“It was Xorrus,” the white-haired woman said, and now her speech was tinged with hatred. “By the time I sensed her strike, she was already flying away. She drew the blood she wanted.”

Akura Charity was still cold as usual. “Your team?”

“She killed one of my boys,” Min Shuei said, full of sorrow. “He was only twenty-six, and so full of talent. His mother hasn’t eaten in weeks. His father swore to mount a dragon’s head on his wall for every year of his son’s life.”

“But only one?” Charity clarified. “You still have two competitors left?”

The tanned woman turned horrified eyes to the Sage of the Silver Heart. “Hundreds died, among them one of the most talented students I’ve ever had. He cannot simply be replaced!”

“And yet he must be,” Charity said. “I am not insensitive to your grief, but this competition is our best chance to strike back. Have you selected a replacement yet?”

The Winter Sage bristled with rage, and icy madra spread to every corner of the ship.

Lindon shivered, his skin prickling as sword-aura stung him in response to this woman’s anger.

Charity did not muster her madra in response, but nor did she seem moved by the other Sage’s hostility. They faced one another in silence as the other Akura members scurried away, evacuating the deck.

Then a door slammed open, breaking the quiet. Akura Fury strode out, his black hair rippling like a flame and his chest bare as always. For the first time that Lindon had seen, his expression was totally serious.

“I smell Xorrus,” the Herald said.

The Winter Sage gestured back to her cloudship, which by that time had settled at the end of a dock sticking out of the emerald tower. The Akura cloudship shuddered as it, too, was drawn into a dock.

Servants in rainbow robes waited for them, bowing, but no one left the ships yet.

Fury drifted up on a cushion of wind aura, using his soulfire to float. He moved as naturally as if he were on a wind Path, effortlessly flying over to the white cloudship, hovering next to the burn-scarred hull.

“Amazing,” Lindon said.

“That’s a Herald for you.” Mercy chewed on one of her black-gloved thumbs for a moment before saying, “…you should know that there’s been a feud between my family and the gold dragons for generations. Uncle Fury especially. He’s considered just behind Northstrider and the Beast King as a great enemy of dragon-kind.”

[Third place isn’t bad,] Dross said.

Fury ran his hand along the scorched wood of the Frozen Blade cloudship. “This can’t have been more than a week ago. She was alone?”

The Sage of the Frozen Blade closed her eyes and took a deep breath, bringing her madra under control. “A wing of lesser dragons burned down an ancestral grove as we traveled. I stopped to deal with them, but they were only bait so that Xorrus could strike against my Underlords.”

Fury’s red eyes burned. “You were lucky not to lose everyone. But now we have greater concerns.” He turned to Charity. “Xorrus is only the Dragon King’s left hand.”

Before he’d even finished speaking, the Heart Sage’s voice echoed throughout the cloudship. “Be on alert. We have two remaining vassal teams that have not yet arrived: the Temple of Rising Earth and the Blackflame Empire. We have every reason to believe that one or both have suffered an attack.”

A shiver passed down Lindon’s spine.

“I will approach the Ninecloud Court for assistance,” she continued. “In the meantime, use any methods available to contact our teams. If we can determine their location, we can send protection.”

Lindon fumbled in his outer robe for the broken communication construct. He poured madra into it, flooding it in an instant and creating a shrill shriek of sound. The binding only dissolved faster, but he flooded it with even more power. Even an instant of connection would reassure him that she was still alive.

Mercy squeezed his arm with one black hand. “Nothing to worry about. We have much better lines of communication with the Empire than with the Frozen Blade school. If something had happened, we would have known.”

That would be reassuring except for the concern in her own voice.

Dross didn’t help.

[That’s right, don’t worry,] he said. [I can see why you might be worried. The Blackflame Empire is closer to the dragons and even weaker than the Frozen Blade school, so you might expect them to be in much greater danger. But you can’t ignore the possibility of good luck!]

The construct in Lindon’s hand exploded, sending fizzing chunks of madra flying in all directions.

Mercy patted him again. “Someone onboard will have a way to communicate with the Naru clan. I’ll find out where they are.”

Lindon tried to thank her, but he was focused on the damaged cloudship. The gold dragons had done that to weaken the Akura clan in the tournament. They were the ones who would get the Blackflame Empire.

He remembered Ekeri, the Truegold who had suspected him of carrying around a treasure from Ghostwater. She had hounded him relentlessly until he had barely managed to kill her.

If the Akura team didn’t perform well enough—if he didn’t—her family would take over the Empire. Including his homeland.

Maybe they had already…

Before his thoughts could make it too far, his spiritual perception screamed at him. He collapsed to his knees as the two Sages and the Heralds dropped their veils at once. They all looked west, across the jeweled city, but through his watering eyes he couldn’t see what had drawn their attention.

Most of the other Akura clan members on the deck had crumpled just like him, but he noticed that the Ninecloud servants on the dock only flinched in their multi-colored robes. They did not shrink back.

The rainbow light returned to surround the cloudship, and the pleasant female voice that had greeted them drifted through the air again. “Welcome, guests. Please enter your rooms.”

“We have reason to worry for the safety of our teams,” Charity said. “Can you confirm that the Rising Earth and Blackflame Empire teams are still en route?”

“The Rising Earth team missed their arrival date last week,” the invisible Ninecloud representative admitted. “Enter your tower, and we will be happy to give you a full accounting of their absence.”

“We will have our own accounting,” the Winter Sage said, her voice furious. Still staring into the west, she drew her sword. Lindon wanted to see what she was watching for, but she raised her weapon into the air.

It looked the same as Yerin’s.

Hers couldn’t be the only white-bladed sword in the world, but Lindon recognized it immediately. He had been with Yerin when she’d pulled it from the Sword Sage’s body. This was exactly the same as the one Yerin carried, from the shape of the hilt to the length of the blade.

He wasn’t sure what to make of that. Had Yerin’s master carried a sword from the Frozen Blade school?

A winged silhouette flew from one of the distant towers to the west, growing larger and larger, clutching something huge in its talons. The shadow resolved into a dragon, golden and serpentine, with a cloud of sand rolling around it like smoke.

Its wings were each big enough to strike their cloudship from the air, and it bared its gleaming fangs. Golden dragon eyes, with their vertically slitted pupils, glared at the ship.