It was hard to twist a soul oath against its intention. Malice hoped it wouldn’t work this time…but her spirit tightened at even the thought of turning her bow on Lindon.
The duel really wasn’t over. The possibility remained that Northstrider could have his own trump card and turn the tables, and she knew it.
More importantly, she knew that Lindon couldn’t take on Northstrider like that without losing something. The boy might be in worse shape than he looked and could die on his own before Northstrider did.
With those possibilities still clear, she couldn’t violate her oath.
She scanned him with the full force of her perception, but she sensed little besides chaos. He certainly wasn’t at his best condition, but a Monarch’s power still ran through his channels undigested, his cores were full, and two minds resisted her intrusion.
Dragon’s breath slammed into her armor, and she was forced back much farther than she expected. The stability of her bloodline armor trembled, however slightly.
The authority of the Dragon Icon had been added onto a Path of black dragon-fire.
And Lindon hadn’t sworn an oath not to harm her.
Malice could only run and hope he didn’t chase her. She could feel the Way warping around him as he prepared a great working, and she moved herself before it landed.
“Home,” Malice said, and twisted space through shadows. She slipped into darkness and ran to Moongrave.
Three days. By that time, she hoped Lindon would be food for the Weeping Dragon. Though at the first opportunity, she would look into the future to confirm that.
Because she feared the truth would be the other way around.
11
Not only did Lindon not follow Malice, but it was all he could do to maintain consciousness.
Northstrider’s power was like a new opponent all its own. Madra thundered through his channels and stuck in his Dreadgod arm, a will equal to Lindon’s own tried to wrestle control away, and the strength stored in his body was like nothing Lindon had felt short of a Dreadgod.
Even his memories were heavier than usual, so that Lindon was buried in their sheer weight. Dross handled as many as he could, but the mind-spirit was at his limit too.
[I’m…not going to be…good for much,] Dross said, his mental voice strained. [Not unless we want…to kill me again. Which we don’t. I’m…speaking for both of us.]
Even reinforced, enhanced, and repaired as Dross was, exerting control over Northstrider’s oracle codex had taken everything he had. Especially doing it while hiding from the Monarch, which had also taken a massive working of the Void Icon.
As for Lindon, he barely had a thought to spare about Dross. All his attention was going to the Heart of Twin Stars as it divided the spiritual river they’d drained from Northstrider into tiny streams of many colors.
He was only holding on by the tips of his fingers. For their ruse to work, he’d needed to deceive Northstrider into thinking the fight was over.
The trick to deceiving Monarchs, he’d found out, was to make your lie ninety percent true.
His will really was strained, his body ravaged. Using a Dreadgod weapon while manipulating the labyrinth was a heavy enough burden, and to duel a Monarch afterward…he still had plenty of madra left, but that was virtually the only resource he wasn’t out of.
The weight of Northstrider’s energy was settling into him. His Bloodforged Iron body had seen to his wounds and supported the Heart of Twin Stars in processing blood essence. It seeped into his muscles and bones, bolstering them.
The stolen authority of the Dragon Icon raged through him. He could see what Orthos meant now; the nature of a dragon was in more than their natural instincts and inborn strength. It was the arrogance and certainty of being born a higher being.
And with it came power.
Northstrider’s memories were a waterfall of images and impressions, but Lindon had to let them go without inspection. There were surely lifetimes of lessons within, but even a fraction of Northstrider’s knowledge was like having a thousand books crammed into his mind at once. If he tried to dive in, he would be overwhelmed.
Dross could sort the memories later, when he recovered. There would be treasures buried in Northstrider’s mind.
That thought was a spark of delight in Lindon’s soul. He still struggled to separate the forces he’d absorbed, but he had crested the hill. It would only get easier from here.
He had done it. Bested a Monarch. And not just any Monarch, but Northstrider; the creator of Ghostwater, and one of the first Monarchs Suriel had shown him on her world tour.
He could level Sacred Valley on his own, she had told him, and you could save it, if you had skills and powers like his.
Now, he did.
When Lindon fully processed what he’d stolen, the gap between them would only grow.
Or…
He could hold on. While it would be difficult to do so, the authority of the Dragon Icon would be invaluable for Orthos. He could give Ziel some more memories, and Northstrider’s madra would be compatible with Yerin’s.
As he thought of his friends, he stretched his awareness north.
At which point he froze in sudden fear.
Ordinarily Dross would have warned him first, but the mind-spirit was busy. He noticed a second later than Lindon did, and then they shared the same alarm.
Reigan Shen was approaching Windfall.
King’s Key madra burned against Lindon’s perception, coming closer and closer to the pocket world.
Windfall was hidden as well as Lindon could hide anything, not to mention located over a random stretch of the Trackless Sea, but clearly Shen had found it. He was moving too quickly for this to be a coincidence.
Lindon had left constructs and other security measures, including some scaled for a Monarch, but they would only slow Shen, not stop him. Lindon had to hope the people inside would sense what was happening and defend themselves in time. Or that he could get there.
He flew faster than ever into Sacred Valley, blurring as he flew straight for the Nethergate.
“Home!” Lindon coughed out, but there was no authority behind the command. His will was too scattered, too chaotic. He tried again, reaching toward the ground with his Dreadgod hand. “Home!”
Space twisted around him as he was seized by the spatial authority of the labyrinth, but his vision dimmed and head split. The Monarch power inside him left his control and started to rampage, tearing him up from the inside, but he stayed focused.
He reappeared in a dark chamber at the bottom of the ocean, and he blasted his way up.
Desperately hoping to make it in time.
Yerin sat cross-legged in her cycling room within Ghostwind Hall, gathering blood and sword aura and weaving them together. But at the same time, she also had to operate the blood madra inside her body in a way that resonated with its minor hunger aspect from the Phoenix.
Using one cycling technique at a time was hard enough. This was trying to play two different songs on two instruments at once. And making them not sound like a sack of squealing cats.
An angry hiss distracted her, along with a loud, insistent tapping sound.
She broke off her cycling and looked up, annoyed. The angular skeleton of blood madra drilled its sharpened fingers on a chalkboard, which was covered in complex notations.
“Would be about a thousand miles closer to easy if you would just talk,” she pointed out for the hundredth time. “You’re not tricking anybody.”
The Blood Sage’s Remnant somewhat resembled him in life: a crimson skeleton, though the spirit’s skull had no eyes. At least, not inside it. Eyes floated all around his head, and they glared at her in frustration.