Unsouled (Cradle Book 1) (30 page)

Move where?

He couldn’t leave the valley without Yerin, and he couldn’t go home. His clan would turn him over to Heaven’s Glory for a bent halfsilver chip.

He calmed himself, gathering his thoughts, taking a long look at his situation. Given that Heaven’s Glory would hunt him as soon as Whitehall returned, then Lindon had to treat this place like enemy territory. He and Yerin had stayed here too long already.

But she had her own conditions, and may she rot in the Netherworld for them. She wouldn’t leave the valley until she got what she wanted, and he couldn’t leave without her. He needed her guidance to escape Sacred Valley, and her strength to survive whatever waited outside. Even a Heaven’s Glory elder had been crippled with only a few hours outside of the school’s territory, so an Unsouled would be lucky to last ten seconds. He needed her.

She lay on his bed, her stolen white robes bulky, the blood-red rope tied at her waist looking tight and uncomfortable. She was defenseless, scars all over her skin, some of them fresh.

Though it burned him, he put away thoughts of abandoning her or tricking her into guiding him out. She cared enough about her master’s legacy to stay on the mountain with an entire school hunting her; nothing he could say would change her mind. He wasn’t happy about it, but he could respect resolve like that.

Lindon slid the door open a crack, peeking out. Samara’s ring lit empty gardens and iced rainstone buildings. No one watched his door, at least as far as he could tell.

Whitehall must not have made it back yet, or else he hadn’t spread the word about Lindon. So Lindon still had time to use his identity as a Heaven’s Glory disciple. At the least, he should be able to find out where the Sword Sage’s body was.

He reached for his pack.

“Where you going?” Yerin asked. Her voice was vague and bleary, as though she hadn’t bothered to wake up before speaking.

Lindon glanced back. She was adjusting her sword-belt, moving the hilt around from where it had been poking her in the ribs. “Give me two seconds, and I’ll find out where they’re keeping your master. Until Whitehall comes back, I’m still a disciple.”

He looked like he’d just returned from a fight on behalf of the school—his white disciple’s clothes were stained with blood and dirt, he was scraped and bruised from his head down to the soles of his feet, and his spirit had only just started to recover. The elder should believe any story he spun, if they swallowed the idea that someone at the Foundation level had been allowed to fight the Sword Disciple.

She squinted at him, rubbing the side of her head with one hand. “Don’t bother yourself. I know where he is.”

Lindon froze in his doorway, his frustration returning. “Then why are we
here?
Let’s pick up your master and leave.”

“Need to harvest his Remnant,” she said, stretching. “I was aiming to steal the gear from the school, but they kept me too busy. This is two steps closer than I ever got before.”

Lindon stared at her.
Harvest his Remnant.

“Are you a Gold?” Everyone knew the final step into Gold was harvesting a Remnant and binding it to your physical body, which made you more than mortal. That was why Gold was the pinnacle, a qualitative leap beyond Jade.

Of course, according to Suriel, Gold was just the beginning.

“Not yet,” Yerin answered him. “Taking in the Remnant is the difference between what you all call Jade and what you call Gold. It’s like an heirloom, passed from master to disciple.”

A brief stricken look passed across Yerin’s face, and Lindon reminded himself that she had just lost her master. For some, that could be a bond even closer than blood.

Lindon stepped back and let the door close, and she straightened in apparent surprise. “Thought you were leaving.”

“If we know where we’re going, there’s no need. Now, how about a plan. I’m guessing the gear you need is a spirit-seal?”

Yerin’s eyes moved between him and the door. “Well, that’s pleasing. I thought you’d make an excuse to leave, go warn the elders.”

Lindon wrestled down his irritation. She had forced him into helping, and now she
still
doubted him?

“We’re both traitors. They won’t treat me any better than you.”

“Crack the door, but don’t walk out. Just peek.”

If Lindon had to play more of her games, he might try to strike out on his own after all. “Why?”

She didn’t answer, waiting for him to open the door. With a sigh, he did. The night still reigned.

“No one’s there,” he said.

“Drop a knee,” she responded.

