“Breathe in to here,” Eithan said.

Lindon glanced over to Yerin, but she looked just as confused as he did, so he followed instructions. He filled his lungs until his ribs pressed against Eithan's hand.

“Now breathe out halfway.”

Lindon did, until Eithan told him to hold his breath there.

“Your breathing technique helped you split your core?”

He nodded, still holding his breath.

“That explains why it's all focused inward.” Eithan waved a hand vaguely in front of Lindon's middle. “Your madra flow is all knotted. It's not a bad breathing technique for pure madra, and you haven't damaged your channels yet, but it's better to correct now. You have a Path manual?”

He glanced at Lindon as though expecting Lindon to produce the book on command, and Lindon finally let his breath out to respond. “It's inside my pack, but unless you know a way out...”

Eithan tapped his chin with one finger, thinking. “Do you have a madra filter? Some condensation elixirs? You must have something to improve madra quality, if you made it to Copper without harvesting aura.”

“I have a parasite ring,” Lindon offered.

Eithan beamed. “Perfect! Now, where did you leave this pack?”

Yerin cutting in, pushing her way between them and holding up a hand as though she held an invisible sword to Eithan's throat. “Let's not throw our doors wide just yet. You say you're from the Blackflame Empire. Who are you?”

He drew himself up as though proud to be asked the question. “Young lady, I am the greatest janitor in all existence. I am the son of a janitor, last in a long line of janitors that stretch all the way back to the Sage of Brooms...and beyond!”

“Janitors?” Yerin asked blankly.

“Lest you think I'm speaking figuratively, let me clarify. My clan organizes the street sweepers in Blackflame City, we supervise sewer maintenance, we dig ditches and light lamps and sweep chimneys. 'Dirty hands are a mark of pride,' those are the words by which we live.”

This from a man who looked as though he'd never held a shovel in his life. His fingers were long, his skin pale, his hands soft, his clothes far more expensive than anything else Lindon had seen in the Five Factions Alliance. In short, he looked more like the spoiled young master of a noble clan rather than any janitor.

“Please excuse me if I still seem...untrusting...” Lindon said, “but surely such a role does not fit your esteemed station. Do you perhaps mean that you keep the streets clean of crime, or you're a clan of assassins ridding an empire of the unworthy...”

Eithan was sliding his hands over the wall now, as though feeling the stone for weakness. “I grew up in the sewers of Blackflame City, ankle-deep in what you might politely call 'sludge.' They used similar scripts to control intake and outflow, so if this works on similar principles...and there we have it.”

A single rune sparked to life, sending a ripple of light flaring down the line of script in either direction.

With a grating sound, a stone slab slid upwards, revealing an open doorway onto a flight of stairs leading up.

“Maybe this was some kind of ancient sewer,” Eithan speculated. “Anyway, I have a task for you, Wei Shi Lindon.”

Now that he thought of it, Lindon realized that Eithan had known his full name the first time they'd met. Even the street sweeper of a great empire was infinitely more powerful than the four Schools of Sacred Valley, so Lindon bowed deeply over a salute. “I will do my best to serve.”

“Your current breathing technique is sufficient if you're planning to split your core again, but it's building a wall between you and Iron. To reach Iron, you have to push madra out of your madra channels, forcing it into every scrap of your flesh. It's very difficult without elixirs, and your madra is currently focused into your core...and nowhere else. You need a new breathing technique.”

Eithan stood straight, facing Lindon. “Inhale as I do, and as you do so, cycle your madra in wide loops to every extremity of your body. As you exhale, gather it together again, all at once. I'll show you how.”

Lindon had practiced a simple breathing technique since the day he first got his wooden badge, until it eventually became his natural breathing rhythm. He'd changed it according to the instruction in the Heart of Twin Stars manual, but it wasn't any more complex than his original technique, only different.

Likewise, the technique Eithan taught him wasn't complicated. It didn't use any principles Lindon didn't already know, which had come as a relief.

But it was hard.

He could barely hold the new cycling pattern standing straight and watching Eithan, and he was sure that he'd lose it as soon as Eithan stopped giving him pointers. He said as much to Eithan, who laughed.

“That's the nature of any acquired skill. It will feel like breathing through a wet rag for a while, and your body will tell you to stop. But one day, you'll look back and wonder how it was ever difficult.” He pointed up the stairs. “Now, as your first challenge, hold that pattern as you run up to the next floor.”

Lindon peered into the shadows at the top. “Do you have a light?”

“You do,” Eithan said.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out Suriel's marble. He was somewhat self-conscious holding it, as though he'd been caught in a lie, but there was no way Eithan would know what it was. Even if he'd sensed it, it was just a light in a glass.

Sure enough, Eithan gave the marble a curious glance, but that was all. Lindon held it up, took a deep breath, and began to cycle as he ran.

Behind him, Yerin protested. “He's about as sturdy as a newborn kitten. If there's anything up there, it'll tear him to rags.”

“Remember my thousand eyes,” Eithan said. “These Ruins may as well be my own home.”

The blue light of the marble was faint, but it was enough to show Lindon when he reached the end of the stairs and found himself in a large room. He couldn't see anything beyond the patch of floor at his feet.

The jog hadn't been long, but his lungs were still burning with the effort of holding the breathing technique. He started to shout back that he'd made it, but when something hissed in the shadows, his words died.

It was only about as big as his arm. A tan centipede with a carapace the color of a sandy dune. It had a head like a snake and two rows of insect claws, and its tail arched up into a scorpion's stinger.

He’d never seen one in the flesh, but their Remnants had left him with an impression all too clear. The first sandviper hissed at him, baring fangs…as a second scuttled up, keeping a wary distance from its twin, angling toward Lindon.

Eithan's voice came from the stairs beneath him. “I know what's up there, and he can handle it.”

Then came the growl of stone, like a lid scraping over a coffin, as the door slid shut.

Chapter 14

Lindon's shouts and pleas came muffled through the stone door, and Yerin gathered what little madra she could onto her fingernails. Sword madra gathered onto sharp edges, so her nails were not the best container.

She would have used her Goldsign instead, but the scripted collar was choking her madra at the source, and she was still shaky from the Sandviper venom earlier. Her muscles squirmed like snakes in a bag, and she barely had enough focus to hold the technique together. If she tried to control the steel arm on her back, she might end up cutting her own head off.