Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

At first, Lindon thought it was fear and blood loss. He had been on the brink of death often enough to know that his body could betray him in unexpected ways.

But it wasn't just his breath. There was pressure on every inch of his skin, as though someone had wrapped him in a sheet and pulled it tight. Each movement was difficult, like he was pushing his way through mud.

Judging from Jai Long's stiff position, Lindon wasn't the only one affected. Jai Daishou seemed even worse, as his spear dropped from a suddenly slack grip—and drifted through midair, falling like a feather. Jai Chen seemed like she had been touched the least, her hair lifting but her posture changing not at all.

Lindon looked to the Skysworn Underlord.

Sure enough, he had thrust both his hands out to the sides, and green madra spilled from them like gas. The power faded into invisibility, affecting the wind aura and commanding the air to obey him.

This was a Ruler technique. He had locked everyone in place, though it didn't seem as thorough as what he'd used on Eithan earlier. Lindon could still move, if with difficulty, and he saw the others shifting position slightly as well.

He must be concentrating it differently on each of us, he thought. If he was binding them according to their relative threat level, that explained why Lindon and Jai Chen were least disrupted.

Of course, the primary target was Eithan.

In Lindon's spiritual sight, Eithan glowed in a sun of green wind aura. The wind howled in from all the open sides of the building, pushing against him, building a prison of air.

He was only a step from the Skysworn Captain, his scissors poised.

Naru Gwei's filthy gray locks were whipped in the wind, his eyes savage, the burn scars on his face crinkled and red. He shouted, and from his back spread two enormous, emerald wings.

They glistened like jewels, bright as the most stable Remnants, but each feather had as much detail as a real bird's wings. His Goldsign.

“Interfering with a Skysworn in the course of his duties!” Naru Gwei announced. “No matter your background, even you can't—”

A pulse of madra blasted out of Eithan.

Lindon could see it, twisting the air like a heat haze. It burst from Eithan's chest, the size of a galloping horse, sweeping through Naru Gwei in an instant. The cage around Eithan vanished, as the technique passed through Gwei's body.

It did not, however, pass through his wings.

The spread Goldsign caught the blast of pure madra like a sail catching the full force of a hurricane's wind. The Underlord was ripped back by his own wings, hurtling out over the abyss.

And dropping.

Where he had stood a moment before, the majestic range of snowy peaks now reigned. Everyone in the room stared.

Lindon wanted to say something, but it was a struggle to stay conscious. He began shuffling toward the head of the Ancestor's Spear—now that the Skysworn's restriction had vanished, he could move under his own power again, but he barely had the strength to do it.

Before anyone had a chance to react, there came a sound like a flag snapping in the wind and the huge emerald wings reappeared. The green-armored Skysworn rose up to the building's height, bobbing up and down with every flap of his wings.

There was a dark gray sword in his hand, its blade long and thick. Its surface was notched and dull, just like the Underlord's armor, but its edge was clean and sharp.

Eithan's smile was back, and he regarded Naru Gwei with arms folded. He looked like his normal, cheerful self, as though the icy demeanor from before was only a lie. “You really want to use your Goldsign to fly? If I take them away, you'll fall three hundred feet.”

The Skysworn's face hardened. “Do you really want to make an enemy of the entire empire by fighting me? I'm the second-ranked Underlord on these shores, Arelius. You'll be lucky to escape the Emperor's wrath already.”

“You...almost made me lose my temper, I'll admit,” Eithan said. “But no harm done. No, I'm not here to fight you. I just want to delay you.” A little of that ice returned to his voice. “I have a different target.”

One step, a swirl of his wrist, and a punch.

Pure madra rippled out of his fist, so dense as to be visible. It caught Naru Gwei in the center of his chest, and he plummeted like a brick.

Jai Daishou scrambled on the ground, pulling up his spear as though his life depended on it. His white metal hair fell around his face in disarray, and he watched Eithan in panic. White light began to glow from the tip of his spear...but the light was fitful and weak.

Eithan turned to him. Not quickly or slowly—he was the picture of a man in control. “I rarely have to kill someone twice,” he said. “A third time? Never.”

Jai Long shoved Lindon away and ran over toward the Patriarch...then he scooped up his sister and backed away.

He was leaving Jai Daishou on his own.

Chapter 6

Jai Chen, for her part, didn't seem to realize that her brother had pulled her away for her own safety. She released the technique from between her hands, and a finger-sized worm of pink-tinged white light slithered into the air.

Though it was smaller, it seemed somehow more...real than Jai Long's attacks. The serpents he created while fighting were bare outlines, like the sketches of snakes, but this tiny dragon drew itself up in front of Jai Chen, sniffing at her face like a dog.

It was like a tiny Remnant. Like a real spirit.

Like Little Blue.

Lindon had only turned his head for a second, but he looked back when the sound of crashing steel tore the air louder than thunder. Eithan had smashed the Jai Underlord's spear aside with his scissors.

They traded another half-dozen blows in an instant, each one loud as a ship crashing into rocks. The air itself rippled around their blows, and Lindon thought he could see flashes of a gray, almost colorless fire: soulfire. The hallmark of an Underlord. They were surely using it in their attacks, but he couldn't see how.

In the first second of their engagement, it was clear that Eithan was toying with his opponent. Despite having the advantage in reach, Jai Daishou was always on the back foot. He could barely move his spear enough to intercept the blows, and at any moment, Eithan could take away his sacred arts.

He was done. Lindon had made it.

The relief—that sweet sensation of having walked away from a situation that should have killed him—settled onto Lindon. It was growing to be a familiar sensation.

He lowered himself to pick up the head of the Ancestor's Spear. It took him entirely too long, as his entire body screamed in pain, and even his pure core was strained trying to provide enough madra to fuel the Bloodforged Iron body's restoration. With or without it, he was running low on blood, and he was going to need some real medical attention. The wounds caused by the Ancestor's Spear still weren't healing right.

Something snatched the spearhead out of his hand.

It was a small, worm-sized figure of pink and white. The blade was bigger than its entire body, but it still seized the spearhead in its jaws and hauled it back, like a snake trying to drag a bear's carcass.

Lindon watched it with bleary eyes, the sight so bizarre that it took a moment to register.

Jai Chen was taking it.

He grabbed for it out of slow-witted reaction more than anything else, but the little worm turned and snapped at him. It was actually a little dragon, he realized; a serpentine figure with a flowing mane and four undersized legs.