Reaper (Cradle Book 10) Page 5

  Lindon had a little experience in the subject, and he could recall information more efficiently thanks to Dross’ presence. Even if Dross himself was unconscious.

  “That’s because you did it so quickly, and without practice. You strained your channels and your body. If you practice changing and do it gradually, you’ll lessen the strain and the cost.”

  When Orthos looked at him, he felt compelled to add: “At least, that’s what it’s normally like for sacred beasts who take human form.”

  He had absorbed memories from many dragons, and while he left the sorting of most memories to Dross, he had seen his share. But dragons almost exclusively adopted human form, which was the smoothest body in which to advance.

  “I’ll find out for myself, now that we have time to practice.”

  Orthos obviously felt something in their spiritual connection, because he eyed Lindon again. “We do have time, Lindon.”

  “There’s still so much to do. The Dreadgods are still around, I’ve barely scratched the surface of what a Sage can do, the people from the Valley need somewhere to settle, and Dross…”

  “A hunter doesn’t catch its prey by dashing at full speed all the time. You need a lair, Lindon. Even the most powerful dragon curls up and rests.”

  Lindon glanced in the direction of Windfall.

  “That’s a base,” Orthos rumbled. “But it could be a home. If you made it one.”

  Lindon sighed and placed his hand on the wall of leather that was Orthos’ skin. “Gratitude. I’ll try. But I do plan to take a look inside the labyrinth. At least the outer edges, for now.”

  “Maybe the greatest challenge I could give you is to keep your feet still for a month.” Orthos snorted out great plumes of smoke. “At least take us with you.”

  “I’m not sure you’ll fit.”

  “Then you’ll have to wait for me, won’t you?”

  “Not just you. I don’t plan on going alone.”

  Orthos grunted. “You should check the condition of the others, then.”

  Lindon felt the turtle’s concern in his spirit. “Mercy?”

  “She still hasn’t woken up.”

  Mercy had suffered significant spiritual injuries after the Wandering Titan had shattered her bloodline armor, but even the attention of Little Blue hadn’t been enough to restore her. Her madra channels were connected to her Book of Eternal Night in a unique way that Lindon still didn’t understand.

  If her life had been in danger, he would have contacted the Akura clan already. Even as it was, every hour that passed threatened the appearance of Akura Charity.

  Now, the time had come for a more thorough inspection.

  “I’ll take a deeper look,” Lindon said. “Heal well, Orthos. Don’t scare the Golds.”

  Lindon flew off.

  Left behind, Orthos twisted in the air. He reached out and munched into a pile of boulders the humans had piled up for him nearby. To his current size, they were little more than a handful of nuts.

  As he crunched, he murmured aloud.

  “Too big…”

  The tears had long dried on Mercy’s cheeks. She shivered as she pressed her body against the cold stone wall, trying to build up the courage to peek around the corner.

  In fact, the wall wasn’t stone. It was more like condensed madra with properties like stone. Nothing in this spiritual space was real, physically speaking.

  But it was real enough to make her fingers tremble against her bow. She hadn’t come here consciously, so she hadn’t been able to bring Suu with her. Instead, she had Forged her own bow and arrows out of Strings of Shadow.

  It was the only thing that protected her here, deep inside her own soul.

  In the fifth page of the Book of Eternal Night.

  This whole place was built from shadow and nightmares, and the Dream of Darkness technique hung like mist in the air. Every time she let her guard down for an instant, her spirit was flogged with terror.

  And she wasn’t alone.

  One by one, pale fingers slithered out of the darkness to grip the edge of the corner in front of her.

  She raised her bow instantly, but something cold brushed the back of her neck at the same time. Mercy screamed and turned, coming face-to-face with one of the pale demons that haunted this nightmare world.

  Its face was made of white clay, except for its teeth, which gleamed like sharpened and yellowed bone. Its milky eyes bulged.

  “Ours now,” it whispered.

