she’d been through. He knew already.
His sister had lain motionless in the cold, waiting for sentries to pass, trying not to shiver in case they heard the motion. She’d stolen scraps of food, gotten caught, taken beatings, and gone back the next night because if she failed, their father wouldn’t be able to eat. After a day of scavenging whatever she could, of taking care of exiles that weren’t even part of her clan, she had spent nights studying her Path manual and working on the one technique she’d ever learned.
When Orthos arrived, she’d spent every spare moment training and re-training, un-learning the habits that Sacred Valley had ingrained into her. She had reversed her Iron body, a process that sounded agonizing, and gained another one so her foundation would be solid.
On the day she reached Jade, under Orthos’ instruction, she had started working to free her mother.
Orthos said he saw Lindon in her, but Lindon didn’t agree.
He had been shown a world beyond this one. When he pushed for improvement, it was because he knew improvement was possible.
She had fought for a victory that she must have believed impossible. Every day. For three years.
But she wouldn’t have to anymore.
“I’m ready,” Lindon said.
Kelsa didn’t question that or prepare him any further. She didn’t give him any more advice. She only walked through the cabin’s door, leaving it open for him to follow.
Lindon ducked through the doorway and entered.
The interior of the cabin was simple: wooden walls and wooden floors, covered by a rough-woven rug. A one-person bed had been pushed against the back wall, and his parents sat at a tiny table in chairs that looked like they had been hand-carved by the cabin’s owner.
These people looked like his parents, so familiar he could never mistake them. At the same time, they looked like strangers.
They were both tall, broad people, built for the battlefield. His father had more gray in his hair and had lost some of his muscle, his shoulders more rounded and his middle a little softer, but he was still unmistakably Wei Shi Jaran. His bad leg was stretched out on a chair, his cane held loosely across his lap.
Wei Shi Seisha had gray in her hair too, which he didn’t remember, but hers was still a deep brown like no one else in the clan. She looked healthier than Jaran or Kelsa, and she had the same drudge floating over her shoulder: a brown segmented fish made of dead matter that reminded Lindon of petrified wood.
But even as his stomach made an eager leap at the sight of his mother and father, it sank as he saw the things that were different.
Seisha’s head had shot up at the sound of the door opening, though Kelsa’s return couldn’t have come as a surprise. She held a book on which she could take notes, but instead of paying more attention to it than her surroundings, she clutched it like a child clenching a blanket to ward off nightmares.
Jaran’s eyes were clouded over, and he stared slightly over the doorway. Kelsa announced herself as she entered, and Lindon realized she must have developed that habit for their father’s sake. “It’s me, and I brought Lindon.”
Seisha’s eyes grew wide as she saw him. “Lindon.” She took a deep breath and said it again. “Lindon. You look…well.”
The badge she wore was still iron. She couldn’t sense him.
“I am.”
There should be something better to say, but he couldn’t find it.
Jaran smacked his cane on the ground. “Why didn’t you come back?” he demanded.
Lindon wished his father had stabbed him instead.
“Not right now!” Kelsa snapped. “He’s alive, and he’s Gold now. He’s going to take us away from here. Won’t you, Lindon?”
“Yes,” Lindon said, but the word came out as more of a whisper. “You can come live with me, and nobody will…nobody can…what I mean is, you’ll be safe.”
Neither of his parents said anything to that for a long time. Too long.
“So you’re Gold?” his mother asked at last. She glanced down to his badge, which clearly wasn’t made of gold.
“Something like that.” That sounded like he was weaker than Gold, so he clarified. “I’m strong. More than any of us ever imagined, and the friends I brought are even stronger.”
Seisha nodded and pointed her finger at the sky in a gesture so familiar it clenched a fist around his heart. That was what she did when she finally understood the truth of a problem.
“Ah, I see. So they lent you their