Reaper (Cradle Book 10) Read online

  The power of storms had built up in this room over centuries of exposure to the Storm Core, leaving these remainders, but that would be cleared out soon.

  Now, for the first time in memory, this place would serve its true purpose.

  Shen didn’t linger. He dashed out of the room, pitting his willpower against reality to push him faster, faster than his body could normally handle. Even the air swept around him, guided by his soulfire control.

  Hunger madra focused on him. He was spending too much power in the labyrinth, but he had no choice.

  The clock had begun to tick.

  One of the elders of the Holy Wind school dipped her hand into Greatfather’s Tears to take a drink. The water level had fallen after the attack of the Titan, but over the last few days, it had risen again. But it was no longer as crystal-clear as before.

  An instant after tasting the water, she spat it out. The Greatfather’s Tears had been corrupted. This coppery tang was unmistakable; it was blood.

  She drew herself up, shouting in fury for the guards. If their most sacred place had been defiled with violence, then her entire school had failed in its duty. There might even be a body at the bottom of the spring.

  She marched away, furious, as bit by bit the water darkened further.

  The door slamming open interrupted Lindon’s meal, though both he and Yerin had sensed Eithan coming from a mile away.

  They both looked to him in equal irritation. They had specifically taken time away from training and anyone else but each other, and booked an entire restaurant. Lindon had even gone to see a barber on Eithan’s desperate pleading.

  Yerin’s sword-arms stretched out, but she deliberately pulled them back in. “You had a chance to keep your skin in one piece, and you left it at home.”

  “It happened again!”

  Lindon exchanged a look with Yerin. It had been weeks since Eithan had felt his first premonition of danger, and both had kept their eyes out. But neither had sensed anything like what Eithan had described.

  They still took it seriously.

  Yerin frowned and her perception rushed out of the restaurant in a river. She might have a chance of reaching all the way to Sacred Valley, if that was indeed where the problem had come from, but she still wouldn’t be able to push past the suppression field.

  Lindon reached out to the Void Icon. He still spoke as he did. “This is bad timing, Eithan.”

  “It could have been worse!” Eithan pointed out. “Believe it or not, I do know when people can be interrupted and when they can’t.”

  Lindon’s cheeks heated, and he focused on his spiritual sense to avoid meeting Eithan’s eye. Again, he felt no foreign authority in the area. There was no influence that reminded him of the Void Icon, nor any powerful wills working against them.

  Yerin’s ruby eyes snapped open. “Not a sniff or a hair. I’d be red-hot if I thought you were just poking at us, Eithan, but I don’t think you are. You’ve got me shaking.”

  Lindon had a similar feeling. The longer this went without passing as one of Eithan’s jokes, the more disturbed he became.

  Eithan scratched furiously at the side of his head, disturbing his short hair. “It’s something, but…if only I could…maybe if I fly…”

  He mumbled to himself as he left, leaving Lindon and Yerin staring at the door in shock.

  “He didn’t even try to pull up a chair,” Lindon said.

  Yerin leaned over to look out the window. She didn’t watch the street, looking instead to the sky.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Just checking to be sure the moon’s still there. The longer he does this, the bigger the problem’s gonna be.” She fell back into her chair and speared a chunk of eel.

  She looked at it, then replaced it without eating it.

  “Maybe we should take a cloudship out west,” Lindon suggested. “I do think he sensed something.”

  “That’s why I’m shaking.”

  The shattered remains of Mount Venture still vomited up yellow light. It was fainter than it had been, the Core having been fed upon by the Titan, but it would work for Shen’s purposes.

  There was no guardian spirit in this chamber, which was filled with jagged blades of golden stone. Most likely, one had formed here, but the Wandering Titan had annihilated it without even noticing.

  Another palm-sized silver flask came off his belt, and he absorbed the Titan Core. The yellow light vanished.

  It had been flickering off and on since the Dreadgod had consumed most of its power, so Shen could only hope this would go unnoticed for a while.

  He pushed himself. Faster.

  Lindon found Eithan standing on the edge of Windfall’s cloudbase, looking west.

  “Strange feeling?” Lindon asked.

  Eithan’s clothes were rumpled, and he had worn the same thing for three days straight. Given that Eithan normally changed at least twice a day, Lindon thought he might be on the verge of death.

  “Every time I turn around,” Eithan responded. “If I didn’t know better, I would say it was just…nerves. Anxiety. Overactive imagination.”

  “So what is it?”

  Eithan threw out his hands in frustration. “You think I know and I’m holding out on you?”

  “Apologies if I’m overstepping, but…what would Tiberian Arelius’ advisor say?”

  Eithan closed his mouth. He brought his arms around and crossed them, thinking. To Lindon’s discomfort, he found traces of someone he didn’t recognize in Eithan’s expression. Just flickers, like the shadow of another person passing through the man.

  “There are three possibilities,” Eithan responded eventually, and all playfulness was gone from his tone. “One, there is a problem with me. A working of will or authority that I cannot detect, which is compromising my senses. Two, I could be sensing authority at work. If I’m close to Sage—especially the Oracle Icon, which I was once considered a prime candidate to manifest—then I could be picking up hints of another Sage or Monarch’s working. It could be a working you are too inexperienced to recognize, or something too far away from the realm of the Void Icon.”