  Her arrow took it in the chest, and it didn’t notice.

  “Ours now,” came a whisper from the other side.

  Mercy bolted, but she’d been caught before. They weren’t here to tear her to pieces, but to feed on her fear and her fading will. That should have relieved her, but it didn’t. Not at all.

  Their touch, and the very air of this place, struck her deepest horror and trauma. They could inject pure fear into her.

  So when she fled, she trembled until fingers grabbed her. Then she screamed.

  “Oh! Apologies,” Lindon said.

  She whipped her head around to stare at him in shock.

  He was glancing around with open curiosity. “This is fascinating. I’d heard of spiritual spaces, and of course we’re here only in spirit, but it seems like it should be possible to enter this place in a body. Have you ever come here physically?”

  “Lindon! Are you…real?”

  The Dream of Darkness couldn’t be used to manually create illusions, but she had found that she had a hard time separating imagination from reality here. She’d hallucinated rescue before.

  But this felt very different.

  “It’s just my soul, but I’m interested that we don’t look like Remnants. I wonder if this is an effect of our perception, or if the Book itself makes us look like we do on the outside.” He took a deep breath, as though savoring the scent of the cavern. “Dross would love it here.”

  Out of habit, Mercy looked over her shoulder for her stalkers. She saw none, but she felt eyes on her from the shadows. Or at least she imagined she did.

  “How did you get here?”

  Lindon rubbed the back of his neck, and between the gesture and his size, he reminded her of her Uncle Fury. “I do apologize; I was reluctant to interfere with the mechanism of a Divine Treasure created by a Monarch without Dross’ guidance, but you weren’t waking up.”

  “How long has it been?” Mercy asked, a lump in her throat. If he had gotten worried, then she had to have been gone more than just a night.

  “Three days.”

  Mercy sagged in relief. “Oh, good. It only felt like a few hours to me.” If it had really felt like three days, she might have gone insane.

  Lindon was about to respond, but the aura pressed in on Mercy again, forcing her to push against it. Pale fingers reached out to Lindon, and she raised her bow to defend him.

  Lindon’s eyes turned to blue crystal with circles of white where his irises had been. Blue-white pure madra pushed out from him.

  The creatures hissed as his Hollow Domain pushed against them, and they fled like rats from a fire.

  As the Domain passed over Mercy, she felt a burden lift from her. Her knees went weak, and she collapsed, but Lindon caught her and steadied her before she hit the floor.

  “There’s not much spirits can do to me in a spiritual realm,” Lindon assured her. “But, if you don’t mind me asking, where exactly are we?”

  “Inside my Book, but you knew that. This is the fifth page. The home of the Dream of Darkness technique.”

  He nodded as he looked around. “Ah, so that’s why there’s Overlord-level madra here. So why did you end up here when your armor broke?”

  “I had it open too long.”

  This was embarrassing to admit, but he was standing literally inside her soul at the moment, so it was only fair that she open up a bit.

  “After the tournament, you and Yerin advanced. I had to lean on the book to fight Sophara, and the more practiced I got, the
easier it was to keep the page open. That’s how it works when you’re close to advancing. So I just…kept it open.”

  She shifted, not meeting his eyes. The unnatural fear that had gripped her had faded, and now she was just tired. And a bit ashamed.

  As expected, Lindon caught her meaning immediately. “Your advancement wasn’t stable.”

  Mercy nodded. When she had faced down the Titan—and that was a memory fresh enough to send another tremble of fear through her—it had crushed her armor quickly. Too quickly.

  Her unstable spirit had collapsed, and the Book had filled in the gaps. Unfortunately, the imbalance resulted in her consciousness being tied more to the fifth page than to her own body.

  “Apologies. I should have left this conversation for later.” He extended a hand to her. “Let’s leave.”

  “I’m not sure you can just—”

  “Release,” Lindon commanded.

