that the honorable Sage has come to defend us from the Dreadgod,” Jai Hara continued, “but who is that?”
She pointed behind Jai Chen’s shoulder.
With a jolt, Jai Chen realized that she hadn’t paid attention to her spiritual sense. She was exhausted, but that was no excuse for a lack of vigilance.
Eithan Arelius drifted up, looking like he’d floated straight out of a healer’s tent. He was sprawled belly-down on a white Thousand-Mile Cloud, wrapped entirely in bandages. His limbs all looked completely stiff, and his hair had been cut short and swept back.
He reached into a hole in the air, from which he pulled a long gray length of cloth. “I am here as another representative of the Twin Star sect. Let our banner stream behind us!”
Eithan let the cloth catch the wind, where it billowed out to display an unbroken stretch of gray. The banner was blank.
Jai Chen didn’t want to say anything, but Eithan saw the look on her face and sighed. “You didn’t give me time to get it sewn yet, but imagine how amazed you would have been if I did have a banner ready. Pretend that’s what happened.”
A cry had gone up from those of the Jai clan who had extended their spiritual senses. “Underlord!”
Ten or fifteen went down to their knees immediately.
But not most of them.
Eithan responded to their calls with a cheery smile. “Close enough!”
“They’re going to recognize you,” Jai Chen said, her voice low.
Most of the Jai remained standing, and they were not happy. Jai Hara herself spat at the foot of Eithan’s cloud. “We know who you are. There’s only one Arelius Underlord.”
“That is not actually correct, but I do not represent my family. They make their own decisions.” Some of the standing Jai clan glanced to one another.
“I embrace my true identity,” Eithan continued. “Personal acolyte to the Sage of Twin Stars himself, and one of the founding members of the Twin Star sect.”
He strained himself to hold the banner higher, despite the thick wrapping around his hands.
There was some fierce debate among the dozens of Jai artists in the back, but after a moment of struggle, Jai Hara begrudgingly lowered her head. “We don’t have food to share, but you can rest behind our lines until the Sage comes.”
As their crowd from Sacred Valley was ushered into the Wilds, Jai Chen whispered to Eithan. “Thank you. We just need a place to recover for a while, and then we won’t impose on your hospitality anymore.”
Eithan was lying face-down, his banner missing. Either the effort of holding it up had exhausted him, or he hadn’t wanted to stay in such a strange position for any longer.
Now, however, the Archlord spoke straight into his cushion of dense cloud madra. “Impose? No, I simply ask that you give me a few days to prepare better accommodations than this. I couldn’t let our new sect die out in the cold.”
Jai Chen didn’t know how to respond. On the one hand, having a sect backing them would solve most of their problems. She yearned to stop running and hiding, to settle down somewhere.
On the other hand, there was no Twin Star sect.
“I’m sorry, Archlord, but the sect…I was just—”
“Making it up? Every organization in history has been made up by someone.”
“We don’t have—”
“A headquarters? There has been quite a bit of real estate around here leveled in a recent disaster. You may have heard about it.”
“My brother—”
“I’m not just looking for your brother.” His head lolled to one side, and he looked at her with a single blue eye. “From you, Jai Chen, with no pressure from me, I would like to know: if we could provide you with a home, would you want one?”
She hesitated.
“No commitment,” he assured her, “and pending your brother’s approval. You could both walk away if and when you wanted.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But it’s hard for me to believe it isn’t a trap.”
She flinched as she said it. He was an Archlord, and she was doubting his given word.
He let out a breath of relief. “Fantastic! It actually isn’t a trap this time; I just need someone who knows real sacred arts to sort through all these Irons to find some who might actually be worth teaching. It so happens that I have recently come into possession of a plot of flying farmland with plenty of sacred herbs and spirit-fruits to support the development of a small sect. So I appreciate you founding one.”
Eithan dipped his head in what