  Lindon didn’t take offense at the slight to his abilities. It was a reasonable possibility. He only listened.

  “Three…” The businesslike Eithan hesitated, and Lindon saw the usual man again. Although an uncertain one.

  “…you’re going to laugh.”

  “I usually don’t.”

  “That’s true. It’s of great concern to me. The third possibility is…fate.”

  Lindon didn’t feel like laughing. In fact, he sought out the warmth of Suriel’s marble for comfort.

  She had spoken of fate. Reading it, changing it, altering its flow.

  “Fate, or destiny, or the will of the heavens…it’s a real force. Dream artists contact it once in a while, and some Monarchs are more attuned to it than others. As an Archlord with no dream abilities, I should have no ability to see it. So that’s a distant third possibility.”

  Lindon didn’t think it sounded distant. If he were to bet based on this conversation, he would put his chips on fate.

  But that would be a bet he’d be happy to lose.

  “Pardon, but I hope the problem is with you,” Lindon said.

  “I would be delighted.”

  When Reigan Shen placed the Titan Core in the north where it belonged, the mountain the locals called Yoma erupted in stone spires.

  Even Irons wouldn’t miss a sign like that. Shen flew down the halls of the labyrinth’s upper layer, supported by blue strands of energy emanating from a construct at his belt. The construct wouldn’t last long, but this was the fastest and most economical way of traveling for now.

  Subject One’s attacks had intensified, and now there were traps of hunger madra placed in his way, Forger techniques strung across the halls like webs.

  If he had been less skilled, he might have fallen for them. But they still slowed him down.

  As soon as the p
illar of light from the western peak had vanished, he’d put himself on a time limit. And it would only run out faster and faster.

  He reached the eastern chamber, buried beneath Mount Samara, and detonated another powerful weapon to carve through the wall. This chamber had been influenced by the Silent Core for hundreds of years, so it should be a trap of powerful light and dream madra.

  He could sense that it was, but he couldn’t see anything. Beyond the hole in the wall, he saw only a chaotic jumble of spinning images.

  Even his aura sight was useless here, though that had more to do with the suppression field than the complexity of this dream working.

  Shen placed a pair of spectacles over his eyes, which should show him the path through this dream formation.

  Unfortunately, he saw immediately that this wasn’t a formation so much as a mess. There was no path through; the strong and weak points of the illusion shifted with every second.

  So he had no choice.

  Reigan focused his willpower again, hating how long it took him, and how weak his authority felt here.

  “Flee,” the Monarch commanded.

  The fog of deceptive madra and aura parted like a forking river. He dashed through, scooping up the purple-white Silent Core now that he could see it clearly. He had to be quick; there were undoubtedly spirits that had formed inside this environment as well.

  He placed the Storm Core on its altar, then ran away as the clouds of dream madra began to flash with lightning.

  From this moment, the ring of the mountain ahead would start to change.

  This was his last step, and then he could proceed into the true depths of the labyrinth.

  Reigan Shen flooded his madra through his flight construct, shattering it almost immediately. Three of the four Cores had been returned to their proper places. Once he placed the Silent Core in the chamber, all of Sacred Valley would change.

  No, the world would change.

  The messenger constructs finally returned to Lindon. Most were shaped like butterflies of various colors, though some resembled birds, clouds of sparks, or mechanical flying machines.

  Some of the faster ones had returned already, but he’d sent them out at roughly the same time, so he expected them to arrive more or less at once.

  He listened to each message. Some constructs bore recorded messages from human scouts, others pinged yes or no to tell him if they’d seen what he’d sent them to look for, and still others gave their own rudimentary opinion like a Remnant’s.

  When they finished, Lindon summarized the information and brought it to Eithan.

  He found the Archlord waiting right outside of Lindon’s house on Windfall.

  “You could have deactivated the ward against me,” Eithan pointed out. “Then I would already know what you have to say.”

  “Apologies, it…slipped my mind.” That was a lie that fooled no one; Lindon didn’t want to set a precedent of allowing Eithan to spy on his home. “There’s so much activity in and around Sacred Valley, it’s hard to pinpoint anything. There’s a new entrance into the labyrinth, some strange Remnants have popped up with aspects no one can recognize, the orus trees on Mount Yoma have started to wither, a tribe of outsiders from the south came into the valley to conquer but left as soon as the suppression field set in…”

  Lindon spread his hands. If he had to rely on notes, he would have waved them in the air. “I don’t know what to look for. There’s too much.”

  Eithan frowned into the distance. “Keep going.”

  “Dreadbeasts are gathering outside the valley. Some people say Samara’s ring is dimmer, or its light is less consistent. Almost certainly damage from the—"

  Eithan cut him off without a word. His entire aspect had become cold. “The ring around the mountain to the east? Did they report a change in color? Sparks?”

  “Sparks, yes. One report said the light “crackled” now. But color, I don’t know. We’ll be able to see for ourselves tomorrow, though.”

