Mercy's head cracked as it hit the ground, and she crumpled.

Yerin folded her arms and waited. Iron bodies could take more punishment than that.

Mercy hissed as she sat up, cradling her head with one hand. “Aaaahhhh ow ow ow.” Through watering eyes, she looked up to Yerin. “When I do it right, I land on my feet.”

“You expect to fight upside-down a lot?”

Mercy examined her bow to make sure it hadn't broken. “Do you not practice Striker techniques this way? Trains accuracy, precision, reaction time...”

“Pain tolerance,” Yerin suggested.

“Only when you miss.” She stood up, brushing herself off. “I had a few more rounds to go, but now you're awake. Dinner?”

“Is the barrier gone?”

One of the factions—Yerin hadn't been able to determine who—had raised up a barrier of blue light that stretched across half the island in front of them. It was hard to see through the tree cover, but if you went far enough forward, you could see nothing but a sapphire wall. She wasn't sure what the barrier formation would do to people inside, but she wasn't curious enough to find out.

Mercy's eyes widened, and she snapped two blackened fingers. “Oh, that's right! I have news!”

Hurriedly, she scrambled over to their camp. They had spent three days in this place, so it was starting to look a little too permanent for Yerin's liking.

As she looked over the stump they used as a table and the stone-lined firepit they'd dug, the impatient itch returned to her heart.

Lindon could be running from Truegolds, and here she was locked out.

Mercy tripped over a root, landing belly-down in the dirt, but she held the Sage's folded map over her head in triumph. “Got it!” she said into the ground.

A moment later, she was explaining her excitement to Yerin. “I was at the top of the tree, checking on the barrier, and I realized what we thought was a hill was just that mammoth sleeping. And the mountain is farther away than I'd thought.”

Yerin's stomach fell. Every time they'd made a mistake navigating, it had resulted in days' more delay.

“So, we're not here, we're here,” Mercy said, stabbing her finger at a spot on the map.

A spot just below the portal.

“If the wall wasn't there, we could see it from the tree,” Mercy said brightly. “It’s fading away. You can see through it now, and you couldn’t this morning.”

Yerin leaped.

Her Steelborn Iron body drew thirstily on her madra, fueling her flat-footed jump so that she launched herself to the top of the tree. She bent the top of the tree as she landed, but she had no trouble keeping her balance.

The wall of blue light still rolled on the horizon, but if Mercy was right, then it was covering the beach and the edge of the island more than another expanse of forest. When the boundary came down, they would be only a few hours' run away from the portal.

She strained her eyes to try and see if there was some change in the boundary, but she could tell nothing. She hopped back to the ground, and was surprised to find that Mercy was starting a fire instead of packing up.

“You cracked in the head? Let's go!”

“Dinner first,” Mercy said firmly. “It won't come down any faster just because we're closer.”

Yerin paced like a tiger in a cage. She just wanted to feel like she was making some progress. Even moving an hour closer would mean an hour's less travel time when the light did disappear.

She started to say so, but a deafening, bestial scream covered the island out of nowhere. It was joined by more and more, until it sounded like a choir of raging spirits howling at the heavens. A furious, burning presence lit up her spiritual senses like a flying bonfire.

“It's not the vultures again,” she muttered, opening up her perception. The roars had been deeper than that, and she thought she felt fire. But that sense could be slippery.

Mercy grabbed her staff, which hissed into the sky. Its violet eyes flared. “Not vultures. Dragons.”

As she said so, a golden cloud descended from heaven, bearing a complex of palaces on it. The Thousand-Mile Cloud that had hovered outside the Akura fortress about two weeks before, from which a woman had argued with Old Man Lo.

“What's rustled their scales?” Yerin asked. They were still roaring, and she thought she saw golden flames rising from the Cloud.

Mercy shivered. “I think we should get in the tent.”

A second later, Yerin felt it too: someone's spiritual sense was sweeping the forest. The Cloud was still many miles away; to search them from that distance would take an Underlord at least.

“I'd contend we should,” Yerin allowed with a sigh. She took a last, regretful glance in the other direction. Hiding was the smart thing to do, but she'd rather move closer to the boundary.

After all, it wasn't like the dragons were looking for them. The heavens couldn’t hate her that much.

~~~

“You're just having a little break? Having some time to yourself? That's okay, nothing wrong with that. You've just been through a fight, haven't you? But now you're rested, you're refreshed, you're ready to get yourself up and move on! The road doesn't get any shorter while you wait, as they say.”

It had been five minutes.

Lindon was still sitting cross-legged on the floor, cycling his madra to try and bring power back to his spirit before his Bloodforged Iron body took it all and left him spiritually drained and helpless. Little Blue lay sprawled on top of his head, sleeping, and he held his spine straight to avoid disturbing her.

Now Dross was growing impatient.

“I told you about the Spirit Well, didn't I? I'm pretty sure I did. Well, that's our next stop! No need to waste time trying to restore your madra now, when the Spirit Well will do it with just a sip! Well, I mean, I suppose you should strengthen yourself just a bit. There are quite a few giant, hungry beasts between us and our destination, but uh...it sounds worse than it is.”

Lindon held out a broken necklace with a copper key dangling from the center. It was only the size of a fingernail; too small to unlock anything bigger than a dollhouse. But it was a sacred treasure, he was sure of it.

Using as little madra as he could, he reached his spirit out and activated it. He was confident that this was the device that he'd sensed before, and his curiosity was too ravenous to wait until he had finished stabilizing his soul. If he really did run out of madra, he might not be able to trigger this for hours. And that would be unacceptable.

Fortunately, it didn't take much effort to start. Little more than flipping a switch.

A doorway bloomed in front of him, seven feet tall and about three wide. It led into a closet, hanging there in midair.

The closet was only a few feet deep and mostly empty. A few chairs were stacked in the center, with pillows and blankets stuffed beneath them. Three sealed clay jugs sat in the corner, and based on a quick glimpse of their contents, they seemed to contain water. He was still on his knees, weak and injured...but not too weak or injured to rummage through a closet that he'd summoned out of nowhere. A few scripted bundles were revealed to hold dried meat.

Rations, water, furniture, and bedding. Practical things to hold in a magical storage space, except perhaps for the chairs.