by Will Wight
Or that was how it was supposed to be. The Seishen Kingdom had continued pushing to the very edge of the portal, and the number of wounded flooded their capacity. The tents were stuffed with beds, and mats when those ran out. Wounded were shoved into whatever space could be found regardless of rank, and Brightcrown healers scurried from one battered sacred artist to another, trying their best to conserve madra.
The most important among the wounded, the ones who would usually have been given rooms inside the city, were still given special attention. But they couldn’t get through the walls. Even the sky over the walls had been locked down after too many cloudships had run out of power and been forced to make emergency landings.
Lindon had heard that the Seishen Kingdom attack hadn't cost too many lives, as these things went, but hearing the moans and screams from agonized wounded, it was easier to imagine that the Blackflame Empire had been massacred.
Though Lindon could see nothing of the suffering patients, because he had a tent of his own. And a bed. A bundle of yellow-striped flowers on a table beside him, radiating calming dream aura that even soothed his spirit. Steady rain pattered down, but the fabric of the tent was flawless.
A medical attendant from the Brightcrown family stood inside his tent, attending to Lindon alone, hands folded in front of him. Lindon had wondered about the family name before he’d seen one; each member of the family had a floating golden crown over their heads. As the Arelius family commanded the cleaning crews and maintenance workers all across the Empire, so the Brightcrowns controlled organized medicine.
Lindon made a show of rubbing salve over his wounds again. The wounds were still raw, but it had been about twelve hours since the battle—his Bloodforged Iron body had taken care of the worst of his injuries already.
“I'm really feeling much better,” Lindon said, twisting his left arm to demonstrate. It stung, but he didn't show that on his face. “I think it's time for me to leave. I can only imagine how busy you are.”
Somewhere nearby, a grown man sobbed.
The Brightcrown healer—a small, tidy Highgold with gray at his temples—bowed to Lindon. “To answer the Truegold, I could not live with myself if I allowed you to leave before your treatment was complete, especially not in this rain. The reputation of my family is at stake.”
Extending both hands, he sent a breath of golden madra toward Lindon. It not only eased his wounds, but gave him a pleasantly peaceful feeling that made him feel as though he'd had a long night's sleep.
They'd had this exchange a dozen times already over the course of the night. Lindon had returned with Yerin in his arms, both of them covered in blood, with Mercy stumbling exhaustedly after them. Lindon had no idea where Mercy had gone since, but she was unhurt.
He'd kept his spiritual sense locked on Yerin, who was in a tent of her own only two hundred yards away. She needed the attention.
But the Brightcrowns had scanned him, then immediately shuttled him into this tent, with a personal attendant.
“I do not need all this,” Lindon said firmly. He had initially considered his wounds merely scratches, but the course of the night had made him realize that they were deeper than he had imagined. And there were more of them. Even so, he should have been in and out in two hours.
“You are a Truegold ranked among the top one hundred combatants. It is my duty to return you to battlefield condition as soon as possible.”
That was new. “Top one hundred?” Lindon asked.
The man smiled proudly, brandishing a sheet of paper. “I received confirmation only minutes ago. The oracles convened last night, examining what they could of the battle.”
He bowed, ushering the raindrop-stained paper to Lindon. It was a listing of one hundred names, in order; at the top were the words “Truegold Combat Ranking 1-100.”
“Pardon me if you were already aware, but this is an incredible honor. There are fewer Truegolds than Highgolds, certainly, but the top one hundred is even more competitive than the Highgold list. The truly talented do not stay at Highgold; they spend most of their lives at Truegold. And this list does not discriminate by age. The top ten are all old monsters that can compete with some Underlords.”
Toward the bottom of the list, Lindon saw his name: Wei Shi Lindon Arelius, Path of Black Flame. Age: Eighteen. Backing: Arelius family.
Number ninety-six.
[Eighteen years old?] Dross said. [Sorry, I know I’m supposed to be focused on your rank, but…are they sure? I thought eighteen-year-old humans were supposed to be fresh-faced and youthful.]
