She gave him a wry look, but her scars lent it a sinister, threatening cast. “I'm not throwing you into a tiger's den, I just want a look at the enemy. We don't like what we see, we back up.”
She had a point. The arch hadn't closed when they passed through it, and there was nothing preventing them from heading back to their caves at the first sign of danger.
Besides, he was curious himself. There might be prizes to this Trial beyond simple knowledge.
He walked over to the crystal ball, cycling the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel to replenish his madra. It strained his spirit and his lungs, and he couldn’t tell if it restored anything at all—sure enough, the technique was trash for refilling a core.
Lindon rested his hand on the warm, smoky ball that sat on the pedestal. Now that he was close enough, he could see threads of red running through the gray, like the crystals he'd seen in Orthos’ chamber.
“The tablet says nothing about what we'll face when I start the Trial,” he warned, but Yerin gave a heavy sigh.
“Jabber jabber jabber, we’re burning time. Light that candle.”
One breath in, one out, and a black-and-red nimbus flared around Lindon's entire body.
When the crystal touched that light, it flared red.
Beneath the ground, a script kindled to life.
Though Lindon saw nothing, he could feel it, like a circle of fire ten feet beneath his shoes. He was aware of it in the same way he was aware of his own limbs.
Yerin drew her white blade. “Eyes up.”
***
Cassias followed Eithan, because he had no other choice. The Underlord had seized his Thousand-Mile Cloud, and it was either climb on behind him or be left behind in the tunnel.
As soon as Cassias set foot on the cloud, Eithan took off, sending the construct straight up and out of the valley. Sheer black walls passed them on either side, but with an Underlord’s madra propelling them, they reached the peak in seconds.
This was really a secondary peak of Shiryu Mountain. The Jai clan main complex occupied the highest peak with the living quarters for the head family and their subordinates. Cassias could see glimpses of their palaces high above and almost a mile away.
Serpent’s Grave proper spread out far beneath them, a mound of bones in an ocean of yellow sand. But Eithan didn’t take them down; instead, he flew them around this peak, overlooking the valley where the two children would live for the next few weeks.
There was a temple carved into this peak. Not sitting on top, where it would be visible from miles around, but carved as though to seem part of the stone. Only from the back could you see the stairs leading up, the braziers resting to either side of the entrance, the polished archway leading into shadows deeper within. From any other angle, this place would be invisible.
Cassias ran webs of Arelius power over the whole place, astonished. It seemed that this was connected to the Blackflame Trials below, but while the heads of the family had always known about the Trials, Cassias had never even heard rumors of something like this temple.
How could there be secrets on Arelius grounds?
Eithan landed the dark blue cloud at the top of the stairs, hopping out and strolling inside without a word. After taking another few seconds to scan the premises, Cassias followed.
The room inside the temple was small and almost empty. Light streamed in from the far wall, which was made of glass—it angled slightly downward, which meant it wouldn’t gleam and reveal its presence to Lindon and Yerin. A massive script-circle was etched into the glass, taking up most of the window, and a broad table of gold and ivory spread out beneath it. Dozens of smaller scripts covered the table, which told Cassias it must be a control array of some kind. A cheap wicker chair—obviously a recent addition—gave the person manning the table a place to sit.
“What is this, Eithan?” Cassias asked wearily.
Eithan turned to face him; Cassias knew it was no accident that he was standing in the very center of the room. “Familiarize yourself with this room, because it will be your sole responsibility for the next…well, quite a while.”
Cassias ran strands of detection over the controls, as well as his spiritual perception. “This course operates independently. It doesn’t need controls.”
“While that is indeed what we have always told the imperial clan when they used this course to train their students, it is not strictly true.” He looked so pleased with himself that Cassias already missed the uncertain, vulnerable Eithan from the mountain below.
“This—” Eithan spread his hands to indicate the whole room. “—is the control center for the Blackflame Trials. The courses will run themselves, but they will not carry out detailed or advanced maneuvers. With supervision and direction, the Blackflame elders could truly test their juniors far below.”
“I am to have authority over their training?” Cassias asked. If it were up to him, neither of the children would be here: the course was too advanced for Yerin alone, and Lindon’s presence would only hinder her, if anything.
“If you would like the authority to decide between making the course slightly more difficult than usual or truly sadistic, then yes. That is entirely within your power.”
Cassias continued scanning the control circles. “And if I wanted to deactivate portions of the Trials?”
“That, happily, does not fall inside your purview. You can choose when and how to lend your power to certain constructs, or you can choose to do nothing, at which point the Trials will operate at their standard level of difficulty.
Eithan gestured, releasing some madra, and the script-circle in the glass flared. Suddenly, the view at the window showed Lindon reaching for the activation crystal with Yerin standing beside him. As though they were only feet outside.
Fascinated, Cassias ran a strand of his bloodline power through the glass. Scripts only manipulated madra; they wouldn’t be able to change the magnification of glass. Unless…
He found it only a breath after he started looking for it. A light-aspect binding intended to allow vision of faraway objects. The script merely activated it and applied its effects to the window.
That was still an incredible feat of Soulsmithing and scripting, though. How had Eithan managed to restore it? Surely a setup like this one, centuries old, would have decayed by now.
Eithan looked fondly through the glass. “It will rest upon you to test the children. Push them. Hold them in the fire and hammer them, that they might be forged.”
Cassias straightened himself, waiting for the Underlord to turn around and meet his eyes. “I will not be part of breaking members of our own family. If you adopted them only to abuse them, I will report to the branch heads and have them removed from Serpent’s Grave.”
Eithan didn’t respond, so Cassias continued.
“Besides, the Arelius cannot spare my absence. Not in times like these. The Jai clan will have free reign of our lands.”
Eithan rested a comforting hand on Cassias’ shoulder. “I go to deal with the Jai clan myself.”