“You live,” King Dakata said at last, “only because of your loyalty to my son.”

Meira nodded, lowering the scythe. Her madra retracted.

Kiro breathed again. His father knew Meira well enough to know that she had restrained herself. She would not have held back against anyone else that had threatened Kiro.

But he also knew that if anything happened to him, his father would have her executed within the day.

“The attack moves forward,” Dakata said, returning to the map. “Come here, gardener, this concerns you too.” He tapped a section of the map. “While the rest of us push forward, the two of you will be headed here.

“It’s where our scouts have seen the Blackflame boy.”

~~~

Lindon sat cross-legged in the center of the Night Wheel Valley forest, extending his spiritual sense to the vital aura around him. He couldn't open his Copper sight, but he could feel the power of the world pressing against him, and with his senses he could trace each aspect of aura back to its source.

[Follow the unity of aura,] Dross recited. This was a mantra that he had repeated constantly for weeks now. [Each aspect links to the next. Vital aura has no beginning and no end. It is all one. Follow the unity of aura.]

It had been a month since Orthos left.

In the Night Wheel Valley, they had settled into a routine. They patrolled for the Skysworn for most of the day, defending the border of the Blackflame Empire's territory within the Valley. Even at the border, they had only caught glimpses of the Seishen Kingdom's sacred artists. They hadn't clashed with any enemies except the occasional wild Remnant.

When they finished their shift, they followed Eithan or Mercy to unclaimed natural treasure deposits. Then, at night and in the morning, they practiced sensing the unity of aura and burning treasures for soulfire, progressing through the second stage of Underlord advancement.

They had repeated this every day for a month.

Under Dross' chant, Lindon finally felt connected to the whole world around him, from the cold wind to the decaying leaves on which he sat. It was a strange sensation, like he had stretched himself out for five feet in any direction.

It sometimes took him half an hour or more to sense the unity of aura, even when he was fresh—when he was tired, it could take him much longer. Now that he had, he quickly felt the power of the natural treasures lying on the ground around him.

A burning acorn carried the power of fire on his left side, balanced by a bead of spinning water on the right.

A death skull waited in front of him, and a blooming flower teeming with life behind.

In one quick inhalation, he pulled on the vital aura link between him and the treasures, reducing them all to ash.

And leaving behind a wisp of colorless flame that drifted into his soulspace.

Dross' mantra changed accordingly. [Soulfire is vital aura distilled. It is the power of the world condensed.] Lindon had never asked where Dross found this chant, but the spirit obviously hadn't made it up. It flowed too naturally and made too much sense.

[Feel how it resonates with everything around you, drawing you closer to nature. Now, follow that sensation back into yourself, deep into your soul. Into your mind. Now, tell me why....why do you practice the sacred arts?]

“To protect people,” Lindon and Yerin said at the same time.

Lindon braced himself, straining to detect any change in the soulfire inside him or the aura outside.

What was supposed to happen was a transformative resonance. Lindon's personal revelation would connect him to his own spirit, and the soulfire would carry that resonance to the outside world. For reasons he still didn't understand, that would draw on the aura to fuel his soulfire and burn away his old body and spirit, leaving him reborn as an Underlord.

The more soulfire he had inside him, the easier it was to trigger the resonance. Many potential Underlords, Eithan had told them, found their true revelation but failed to realize it because they hadn't gathered enough soulfire.

And the strength of the aura around them played a factor too. It was easier to connect to the unity of aura the thicker the vital aura was, and it made the actual advancement process faster and safer. Since the aura around here was a hundred times stronger than in the Blackflame Empire, it was a hundred times easier to cycle and to feel the unity of aura.

In fact, there had been many breakthroughs in the Blackflame Empire camp. Hundreds—maybe thousands—of Highgolds had broken through to Truegold, and Lindon had heard half a dozen stories of advancements to Underlord. None of them young enough for the competition.

But more importantly to Lindon, none of them were him.

He shot to his feet, stomping through the ashes left from his natural treasures. “This is ridiculous. I know why I started practicing the sacred arts. This is why.” He and Yerin had even tried different phrases for the same thing:

To protect those closest to me.

To protect those who can’t protect themselves.

To protect friends and family.

None of it worked. For either of them. Yerin had run down a few very different paths:

So I can do what I want.

To get revenge.

Because I enjoy it.

To get stronger.

…and she had sensed nothing. Still, for a change, she seemed perfectly content to take her time. It was Lindon who paced and shouted in frustration at the end of every day’s attempt.

[Maybe it’s because my voice isn’t soothing enough,] Dross suggested. [Do you think I should try for a motherly voice?]

Mercy hopped down from a nearby tree, where she had been watching over them. “I found it very soothing!”

With all the shadow aura around, Mercy had broken through to Highgold two weeks before. They had celebrated with her, but Lindon didn’t understand why she wasn’t Truegold yet. For that matter, he still didn’t understand why she had rejected the Heaven’s Drop. She gave up most of the natural treasures she gathered to Lindon and Yerin to fuel their soulfire, guarded them while they practiced sensing the unity of aura, and asked for nothing for herself.

It was starting to get on Lindon’s nerves.

Something tapped Lindon on the shoulder, and he turned to see nothing there. Wind aura.

Yerin sat ten feet away, still with her legs crossed. She wouldn’t be able to infuse her techniques with soulfire until she advanced, but she could still manipulate aura. A little. She was much better at it than Lindon was, perhaps because of her years of practicing a Ruler technique.

“I had a thought to try again,” Yerin said. “You aiming to give it another go?”

“Not right now.” At the moment, he thought he was just as likely to set fire to everything around him as to sense anything. “Do you need Dross?”

“I don’t suspect I do.”

Lindon nodded and strode off. He needed a break. At least when you were cycling aura, there was no chance of failure. Trying to trigger his advancement felt like rolling the dice day after day and getting nothing but losses.

He walked into the forest to catch his breath.

He knew it was Orthos leaving that had gotten him so worked up. He was short with Mercy and Yerin, he quit his cycling early, and he wanted nothing more than a good fight to clear his head.

Even Eithan was gone—either working for the Arelius family or for the Emperor. As an Underlord, he got called away every once in a while to serve the Empire in the fight against the Seishen Kingdom. The fight that Lindon still hadn’t seen.