Lindon was surprised by his age, too.
By the standards of Sacred Valley, he would be considered seventeen still, so these Blackflame oracles must have scanned his biological age. Even so, he couldn’t believe that his second autumn since leaving home had ended while he was in Ghostwater. In all that time, he had climbed higher than he had ever imagined.
Ninety-six. It was only a ranking, and he still had a long road to travel, but his spirits lifted. This was proof of how far he'd come.
He pulled on the shadesilk ribbon around his neck, hauling out the golden hammer badge. Soon, he would be trading it out for...what was the color of the badge that represented Underlord? He would have to check.
[Oh, and look who's eighty-seven!]
Drawn by Dross, Lindon scanned up the list until he saw another name.
Yerin Arelius, Path of the Endless Sword. Age: Nineteen. Backing: Arelius family. Number eighty-seven.
Nine places higher than his.
[You’re closing in!] Dross said. [And just to think, you've come so far since you started. I imagine.]
Lindon stared at the number next to Yerin's name. It wasn't jealousy he was feeling. He knew his power wouldn't stay the same for long, and Yerin wouldn't care what some paper said her strength was anyway. If he had to put a name to it, he would call it despair.
He had foolishly thought they were on even footing.
With her Blood Shadow, she had fought two Underlords to a standstill. Her image, spinning and dancing in sync with her Shadow, had haunted him all night. It was the most extraordinary thing he'd ever seen from her.
And they were at the same stage of advancement. He’d known he was neglecting real combat training, and now he'd dropped the entire burden on her.
Yerin's madra spiked, and his dark thoughts were cut off. She was awake.
The Brightcrown stood in front of the tent flap, bowing to him. “Pardon me, Truegold, but I couldn't possibly allow—”
Lindon pushed him aside.
He passed an open-sided tent, filled with bleeding and groaning figures as well as exhausted healers mixing concoctions or forcing out their madra. The area beneath the tent was packed solid, so there was barely room for them to walk between the beds. The steady rain soaked the feet of those on the edge, who couldn't entirely fit under the covering.
The Brightcrown man stumbled after Lindon, who marched straight for Yerin. Some of the other Brightcrowns and their assistants—each bearing the crest of a crowned oak tree—hurriedly bowed as soon as they saw him. He even saw a few servants in the dark blue Arelius uniform dragging bloody laundry.
Lindon's healer tried his best to stop him without touching him. “Please, this will ruin my reputation. I beg you to return to your tent.”
“Put someone else in my tent,” Lindon commanded. It was easier to assert himself, he found, when he was focused on something else. “Take three or four people out of the rain.”
“Your tent has to be empty and waiting for you when you return.”
Lindon still didn't look at the man. He was concentrating on a tent that looked identical to his, but which held slowly cycling Endless Sword madra.
“If I return and I find that tent empty, I will find whoever is in charge and demand that you be punished,” Lindon said. Then, because he couldn't help himself, he added, “Apologies.”
The man sputtered something, but he ended up leaving Lindon alone.
A young woman in the brown robes of a servant stood in front of Yerin's tent, her hair tied back in a rag, damp from the rain. She held her hands up for Lindon to wait, but Lindon brushed past her. He felt a little uncomfortable doing it, but he had to adjust to his new status. He decided where he could go, not her.
He ducked into the tent and froze.
Yerin sat on the bed, staring to one side. The tent was crowded with three more Brightcrowns, all sporting the glowing Goldsign, all of them women. Lindon was looking between them, so he saw Yerin in glimpses. Her tattered black robes were folded on a chair next to the bed, and her armor sat in a pile.
She had blankets pulled up to her waist, but otherwise she was completely bare. Her body was slender, her skin pale in the light of all the golden crowns, thin scars glistening in the light.
Lindon took one glance and immediately pushed back out of the tent.
Lesson learned. He couldn't go anywhere he wanted.
