his one purple eye at the nine-colored flame that represented the Ninecloud Soul. [Don’t listen to her. She was going to lock us up.]
“I never said that,” the Soul corrected. “I said that if you continued to sabotage Court property, you would be punished to the extent of Ninecloud City law, but those circumstances were entirely different. We are now dealing with an unprecedented disaster, and at the time, you were acting well above your station. You did not have the status you have now.”
Dross’ eye narrowed. [That’s not what you said before. You said…]
He spun into a twisted copy of the Ninecloud Soul, but his colors were duller, and he was shrouded by a haze of oily smoke. He spoke in a version of the Soul’s voice, but he spat every word out in a vicious, spiteful tone.
[Lindon Arelius, if you don’t stop, I will ruin you. I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth! I swear I will destroy you, and even if you become some kind of Sage, I will never be satisfied until my vengeance shreds you to pieces!]
Dross’ form shifted, and he returned to his usual form of a round, purple, one-eyed creature. He stroked his bottom lip with one of his pseudopod arms and spoke in his normal voice. [Yeah, that sounds about right.]
For a moment, the Ninecloud Soul was stunned speechless.
“…is that how you remember my words?”
[I’d say I captured the core essence. The spirit of the message, you know. Better than you did, even. Not to brag.]
“We do not have time for this,” Lindon said. “Please. I recognize that you have a crisis to deal with, and I apologize, but there are lives at stake for us as well. I would be grateful if you could put me through to anyone that can authorize spatial travel.”
“I am truly sorry, but it is beyond the scope of my—” The Ninecloud Soul cut off mid-sentence. “Ah, it seems I spoke too soon. A representative of the Akura clan has arrived. Please contact me if you have any further requests. The Ninecloud Court values your friendship.”
The rainbow flame winked out as the Soul escaped, leaving Lindon to view one of his projection constructs. It displayed the image of the woman who had just stepped onto the edge of his cloud fortress.
She had a slight build and looked to be about twenty, her slick black hair tied into a neat bun. Her sacred artist robes were layers of black and white and violet, and her purple eyes had an ageless serenity.
Akura Charity stood at the base of their home.
Wards over the entire fortress made entering via spatial travel…not impossible, but more difficult. Lindon had requested that security measure to stop Sages from popping in unannounced.
He suspected that one day soon, Eithan would be able to teleport. Best to plan for that early.
Sages could most likely overpower those protections, and Monarchs certainly could, but it would be better than nothing. Evidently that script had kept Charity out, or he was certain she would have appeared at his elbow instead of knocking on his front door.
When she did knock, the entire castle shook.
She was already unhappy. Lindon didn’t think that was fair.
Lindon’s pure madra slipped into the control panel. Opening the doors remotely required an intricate process of chaining madra from script to script, which recently would have strained his concentration.
Now, it was as though his madra did as he wished without his input. On the ground floor, the door swung open.
Once she was through the threshold and inside the protective script, Charity stepped into shadow. She emerged at Lindon’s side a second later.
“You can’t leave,” she said flatly.
Lindon pressed his fists together to salute the Sage of the Silver Heart. “I am grateful for your attention, but we have no time to wait. My homeland is in imminent danger from the Dreadgod. If you would provide us with travel there and back, it would greatly speed our return.”
She moved her gaze from Lindon to Yerin and back. “It was risky enough to allow you to move as you wished when you were only a talented young Underlord. Do you expect me to permit an Underlord Sage and the world’s first…pseudo-Herald…to willingly place themselves in the path of the Wandering Titan?”
That sentence raised Lindon’s curiosity on a number of points.
“Pseudo-Herald,” Yerin repeated. “Would have thought they’d give me a shinier name.”