Jai Long squeezed her hand a little harder, but restrained himself so as not to hurt her. “A boy he brought with him. Just an Iron.”
Jai Chen's eyes opened wide, and her arms fluttered as though she’d tried to raise them. “An Iron?”
“He struck like a coward. From behind, with a stolen weapon. Even another Highgold couldn't have faced Kral and lived.”
The tears welled up again, and Jai Chen sniffled. “Young master Kral...” She couldn't seem to choke out the rest of the words.
Jai Long smoothed her bedsheets. “I would have told you before, but I've had many preparations to make.”
He reached down, unlatching a scripted case. From within, he produced his surprise: the Ancestor's Spear, a glowing shaft of Forged white madra scratched lightly with lines of script. Jai Chen struggled upwards in bed to get a look, straining to push herself upright.
“From the very top of the Transcendent Ruins,” he told her, as she extended hesitant fingers to touch it. She looked at him for permission, and only rested her hand upon it when he nodded.
“It's warm...”
“It draws madra from others into me,” Jai Long said, and she jerked her hands back. “No no, you can touch it. It only means I’ll become stronger for every clan member I...defeat.”
“Then you’ll avenge young master Kral?” she asked quietly.
He placed the spear back into its case, latching it back, so the precious madra didn't dissipate. The scripts on the spear prevented madra decay, but the Sandviper Soulsmiths couldn't say by how much. It was always best to be careful—if he lost this weapon, there was no replacement.
“I would have avenged him on the spot, if not for the Underlord.” He patted her arm. “But the Arelius family is not entirely without honor. They will allow me to face him in the arena, in one year's time.”
Sadness crept over her face, but it took her a few full breaths before she could speak. “Back to the Empire? But we…we…” He waited patiently as she focused on her breathing. “…we were going to leave. Do…do you…want to go back?”
Only to butcher them, he thought, but he spoke calmly. “The Jai clan has refiners and Soulsmiths. If I break into their vaults, perhaps I could heal you myself. Even if that doesn’t work, I could earn the support of the Naru or the Kotai. Or one of the Schools; they say the pills of the Jade Eyes can even restore the freshly dead.”
Her smile was twisted by pain and bitterness. “You don’t…think we can…leave?”
He patted her arm to buy himself time to think before he answered. “When I'm finished, there will be no one left to follow us.”
The topic had grown much darker than he’d planned, but they talked for an hour afterwards of lighter and happier things: food, gossip, memories of Kral. When her exertions took their toll and she fell asleep, he picked up his case and excused himself.
Leaving her behind him, etched with the scars of his failure. Her body was perfectly healthy, damaged only by years of weakness and isolation. On good days, her smile was so wide and open that it almost made him forget anything was wrong.
Her spirit told the real story.
Despite himself, he swept his spiritual perception over her, lighting her spirit in his mind’s eye. For a moment, he took in the wreckage left by the monster that had rampaged through her soul.
Her madra channels, which should have spread throughout her body in clean, even loops, were twisted and broken. Half of the passages were dim, blocked, and the other half too bright as madra built up in the wrong places. Her core was wrapped in a web of cracks, leaking light like a broken lantern.
Enough madra trickled through her ruined spirit that she could just barely move. Even that much was a miracle, the result of healers working day and night for a week after her accident.
The culprit lay coiled in his core even now, the Remnant’s madra blending with his own as it gradually dissolved, its memories and sensations lurking at the back of his mind. By the time he reached Truegold, he would have digested it completely.
It was the most total, thorough revenge he could imagine.
He had been exiled from the main branch of the Jai clan because the Remnant was from a different Path, and he’d brought his sister along because she had no one left to support her.
The clan could have restored her. It might have cost them some rare materials, but they could have done it. They didn't, because she was of no value to them.
Which had shown him the extent of the clan’s loyalty. Why should he be loyal in return?
He shut the door of his sister's cabin gently, so as not to wake her, nodding to the Lowgold Sandvipers standing guard on either side. These were warriors he'd selected personally, and they knew they answered to him. They would die at their posts.
Though that loyalty might soon be tested, judging by the green banner flying over the Sandviper camp. Jai Long gripped his case more tightly and looked to one of the guards.
“He’s back?”
“His bats landed only minutes ago,” the guard confirmed. He exchanged glances with his partner, and Jai Long knew their thoughts as clearly as if they’d spoken aloud.
Would the Sandviper chief blame Jai Long for his son’s death?
Jai Long found the newly returned group of Sandvipers clustered around a repurposed stable, a cluster of filthy, fur-clad men and women he could smell halfway down the street. They had been in the Wilds for months, too far to respond to the call of the Transcendent Ruins, and now they had arrived to find the heir to their sect murdered.
Days ago, Jai Long had ordered this stable cleared out and cleaned, prepared to host Sandviper Kral’s body. The corpse was preserved by rare medicines, waiting for a mourning father.
The Sandvipers parted to allow Jai Long to pass, though their Goldsigns were not so courteous. The miniature sandviper Remnants on their arms coiled and hissed, reflecting their hosts’ anger.
Jai Long pushed open the door and slipped inside, holding his polished spear-case. He was already primed to tear the Ancestor’s Spear free in an instant; Gokren was a Truegold, and more than capable of killing Jai Long if he reacted poorly. The weapon might be the difference between defeat and survival.
Gokren, chief of the Sandvipers, was a wiry man with slicked-back gray hair and a pair of short, one-handed spears crossed on his back. He wore furs from chin to toe, with the shed skin of some great snake wrapped around his neck like a scarf.
He was not a tall man, and Jai Long was used to him standing with his spine rigidly straight, looking down an upraised chin as though everyone else stood beneath him.