The Lowgold servant woman outside the tent gave him an icy stare. She couldn't say anything to a Truegold, but she clearly wanted to.
“Apologies,” he said, bowing to cover his burning face. “I, ah, should have listened.”
[Why?] Dross asked curiously.
Lindon did not answer.
Only a minute or two later, the other three healers emerged. They were led by an older woman, a Truegold with her gray hair tied up in a bun. She turned to Lindon with a serious expression.
“Lindon Arelius?” she asked. Lindon wasn't sure when that name had become commonly known, but he nodded.
“Her lifeline is severely damaged,” she said in a low voice. “We have stabilized her, so it will not be extinguished tonight, but we cannot fully repair the life-force she has lost. With regular elixirs and infusions of life aura, she can live her remaining time normally, even return to the battlefield if she must.”
“How much...” Lindon began, but his voice caught, and he had to start over. “How much time?”
“Two months,” the woman said. “Maybe a little more or less. Then her life will be exhausted. It will be painless.”
Lindon stared at the healer's face. He kept staring at the same spot even when the woman said something to comfort him, told him a treatment plan, and walked off. And when the Lowgold Brightcrown asked if he needed anything. He meant to respond, but somehow he didn't.
There was a question he wanted to ask, but he couldn't bring his thoughts together.
Dross, he said, and the spirit filled in the blanks.
[I know,] Dross answered, his voice uncharacteristically grave. [Yes, this is exactly what the Life Well was meant for. It would heal her. It could even take that blood spirit of hers up a notch.]
How much would she have needed? Lindon asked.
It didn't matter. He hadn't saved any. But he wanted to know.
[One spoonful.]
Every question he asked sharpened the pain, but he pressed on. How much did I drink?
[Fifty or sixty times as much, but your lifeline was healthy. Most of it went to waste, but the rest of it did reinforce you.]
Mercy had commented on his lifeline already. He had known.
So, if I had taken those hits instead of Yerin...
[You would have shrugged it off,] Dross said. [I’m sorry. I didn’t know how much damage she’d taken before we saw her.]
Dross was using Lindon’s senses. And Lindon hadn’t opened his Copper sight, because the aura was too strong.
Lindon felt like he was being crushed beneath the pressure of an Underlord. He had made sure that Dross and Orthos had all the water they needed from the Life Well, because they could use it. He had ignored the rest because he hadn't seen any use for himself.
[Uh, Lindon? Are you feeling all right? I'm growing alarmed. Alarmed is a good word. 'Afraid' is another one.]
Without looking, Lindon reached out with his right arm and seized the Lowgold Brightcrown. She shook as the Remnant hand closed around her upper arm.
He turned to her, and she flinched back. Was he squeezing her too hard? No, he was being gentle. Maybe it was his face. Still, he withdrew his hand.
“A new lifeline,” he said. “How do I get one?”
The Lowgold girl looked from side to side. “It's not something...I mean, you can't replace it. It's a representation of how strong your life is.”
“So I could pour more life aura in?”
“Ah, no. That's like filling broken madra channels with more power. It won't fix the damage. The power will only leak out.”
“Something restores broken lifelines,” Lindon said.
The Life Well did. Northstrider can't have been the only one to have done so. And he wasn't the only Monarch in the world.
The girl rubbed the back of her neck. “If she were Lowgold, I would say advancement. That helps everything a little, even your lifeline. But she's Truegold. This is as far as she goes.”
She looked at him as though expecting him to be angry, but he felt as though she'd pushed a mountain off his shoulders.
From her perspective, no one could count on advancing to Underlord. By most common sense, the journey of a sacred artist ended at Truegold.
But not for Yerin.
Just in case, he checked with Dross.
[Oh no, advancing to Underlord is worlds better than advancing to Highgold. Your body and spirit are remade.]
“Gratitude,” Lindon said, and she looked confused.
Lindon started to push his way into the tent, but hesitated. “I'm coming in,” he called, waiting for Yerin's response before entering.
