“It’s a good thing the applications aren’t back in the tower,” Lindon said, voice low. “Orthos burned a hole in the wall.”

***

Lindon was losing track of the number of times he’d been imprisoned.

Bai Rou walked around him, producing a pair of manacles joined by a short length of chain. They looked like iron, but pale specks like stars deep in the metal told him that they included halfsilver. They would disperse madra on contact, preventing him from burning his way out of the restraints.

Not that he was drawing on his Blackflame madra at the moment. He had switched to his pure core as soon as Renfei and Bai Rou had dragged him into this squat, nondescript building. The Path of Black Flame made him aggressive, made him want to move, to act.

If he was filled with Blackflame madra, he was sure he would have tried to run. That would only have resulted in a short chase followed by Bai Rou dragging him down the hall anyway. He could sense that was what Orthos wanted to do; the turtle was safe, but growing restless. Wherever he was, he wouldn’t stay there long. Little Blue had crawled back in her case, and though they’d taken his pack, they’d left her inside.

The manacle was uncomfortably cold on his wrist of flesh, but it positively burned his Remnant arm. He managed to slip the edge of his sleeve inside, to protect his artificial limb. If he hadn’t, Bai Rou would have been dragging his limp body inside.

Past an ordinary door was yet another bare, nondescript room. He was growing used to those. At least this one didn’t have a bed, so they wouldn’t keep him here for too long.

There was another door on the opposite wall, and a smooth wooden chair in the center of the floor. A circle of script on the ceiling glowed softly white.

Otherwise, it was empty.

Bai Rou walked him to the chair and clipped the chain between his restraints to a hook in the floor. Lindon sat down, because it was that or stay uncomfortably hunched. There wasn’t enough slack in the chain for him to stand up straight.

“You don’t need to speak respectfully,” Renfei said. “He appreciates direct answers more than good manners. But you should be respectful.”

“Tell the truth,” Bai Rou added from his post by the door.

Lindon’s breath sped up as he pictured the Skysworn Underlord. The man had shown him no mercy during the duel…but he had, in the end, allowed Lindon to go free.

It made him feel better about being cuffed and chained to the floor of what was most likely an interrogation room.

The far door swung open and Naru Gwei entered, the man shuffling inside in his beaten armor as though dragging a weight behind him with every step.

Renfei and Bai Rou bowed slightly and pressed their fists together. Lindon mimicked them as best he could in his position.

“I am Wei Shi Lindon, sir,” Lindon said. He had to force himself not to refer to himself as ‘this one.’ “I was not able to properly introduce myself last time.”

The man slipped a long leaf into his mouth, chewing it for a while before saying, “You’re part of the Arelius family.”

“I have that honor, sir. If I could only—”

“But you weren’t born to it.”

“No, sir. Underlord Arelius was kind enough to take myself and my companion under his wing.”

The old Skysworn didn’t ask about his companion. “Where were you born?”

“Sacred Valley,” Lindon said. “It’s far to the west, past the Desolate Wilds.”

For a long moment, he chewed his leaf. “Are there more Blackflames hiding in Sacred Valley?”

Lindon forced a polite laugh. “No sir, no. There aren’t even any Golds.”

“So this was something that Eithan Arelius taught you.”

The old man was drilling for something, and Lindon wasn’t quite sure what; surely he’d known all about Lindon’s situation before even the duel with Jai Long. The uncertainty made him wary. “I entered a contract with a sacred beast known as Orthos. You have him captive here, somewhere, and I’m sure he could give you a further explanation.”

Orthos would know more about this situation than he did, though Lindon doubted the turtle would cooperate with any questioning.

Only the wet sounds of the leaf between the man’s teeth broke the silence of the room. Eventually, he reached out and shut the door behind him.

The snap of the door closing echoed in the tiny room.

The Skysworn Captain folded his arms and leaned against the wall. Bai Rou took a respectful step away, but the old man didn’t seem to care. He examined Lindon through a curtain of matted gray hair.

“Did you ever break that arm as a kid?” he asked. “Back when you had it, I mean.”

Whatever Lindon’s interrogator wanted, he was coming at it from a different direction. Lindon only wished he understood where this was headed. Why hadn’t he waited for Eithan before trying to join the Skysworn? Maybe the Arelius Underlord could have persuaded them to hold another round of applications.

“Both of them, yes,” Lindon said. He’d broken one falling out of a tree, and the other had been broken by a tree.

“And how did they treat that break, back in Sacred Valley?”

“We weren’t the richest family in the clan, sir. We had simple elixirs and a scripted sling.”

“No life artists?”

“Only for more severe injuries, honored sir.” Lindon’s father had his leg treated by a life artist, but the woman hadn’t been on hand soon enough to restore the limb completely. Without her, he wouldn’t have kept the leg at all.

The man nodded slowly, flipping the leaf over between his lips. “And burns? You ever burn yourself?”

Lindon’s eyes flicked to the scar on the side of the man’s face. “Minor burns only, sir.” His voice had grown quiet, and he wasn’t sure why.

“Well, since they didn’t heal burns back in Sacred Valley, I’ll tell you how we do it here.” Lindon stayed focused on the raised patch of ridged, reddish scar tissue that ran from his temple down to his skin. It only missed his eye by a quarter-inch.

“Blood madra removes unhealthy tissue and grows some more. Life madra smooths it all out, heals it together with the rest of your body so that you’d never know you’d been burned at all. And that’s just a general picture. If you get a specialized healing Path, or some decent elixirs, the whole thing can be done in a breath.”

He ran his little finger across his scarred cheek. “Black fire hurts a little worse.”

Lindon sat, more and more conscious of the chain locking him in this room. He looked to the more familiar Skysworn for comfort, but Bai Rou had his arms crossed, his yellow eyes staring at the far wall. Renfei kept her eyes on her Captain.

“They tell me you’re requesting entry into the Skysworn,” Naru Gwei said, without leaning away. “Did Eithan tell you to do that?”

“No! No, I…I probably should have waited for his permission, but I didn’t. He doesn’t know.”

“But he was the one who turned you into a Blackflame,” Gwei said. His expression still looked tired, as though he hadn’t slept in three days and wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep. His tone, by contrast, betrayed no impatience.

“He helped me along this Path, yes,” Lindon said, hoping this wouldn’t reflect too badly on Eithan. The Arelius Underlord had never told him to keep his involvement a secret.