Lindon moved his gaze from the pill to Eithan and back. “That does seem…harsh. Perhaps she may have been pushed a little too hard, don’t you think?”
“Don’t worry, I don’t train my students like that anymore,” Eithan said, holding up a bottle to the light. “I was far too lenient before. After weeks of my training, that girl should have been fighting those bears. With her fists.”
Yerin shrugged and opened the door. The wind grabbed the tattered edges of her outer robe, making them trail behind her like smoke. Her red rope-belt, tied in a broad bow behind her, was untouched by the wind.
“If you don't feel like you're going to die when you're training, then you're doing it wrong,” she said, and stepped outside.
Cassias nodded to her back as though acknowledging the point, Eithan laughed, and Fisher Gesha gave an approving grunt.
Lindon swallowed his own misgivings, pushing aside the sinking feeling in his stomach. This was the attitude of the strong. He had to focus on that, and not on what he imagined Eithan’s training had done to the poor Copper girl.
Popping the blue-and-white pill in his mouth, he followed Yerin.
Chapter 6
Jai Long entered his sister’s cabin to find her struggling into a set of sacred artist’s robes. She pushed her arm through one sleeve, trembling with effort, and cinched her robe with both hands as though the cloth belt was made of heavy chain.
She dipped her head when she saw him, though she had to grip her wardrobe to stand upright again.
He tried to sound cold, but instead his voice came out with a sigh. “What are you doing?”
“Going…with you.” She spoke as firmly as she could, but she was looking at the ground, unable to meet his eyes.
Even before the accident, she’d always been shy. And stubborn at inconvenient times.
“I have four Sandvipers staying behind to take care of you,” Jai Long said, gently taking her by the shoulder to lead her back to bed. “You’ll have to stay with the Purelake School for a while, in case anyone from the clan comes looking for you.”
She remained standing, and he was afraid to put too much pressure on her shoulder. Jai Chen glanced up at him like a guilty puppy.
“We don’t…have to…go,” she said, each breath drawn with difficulty.
He couldn’t move her without her cooperation, so he folded his arms. “I’ve already jumped off the cliff. Six Lowgolds and an elder came to the camp looking for me last night, and none of them left.”
She didn’t need to know that they’d been looking for him because he’d been killing Jai clansmen in their homes. There were no civilians in the Five Factions Alliance; everyone who had come to the Transcendent Ruins had done so to try and pull profit from the jaws of danger. Those were sacred artists and warriors that he’d killed.
Though most of them hadn’t died like it.
But he didn’t need to tell his sister exactly how dirty his hands were. That didn’t matter; she was staying out of it.
“We could…go west,” she suggested hopefully.
He started to tell her no, but hesitated. She was referring to a legend. In the mountains to the west of the Desolate Wilds, there was supposed to be a hidden valley that occasionally emerged to trade with the outside. The inhabitants were weak, but protected by a curse.
Jai Chen had been obsessed with the legend since she was a girl. It seemed ideal to her: a hidden safe place.
In his experience, there were no safe places. He immediately wondered what terrible dangers lurked in the valley no one entered.
But even if the valley didn’t exist, the mountains were at the very western edge of the Blackflame Empire, and no one had actively controlled that border for fifty years. It was so remote that even maps drawn in his father’s day hadn’t bothered to include it.
The lands west of the Wilds were unknown to him, but they certainly wouldn’t have a Jai clan.
“We can hurt the clan if we go east,” he said. “We can take revenge for Kral. Do you really want to go west instead?”
The day before, he wouldn’t have asked her such a question. He wasn’t as sure of his course as he had been yesterday.
He had burned to avenge himself on the Jai clan for years, but now that he had the means, he was starting to realize what a monumental task he’d begun. To abandon it now, before he’d gone too far, had a certain appeal.
If they left, this would end as one minor attack on a branch of the clan. No one would look into it too closely, and in five years, no one would remember he or his sister were ever here.
Jai Chen surveyed the floor, clenching her hands together as she thought. Finally, she straightened her back and spoke with resolve.
“I will…go with you. No…running…away.”
He gave her a wry smile, though she couldn’t see it. “It will take weeks to get there, and we don’t have a cloudship this time. It will be painful, and messy, and you’ll hate every inch of the journey.”
“If you…hear me…complain,” she said, “leave me…behind.”
Once she was packed, he carried her outside, where Gokren had a motley collection of flying creatures assembled. Thousand-Mile Clouds, collared Remnants, strange constructs that looked like wide broomsticks, a sacred eagle with feathers like dawn, a hovering leaf wider than a man, a huge levitating cauldron, and two dozen gray-white bats.
Some of the sacred bats had been taken from the Jai clan, but the Sandvipers had a colony of the same breed of bat, and two of their trainers used to work for the Jai clan.
Gokren was supervising the collection of mounts and vehicles. He turned, smoothed back his gray hair with one hand, and eyed Jai Chen. After a moment he gestured to a white Thousand-Mile Cloud.
“Load her up,” he said, looking up to Jai Long. “We’ll get a canopy rigged to hold off the wind and give her some privacy.”
Jai Long bowed his thanks and settled his sister onto the cloud.
By the time he’d finished, the sun was setting, and most of the vehicles had gathered a load of packs and bags. Gokren lit his pipe, holding it between his teeth as he pressed the end of a scripted lighter into the bowl.
“You could fly me there and return,” Jai Long said, hating himself with every word. He needed their help; he shouldn’t be turning them down. “You don’t have to risk their lives for my revenge.”
Gokren let out a mouthful of smoke. “I’m not an idiot, son.” He paused as though he’d said something profound, letting bluish haze drift skyward. “I don’t throw my sect away for nothing.”
He took another breath, let it out. “Old powers like the Jai clan are as traditional as they come. After you hit them, they’ll send a Highgold after you. When you beat him, it’ll be a group of Highgolds next. Then whichever Truegold ranks the lowest, and only then will the elders start to move.”
If it weren’t for the Ancestor’s Spear, that plan would eventually work. The clan could afford to slowly drown him in sacred artists.