She sat in the same position as before, though now she had a loose brown robe wrapped around her shoulders. She stared into her master's sword, its white blade sitting in her lap.
“I heard,” she said. “Nothing like a deadline to push you past your limits, true?” Her tone was supposed to be light, but she was forcing it.
Lindon sat on the edge of the bed and put on a brave face. “Who needs two months? You fought two Underlords at once last night. You'll be breaking through any time.”
Yerin pushed out a smile. “Yeah. Cheers and celebration for me.” Her eyes were sunken, and her face was paler than usual.
She still hadn't looked at him, staring deep into her master's blade. She was gripping the hilt hard...too hard. Her knuckles stood out white, and from Yerin, Lindon suspected that meant she was squeezing hard enough to crush rocks to dust.
He put his hand over hers, partially to comfort her, and partially because he was afraid she would hurt herself. Her grip relaxed, at least a little, and she looked up at him.
He looked into her dark, questioning eyes, and racked his brain for something to say.
What could he say? What could he do?
Lindon's mouth spoke before his brain had entirely confirmed the idea. “...I want to go back home.”
Her expression turned confused.
“After we're Underlords. We won’t be strong enough to fight off a…monster, or a Dreadgod, or a Monarch, or whatever’s coming, but we can hold our own in the world out here. Even if nobody listens to me, we can grab my family and get out. Take them to the Blackflame Empire; Underlords here are treated like kings. We could even wander around, like you and your master used to do.”
The look in Yerin's eyes shifted over a long moment, like a ship slowly turning to another course. “We've got to fight in the tournament.”
“Why? We can advance on our own terms.”
Anything to keep her talking.
“Did that prince chip your head? Steel sharpens steel. You want to toss away a chance to cross swords with the best in the world?” Her grip on the sword loosened further, and she was sitting straighter. “My master lost in the solo matches to Del'rek of the Shann. Said it was the sharpest battle of his
life; worth more than ten years of practice on his own. And Del'rek joined up with the Eight-Man Empire.”
“I would miss the prizes,” Lindon said. Though no one had explained what the actual prizes were, they had to be substantial.
“It’ll be a tall cliff to climb, but worth every inch. You make it past the first round, and the Ninecloud Court make a floating castle just for you.”
Lindon started. She actually knew what the prizes were? Why had he never asked?
“If you survive the second round, you get an Archlord weapon that makes that castle look like a pig pen. Third round, that’s a gift from some other faction. One of the ones you didn't come from, if you’re following me. Factions compete over who can give the best gifts, so you'd be looking at the storm phoenix feathers, fruit from the Heart-Piercer Tree, thousand-year spirits...my master got a dream tablet showing a heavenly messenger swinging a sword.”
“And after that?” Lindon asked. He had intended to distract Yerin, but now he was getting drawn in.
“After three rounds, we’ve whittled it down to eight fighters,” she said. “From there, they fight solo matches, one-on-one. Everybody who makes it into the top eight gets the mark of the Uncrowned. It's like a tattoo of a broken crown, and it's unique in all the world. Anchors to your spirit, so it can never be removed. Somebody wants to fight you, you show them that, and they'll think twice. On top of that, you get personal lessons from a Sage.”
“Not a Monarch?”
Yerin's head jerked back as though he'd slapped her. No, if he'd slapped her, she wouldn't have budged an inch. “You think Monarchs are like dirt farmers? If one or two of them show up to watch, and you hear a whisper of their voice, you'll be lucky. Add to that, Sages don't take disciples, so this is a once-in-your-life chance.”
At Lindon's look, she added, “Most Sages. You can’t pass on Sage techniques, but they’re still peak Archlords. With my own eyes, I’ve seen my master turn down land, cloudships, Remnants, secret Path manuals, and a fistful of marriage proposals from Ladies who wanted his word on their techniques.”
Yerin pulled her hand away, setting her sword aside. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and she was moving her hands when she spoke, eyes sparkling. Like the Yerin from yesterday.
