Then he stabbed forward, carrying all that aura with it.

The thrust stabbed across the room in an instant, piercing the air and passing an inch over Yerin's shoulder. A few strands of her hair fell away, and she shivered as she felt the air disturbed by her ear. His technique landed on the wall, where a script shone and dispersed the aura, leaving only a slight scratch on the paneling.

Cassias sheathed his saber and frowned. “If you haven't recovered from last time, I'd be happy to wait.”

Yerin's ankle was still sore, but nothing that would slow her down in a real fight. “You never woke up with a dull edge? Happens to everyone, sometimes.” Cassias had defeated her in no more than three moves each time today, and normally she could hold him off for six or seven. She was a Highgold now, technically his equal, but he had experience and skill that she couldn't match. Yet.

Cassias nodded, expression softening as though he understood. “Don't worry. Eithan has taken too much interest in Lindon to let him die so easily. And in you too.”

Yerin snorted in disbelief, but she turned her head so as not to meet his eyes. What did he know? Sacred artists risked their lives every day. That wasn't enough to worry her.

Even though people died all the time where they weren't meant to. Her master had died in Sacred Valley, maybe the safest place in the world. It wasn't the trap you saw that killed you.

Without her around, Lindon wouldn't know what to watch for. Would Eithan look out for him?

Cassias pulled an intricately carved wooden device out of his outer robe and checked it, tucking it back inside after a glance. “It's almost time. Before we go, Yerin, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

“How personal?”

“No one pushes as hard as you do without a goal. Pardon me if I’m overstepping my bounds, but I’d like to know what destination you have in mind.”

She'd started wondering that herself recently.

“To become a Sage,” she said.

His eyebrows lifted. “I wouldn't have thought you were so ambitious.”

“Most Sages don't take disciples. Not real ones, anyway. They don't want to pass on their Path. My master trusted me, and now he's gone.” She ran her hand over the hilt of her master's sword. “I'm not letting his Path go to waste.”

Cassias moved to the door, gesturing for her to follow. “That's a noble goal, and an impressive one. I met a Sage as a child, back in my family's homeland. It was a humbling experience. But it took him centuries to reach that height. Most people can't handle the pressure of training at that level, day after day, year after year, with no guarantee that they'll ever make it.”

They passed through the door on the second floor of the house, moving to the stairs. Through the tall arched windows, she caught a glimpse of the deep blue Thousand-Mile Cloud that was their foundation, as well as the islands of white that surrounded them.

“Never understood that myself,” Yerin said, vaulting over the railing and landing on the first floor instead of taking the stairs. Cassias took them carefully, one at a time. “Don't know what I'd do if I wasn't practicing the sword. You think I'd rather put down roots, or what?”

“That's not what I meant to imply,” Cassias said, unbuckling his belt and tossing it and his sheathed saber onto a nearby rack designed for the purpose. “Only that it often helps in a fight if you have something to fight for.”

Preserving her own life had always been enough to push Yerin along in fights. Should be enough for anybody.

But that wasn’t always the truth, was it? She wanted more than that.

The Sword Sage had always said the pursuit of perfection in the sacred arts was a lonely pursuit, and anything else was a distraction. She’d come to think that advancing alone wasn't just boring, it was painful.

Which had made it such a stab to the gut when Eithan told her she couldn't come to watch Lindon fight. Especially when he'd taken Fisher Gesha, of all people.

“She won't be allowed to watch either,” Eithan said. “I'm bringing her for her unique talents. And I can't carry two people.”

That had sounded like an excuse to Yerin.

Cassias stepped up to the wooden console at the front of the room, before a massive wall of paneled glass. He looked out, through the clouds, over a series of strange mountains that rose from the ground like a forest of spears. One of the closer ones had something that looked like a temple on the top.

“I only ask you to consider...expanding your interests,” Cassias said, moving his hands over the script-circles on the wooden panel. They lit up, and Sky's Mercy shuddered in response. “Even your master was a famous refiner, in addition to being an accomplished swordsman. Many experts find that splitting their focus can actually increase their results.”

Yerin folded her arms, considering. She did spend all her time practicing the sacred arts in some way. Made it hard to care about anything else, when that was her world.

Problem was, she didn't know anything about the world outside of her training. It was the only thing the Sword Sage had raised her to do.

She needed a breath or two to think, but the floor shuddered again, and Orthos came stomping in.

The turtle was so tall and wide that he couldn't pass through most of the doors in the house without tearing holes in their frames, so he stayed in the corner of this main room. He'd walk out of the larger outer doors when he needed to relieve himself or vent his madra, standing on the Thousand-Mile Cloud. But he was tender as a newborn chick when it came to heights, so Yerin usually had to guide him out so he could close his eyes.

For a massive, black reptile with a shell that smoldered with dragonfire, he didn't have much of a spine. Even now, he glanced from side to side with his black-and-red eyes wide. “We're not on the ground yet?” he demanded in a deep, rumbling voice. “We were supposed to land. Why haven't we landed?”

Cassias turned around, his hand reaching into his pocket. Beneath his outer robe, he wore a shirt and pants, which still looked strange to Yerin in a fight. Everyone she knew fought in either a sacred artist's robes or armor.

“I apologize, Orthos,” Cassias said. “I should have given you your medicine already.”

Orthos shifted from one leg to another like a wobbly stool, his eyes flicking from one window to another, staring at the clouds. “We're not...it's not...why are we so high? Hm? Why do we have to be all the way up here?”

Cassias held out a violet pill streaked with blue. “Take your medicine, Orthos. It won't be long now. We're on approach. When you wake up, you'll be with Lindon.”

“He was weak,” Orthos mumbled, stretching out his head to snap up the pill in Cassias' hand. “So weak. He's probably dead. I'll be going back to the way...I was...”

In seconds, he drifted off, withdrawing his head and his limbs into his shell. Now there was a great black mound in the center of their living room, smoke drifting up from him as though from a dying fire.

“He's cheerier than a ray of sunshine,” Yerin said. She'd already heard about Lindon's bout of weakness following his duel, but Orthos admitted that he might feel the same way if Lindon had died. He'd never felt a contractor's death before. He thought Lindon's madra had recovered since, but he couldn't be sure—maybe he was just getting used to the sensation.