by Will Wight
Yerin looked from one statue to another. “If you don't want them obvious, don't make them so big.”
“On the scale of what they represent, they are no more than figurines.”
Yerin didn't follow that, so she grunted.
Purple eyes moved to Bai Rou. They waited a moment, then the Sage said, “Take him from me and question him separately. I will question her.”
Lo moved in a blur, and in less than a blink, he had soundlessly moved Bai Rou out of the room and shut the door behind him. It was over so fast that it felt like a dream.
“We may release him when we learn what we need,” she said. “It depends on him.”
“Keep him,” Yerin said.
The Sage looked at her, expressionless.
“I'm stone-serious.”
Charity flipped the chisel like a coin. It flew up to the ceiling, spinning end-over-end. “We need to know what happened to the portal,” she said. At the very tip of its flight, the chisel brushed softly across the stone of the ceiling. Then it fell.
“Don't have a hint myself,” Yerin said.
She caught the chisel, still watching Yerin.
“We're working with the Skysworn,” Yerin said. “Blackflame Empire. Something was going wrong out here, something with Ghostwater, so we came to lay eyes on it. Three of us went in.” Her voice caught briefly as she added, “Three of us stayed out.”
“There was a transmission from one Skysworn to the other,” Charity said, flipping the chisel again.
“Multiple enemies. Told us not to run in.”
“And you tried to run in anyway,” the Sage said.
“...yeah.”
Charity caught the chisel on one extended finger this time, perfectly balanced.
Now she was just showing off.
“I have monitored the situation on the inside,” said the Sage. “I know exactly what happened in there. What I'm trying to decide is whether you are here, now, by coincidence or by design.”
“Not my design,” Yerin said, but what the other woman had said caught her ears. “My...fellow disciple ended up in there. I'd give two fingers and a pile of gold to hear what happened to him.”
Charity flipped the chisel up and grabbed it again. “After the great Northstrider withdrew his presence and protection from Ghostwater, six of the great Heralds in the world gathered to inspect the pocket world. They represented a significant portion of the world's military power, and were they to do battle inside Ghostwater, they might have torn the world apart. So they bound their spirits to a truce.
“Once they had taken the greatest treasures, they departed, but they added one more restriction to their agreement. Every ten years, each could send a promising student to hunt for treasure themselves.”
The Heralds must have cleaned the place out, but a Herald's trash might drive a dragon wild with greed.
“What about my Lowgold?”
“All the students we send are Truegold,” she said, ignoring the question. “They enter at different times, but to preserve a spirit of fair play, we have them wait in the entrance until all participants have arrived.”
She tapped the edge of the chisel against her arm, and for the first time, Yerin felt the sword aura around the tool. It was so condensed that it felt solid.
“The Blackflame Empire is not one of the contestants. When we realized who you were, we experts held a conference among ourselves to decide whether you should be permitted to enter.”
Yerin clenched a fist to keep from putting a hand on her sword. It wouldn't help, but it would make her feel better. They had been a hair away from getting killed by a Sage, and they hadn't even known it.
“As you were too weak to be a real threat,” she went on casually, “we decided to allow your entrance. At best, you may have served as training for our students. At worst, you would affect nothing, and perhaps have a few fortunate encounters of our own.”
She pointed the chisel at Yerin. “So, tell me why the Lowgold destroyed the portal.”
Yerin lost her breath.
“I understand how. The Path of Black Flame has one of the most famous variations of dragon's breath. But he clearly targeted the portal with intention. I wish to know why.”
Akura Charity folded her arms and waited.
“...couldn't tell you why Lindon does half the things he does,” Yerin muttered. “But I could throw out a guess or two.” She wanted to ask if Charity was sure Lindon hadn't done it on accident, but the woman was a Sage. She knew.
“Sounded like he was fighting?” Yerin said, with a questioning tone.
Charity inclined her head.
“Then he could have been trying to lock the enemy inside. 'I'll take you down with me,' that sort of feeling.”
