And perhaps to gain something more.

He’d split his core into two parts only days before, embarking on what he called the Path of Twin Stars. This gave him a natural defense against anyone attacking his spirit, but more importantly, he should theoretically be able to hold two types of madra in the same body. He could keep his own pure madra, while learning Yerin’s Path as well.

Except thus far, every time he’d broached the topic, she had refused to teach him.

Yerin’s eyes drifted to her own sword, which she’d taken from her master’s body. “You need a master in truth, Lindon, and those aren’t shoes I can fill.” He started to protest, but she rode over him. “Listen. You ever heard anybody talk about Copper eyes?”

He shook his head.

“It’s a saying I grew up with. Copper eyes see the world, Iron eyes see far, and Jade eyes see deep. Tells you what you’re in for. At Copper, you see aura. You can begin taking it in, cycling it, turning it into madra. At Iron, you’re forging the body you’ll use for the rest of your life, and the actual eyes in your head get better. And when you hit Jade, you can use your spirit to…see. Sense. There’s not a good word for it, really.”

“What about Gold?” he asked eagerly.

She flicked a finger against the silvery steel blade hanging down into her face. “At Gold you hold a Remnant in your core, and you get a little something extra for your trouble. We call it a Goldsign, and it’s the simple way to tell who’s on what Path. Now shut it, we’re talking about Copper.”

Lindon settled down on a nearby rock, the fire crackling between them.

“Ten chances out of a dozen, you’ll have to prepare for a stage before you advance,” Yerin continued. “And what preparation you settle on depends on your Path. My master stuck me in a ring of swords to polish me up for Jade. He wouldn’t let me out until I could push them away on my own. Strengthened me, turned me toward sword madra, prepared me to advance. Like eating a red pepper to prepare for a white one.”

It sounded more like sadistic torture than sacred arts to Lindon, and though he didn’t say anything, Yerin must have noticed the look on his face.

“Wasn’t so bad,” she said, tracing one of the paper-thin scars on her arm. “Taught me character. Anyway, the thrust of it is, I can’t teach you. You’re not following in my footsteps, so I don’t know where to take you from here. Maybe if I knew more…but I don’t. I’m just a Gold.”

Hearing someone say they were ‘just’ a Gold was like hearing an emperor say his summer palace ‘just’ had a thousand rooms, but the idea that he wasn’t ready for a Path sent chills up his back.

“So, if I understand you correctly, then I’m not…I mean, I’ll never be…” He couldn’t squeeze the words out.

She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. “Are your ears open? What did I say? I don’t know how to get you in condition for my Path. The Path of the Endless Sword is pretty choosy, but most Paths are not. I’ve met more than a few masters who wouldn’t even look at a student before Iron.”

Lindon breathed deeply again as the chills faded, but he didn’t miss a word. “These masters are beyond Gold, you say. What kind of a realm is that?”

“Gold is a wide river to ford,” she said dryly, “especially for somebody who hasn’t so much as touched Copper. You want to advance, you’d best clear out your mind.”

He took the opportunity to stretch his sore back and look around. Samara wasn’t the last mountain they’d crossed since leaving Sacred Valley, and snow-capped peaks hid the halo that would be lighting up the Wei clan’s night. Without the Thousand-Mile Cloud, the horse-sized pillow of opaque red fog that hovered off to the side of their campsite, they would never have made it through the mountains in only a few days.

Here in the foothills, they were nestled between two house-sized boulders and a scrubby bundle of trees. The late-summer wind was mild but unceasing, and it flowed down the mountain with a tinge of autumn chill. Their “campsite” was nothing more than a fire, a collapsed tree Yerin had dragged over for a bench, and a pair of thin blankets he’d placed on the ground.

Behind them rose the mountains he’d left behind. In front of them, the land lowered further until rolling hills spread out beneath them. Yerin called this place the Desolate Wilds, though it seemed more wild than desolate. The hills were carpeted in trees with scorch-black leaves, marred with the occasional strange-colored lights or patch of ash. The forest filled him with dread, as though he stared down into deep water with no idea what sort of monstrous creature might rise from the depths at any second.

Because there were creatures in those dark trees. He’d seen them.

“Before we start, if I may ask…Copper, will it help me survive down there?”

Yerin looked like someone who had lived alone in the wilderness for too long—she was thin and wiry, without an ounce of fat, and her traditional black sacred artist’s robe was faded and tattered. Her hair was black as her robe and cut absolutely straight, which he suspected she did with her sword.

She was a survivor, she had been even before her master was murdered, and she looked the part. She knew what it took to make it out of a deadly wilderness alive, while he’d slept on a cloud-soft mattress since he was a child.

She shrugged one shoulder. “Going down there without Copper is like going in with a hood over your eyes. You’d lose your head without a glimpse of what buried you. Going in with Copper…well, at least you’ll see what’s eating you.”

He knelt opposite her, so that their knees were almost touching. With both their backs straight, he was head and shoulders taller than she was. He slouched a little, almost on instinct—in his clan, an Unsouled who loomed over his betters would be asking for a beating.

Yerin didn’t seem to notice or care. She continued, “Iron is better by miles. Your sacred arts will still be rotten, but you won’t die to a stray breeze. Presuming we can find a few things tomorrow, like a covered place to sleep, we’ll stay here until you hit Iron. We’ll want to make you hit perfect Iron, so we can lag until end of winter. Come spring, we can move down into the trees.”

Lindon’s breath came a little too fast, and his stomach churned with sickening hope. He’d lived almost sixteen years yearning for Copper, and now she was saying he could reach Iron in just a few more months? It was like hearing her promise that, with a little more effort, he could sprout wings and fly around the sky like a bird.

His own parents were only Iron, and they’d been famous in the Wei clan when they were only a little older than him. Come spring, if he returned to Sacred Valley, how would they see him then?

Memory returned, of a vision he’d once seen: a colossal shadow wading through the mountains like a child wading through a creek, devastating the entire valley.

“Is that the soonest we can leave?” he asked, and she looked at him as though he’d proposed setting themselves on fire.

“So you know, you can rush to Iron, but you surely don’t want to. Ruins your chances of reaching Lowgold. And the weakest sacred artist down there will be Lowgold, so even if you survived a stroll through the trees, it only takes one privileged son with a rotten temper to scatter your bones all through the trees.”