Bloodline (Cradle Book 9) Read online

  And, in one of his greatest triumphs, he had raided the personal collection of the Third Judge of the Abidan Court: Darandiel, the Ghost. He had taken from her a band of silver bound with living runes, designed to allow even a Judge to veil their power.

  His greatest craftsman, gathered from dozens of dead worlds, labored for years to break these items down to their conceptual essence and combine them together.

  After thirty years, they forged his four priceless treasures into a device that would hide the very origin of his existence. It resembled a living, shifting thread made from smoke and shadow, which swirled around him in a twisting cocoon.

  As they looked upon him, even his closest advisors could not recognize him. He was as a void in reality itself.

  With his Origin Shroud upon him, he took a step into reality.

  Into Iteration 216. The world called Limit.

  Even two hundred standard years later, the memory frustrated him. Limit should have been the perfect world to experiment with. It was doomed to fall soon, its population devastated by a mystical plague and the rise of new insectoid monsters. The ecosystem was close to collapsing, and the decline of human lives had already led to steady breakdowns in local physics.

  There was no reason for an Abidan to be there. In fact, he arrived over a churning sea without Sector Control contacting a Judge, and he knew he had won.

  Oth’kimeth gleefully reminded him of the triumph he had felt in that moment. He had seen himself striding into Haven or Cradle or even Sanctum itself unnoticed, wreaking such devastation before the Judges were recalled that the Abidan would begin to crumble.

  It was while he was lost in his own victory that he had felt another presence. A rock-solid presence of order buried beneath the ocean. An Abidan in Limit.

  The timing, he felt, was perfect.

  His enemy had not noticed him, and he could be upon them with lethal force in an instant. A shark taking a swimmer.

  His will bent and tore reality—one more wound among many in the dying world—and he stepped through a hole in space. He found himself in an underground chamber that sheltered millions of local lives.

  And he was standing face-to-face with Ozriel.

  It was only afterwards that Oth’kimeth, acting in conjunction with his Presence, had reconstructed the image of the Abidan standing there in his black armor, white hair falling around his shoulders, ice-cold look on his face. The Mad King hadn’t seen that at the time.

  He had seen only the Scythe.

  The first strike of the weapon blasted his mortal form to messy pieces, splattering him across the far wall in one blow.

  He had re-formed in an instant, miles overhead, and begun to open a hole into the Void. His Origin Shroud was still intact, as Ozriel hadn’t unleashed the full force of his Scythe.

  Ozriel was hiding too. That was his only saving grace.

  If he removed his Shroud and released his full power, so would Ozriel, and the remaining Judges would be on him in moments.

  How had Ozriel known?

  Even two hundred years later, Daruman couldn’t figure it out. Had he really seen so far, through chaos-corrupted Fate?

  At the time, he had been convinced that there had been some flaw in his Origin Shroud. If he could get away and fix it, he could try again.

  But Ozriel had followed him.

  They had traded blows in the sky, enough to tear space and strain the already-weak fabric of the Iteration, but neither at their full power.

  Otherwise, their first exchange would have torn the planet in half.

  Daruman had finally managed to keep his void portal open long enough to escape, but then Ozriel had spoken to him.

  Oth’kimeth made sure he remembered the statement in Ozriel’s own smug and icy tones.

  “I can let you run…but I can’t let you keep that.”

  The authority of Ozriel’s Scythe focused on Daruman’s Origin Shroud, and there was nothing he could do. The spinning thread of shadows and smoke was torn from him, its pieces drifting back into Limit as he himself fell into the Void.

  So he couldn’t even forge it again.

  Oth’kimeth had been laughing at him about it for two hundred years.

  You had to wait until Ozriel was gone. You creep around like a mouse because you cannot stride like a lion.

  I can now, Daruman countered.

  And he tore his way from the Void into a world. The Abidan called it Iteration One Twenty-nine: Oasis.

  Reality screamed around him. Distant stars shook. Prophets and oracles fainted or died where they stood, sensing his presence.

