“The dragon advances,” he said aloud.

“That’s a long stretch better than ‘Fierce Robe Burning Fire,’ true?”

“It’s not a technique name. It looks like their family words, or maybe the philosophy of the Trial.”

Yerin looked bored, so he moved down to the next section.

“Now it's talking about the Trials, and the language gets harder. The Blackflame ancestors placed three Trials here for the three basic techniques of the Path, that much is clear. This one is the...you know, the Fierce Fire Robe. It's their Enforcer technique. Seems like it burns...”

He trailed off.

“You'd expect fire madra to burn,” Yerin said.

“No, that's...ah, it seems to burn away the body of the user.” He searched his mind for another interpretation, but came up with nothing. That would explain why Eithan thought he needed the Bloodforged Iron body to handle the Path, but he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about burning himself from the inside out.

“That's a gem for you, isn't it?” Yerin asked. “If a technique costs you something, means it must be a good one.”

Lindon grunted noncommittally and gestured to the smoky crystal ball on the pedestal. “I'm supposed to run the technique through the crystal, and that will activate the Trial. Apologies, but it looks like we can't move on until I’m familiar with it.”

She folded her arms. “I'll wait.”

He looked from the madra diagram to her. “This could take me days.”

“Really?” Yerin tapped a knuckle against the illustration of the madra channels. “This?”

The diagram seemed to require him to make dozens of small directions and adjustments to his madra flow with every breath. To use it without thought in a fight would take him months.

“I defer to your experience,” he said, “but I think three or four days is reasonable.”

Yerin slid her sword around on her belt, then plopped down to the ground. She patted the dirt in front of her. “I'll be buried and rotten if I let you take days for something that simple. Have a seat, I'll walk you through it.”

Lindon took one final glance at the diagram and then sat with his back to the stone, his knees against Yerin's. Once again, he wished he'd brought paper and ink; tracing the madra pattern would have helped commit it to memory.

“Do what I tell you, when I tell you, you hear me?” When Lindon nodded, Yerin straightened her back. “Close your eyes.”

He did so.

“We're keeping this to a crawl, now. Deep breath in, and picture your madra running like tree roots through your whole body. You inhale, and the roots spread.”

It was the same sort of visualization Eithan had mentioned while teaching him the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel. He followed along, and his madra responded with surprising ease.

“Exhale, and burn it all up. There's a fire consuming those roots, you're burning them, and that fire is the fuel that drives you.”

When Lindon focused on the fire, it was as though the Blackflame madra leaped forward like a hungry beast. It spread from his spirit and sunk into his body, but the sensation was painless, just a hot and disturbing tingle as though his muscles were slowly fizzing away to nothing.

He opened his eyes. “As expected of the Sword Sage’s disciple,” he said, saluting her with fists pressed together. “I almost felt it work. A few more tries, and I think…what?”

She was wearing a smug smile. “Almost?” The silver blade over her shoulder inched forward, leaving a polished steel surface in front of his face. “Do it with your eyes open this time.”

It was harder to picture his madra flow with his eyes open, so this attempt took him longer. But this time he was watching when his madra flared and the tingling sensation washed through his veins.

The reflection of his face was suddenly blurred by a haze of red-and-black fire.

Lindon almost fell backwards.

Yerin gestured to him. “That covers you all over, like burning smoke. It's got a menacing look to it, I'll tell you true. Jai Long will have to bring a diaper to the fight.”

He rose to his feet. “How? So quickly?”

She drew her sword so that she could reach the stone tablet with its tip, pointing to little symbols next to the madra pattern. Lindon had taken them for reading directions in the ancient script.

“Can't read a word, but you'd see these pictures on most old Path manuals. I had more talks about cycling theory with my master than we had hot meals.” She shrugged. “You're just moving your own spirit around, aren't you? The feeling does you more good than remembering some directions.”

She'd left her Goldsign in place as a mirror, so Lindon flared the technique again. This time, he got a clearer look: a thin aura of black and red rose around him in a haze of power. He would be shrouded in Blackflame madra when he used this technique.

“What does it do?”

“Ask your...stone book, there.” She scratched her nose, then added, “But I could take a guess. Looks to me like a basic full-body Enforcement. Works different depending on your madra, but basically every Path has something like it. Your body's protected and powered by madra while you use it, until you run out of madra or have to drop it.”

He studied the stone, which seemed to agree with her. As far as he could tell. “If it's so simple, then why did they record it here?”

“You're asking me, but who am I supposed to ask? Not every Path has complicated techniques—sometimes they're stone simple, and it's all about how you use them. Or maybe this was the Trial they gave to Copper kids.”

From the tone of the tablet, Lindon doubted this was something so frivolous as a playground for children. And Eithan would never have sent him somewhere easy, he was sure of that.

Lindon flared the aura again, trying to see how long the sensation of painless, corrosive heat would last. He couldn't hold it longer than a blink before the technique fell apart; he'd need to work on keeping his madra control steady and predictable. “It protects me, you say?”

“It Enforces you—figure you know what that means by now. But every Path’s madra does something different. You'll have to play around with it.” She hopped up, brushing her knees clean. “Hit me.”

He looked at her sword.

“Got to try out your shiny new technique, don't you? Hit me.”

Not for a moment did Lindon think he'd hurt her. Quite the opposite, in fact: he was worried her counterattack would slice off his arm. “I will do as you say, then. Excuse me.”

The technique flared, and as soon as he felt the heat and saw the black-and-red haze around his body, he kicked off from the dirt. He'd been used to Enforcing himself with pure madra, and he had a sense of how strong his Iron body could be.

When he kicked off, it sent a pain flaring in his knees. The ground exploded behind him and wind rushed by his ears as he launched into the air.

Lindon had an instant to scream before he slammed face-first into the packed dirt a dozen feet behind Yerin.

Dirt ground into his eyes, into his lips, between his teeth. His body slapped down to the earth a second behind his head, and a brief moment passed before he could lift his face enough to spit out a mouthful of dirt.