Though the pain made his vision swim, and fear weighed him down, he managed to shimmy closer to his pack. It had fallen close to him, and there might be a Four Corners Rotation Pill or some scales inside. At least he could see what he had available, take stock.
He inched closer, seizing the corner of the pack with his teeth. Through pure will, he managed to slide his hand to the hook at the top. The hook held only a loop of cloth; all he had to do was slide that loop off, and the pack was open. He edged his thumb into the gap.
It didn’t take.
He tried again and again, despair growing like mold in his chest, until finally he caught the loop. With a limp finger, he pulled it open.
The pack tipped.
Its contents tumbled onto the ground, pelting his face and hand with junk. The pack must have been jostled around during the fight, because even some things that should have been secured in inside pockets had come free: his Path of Twin Stars manual, his Soulsmith primer, a sealed inkwell, a handful of halfsilver chips. It all spilled around him like trash.
In his hazy awareness, Lindon could only latch onto one thought: he had to put everything back where it was supposed to go. He pushed his hand, trying to keep his precious Path manual out of the dirt. Without madra, his arm might as well have been a dishrag.
He was empty.
The canyon had always been dark, allowing only a strip of light in from the sky, but at night the darkness surrounded him.
So when the light came, it hurt his eyes.
The blue light seemed blinding at first, even with his eyes closed, but when he swiped muddy tears from his eyelids and squinted into the shadows, his eyes quickly adjusted.
He stared into an azure candle flame, burning steadily at the heart of a glass marble. The flame was smooth and bright, the glass flawless.
As Lindon bled into the dirt, he stared at the ball of glass and fire. Just stared.
In the visions Suriel had shown him, he had died…but not here. Not alone in the dark.
He had a long way to go yet.
Lindon slapped one hand down on the marble, feeling its warmth. He hadn’t been able to cycle before, but given that he wasn’t dead yet, he had to think there was some power left in his soul. If he bled to death, he’d do it while cycling.
If that didn’t work…well, he’d climbed his way up from powerless before. He could do it again.
Lindon tried to draw on his Blackflame core, though it was like trying to inhale wood. There was nothing there. But if he could reclaim some shred of power, Blackflame was what he wanted. Pure madra wouldn’t do him much good if Gokren came back.
The thought made him shiver with fear, but he steadied his breath again and started cycling according to the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel. The pain in his lungs almost made him return to his earlier, simpler Foundation technique, but he persevered. Eithan had told him to practice this cycling technique, and at least no one could say he’d given up.
Breath after agonizing breath passed, each one feeling like it hadn’t delivered enough air, but he kept going until he started to feel something. An approaching flame, a slight red light, and a tingling feeling on his skin.
His eyes snapped open to find that he was staring straight into black eyes with irises the color of shining blood.
Orthos.
Chapter 19
Yerin dashed up the black slope, headed for the other peak, but Jai Long followed her.
He was playing with her, she could see that clear as glass. Maybe he wanted to hammer out a new technique, and maybe he thought she wasn’t worth his best. Whatever the truth, it stung.
She had clawed the last drop of madra from her core, and was running on prayers. But there was a mass of silver power left in her spirit, and she begged it for more power.
Her master’s instincts told her to attack.
I can’t, she thought. Give me something, and I’ll use it.
The Remnant had no other advice for her. Just a few wispy memories of running straight at an enemy, weapon and techniques primed and ready.
Someone else had a word for her, though.
Her long-time guest, unwelcome and uninvited, sat there in her core in a knot of deadly power. If she unleashed it, it could save her. If she released it, she could save herself.
As always, she reminded herself what would happen if she released her guest. Unless Eithan popped out of the ground, her guest would destroy everything. And everyone, probably including her. Unless it hollowed her out and used her as a husk, which was worse.
No, she didn’t need that parasite’s help. She needed her master to step up.
A twisting snake shot out from Jai Long’s palm, and she met it with the edge of her master’s sword. Only the sheer quality of the weapon saved her, because she had no madra left to pour into it. Her bloody fingernails drummed with pain to the beat of her heart.
Show me what to do, Yerin begged.
The Remnant still urged her to attack. The unwelcome guest still pleaded for freedom.
And Yerin’s heart bled, because she finally accepted the truth: this wasn’t her master. Breaking him open wouldn’t be a betrayal, it wouldn’t mean abandoning him. If she dug into the Remnant and sucked its power dry, she wouldn’t be losing her master’s voice.
She’d lost that almost a year ago, in Sacred Valley.
So, as Jai Long kicked her body down the mountain with a bored sigh, Yerin reached inside herself. Her master’s Remnant was just a mass of silver power in her core, but she visualized it as it had appeared when she adopted it: a ghost of silver chrome, armed with six bladed limbs.
She reached for that ghost and crushed it with the power of her will.
As though she’d lit a beacon, the aura around her ignited. Silver light blazed into the sky, a column of razor-sharp power that turned all the vital aura in the area to sword aura.
Beneath her feet, a thousand invisible blades slashed at the stone, pebbles whipping up to sting her skin. Even the air whistled by her ears as it was cut, the wind lashing at her hair and her robe.
As the power of the sword raged within and without, she was devoured by a memory.
The girl stood before the Sword Sage amidst the wreckage of what had once been a prosperous family.
Her power blazed in his spiritual sense, half of it raw and unshaped, half bloody and murderous. She was only seven or eight and scrawny, and she looked like she’d missed more than her share of meals. Ragged hair hung into her eyes.
She hauled on a rope of blood madra that stretched from her stomach as though the far end was tied to a runaway horse. Her bare feet were planted, her teeth gritted, arms straining against the power of the parasite.
Which stretched out, its end forming into a blade, trying to cut him. She had managed to halt it while the blade was still an inch from his throat.
The world came back into focus as Yerin found herself scraped and bloody and surrounded by a furious storm of silver light. Even the droplets of blood running from her wounds splashed up, sliced by aura, covering her with a scarlet mist.