  And the fourteen Abidan stationed on this world instantly sent out desperate calls for aid. He couldn’t stop them, but he didn’t need to.

  The Mad King had come. He wore his armor carved from the bones of Oth’kimeth’s physical body, and in his right hand he clutched a Scythe of his own.

  He no longer had any use for stealth. Let them see him coming.

  He would crush them and their defenses together.

  Daruman raised his Scythe and reaped Abidan lives.

  Jai Long spoke coldly to the guardians of the Fallen Leaf School. “Let me out.”

  There was a living barrier between him and the northern exit from Sacred Valley. It was a nest of thorns thicker than his thumb, with a flock of sacred vultures flying overhead and cawing warnings down to him.

  Three guards, a Jade and two Irons, stood in his way and prevented him from carving his way out. He could feel life madra from them, as he could from their entire School, but they were still Jades at best.

  He could cut them apart as easily as the thorns, but his sister was with him, looking to him with concern. That, and he had killed those who were helpless to stop him before. He hadn’t liked it.

  Which annoyed him. A conscience wasn’t something a sacred artist could afford, if he wished to keep climbing the ladder.

  But then, Jai Long had come here specifically to escape that climb. In a sense, he wasn’t even a sacred artist anymore.

  Though he was still more of one than any five natives of Sacred Valley put together. Even if you set aside the curse, he had been thoroughly unimpressed with the attitudes of the people here. They spent all their time using the sacred arts to jockey for position instead of actually pursuing excellence.

  Except Kelsa. He had grown to believe that she and her brother were unique among their kin.

  She would do well no matter where she ended up, and her parents were safe now. Jai Long had no more reason to stay.

  The Fallen Leaf Jade, a woman with gray in her hair, held up a staff. It was a sacred instrument designed to channel her life madra, and he could feel the connection it held to the thorns behind her. “You have been granted permission to stay among us, but not to use our gateway to the outside.”

  Jai Long gripped his spear and steadied himself. He knew that he was perhaps the most suspicious-looking person alive. As much with the script covering his head as without it.

  But he was showing great restraint by talking to this person at all. He could defeat all three of them without killing them. Probably.

  A white snake of madra curled around Jai Long’s weapon. “I can leave whether you permit it or not. I am asking you to stand aside out of courtesy and a concern for your well-being.”

  The Irons, two boys that he suspected were brothers, paled and readied shining green light. They had brown hair and wore badges big enough to be half breastplates, covering most of their chests.

  “If you can,” the Jade said, “then do it.”

  A new voice rang out before the battle could begin: “Apologies!”

  Jai Long kept a wary eye and his spiritual perception on the Jade guard, but he paced several steps to the side so he could catch a glimpse of the man who had spoken.

  It was exactly who he had expected.

  Wei Shi Lindon Arelius walked up in the clothes of the Akura clan, wearing his own badge, though his had the symbol for “Empty” in the
old language. Its white material matched his new arm, which looked advanced for a Remnant prosthetic. Perhaps Jai Long had done him a favor by removing it.

  Jai Chen bowed when she saw Lindon, but Jai Long had stayed on his guard. He had expected to run into Lindon at some point, but had hoped to escape before that.

  When an old enemy showed up with an army at his back, it was wise to leave.

  As far as Jai Long was concerned, accounts between the two of them had been balanced. But you could never tell who would hold a grudge.

  This meant he had four people to disable without killing. Lindon was a real sacred artist, and therefore the most threatening among Jai Long’s opponents, but that was like being the fattest mosquito in the swarm.

  One swat would be good enough.

  Lindon faced Jai Long, and his expression was difficult to read. “Pardon, but you don’t want to walk. The outside world is…inhospitable right now.”

  “We’ll take our chances.”

  A blue spirit, like a tiny woman in a flowing dress, peeped and waved her hand at Jai Chen. Her eyes lit up in recognition; this must be the spirit who had helped restore the damage to her soul.