The Sage waited for her second guess, but this one was harder to say.
“I couldn't swear to it, but he might have...if I had to guess...been stopping someone from...getting in.”
“Stopping you,” Charity said quietly.
Yerin gave her one nod.
“My grand-nephew is inside. If I thought the Blackflame Empire or the Sage of the Endless Sword were making a move to upset the balance, I would move to maintain order.”
Yerin squared her shoulders, meeting the Sage's eyes. Usually no one recognized her Path, even if they recognized her master's title. Only those who had known her master.
“However, I suspect it is no more than coincidence,” Charity allowed. “We were not scheduled to return to Ghostwater for another year, but the Phoenix's rampage assures that the pocket world will not last so long. We were not supposed to be here. Anyone who intercepted our plans and then sent you to disrupt them would be...beyond inept.”
Yerin couldn't contain her question any longer. “The Lowgold. Is he still alive?”
“The last time I checked, he was.” The Sage watched her reaction, so Yerin kept it dull. “If he continues to survive, he could reap great rewards. But he will need to find a way out.”
“So there is another way?”
“There is another entrance to Ghostwater on this island. Map.” She extended one hand, and Old Man Lo appeared briefly, pressing a weathered sheet of paper into her palm before bowing and disappearing again. Yerin couldn’t track his movements.
Pinching the paper between two fingers, the Sage extended it to Yerin. “This is a rough map of this island, including the second portal.”
Yerin pressed both fists together and bowed to the Sage of the Silver Heart. “My thanks. You’ve been…so helpful.” Too helpful. It was suspicious.
The Sage pointed to Yerin. “Helpful to you. Not to my niece.”
“Ah.” That eased Yerin somewhat. Whatever was going on inside the Akura family, she could take advantage of it. “One last question?”
The Sage inclined her head.
“Why are you here?” Yerin asked. “I'm sure your grand-nephew is a generation's star genius, but putting a Sage on guard duty is like sending a tiger to hunt rats.”
A smile ghosted across Charity's face. “There is a larger competition coming. One with far more at stake than this one. I suspect we are all here for the same reason: to catch a glimpse of our opponents and stop them from stealing a march on us.”
“A larger competition?”
The Sage of the Silver Heart reached out. She didn't seem to move quickly, but she had a finger on Yerin's forehead before Yerin could react. Suddenly, Yerin knew the way out as though she'd walked the path a thousand times.
“A tournament,” Charity answered, and turned back to her statues.
When Yerin returned to the beach, she found Mercy sitting on a picnic blanket eating noodles from a bowl. The noodles were hot. Where had that come from?
Mercy scrambled up, setting her bowl aside and almost spilling it. “Yerin! I thought you might not...well, I was going to give you another hour, and then I was coming in.”
Yerin didn't see a Lowgold forcing her way in anywhere that an Overlord and a Sage didn't want her,
even if they didn’t use direct force. “Lindon's still alive,” Yerin reported.
Mercy let out a long breath. “And the others too?”
“I...didn't think about them,” she admitted.
“Well, the others are stronger than he is. If he's all right, I'm sure they are too.”
“She said her grand-nephew was in there. Someone you know?”
Mercy scratched her head, looking away. “Probably, yes. She has more than one grand-nephew, but uh...it's a good bet that she's talking about Harmony.”
“Your cousin?”
“No, no, we were from entirely different branches.” She twirled hair around one finger, still looking away. “He was my fiancé.”
Yerin's eyebrows raised. She had hoped that Mercy might recall some little bits and pieces about her distant cousin. She hadn't thought she'd hook a shark on the first cast.
“It ended before I left the family, though,” she added.
“You called it off?”
“He did. He's very competitive, and he doesn't take losing well.”
That could be bad, if he saw Lindon as a competitor. But he was supposed to be a Truegold. And if the Akura chose him to represent them here, he'd be one of their best. “Losing...to you?”
Mercy winced. “When I was younger, I didn't hold back very well.”
“Well, he wouldn't have to worry about that now. You're still a Lowgold.”
