There was something there. Something she could use. A bridge between herself, her two new techniques, and the Path she’d been following since she was a girl. Something…
Her thoughts snapped back to reality when she felt Ziel grab her wrist.
“I know it’s just an illusion,” he said, “but I wouldn’t go in there.”
Yerin had been leaning forward, ready to step into the black hole left behind by the embodiment of Death.
She shuddered and backed up. “That was about a mile too close.” Then, because Dross had put it into her brain, she added, “Thanks.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Oh. You’re welcome.”
Yerin resolved to thank people more often.
Next up was Orthos, whose training Yerin could hear from anywhere in Ghostwind Hall. Since Yerin had been using the sparring hall, he’d moved down to one of the bigger empty caverns within the island of pale stone.
When she arrived, she saw Orthos surrounding himself with the Burning Cloak and crashing against the Herald dragon Remnant.
The two slammed their heads together with a crash like an exploding boulder. Orthos’ scalp split open, leaking blood.
“Again!” Orthos shouted.
The Remnant hesitated, and Orthos pounced on that hesitation immediately. His eyes shone a bright orange-red and he leaped up and over the spirit. He unleashed a flow of dragon’s breath down on Noroloth’s back.
The serpentine spirit twisted around and matched the Striker technique with dragon’s breath of his own, but then Orthos slashed down with his right foreleg.
Blackflame madra Forged quickly, forming claws, and Orthos slammed The Dragon Descends down.
If Noroloth hadn’t been the Remnant of a Herald, the technique’s explosion would have destroyed the cavern. Instead, he controlled the force and kept it from erupting into the walls.
He didn’t stop the fire from washing over Yerin, so she did it herself.
“Good!” the Remnant shouted. “Soon, you will be an Archlord, and you will be worthy of my line!”
Orthos roared, and a void key opened nearby. Noroloth seized a struggling black-and-red dragon Remnant, hurling it toward Orthos.
From Orthos’ soulspace, he summoned a hunger construct over his jaws so that his mouth was filled with gray-white fangs of Forged hunger. Then he bit down.
Power flowed from the Remnant up the teeth and into Orthos, lighting up scripts etched into the fangs. Orthos devoured the entire Overlord spirit in moments, pulling it to pieces and eating each one at a time.
Yerin had seen plenty of animals feeding on one another. Some of them were sacred beasts and others ordinary predators. But seeing Orthos do it was still a little revolting. She much preferred the look of Lindon’s Consume technique.
It was cleaner. More…elegant. At least, that’s how Eithan would put it.
Orthos shuddered as he fought against the flood of willpower and memories remaining in the Remnant. Without Lindon and Dross to filter them, he took the full brunt of their impact, though Yerin was sure the set of construct-teeth weren’t as efficient as Lindon’s arm.
Even so, her own experience with hunger madra told her it would be a struggle, but Orthos only shuddered a little as he worked his way through the Remnant.
“Is it that time already?” he asked Yerin in between bites.
“You’d have a better feel for the time if you had been sleeping.”
“It is not the time for rest.”
“Eh, that’s a little shaky. Depends. You looking to swallow down all those memories, or you looking to lose your mind again?” Yerin faced him down evenly, arms folded. She well remembered fighting a half-mad Orthos back when a Truegold posed a threat to her.
Orthos didn’t show her the embarrassment or understanding she would have expected from dredging up his past. He lifted his chin and looked to her with dignity. “If I can be consumed from within by these lesser shades, then I was not strong enough to begin with.”
The cavern shook as Noroloth laughed. He slithered over Orthos and glared down at Yerin. “You see, human? This is the attitude of a true dragon. My own blood. You would be wise not to doubt us.”
Yerin eyed him. “You’ve got a lot of mouth for a pile of Blackflame scales.”
“Your protector has been gone a long time.” He loomed over her, his too-wide mouth baring teeth. “The rest of you take me too lightly. I am—”
Yerin took a stance. She had no trouble getting in the proper mindset for this one, not with the Herald’s Remnant looming over her. And after staring into the darkness of Death.
She let the memory of Eithan’s strike fill her, and the world grew silent.
Before she could swing, Noroloth crashed to the ground. His madra stilled completely, and he slunk toward her on his belly. “I was kidding, of course, kidding! There’s no need to take me so seriously! I am pleased to render what aid I can, and if there’s more I can offer…”
Yerin let her technique fade half-formed. “You bark a lot more than you bite, don’t you?”
Noroloth chuckled nervously, but he no longer had Yerin’s attention. Orthos hadn’t banished his hunger fangs, his eyes still burned, and his shell smoldered with Blackflame. From the feel of his madra, he was about to throw himself at her.
“Take a breath, Orthos,” she said.
“I will not bow to a human,” Orthos spat.
Yerin looked him over from nose to tail. On the outside, nothing had changed from his growth to the peak of Overlord. But she was here to watch for changes on the inside.
“You tell me that was something you would have said before, and I’ll cut you down for being a liar.”
Blackflame flared in his spirit, and she wondered if he was going to attack her. Her heart tightened. If he did, that would be her chance to beat some sense back into him, but it would also mean there was less of the Orthos she knew left than she thought.
But sense returned to his eyes, and he looked up from the floor. His face twisted in a grimace. “I am sorry, Yerin. It is hard to remember myself, sometimes.”
“I can go grab Blue, if you need her to put the fire out.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t Blackflame damage. It is what you said. I have fed too much. It makes me feel strong and helps me break down the wills of these little spirits. But I forget myself.”
“I’m stone-certain Lindon has something to help keep your memories.” Yerin would bet a Monarch’s entire fortune that Lindon had made something with that effect in the void key he’d left behind.
Orthos gave a skeptical rumble. “It is not that I confuse their memories for my own. I forget what it feels like to be myself. What would I have said before? Would I have felt the same? What is my will, and what is the will I have stolen?”
With an unnecessarily intense jerk, he tore another piece off the dissolving Overlord Remnant. “It is…frustrating.”
“Sleep,” Yerin said.
Orthos nodded as he chewed.
“Not joking, playing, or lying,” Yerin went on. “Bleed me if I know why it happens, but sleeping helps keep everything straight. Don’t eat any more of these guys until I check on you tomorrow, how about that as a deal?”
“A day here is minutes for him.” Orthos looked to her. “You know better than I do how many techniques a Monarch can use in a minute.”
Yerin let out a breath. That was the needle stuck in her heart. The problem she had been trying to forget.
The others couldn’t help Lindon in his fight. They were stuck here until they could face a Dreadgod.
But Yerin could. She could go out there and help him. Fight at his side.
She just couldn’t help enough.
It would be easier if she couldn’t do anything at all, or so she thought. Then she’d have no choice but to stay put. Having the choice, and having to choose over and over again to do nothing, to be disciplined, to use time efficiently…