,’ but it didn’t seem like time for humble speech. “…I have no reason to accept. If the Remnant is sealed, and I mean no disrespect, but Yerin will destroy you.”