She shrugged, leaning her staff against her shoulder. “Depends on the competition.”
While Yerin was still thinking that through, Mercy continued. “I don't think he would even notice Lindon was there. Orthos and Renfei maybe, but only if they bothered him.”
That only increased Yerin's worries. If Lindon stumbled on whatever prizes the Truegolds were searching for, he might not fight for them, but he'd try to snatch them somehow. Sure as the sun rose.
Yerin set off for the woods, marching through the sand.
“Where's Bai Rou?” Mercy asked.
Turning, Yerin glanced from side to side. “I don't see him, and I don't see anybody who cares. The Sage said there's another way into Ghostwater somewhere on this island, so I'm finding it. The Akura aren't the only ones out here.”
She continued into the forest.
After another few breaths, Mercy followed.
~~~
Lightning flashed and thunder rolled, and Eithan leaned over the deck of the cloudship to watch. There was something endlessly fascinating about watching a storm beneath him.
Naru Saeya, the Blackflame Emperor's little sister, gripped the railing next to him. Her wings—the Goldsign of the Path of Grasping Sky—glittered like emeralds in the lightning flashes. They were smaller and sleeker than most on her Path, and she was correspondingly faster.
She shouted to be heard over the thunder. “I'm going in myself,” she bellowed. “He'll die!”
“No, he won't,” Eithan said, watching the lightning roll behind him.
Of course, he was also watching everything else.
He and Saeya were not the only Underlords present. Chon Ma, the top-ranked Underlord in the Blackflame Empire, did battle in the sky all around them. He was a bear of a man, and he raged like the storm, carrying a black one-handed hammer in each hand. Black clouds appeared beneath his feet with each step, so he ran through the air, another black cloud hanging over his head like a picture of dread.
He bounded in three long steps over to his opponent, pulling one weapon back. It drew dark gray Cloud Hammer madra with it, until it was shrouded in a dense fog.
The Blood Shadow raised one arm to meet the blow.
The hit cracked as loud as thunder, blasting the Shadow to liquid madra. It splattered away, losing its wings and falling through the air.
Chon Ma had overextended himself for that strike, and the Blood Shadow's host wasn't about to let that opportunity pass him by.
He was a serpentine man, tall as though he'd been stretched, wearing the black-and-red robes of Redmoon Hall. He raised a sword, so thin it was almost a needle, and gathered razor-sharp aura at its point. His strike was as swift and precise as one would expect from an Underlord, driving at Chon Ma at the exact moment he was distracted by the Blood Shadow.
But the head of the Cloud Hammer school was not the first-ranked Underlord for his beard. He continued his blow, letting the momentum spin him around, his second hammer meeting the sword-strike instantly.
Eithan was always impressed with such predictions. Those born without the ability to see behind them certainly learned to adapt.
Both hits crashed against each other, sending the two men flying backwards. Clouds formed under Chon Ma's feet, and he stayed hovering in the air, while his opponent landed on the flat side of a flying sword.
Eithan couldn't remember the Redmoon Hall man's name. Gergen? he wondered. Gergich. Gargol. It doesn't matter; I won't need to remember it for long.
The peacock feathers that Naru Saeya wore behind her ear were sodden with the rain they'd flown through to get here, but she looked as though the heat of her fury would dry them in an instant. “Get out of my way.”
Her wings swept back, pushing him aside, and she gathered up wind aura. As she was about to launch herself into the air, she froze. Then she spun around.
“See?” Eithan said, staring into the storm.
Saeya's senses were almost as honed as someone from the Arelius family. Her attunement to wind aura was truly impressive, and she could sense movements in the air from miles away. This storm would strengthen her Ruler techniques and aid her cycling, but it would also interfere with her senses. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have noticed so much later than he did.
“What are you saying?” she spat. “Now we're all going to die!”