Feeling like a fool, Lindon knelt in his own doorway. Then he saw what had been invisible to him head-on: a flat shimmer in the air, floating at eye height, like a sword hammered out of pure force. His throat caught. Earlier, if he had taken more than a single step out, it would have sheared through his skull.

He managed to fake some level of calm as he asked, “Are you a Forger, then?”

“Born a Ruler, but I did Forge that.” That wasn’t too interesting of a statement in itself. The First Elder of the Wei clan was rumored to know both the Forger technique and the Ruler technique of the White Fox Path, though of course he was more gifted in one than the other.

“When?” Lindon asked, still staring at the blade that had almost killed him.

“Right before I shut my eyes. We did swear an oath, but we also only met tonight. Didn’t trust you then.”

She’d Forged that hours ago, and it had remained steady and solid. Having grown up around his mother, he knew how much skill that took. If she only dabbled in Forging, she would never have been able to do it.

He couldn’t stop imagining an invisible blade passing through his eyes, slicing his brain into two pieces, but he forced himself past it. “Does that mean I can trust you not to lay anymore lethal traps for me?”

She considered a moment, then nodded. “Not lethal ones.”

“I’m pleased to hear that.” He’d take whatever he could get. “Now, we need a spirit-seal?”

Yerin loosened her shoulders, swinging her feet around to the other side of the bed. She braced her sword in one hand, and she looked more like the formidable sacred artist she was. “You know where they’re kept?”

“The Lesser Treasure Hall. A Jade Forger
lives over the hall, and there are script-activated security constructs hidden in the floors.”

Her eyes gleamed and she leaned in closer. “That’s more than nothing but less than something. Now, this Treasure Hall…they keep more than
just
seals, true?”

Suddenly, it occurred to Lindon that something good might actually come of staying in Sacred Valley. “You wouldn’t believe everything they’ve got in there.”

“That’s pleasing to hear. Now, what did the Wei clan teach you about stealing from your enemies?”

“I’ll bring my pack.”

Chapter 18

Elder Whitehall had never felt so miserable in his life. He’d long since closed the bleeding sword wound on his shoulder—such injuries were only minor irritations to anyone with Jade madra and an Iron body—but his spirit was exhausted, and an eight-year-old’s legs were not suited to trudging through snow. He felt as though his knees would buckle with every step, and the few scraps of madra he could scrape up were spent melting his way forward with beams of hot gold.

Especially grating was the knowledge that he could have been back at the school by now, a hot mug of tea in his hand and hundreds of disciples rushing out to find Wei Shi Lindon and the sword girl. He would have reached the Heaven’s Glory School long ago.

But that wasn’t where he’d decided to go, and he clung to that decision with dogged resolve. He was heading to the Ancestor’s Tomb.

The Tomb was actually closer than the school, but the way was anything but clear. There were no roads out here; he had to scale rock faces and push his way through snow. With no madra. In a child’s body. If he’d known, he would have brought a Thousand-Mile Cloud.

With every agonizing step, he was tempted to turn back, but he never did. The Sword Disciple had been making her way closer to the Tomb for the better part of two weeks now, and now that she had help from that Unsouled, he had every reason to believe that they’d head straight for her master’s body.

He could bring in help, give away the credit, and never see a single one of the Sword Sage’s fantastic treasures. Or…

Samara’s ring was a bright line in the sky when he reached the Ancestor’s Tomb. The Tomb predated their school by unknown centuries, a titanic monument to an age long past perched at the edge of the mountainside. Behind it was a sheer thousand-foot drop and a picturesque view of distant snowy peaks. The building itself was bigger than anything in Heaven’s Glory, a square mausoleum that stood proudly on vast pillars. Far above Whitehall’s head, a mural of four gigantic beasts locked in battle rose over the entrance.

A man and a woman in Heaven’s Glory colors waited on the steps at the bottom, huddled behind the pillars against the wind. They wore purple sashes, only a step away from Whitehall’s gold, and their badges were jade.

Every elder was a Jade, but not every Jade was an elder. These two had no problems in their mastery of the sacred arts, but they were too young to actually administrate the school, so Whitehall outranked them both. He’d counted on that.

Once he knew they’d seen him, he allowed himself to pitch forward and fall into a patch of snow. It didn’t require much acting.

