The further they pushed into the black trees, the more dreadbeasts they’d encountered. Most wouldn’t bother a group of their size, but some seemed to have no sense of self-preservation at all.

Fingerling flew around her, staying alert for more, even though he was at least as exhausted as she was. He sagged in midair, and his eyes regularly fluttered closed, but he kept shaking himself awake.

Now that the Dreadgod was gone, Jai Chen could turn back west again, but she didn’t want to go back to Sacred Valley in that condition. Nor did anyone else who followed her, it seemed.

They had a plan for the Wilds, so she was clinging to it like a life raft.

But the plan let her down at the first step.

She called out a warning as she felt more sacred artists approaching, but when they emerged, she was the one to panic.

The forty or fifty sacred artists coming out of the trees wore blue, carried spears, and their hair was stiff and shiny as metal. The Jai clan.

Jai Chen and her brother had wondered about this. With the clan being pushed out of the Blackflame Empire proper, it was possible that they would look for places to settle on the border of the Empire. Places that weren’t really under Imperial supervision at all. Like the Desolate Wilds.

A woman with glistening black hair stepped up, her spearhead shining like a white star. “I am Jai Hara, of the Jai clan. Name yourselves.”

There was deathly silence from the Sacred Valley side as everyone waited for Jai Chen to speak. Even Fingerling turned to her.

She shoved the panic down into her stomach. These people wouldn’t know who she was. They couldn’t recognize her; she wasn’t wearing anything that marked her as having once been part of their clan, and she didn’t have their Goldsign. Or any Goldsign at all, as she was still Jade.

They couldn’t know, but she still trembled at the thought that they would figure it out.

“We came from the west,” Jai Chen called, and she didn’t like how her voice shook. “We’re fleeing the Dreadgod. We just want a place to stay for a while. I…we have friends in the Sandvipers. Or the Purelakes. Are they still here?”

Jai Hara’s face was as stiff as her hair. “We have barely enough for ourselves, but if you will tell us which experts you represent, we will know where to send our apologies.”

Jai Chen’s sense of danger spiked. They wanted to know if she was backed by anyone to know if she could be pushed around or not. If she said they were here on their own, they might even attack.

At first, she thought to say the Arelius family, since she could prove that relatively easily. But that would only ensure they attacked; it had been the Arelius family that had pushed the Jai clan out of the Empire.

Next, she considered the Akura clan, but she really had no idea who they were. Important, she gathered, but what if they were even worse enemies to the Jai clan?

Other than an outright, outrageous lie, she only had one idea left.

“We were sent here by the Sage of Twin Stars,” Jai Chen said.

There were enough gasps and mutters from the dozens of sacred artists behind Jai Hara that she knew she’d said the right thing.

“A Sage?” Jai Hara repeated in astonishment. “So you’re the…honorable Twin Star sect?”

“Yes,” Jai Chen said immediately. “That’s us.”

She had spent enough years in the Desolate Wilds to know that Sages were only legends here, but they were legends widely told. She herself didn’t understand how Lindon could possibly be a Sage—he had felt like an Underlord to her, and he hadn’t acted with the aloof air of an expert she had always imagined from Sages—but as long as he could technically claim the title, she could use it.

Jai Hara had started conferring with someone behind her, so Jai Chen kept talking. “The Sage himself is close by. He was fighting the Dreadgod, but the valley to the west was destroyed. So we needed to find shelter for ourselves. Before the Sage comes to get us.”

She was explaining too much, so she clapped her mouth shut before she dug herself a hole she couldn’t dig out of.

Jai Chen really wished her brother was awake.

Jai Hara straightened herself up. “We have, of course, heard tales of the Twin Star Sage’s heroism.”

No, they hadn’t. Jai Chen would have been shocked if Hara had heard the name before now.

But this was the kind of harmless lie that might soothe the ego of an expert and prevent enmity. Jai Chen understood.

“It is no surprise to us 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.”