  Jai Chen’s dragon-spirit floated warily over to Lindon, giving him and the female spirit a curious inspection.

  “What’s wrong out there?” Jai Chen asked.

  “There’s a Dreadgod coming.”

  She gasped, and Jai Long suspected he had made a similar sound himself. They had sensed disturbances in the aura recently coming from the west, and everyone felt the tremors in the earth, but Dreadgods were several levels beyond what he had expected. At worst, he had thought it was Heralds coming to blows.

  “The Wandering Titan?” he guessed, and Lindon nodded.

  “The Akura clan has provided a fleet of cloudships for evacuation, and they’re waiting at the eastern entrance.”

  “What is a Dreadgod?” the Fallen Leaf Jade asked sharply.

  Lindon looked surprised, but he bowed to her over fists pressed together. “Forgiveness, please. I assumed the other elders had warned you. My friends and I have come to warn you of a monster of unimaginable strength making its way to Sacred Valley. Think of it as an insane sacred beast as tall as a mountain. We have plenty of room for you and your whole School to evacuate before its coming.”

  She did not look like someone who had just heard that her home was going to be destroyed. She wore an expression of deep skepticism. “Have the elders decided to flee before this threat?”

  Lindon sighed. “They are still making their decision.”

  He turned back to the Jai siblings and dipped his head. “Apologies.”

  “I hope you can save your home,” Jai Chen said.

  “So do I.” He gave her a sad half-smile. “I wish you could stay here in peace. When the threat of the Dreadgod has passed, perhaps you can return.”

  “Thank you for the warning,” Jai Long said, “but I’m not foolish enough to ignore an open door now for the promise of one later.” He lifted his spear. “If there is a Dreadgod out there, all the more reason to leave as soon as we can.”

  It wasn’t as though the Wandering Titan was crouched on the other side of this pass with its mouth open. It must be hundreds of miles away, and far to the west. They had witnessed the Bleeding Phoenix back in the Blackflame Empire, and Dreadgods were hard to miss.

  They could leave through this entrance to the north, and then—if it turned out Lindon was telling the truth—they could take a cloudship anywhere they wanted.

  Besides, he wouldn’t trust a ship given to him by someone whose limb he had chopped off.

  Life madra flowed out from the Fallen Leaf Jade, and thorns came to life behind her. Vines slithered over the ground even as his own white madra came to life in the form of serpents, hissing at their opponent.

  “Please don’t do that,” Lindon said quietly.

  Jai Long moved for one of the Irons first. Take out the weakest, reduce the numbers on the enemy side.

  His Striker technique, in the form of a white snake, blasted out to protect him from the thorns as he lunged for the Iron.

  He aimed for a shallow cut on the boy’s calf. He would probably have to slap the Iron around a few times to get him to give up, but this would at least keep him out of the fight for a moment.

  A blue-and-white figure stood between them.

  It was Lindon, his eyes made of blue crystal with white circles for irises. He held Jai Long’s spear in his hand of flesh and a sword in his right. The Iron had swung a blade to try and intercept Jai Long, and though the blow would never have landed, Lindon gripped the weapon by its blade with no apparent discomfort.

  Thorns wrapped around his leg, but he ignored them, turning his disquieting gaze on Jai Long. “We’re trying to negotiate with the Fallen Leaf School. Please don’t kill them.”

  Jai Long filled himself with his Flowing Starlight technique, which Enforced his entire body. White madra filled his limbs, standing out on his skin like shining serpentine tattoos.

  With all the strength he could muster—what was left to him in this cursed valley—he pulled at his spear. Lindon didn’t budge.

  For the first time, Jai Long scanned Lindon.

  And his heart ran cold.

  He released his spear, staggering backward. He pushed his sister away. “Run!” he shouted.

  She was the picture of confusion. Even her dragon flew in aimless loops in midair. More importantly, she didn’t run.

  “Underlord!” Jai Long screamed.