Footsteps crunched rapidly through the snow, and the male guard shouted something to his partner. Seconds later, a pair of hands scooped up Whitehall’s whole body and carried him to the steps.

Ordinarily he would resent the indignity of being treated like a child, but his relief outweighed any irritation. At last, he was off his feet.

“Elder Whitehall?” the woman asked anxiously. “Are you wounded? We’ll send for healers now.”

Whitehall reached out blindly and seized her hand. “No!” He wasn’t pleased by how young and weak his voice sounded. “Please. I will recover soon, and my pride could not stand the blow.”

Through half-closed lids, Whitehall saw the Jade guards exchange glances. “Of course we will shelter you, elder. If I may ask, why did you come to us? Why not return to the school?”

Whitehall struggled up to a sitting position, grimacing in pain that was only half-feigned. “It was my shame that I was wounded by the Sword Disciple before I could defeat her. How could I show my face as an elder if I returned without victory? I couldn’t. I will rest here for a night or two, and when I am recovered, I will show her the wrath of Heaven’s Glory.”

The guards bowed to him. “Your words are wise, elder,” the woman said. “We have a hut just to the side of the Tomb. It is nothing much, but you are welcome to it.”

Whitehall returned a seated bow. “When the Sword Disciple is dead, I will remember this favor.” They brightened; if Whitehall killed the Sage’s disciple, he would instantly gain status in the school, and a favor from him would become that much more valuable.

A screech like a razor sliding along rock echoed from the Ancestor’s Tomb, ringing in the air and stabbing his ears. The guards winced and backed up together, turning to face the Tomb. The sound faded a second later, but Whitehall already wondered if his ears were bleeding.

“Is that the Remnant?” Whitehall asked.

The male guard kept a hand on his weapon. It was a club, Whitehall noted, not the sword he would have expected. “The Sage has been quiet for over a week, but last night he started up again. Elder, when you return to the school, I humbly request that you send reinforcements to us before our shift is up. If he escapes, we will not be enough to contain him.”

Whitehall rapped his knuckles against the man’s wrist, as he would discipline a student. “Cowardice is not fitting for warriors of Heaven’s Glory. That is not the Sword Sage, it is only a Remnant.”

“I do not mean to contradict the elder,” the woman said, “but last night the Remnant did
that.”
She pointed to the top of the Tomb, just above and to the side of the beast mural.

In the harsh light of Samara’s halo, colors were muted and edges sharp. He squinted at the corner of the building, along the side of the roof, trying to distinguish between the folds of shadow.

Finally, he saw it, and he took in a breath of freezing air. Between the roof and the wall, there was a crack. It was difficult to see if you weren’t looking for it, but now that he stared directly at the spot, he could see it: a slice of deeper shadow where the Tomb’s ancient walls had been split open. It looked as though a massive blade had slipped into the top of the wall, opening a wound.

“That’s…” he began, but he had no words. The Ancestor’s Tomb was set with deep, ancient scripts that had gathered vital aura into those walls for centuries. They should be next to indestructible by now.

A
Remnant
had done that?

“The elder knows best,” the male guard said, without a trace of mockery in his tone. “But I thought he should be made aware.”

“After I recover, I will return here with reinforcements,” Whitehall promised. He actually meant it.

He let them guide him back to their hut on the edge of the cliff, drape a snowfox pelt around his shoulders, and heat fish soup for him. If he understood the Sword Disciple’s character correctly, she would be here tomorrow, or a day later at the most. And if he grasped the scope of her power, she would tear through these two Jades.

He hoped they would survive—they had been kind to him, after all—but death in combat was the most honorable end for a sacred artist. If they died for their weakness, he would not be to blame.

And once the girl opened the Ancestor’s Tomb, she would have to face the Remnant of her formidable master. Either it would kill her unassisted, or Whitehall would take advantage of her distraction to kill her himself.

After that, there was no losing scenario for him. A Remnant of the sword aspect was powerful in combat but weak in pursuit, so he would be able to escape. Either he would retrieve the treasures on the Sword Sage’s body, or he would return to the school with the Sword Disciple’s head. In that case, he would have rendered such merits to the Heaven’s Glory School that he should end up with some prizes regardless.