But Eithan’s words shook him awake.
He dropped to his knees, picturing the stone wheel, pushing it harder than he ever had before. Now came the pain, scorching his soul in a way that was more than merely physical, but the fire helped him as well as hurt. Every rotation of the wheel drew in more Blackflame madra like a spindle gathering thread.
He could hardly breathe, but that didn’t bother him now. All his mind, soul, and will was focused on the heavy stone wheel, churning away.
Either this would work, or the dark fire would burn him to ash.
***
Eithan watched the two of them with hands on his hips. Orthos and Lindon were both screaming, though he doubted either heard it, and tongues of Blackflame madra leaped around the cave, scorching through Lindon’s clothes, leaving grooves in stone. The aura of the place had gone wild, making this cave an oven and steadily devouring anything inside. A Copper who stepped inside this place would have the air scorched from their lungs and their skin crisped and blackened.
So far, the plan was unfolding beautifully.
He picked up Lindon’s pack and carried it to the entrance tunnel, where the air was relatively cooler. The books inside wouldn’t have lasted much longer without bursting into flames, and the pack itself would have eventually followed.
Without turning his head, Eithan watched the boy and the turtle. They would still be a while. Advancing to Jade usually took some time, after all, even if you had help.
In the meantime, Eithan took the opportunity to flip through Lindon’s possessions.
He set aside the books, bandages, medical kit, rune-light, emergency rations, extra clothes, inkwell, spare brushes, blank scrolls, needles, thread, scripted fire-starter, sculptor’s chisel, carving-knife, soap, seven purple boundary flags—one broken—and a frying pan, carefully remembering the relative position of each item.
Eithan had seen everything in here already, from the first moment they met, but he didn’t want Lindon to know he had interfered with anything. That would spoil the surprise.
Finally, he unearthed what he’d been digging for: the Sylvan Riverseed’s case.
It was a box of scripted, reinforced glass, big enough to contain a small cat. A river flowed around the edges, guided by a water-aura script that kept it in motion, but the center of the box was filled by a little grassy island. A finger-sized tree rose from one of the hills, life aura flowing through it in a verdant green web.
Beside the tree stood the Sylvan itself, looking curiously up at Eithan through the lid of its tiny world.
Sylvan Riverseeds were natural spirits—beings like Remnants, only born of accumulated vital aura rather than the death of a sacred artist. They only formed in places where the aura was both extremely strong and in perfect balance. If the aura slanted toward one aspect or another, a different natural spirit would form.
Typically, you would find that balance of aura in the heart of a forest, next to a spring or a river. In such a place, air and earth, heat and cold, life and death all coexisted at the same point in roughly equal amounts.
This spirit looked like a featureless puppet about three inches high, its body the vivid blue of a sunlit lake. It raised a hand to him, and its head split into a wide mouth, like a baby chick begging for food.
Other Sylvans were better suited for different purposes, but Riverseeds were gentle and flexible. They could work with power of virtually any aspect, supplementing and supporting other forces.
Which made them excellent raw materials. They were so malleable that a skilled craftsman could make a Riverseed into a guardian, a weapon, a guide, an elixir, a power source, a drudge, or—in some cultures—a very expensive cocktail.
It was fortunate that Fisher Gesha had never noticed Lindon feeding his pet. There wasn’t much a Soulsmith couldn’t do with a Sylvan Riverseed.
Not the rarest treasure, a Sylvan. But valuable. He had used elixirs made from Riverseed power to help Orthos, though such measures were only temporary. Only a long-standing contract could slowly mitigate the damage that centuries of Blackflame madra had done to his spirit.
Over the weeks since Eithan had adopted Lindon, he’d considered many possible options for the spirit. In the end, he settled on the simplest possible result: he’d leave the Sylvan as it was. Its own pure, gentle powers would balance the corrosive, deadly Blackflame perfectly. No alteration needed.
But perhaps a bit of…enhancement was in order.
If the Sylvan had grown a little faster, Eithan wouldn’t need to act at all. But Lindon’s scales weren’t the most nourishing food.
Eithan ran his thumbs along the glass, tripping a hidden catch and popping open the lid. The Sylvan ran around in circles at the sight, excited, making plopping noises like the drip of water into a pond.
Extending one finger, Eithan conjured a spark of soulfire.
The gray-white flame was half-transparent, like the memory of a flame rather than a flame itself. Unlike a natural blaze, it was perfectly round, spinning slowly and throwing off the occasional flare like a dull, tiny sun.
This was only a fragment of the writhing, spectral gray mass of soulfire that hovered in his spirit, just a few inches above his core. Other Underlords would weave as much soulfire as they could afford, hoarding it against an emergency, but Eithan counted on his ability to make more at a moment’s notice. Thanks to the sense provided by his bloodline, he could always find more fuel.
Heat surged against his back, reminding him that time was still ticking on, so without any further hesitation, he flicked the spark into the Riverseed.
Soulfire sunk into the Sylvan’s body, and a deeper blue color spread like dye. In an instant, it went from a bright, sunny blue-green to the deep sapphire of the open ocean. The spirit surged and stretched, inflated by the influx of power, growing until its head would scrape the bottom of the glass case’s lid. Its hands split into fingers, long blue hair grew from its scalp, and its body flowed into more human curves.
After only a second, the Riverseed panicked.
It flailed its arms, staring at horror at its new fingers. That sight drove it to the far end of the case, jumping into the flowing river. Realizing it was now too big to submerge entirely, it scampered back and huddled under its tree instead.
Eithan chuckled. The enhancement of soulfire was painless and harmless. It could be a bit disconcerting, but in the end, it was nothing but a benefit.
But it did require a certain amount of power for the changes to stabilize. With that in mind, he Forged a scale himself: identical in size to Lindon’s, it was a vivid blue-white, and anyone with the least skill in perception could sense its power and density. In the Blackflame Empire, they would call this a superior-grade scale, and it would be worth about ten thousand of Lindon’s.