If there were another fight, Eithan would not fare well. He'd been forced to waste an absurd amount of madra to break Naru Gwei's Ruler techniques, and the Archstone had taken even more out of him. Despite his years of practicing the Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel, his core was almost dry. He couldn't afford another fight here.

Finally, help came from an unexpected corner. Jai Long raised his head, crying out in a hoarse voice. “Please, help her!”

Eithan ran his spiritual sense through her soul. Thanks to Sylvan Riverseed's touch, her madra channels had been rebalanced, cleansed, and purified. Without that, she would have lost control of her madra and died already.

As it was, she was just barely holding on. A sack stuffed to capacity and coming apart at the seams, but not in danger of bursting.

“Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do for her,” Eithan said, and Jai Long's twisted face began to fall behind his mask. “...but fortunately, there's also no need. She will survive this. And her core will be filled with quite unique madra, so that's a treat. You were quite lucky that Lindon and I were here, and that Lindon's Blackflame core was empty, otherwise the madra would have reached a critical imbalance. As it is, none of our madra conflicted too badly with each other. They will blend together in her.”

She would also gain some measure of the Arelius bloodline ability, though she would have to expend madra to use it, while Eithan's happened naturally. She really had ended up in quite a unique situation, and he looked forward to seeing how she handled it.

“She will have difficulty controlling her madra for a while,” he continued. “But then...well, she has a unique Path ahead of her.”

And he was very interested in that Path, though he didn't express it. The siblings needed space, so he could keep his distance.

For now.

While he spoke, he reached down and casually took an object from the floor. Jai Long didn’t notice, consumed as he was with his sister’s fate, so Eithan had no trouble slipping the head of the Ancestor’s Spear into his pocket.

He could certainly find a use for that. He still had the original, locked away in Serpent’s Grave…but there was no such thing as too many priceless weapons.

Naru Gwei stretched out his wings and walked over to the edge of the room. “I'll be reporting the results of this duel, Arelius.”

“You don’t think we have more important concerns?”

“It was still a legal match with a valid conclusion. When this all blows over, you'll be facing the consequences.”

“I understand,” Eithan said, affecting a solemn tone. The family elders and branch heads would irritate him after this. The reputation of the Arelius name would take a hit, and that would result in economic pressure on the family all across the country. The rest of the family would use this to put restrictions on him, and if Redmoon Hall really did invade, he wouldn't have time to deal with family business.

This would tie his hands for a while, but in the end, he found it hard to care. The world was so much more than anyone on this continent imagined, and there were still more worlds beyond.

He reached into his pocket and rolled the glass marble between his fingers. As always, the feel of its cool surface comforted him.

Naru Gwei walked over to the edge, where the wind tossed his dirty hair. “Will you follow me to the Emperor, or will I have to drag you?”

“I will follow as soon as I have seen to family business. I have a disciple who has just lost an arm.”

Muscles all over Naru Gwei’s body tensed, though he didn’t change on the outside. He needs to learn to relax, Eithan thought.

“Even now, you still won’t cooperate? When a Dreadgod might be headed our way with all its little cult in tow?”

“If I have to choose between disappointing you or my disciple…well, I’m sorry, but I don’t like you very much.”

Eithan gave him a cheery wave and turned his back on the Skysworn, strolling away.

“I won’t wait long,” Naru Gwei said.

Eithan walked through the door without a response.

He needed to take Lindon to shelter, and surround him with friendly faces. When he woke up, he wouldn’t be happy.

Chapter 7

“Prosthetic limbs,” Fisher Gesha said, “are among the easiest constructs for a Soulsmith to create. You were lucky. If we had to replace one of your organs, I would be singing a very different tune right now, hm?”

They were still inside the mountain, five or six floors beneath the arena where he'd fought. Apparently this whole place was honeycombed with shelters—it had once been the home of a sect living in secrecy, but had been abandoned for years. Or so the Fisher had told him in the last few minutes.

Lindon remembered nothing of the trip down here, and very little of the fight. He didn’t even ask how Fisher Gesha had gotten there, though he assumed Eithan had brought her. Yerin and Orthos were nowhere to be seen, but he didn’t ask about them. His attention was swallowed entirely by his right arm.

Which was lying somewhere above him, he assumed.

Now, it ended abruptly above the elbow. Gesha had wrapped his stump with scripted bandages, which weren't stained with as much blood as he had expected. This script must work the same as the one his mother had once used on him: it guided his spirit through an Enforcer technique that blocked out pain. Certainly, he didn't feel any physical pain. It was more like the opposite. He felt normal, as though he could reach out with his right arm just as always.

But he couldn't seem to peel his eyes away from the space where his hand should be.

The Fisher firmly grasped his chin and turned his head back toward her. Her wrinkled face was set in a stern expression, but a few strands of gray hair had escaped their normal tight bun. “Whatever state you're in, you listen to me when I'm talking to you, yes?” Involuntarily, he tried to turn back to his arm, but her grip was steel.

“Don't think,” she warned him. “After an injury like this, it is your thoughts that are most deadly. Your fears, your pain, your despair, they are deadly poison. Do not let them rule you.”

From somewhere, he mustered up a nod.

“Good. Now, limbs are simple. We simply take an arm from a Remnant that is compatible with your Path—or Paths, I suppose, since you always have to make things complicated—and we attach it to you with a combination of scripting and Forging. I happen to have some Remnant arms with me right now.”

She knelt by his bed, rummaging around in her chest, which gave Lindon a chance to look around the room. It was a rounded room carved out of the stone, giving it the impression that a mole had dug it out of solid rock. His bed was more of a cot, made of trembling wood and scratchy sheets. A single candle sat on a shelf bolted to the wall. There was one more source of light: a glowing script-circle on the wall behind a square of paper painted with an abstract landscape. Meant to replace a window, he was certain.

His pack leaned against the wall, which was a relief. Next to it was the Sylvan Riverseed's case, a box of glass with a tiny island inside. Little Blue herself, now almost too big for her enclosure, stood on the island and stared at him with her hands pressed against the glass. Though she was made entirely from ocean-blue madra, she had gained enough definition that he could read her face: she was worried.