Yerin set off for the woods, marching through the sand.

“Where's Bai Rou?” Mercy asked.

Turning, Yerin glanced from side to side. “I don't see him, and I don't see anybody who cares. The Sage said there's another way into Ghostwater somewhere on this island, so I'm finding it. The Akura aren't the only ones out here.”

She continued into the forest.

After another few breaths, Mercy followed.

~~~

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled, and Eithan leaned over the deck of the cloudship to watch. There was something endlessly fascinating about watching a storm beneath him.

Naru Saeya, the Blackflame Emperor's little sister, gripped the railing next to him. Her wings—the Goldsign of the Path of Grasping Sky—glittered like emeralds in the lightning flashes. They were smaller and sleeker than most on her Path, and she was correspondingly faster.

She shouted to be heard over the thunder. “I'm going in myself,” she bellowed. “He'll die!”

“No, he won't,” Eithan said, watching the lightning roll behind him.

Of course, he was also watching everything else.

He and Saeya were not the only Underlords present. Chon Ma, the top-ranked Underlord in the Blackflame Empire, did battle in the sky all around them. He was a bear of a man, and he raged like the storm, carrying a black one-handed hammer in each hand. Black clouds appeared beneath his feet with each step, so he ran through the air, another black cloud hanging over his head like a picture of dread.

He bounded in three long steps over to his opponent, pulling one weapon back. It drew dark gray Cloud Hammer madra with it, until it was shrouded in a dense fog.

The Blood Shadow raised one arm to meet the blow.

The hit cracked as loud as thunder, blasting the Shadow to liquid madra. It splattered away, losing its wings and falling through the air.

Chon Ma had overextended himself for that strike, and the Blood Shadow's host wasn't about to let that opportunity pass him by.

He was a serpentine man, tall as though he'd been stretched, wearing the black-and-red robes of Redmoon Hall. He raised a sword, so thin it was almost a needle, and gathered razor-sharp aura at its point. His strike was as swift and precise as one would expect from an Underlord, driving at Chon Ma at the exact moment he was distracted by the Blood Shadow.

But the head of the Cloud Hammer school was not the first-ranked Underlord for his beard. He continued his blow, letting the momentum spin him around, his second hammer meeting the sword-strike instantly.

Eithan was always impressed with such predictions. Those born without the ability to see behind them certainly learned to adapt.

Both hits crashed against each other, sending the two men flying backwards. Clouds formed under Chon Ma's feet, and he stayed hovering in the air, while his opponent landed on the flat side of a flying sword.

Eithan couldn't remember the Redmoon Hall man's name. Gergen? he wondered. Gergich. Gargol. It doesn't matter; I won't need to remember it for long.

The peacock feathers that Naru Saeya wore behind her ear were sodden with the rain they'd flown through to get here, but she looked as though the heat of her fury would dry them in an instant. “Get out of my way.”

Her wings swept back, pushing him aside, and she gathered up wind aura. As she was about to launch herself into the air, she froze. Then she spun around.

“See?” Eithan said, staring into the storm.

Saeya's senses were almost as honed as someone from the Arelius family. Her attunement to wind aura was truly impressive, and she could sense movements in the air from miles away. This storm would strengthen her Ruler techniques and aid her cycling, but it would also interfere with her senses. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have noticed so much later than he did.

“What are you saying?” she spat. “Now we're all going to die!”

A red Thousand-Mile Cloud rose up the side of their ship like a shark breaking the waves. He looked like he was in the middle of his twenties, his pale face framed by black hair that fell to his waist. He wore a dark, shapeless coat that covered him from shoulders to feet, and a blood-red hook dropped from one loose sleeve.

Longhook, Underlord emissary of Redmoon Hall.

Eithan's shoulder throbbed as he looked at that hook. It had been restored by the greatest healer in the Blackflame Empire, so he wondered if it was still wounded, or if it was just the shame of losing blood. He tried not to be embarrassed about taking a blow from a man named Longhook, but it was hard to restrain his shame.

When the Bleeding Phoenix vanished, the emissaries of Redmoon Hall had been caught even more off-guard than everyone else. They were deep in enemy territory, surrounded, and their master's departure left them purposeless.

Unfortunately for the citizens of the Blackflame Empire, that largely meant they killed their way through the population in whatever direction they thought led to safety.

The Emperor had whipped his Underlords into hunting them down. Except for one minor detour to pull his disciples out of a basement, Eithan had spent the past several weeks hunting emissaries. This was a huge opportunity for the Empire; they would never have another chance to deal such a blow to Redmoon Hall. The Akura clan would reward them handsomely for each Underlord head.

But their strategy was all dependent on their advantage of numbers. Each Redmoon emissary counted as two opponents, since their Blood Shadow could fight independently. So they operated in teams of three Underlords apiece.

They only had three such teams, along with one Overlord, but it had been effective so far. They had collected two Underlord heads out of a presumed six remaining in the Empire.

However, now the weakness in their plan was revealed. Instead of three-on-two in their favor, it was now four-on-three against.

Naru Saeya drew a sword of transparent, shimmering light from her soulspace. It looked like it was made of crystalline stained glass or fractured rainbows; whatever Soulsmith had made it, Eithan appreciated their aesthetic sense. “And you had to drag a Highgold into this,” Saeya said. “I just hope you can fight.”

“What if I couldn't?” Eithan proposed. “Boy, that would be embarrassing in this situation, wouldn't it?”

Longhook noticed him, and his lips tightened. Eithan couldn't read what that expression meant—was he excited to see Eithan, as an opponent he'd beaten before? Disappointed? Angry that he couldn't finish Eithan off last time?

Before Eithan could decide, there was a red hook rushing at his face.

Longhook's long hook was his Blood Shadow wrapped around an actual sacred weapon: a long, heavy chain with a thick meat hook at the end. It carried enough force to punch straight through their ship, and Longhook could manipulate it with shocking grace and speed. As Eithan had learned last time.

Eithan met this attack with the same strategy he'd used last time. He poured madra into his iron fabric scissors and slammed them into the hook.

He wasn't using a proper Enforcer technique, but he was using a lot of madra. The hook stopped, the chain rippling like a sea in storm. Eithan was pushed a few steps backward, but he took them gracefully.

And this time, Eithan wasn't alone.

Saeya swept in as a green blur, her rainbow sword flashing. Longhook's weapon coiled back of its own accord, blocking her sword, but her free hand came up and made a fist. Loops of green madra wrapped around him, locking him in place.