A red Thousand-Mile Cloud rose up the side of their ship like a shark breaking the waves. He looked like he was in the middle of his twenties, his pale face framed by black hair that fell to his waist. He wore a dark, shapeless coat that covered him from shoulders to feet, and a blood-red hook dropped from one loose sleeve.
Longhook, Underlord emissary of Redmoon Hall.
Eithan's shoulder throbbed as he looked at that hook. It had been restored by the greatest healer in the Blackflame Empire, so he wondered if it was still wounded, or if it was just the shame of losing blood. He tried not to be embarrassed about taking a blow from a man named Longhook, but it was hard to restrain his shame.
When the Bleeding Phoenix vanished, the emissaries of Redmoon Hall had been caught even more off-guard than everyone else. They were deep in enemy territory, surrounded, and their master's departure left them purposeless.
Unfortunately for the citizens of the Blackflame Empire, that largely meant they killed their way through the population in whatever direction they thought led to safety.
The Emperor had whipped his Underlords into hunting them down. Except for one minor detour to pull his disciples out of a basement, Eithan had spent the past several weeks hunting emissaries. This was a huge opportunity for the Empire; they would never have another chance to deal such a blow to Redmoon Hall. The Akura clan would reward them handsomely for each Underlord head.
But their strategy was all dependent on their advantage of numbers. Each Redmoon emissary counted as two opponents, since their Blood Shadow could fight independently. So they operated in teams of three Underlords apiece.
They only had three such teams, along with one Overlord, but it had been effective so far. They had collected two Underlord heads out of a presumed six remaining in the Empire.
However, now the weakness in their plan was revealed. Instead of three-on-two in their favor, it was now four-on-three against.
Naru Saeya drew a sword of transparent, shimmering light from her soulspace. It looked like it was made of crystalline stained glass or fractured rainbows; whatever Soulsmith had made it, Eithan appreciated their aesthetic sense. “And you had to drag a Highgold into this,” Saeya said. “I just hope you can fight.”
“Wha
t if I couldn't?” Eithan proposed. “Boy, that would be embarrassing in this situation, wouldn't it?”
Longhook noticed him, and his lips tightened. Eithan couldn't read what that expression meant—was he excited to see Eithan, as an opponent he'd beaten before? Disappointed? Angry that he couldn't finish Eithan off last time?
Before Eithan could decide, there was a red hook rushing at his face.
Longhook's long hook was his Blood Shadow wrapped around an actual sacred weapon: a long, heavy chain with a thick meat hook at the end. It carried enough force to punch straight through their ship, and Longhook could manipulate it with shocking grace and speed. As Eithan had learned last time.
Eithan met this attack with the same strategy he'd used last time. He poured madra into his iron fabric scissors and slammed them into the hook.
He wasn't using a proper Enforcer technique, but he was using a lot of madra. The hook stopped, the chain rippling like a sea in storm. Eithan was pushed a few steps backward, but he took them gracefully.
And this time, Eithan wasn't alone.
Saeya swept in as a green blur, her rainbow sword flashing. Longhook's weapon coiled back of its own accord, blocking her sword, but her free hand came up and made a fist. Loops of green madra wrapped around him, locking him in place.
Eithan followed up with the simplest Striker technique anyone could use: a pulse of madra focused in a line. In his case, the pure madra passed through the chain of Longhook's weapon, weakening the Blood Shadow and causing it to falter for a second. Saeya was coming around for another pass.
So far so good. They were keeping Longhook under pressure.
Which meant...
The red on the emissary's hook oozed back, revealing dark gray metal. It boiled away as Longhook drove Saeya off with one fist, pulses of force madra pushing her back.
In an instant, he'd gathered up his Blood Shadow. His hook started to slide back up his sleeve, one link at a time, and he looked from Eithan to Naru Saeya.
“Go home,” he said, the words scraping out. They were barely audible over the rolling thunder. “We are leaving your lands. You will not see us again.”
“You dare ask us for mercy?” Naru Saeya’s voice was hot. Her bright green madra took Longhook in the gut like a fist, carrying him off his Thousand-Mile Cloud and into the wind.