  Windfall had been heading back to Sacred Valley for several days now. Eithan’s premonition was too disturbing to ignore, but he still wasn’t certain it had anything to do with Sacred Valley, or they both would have rushed over.

  Eithan extended a hand over the edge of the cloud fortress, and a golden light shimmered. The Bounding Gazelle, his high-speed cloudship, materialized from sparks of gold over the edge.

  “We need to see for ourselves. Send a message to Yerin just in case.”

  Lindon did, launching a purple-and-white butterfly after Yerin’s spiritual signature. The technique dispersed into the aura, where it would make the journey to Serpent’s Grave in hours instead of days.

  Thanks to her Moonlight Bridge, Yerin could meet them anywhere at any time. She had stayed back in Serpent’s Grave to train a new batch of students and keep Mercy company, who was in between jobs for her family at the moment.

  Lindon joined Eithan aboard the cloudship as it shot off, leaving the lumbering Windfall behind. He was feeling left behind himself.

  “Eithan, what would it mean if Samara’s ring changed color?”

  “The suppression field needs a power source,” Eithan said, still icy. “The ring around the mountain should be a side effect of housing such a source.” He was looking westward as though heading to meet a blood enemy.

  Lindon picked up on the implication. If it was changing color, that meant the aspects of the power had changed. But the only thing he could think of that might cause that was the Titan’s attack.

  “I would find it more alarming if the ring really was fading,” Lindon said. A loss of power to the suppression field might call the Dreadgod back. Or all of them, this time.

  Eithan glanced to him, but Lindon followed the train of logic before the Archlord said a word.

  “Unless…the power source was altered.” He spun out the scenario in his mind. “If it just ran out of power, we could replace it. But if it changed, that means someone else has already done that. So someone could be messing with the labyrinth from the inside.”

  Eithan didn’t respond, but he flooded the propulsion constructs with madra. So much pure madra would make the ship run faster now, but it would dilute the network of constructs that ran it, so the cloudship would require extensive maintenance and repair later.

  Lindon didn’t comment. They did indeed need to move faster.

  They flew through the night, covering in hours what should have taken them days if not weeks in a slower vessel. Eithan began reporting before the Valley was visible to Lindon.

  “Clear distortion in the ring, but I don’t see much change in color. I suspect it may not be as bright as it was. I don’t see the pillar of earth madra to the west.”

  “It’s been unsteady since the Titan fed on it,” Lindon reported. “It isn’t unusual for it to vanish for days at a time.”

  Eithan nodded, but he remained silent—watching—as they blasted through the skies.

  Only when Lindon could see Samara’s ring with his own eyes did Eithan let out a breath of relief. His normal self leaked back into him.

  “I’m not ashamed to admit that I was frightened for a while there. It seems I may have thought too much.”

  “Better too much than too little. But, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, you were frightening in your own right.”

  Eithan flinched. “I have heard that before. I do apologize. Take it as my reaction to…”

  He trailed off. The pillar of light on the western end of Sacred Valley had returned, but now it wasn’t golden-yellow. Now it was a soft white; a color that reminded him of Samara’s ring, in fact.

  That was strange, but sometimes certain aspects of madra changed color as they lost power. Still, it was better to be safe, in case someone was tinkering with the structure of Sacred Valley.

  Lindon extended his perception and opened himself to the Void Icon, reaching out to the Valley. He wouldn’t be able to feel anything past the border, but he could still get a sense of the surroundi
ng aura.

  Which, he realized, was changing before his eyes.

  The chaotic powers of vital aura spun like a churning sea. He traced the sensation back, expecting his senses to weaken as they approached Sacred Valley.

  But they didn’t.

  “Lindon, stop!” Eithan shouted.

  Eithan grabbed Lindon’s shoulder and his madra flooded into Lindon’s spirit, but they were both too late. A wave of power gushed out of Sacred Valley, rushing out in all directions, sweeping over their cloudship in an instant. A pure white aura that felt to Lindon’s senses like an endless, gnawing greed for more.

  Hunger aura.

  Power blotted out Lindon’s senses, and he was swallowed by blinding pain.

  8

  Akura Malice had submerged herself in a world of silhouettes. Her World of Night technique. Shadows and dreams moved around her, vague shapes she could make out only distantly.

  But they came with impressions. As she saw the outline of a woman with a staff, she wouldn’t necessarily be able to identify it with her eyes. But her spirit felt Emriss Silentborn. The Remnant Queen would be involved in her future soon.

  Close by, drifting in the emptiness, she found the shadows of a ruined city. There would be a battle here, but she felt as though the battle hadn’t included her. So she would travel to this place in the aftermath of someone else’s battle.

  These hints and clues were difficult to piece together, but the World of Night was the best technique Malice had to interact with Fate. In these recent years, the future had been even more obscured than usual.

  She had seen no hint of the Bleeding Phoenix rising, for instance, and usually the Dreadgods were as difficult to spot as sharks crammed into a bathtub. But this made twice within half a decade that she had failed to spot one.

  Someone was meddling with her perception, or with the flow of the future. Fate, as she understood it, was only a tendency for things to happen a certain way. Just as you could stop an object from falling by catching it, so you could take action to prevent certain outcomes.