“Bleed me, but you’ve cleaned up,” her master said. “Herald. Never thought I’d see the day.” His crooked smile widened a little. “Guess I never did, did I?”
Yerin’s eyes misted up, and she laughed while she swiped at them. “Yeah, you skipped out on me early.”
“Sounds like me.” He tapped his forehead. “I like the hair. Made the Blood Shadow part of you. Did I figure that out?”
She shook her head. Then she told him the story.
Her sense of the construct suggested this would only last for a few minutes, so she had to skim along the surface. Especially because Lindon was doing his best to pretend he wasn’t in the room, though she introduced him anyway.
When Yerin finished telling her master about Ruby and achieving a Herald state early, the Sword Sage twisted to scan Lindon.
Lindon took the observation calmly. That came as a mild surprise; she had expected he would shift and squirm under the Sword Sage’s gaze, like he had when introducing her to his family.
Her master rested a hand on his sword and jerked his head to Lindon. “So you trust him?”
Yerin nodded.
“That’s a razor-edged risk. He could crack you open and drink you like an elixir anytime, just like your…uninvited guest.”
“Whose authority do you think is keeping you here?” Lindon asked. He didn’t sound upset, but he wasn’t being polite, which meant the Sage’s words had needled him.
“Master. Likely to lose those fingers if you keep poking into my business.”
The hunger echo held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t chew me to pieces, I was just stepping careful.”
“Not me,” Yerin said, before starting the second part of the conversation that she was nervous about. “We’re looking to get the Dreadgods out of Cradle.”
The Sword Sage’s head jerked back. He looked to Lindon, then back to Yerin. Then he barked a laugh. “Knew when I headed to the maze that I was tickling Monarchs in their secrets. Passed that down to you, did I?”
“That’s the help I need from you. You have something for me that can cut Monarchs and Dreadgods?”
The Sage rubbed a finger in his ear as though to clean it out. “You’re talking about hitting above my advancement level, all nice and casual. But yeah, I’ve got something for you.”
Yerin’s expectations rose.
“Sword Icon. You’re a Herald, so the Icon will be quiet as a whisper. Doesn’t mean it’s gone anywhere.”
“That’s a short road,” Yerin said. “Won’t have long to practice once I’m a Monarch. If I outstay my welcome, that just chases the problem round and round.”
The Sword Sage shrugged. “Don’t outstay your welcome, then. But I didn’t mean a road as long as Monarch anyway. It’s like I said: Sword Icon hasn’t gone anywhere. Heralds can resonate with it as well as anyone, they’re just deaf to it.”
Lindon nodded to him. “We’re aware of the theory, but I thought she needed to find a different Icon. She’s not on a pure sword Path anymore.”
“Then what kind of Sage does that make you?” the Sword Sage scoffed. “Give it another century before you come to me with your opinions.”
Lindon looked like he was about ready to prove himself with some black dragon’s breath, judging by the way his right arm was twitching.
Didn’t bother Yerin, though, because she saw through her master. She grinned and spoke to Lindon. “Don’t let him shake you up. He’s needled because you’re my age but you could break him in half with both hands behind your back.”
“Grew a mouth on you, didn’t you?” her master grumbled.
She pointed to Lindon. “Oi, did the labyrinth show you how he killed the Silent King?”
“Emriss could have—” The Sword Sage visibly realized he’d been about to compare Lindon to a Monarch and forced a cough. “Let’s not get off the trail here.”
Lindon looked like he’d had a breath of fresh air.
“Like I was saying,” the Sage continued, “people think of Sage as opening yourself up and Herald as closing yourself off. Like being outside a house or inside it. If you’re in, you can’t touch anything outside, and the same the other way around.”
He held his hands out as though handing something to her. “So how did the Monarchs ever do both? Truth is, the Icons are still there, and you’re just as close to them as you were before. It’s just that a Sage can read their Icon like a book, and a Herald is blind to it.”
Lindon had levitated a notebook and quill pen and was scribbling notes, though Yerin was sure Dross was watching everything.
“So am I going to move myself around and cut open the air like you?” Yerin asked. She had the Moonlight Bridge for transportation, but it would still be better to move herself.
The Sword Sage shook his head. “Not quite. No workings, like we could do. You manage to tell the world how it works, then cheers and celebration, you’re a Monarch. No, it’s the in-between where you can work. In our case…”
He drew his sword. “Sages and Monarchs have all sorts of authority bound up in their techniques. If they’ve got a swing that can cut a Dreadgod, you don’t have to see how they did it. Just copy them.”
Lindon’s quill was scribbling furiously, but he was still frowning into midair with an expression like he was deep in thought.
Yerin thought she understood what her master was saying, but it didn’t seem practical. “So I’ve got to watch a Monarch using a sword?”
“Or a Sage. Min Shuei will teach you.” He hesitated. “Is she…solid? She’s still got her sect, true?”
Yerin tapped her fingers against her sheath for a moment. “Caught sight of her once or twice. Not sure she’s so happy with you for dying.”
“Wasn’t the plan, that I can swear. Not in love with how we left things, though. You always think you have more time, don’t you?”
That wouldn’t have stabbed Yerin so deep, but she was planning on facing down both Dreadgods and Monarchs. By most reckoning, even a dozen lives wouldn’t be enough.
Involuntarily, she looked to Lindon.
He was perfectly calm. Still taking notes. He’d heard, she was sure, he just wasn’t thinking about the risks. He had a mission.
The side of her mouth quirked up. “Short on time myself, so what can you teach me?”
The Sword Sage looked down at himself in disgust. “What am I going to show you in this state? Maybe if I was plugged into the labyrinth, I could imitate some of my real authority, but like this…I have the power of my shortest toe. You’re a Herald; you have to have seen some decent fights.”
Yerin cast her mind back. The battle between the Sage of Red Faith and the Herald Redmoon popped into her memory first. The Sage had used a series of daggers. She’d seen Monarchs in battle too, but Malice usually carried a bow while Northstrider didn’t seem to need a weapon at all.
“Does it have to be a sword?” Lindon asked quietly.
“Best if it is,” the Sword Sage said. He patted the weapon at his side. “There’s a reason why the cutting Icon takes the form of a sword. It’s the perfect tool for combat. But no, of course you can use sword authority through just about any cutting weapon.”
Yerin realized what Lindon was implying, and a jolt shook her body. “Blood and rot, there’s reaching for the moon and then there’s jumping off a roof to touch the stars. How am I supposed to copy that?”
“One of them did have a sword,” Lindon pointed out.
“I’d rather copy the scythe,” Yerin muttered.
Of course, the highest-level battle Yerin had ever witnessed was the one between a black-armored Eithan and a celestial intruder. The man in the bone armor had used a sword, but he gave off the feeling of chaos and decay.
Eithan’s attacks, meanwhile, were clean. Cold. Absolute.
As much as she could see, anyway.
“Have a better chance of copying the rising sun,” she went on. But she was getting into position. She had to modify Eithan’s stance somewhat, her weapon being shorter and shaped differently. “Even if I manage it, it’ll be like the whisper of a ghost’s shadow next to the real thing.”