  The Book vomited her up instantly at his order, and her eyes snapped open. Her body ached, real air harsh in her lungs, and she saw Lindon sitting peacefully at the side of her bed. They were aboard Ziel’s cloudship; all the rooms in it looked alike.

  “That was fascinating,” Lindon said eagerly. “With your permission, I’d love to study your Book more closely.”

  Mercy put a hand to her chest. Inside, her Book was recharging from its expenditure of madra, and the burden on her spirit had greatly lessened now that she was released.

  And now that she was only an Underlady again.

  She could feel heat in her face, and her shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry. I thought I couldn’t help you unless I could keep up.”

  “I would welcome it if you did advance, of course. But whether you do or not, we’re planning on exploring the labyrinth. I’d love to have you with us.”

  Lindon looked as though he understood, and she suspected he did. She gave him the weak shadow of her usual smile, and Lindon returned it more heartily.

  Then, after a little more chatter in which he made sure she didn’t need anything further, he left her alone.

  She couldn’t stop wondering if they really needed someone who couldn’t even reach Overlord.

  Mercy was not used to being self-conscious about her lack of advancement. Quite the opposite. As a girl, she’d regularly wondered why she was so much faster than her peers.

  Now, she wasn’t sure she could advance if she needed to. That bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

  Only then did the full impact of Lindon’s proposal dawn on her.

  Explore the labyrinth?

  That meant defying the law of the Akura clan, which had declared this territory off-limits. Lindon and Yerin had been granted substantial liberties, but this was a decree directly from Mercy’s mother. There had to be a reason for it.

  Mercy started to sweat again. She kicked off the sheets.

  Not only did she need to work on her advancement, but she had to throw her Aunt Charity off the scent. The Heart Sage could smell lies.

  So she would have to be very, very careful not to lie.

  Ziel’s spirit hadn’t felt truly comfortable in years, but these days, it was like he was borrowing someone else’s madra. Sparks ran along his madra channels, fresh from the latest stage of the Pure Storm Baptism, and he was still recovering from the effects of the suppression field around Sacred Valley. Not to mention the exertion of a fight against a Dreadgod.

  He planned on staying inside his house aboard his cloud fortress, motionless, until he had healed.

  He had spent no effort on decorations or customizing his housing, so his bedroom was a room with a bed in it. That was all. If he needed to keep his belongings somewhere, they could stay in his void key or sit on the floor.

  Likewise, he lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling and waited for the discomfort to fade.

  Or so he intended. But he grew bored.

  He rummaged through his void key with his perception, but he found nothing that could entertain him. The best he had kept were dream tablets demonstrating scripts or techniques.

  Ziel had once told his students that if they had a spare moment to themselves, they should spend it cycling. He cursed himself. There were immersive tablets that would allow him to experience any kind of dream he wanted, and all of them would beat lying there staring up at his ceiling.

  He wished for any distraction, and then he heard a knock at the door.

  Ziel revised his wish.

  Any distraction except a visitor, he thought.

  The person knocked politely but persistently, and Ziel finally reached out and felt their spirit. When he sensed who it was, he dragged himself to his feet and out to the front entrance, where he opened the door.

  Lindon loomed outside, his broad frame taking up the entire doorway. He ducked his head and his wintersteel badge dangled in front of him.

  “Apologies for bothering you, but do you have a moment to talk?”

  “I’m busy.”

  Lindon started to apologize again, which pricked Ziel’s conscience. Lindon was too earnest, to the point that it made Ziel feel guilty lying to him.

  “Never mind, I was lying,” Ziel said. “Come in.”

  That should be enough explanation. He turned around and left the door open so Lindon could follow him.

  “Gratitude. I don’t think I’ve been on a proper tour of your fortress.”

  Ziel braced himself for polite compliments about his bare, boring house, but then Lindon continued.

  “Does yours have the same foundational scripts that ours does?”