  It was the worst-case scenario. One of their enemies had tracked them down from the world beyond, and had found them before the curse drained their power.

  Lindon only gave off the spiritual strength of a Truegold, but Jai Long didn’t know what kind of advantages a Lord’s body would retain in this place.

  Even if he was down to Lowgold, he had more strength left than Jai Long could call up. And he had a personal grudge. Lindon wouldn’t give up until they were both dead.

  Jai Chen looked from side to side. “I know.”

  Madra still ran through Jai Long’s limbs, and he pushed his Enforcer technique as far as it would go, ready to intercept Lindon. Would he be fast enough?

  But Lindon didn’t move. He looked vaguely uncomfortable.

  Only then did his sister’s words make it into Jai Long’s ears. “You know?”

  “I scanned him when he walked up. I don’t think he’s going to attack us.”

  Lindon scratched the side of his head. “I’m not. If you don’t want to come with us, you’re welcome to go your own way. I just…don’t recommend it.”

  Jai Chen walked up to look at the blue spirit on Lindon’s shoulder. She extended a hand. “May I?”

  The spirit chimed and stepped lightly onto her hand, scurrying up to her shoulder and chattering into her ear.

  By this time, the Jade’s thorns had wrapped all the way up Lindon’s thigh. He glanced down. “Do you mind if I remove these? They’re starting to get…uncomfortable.”

  “Not until you explain yourself,” the Jade said firmly. “What is an Underlord? How do you know about this…Dread God?”

  Lindon switched to his Blackflame core, controlled aura for just a blink, and the entire vine burned to ash. “Apologies, but that was making me nervous.”

  Jai Long found himself still in a fighting crouch, madra flowing through him, as Jai Chen chatted merrily to Lindon’s Riverseed and Lindon himself reassured a Jade that he meant no harm.

  At that moment, he was glad for the strips of cloth covering his face. He didn’t want anyone seeing his face turn bright red.

  “I feel like you’re about to dump me into a pot and boil me,” Orthos rumbled.

  Lindon felt the turtle’s emotions, and he wasn’t as irritated as he pretended. He sat in front of a fireplace in a lodge of the Fallen Leaf School, taking up most of the living room. Orthos felt relaxed, as though he were with family for the first time in years.

  Lind
on only wished he felt the same with his own family.

  The sacred turtle was covered in bandages. Eithan stood over him, one eye closed, examining him like a painter looking for the perfect spot to place a brush. With one swipe of his finger, he spread green goop over Orthos’ injuries.

  The room was already filled with the scent of mint and flowers, created by this powerful healing salve. The wound closed up instantly, but Eithan clicked his tongue and shook his head.

  “Not enough. With only this much, I’m afraid the flavor won’t set in.”

  Orthos flicked his tail. “Some Archlords do eat intelligent sacred beasts.”

  “There’s one such Archlord before you now. Be silent and marinate.”

  Lindon returned his attention to the map spread out before him. He’d studied maps of Sacred Valley as a child working in their clan’s library, and little had changed since then, but it was still better to refresh himself.

  “We can reach the Wei clan well before sunrise,” Lindon said. “But we can’t go together. We don’t—”

  He was cut off by the ground quaking, rattling mugs on shelves and causing sparks to fly from the fire. Earth aura surged beneath his feet, accompanied by a fleeting sense of deep hunger.

  “…we need to split everyone up,” he continued. “We have almost three hundred Golds, and we need to put them to use.”

  He didn’t need to say the rest. The Dreadgod was coming.

  They were almost out of time.

  Orthos snorted out smoke. A bandage covered one eye, though Lindon was sure that Eithan had already healed that eye with a pill, and his other eye swiveled to Lindon.

  “Do you want to set the Wei clan aflame yourself?”

  Lindon sighed. “No, I’m going to save them.”

  They may have exiled his family, which had led to his parents’ suffering, but he didn’t see what other choice the clan elders had. The Heaven’s Glory School was both more powerful and more influential than the Wei clan.