  Ziel considered that it would be downright rude to refuse a curious student’s question. “Mostly. It was solid enough—the Court does good work—but I had them add another layer of concealment. Then I laid an encryption circle of my own around the whole cloudbase.”

  It was the first and only modification Ziel had made to his home. If he kept the Ninecloud Court scripts as they were, then the Sha family would have ward keys to all his security.

  That shouldn’t be a problem, since he had never been an enemy of the Ninecloud Court in the first place, but he wouldn’t allow them the ability to deactivate his cloud and let him plummet from the sky if he could help it.

  Granted, any Monarch could do that regardless of what scripts he had in place, but that he couldn’t help.

  Lindon squinted at the floor as though he could see the buried scripts below. “Fascinating. Do you mind if I…”

  Ziel gestured his agreement, and Lindon extended his own perception to admire the scripts. Strictly from a security perspective, Ziel ought to have prevented anyone from seeing the exact layout of his protective scripts, including Lindon.

  But it came back to a similar situation to that of the Monarchs. If Lindon really wanted to kill Ziel, he could, and an extra layer of encryption wasn’t going to slow him down.

  Lindon muttered to himself, and Ziel expected him to pull out a pad to take notes. Or to summon that mind-spirit of his.

  Then Ziel remembered that Dross was gone, maybe for good, and his heart squeezed out one small drop of pity.

  “Gratitude,” Lindon said at last. “I appreciate the chance to learn from a master.”

  “Scripts are great. My food stays fresh and my house is warm in the winter. But ask me what good my scripts did me against the Weeping Dragon.”

  “It was a script formation that weakened the Titan enough for us to drive it off,” Lindon pointed out.

  “Yeah. That’s the work of a master. You want to learn from someone, learn from them.”

  “That’s what I came here to talk to you about,” Lindon said, and suddenly it was as though Ziel could see the future. He saw exactly what Lindon was about to ask him.

  “I’m not coming,” he said.

  “We would very much appreciate your expertise.”

  “I said I wasn’t going to fight the Dreadgod, but I did that. I’ve done my part.”

  “I’ll scout it out myself first. But if we’re going
to make any progress, we need—”

  “Stop. I like you, Lindon. I was a lot like you when I was your age, except weaker and not so crazy. But I’m not part of your team.”

  Lindon looked vaguely hurt, but that wasn’t enough to slow Ziel down. It would only be more painful the more he let this play out.

  “I will fulfill my obligation to Eithan, and then I will go my own way. Don’t rely on me for help.”

  Lindon’s gaze dropped. “I didn’t mean to cause you any inconvenience. If we find anything to bring back, would you mind taking a look from here?”

  Ziel shrugged. “Sure. As long as it isn’t too much effort.”

  Lindon’s unhealthy obsession with advancement had paid dividends, and he was far stronger than anyone his age had any right to be, but he was still young. He needed to find a life to live before it was too late, and Ziel hoped this would remind him that there were people in the world who didn’t care about the sacred arts to the exclusion of all else.

  Then Lindon looked back up, and Ziel felt a chill. Lindon’s eyes changed color often, and this was nothing so overt.

  But something had changed nonetheless.

  “One more thing, if you don’t mind. You say you’re not part of our team. I say you’re the only one who thinks that.”

  “You’re not even really a team,” Ziel said dismissively. “You’re not a sect, and two of you are only part of the Arelius clan in name. Mercy’s going to go back to her mother the second she calls, and if you think Eithan cares more about you than about what he can get of you…well. You’re not that naïve.”

  That might have been going a little too far, Ziel reflected, but it was best that Lindon hear it early.

  Somehow, though, the chill Ziel felt from the depths of Lindon’s black eyes had deepened.

  “Anyone who fights a Dreadgod by my side is on my team,” Lindon said quietly.

  Ziel didn’t have much to say to that.

  “You can call us what you want,” Lindon went on. “But whether or not you consider yourself my ally, I am yours. You have only to call on me.”