The script’s light turned from blue to purple, and the tree’s branches bristled like spikes. It tried to step away from the circle, to reach for Lindon, but drew up short like a dog at the end of a chain.

Sweat soaked Lindon’s clothes, and he flopped to the ground well out of the Remnant’s reach. He caught his breath, shivering at the close call. If he’d been a moment slower…

Then something caught his eye that drove all thoughts of danger from his head. On the highest of the Remnant’s purple branches, a single spot of white. A spirit-fruit.

As the Remnant raged, it was not silent. Its fury sounded like snapping twigs, like the crunch of splintered logs. It was at least three times Lindon’s height, crowned by that single spot of white.

The fruit hung from the same place on the Remnant as it had on the tree’s body. Now the fruit was forged of flawless white madra, glowing on the spirit like a crown. The physical reality was still nestled among the branches on the forest floor, shriveled and pathetic.

Still thinking, Lindon walked over to the withered material fruit and plucked it, slipping it into the cumbersome pack he carried on his back. He was no longer wary of the Remnant; if it were powerful enough to break his script, it already would have. Now, he had something else to worry about.

If he could retrieve the Remnant version of this fruit, his mother could bind it back to its physical vessel. She was a Forger and a Soulsmith, a specialist in manipulating madra as a physical material. She could turn this lifeless vegetation back into a powerful spirit-fruit, good as new.

If he wanted that to work, he’d need to bring the Remnant fruit back with him. And it was attached to the head of a crazed spirit monster.

He wished he had a better plan.

With reluctance, he reached into his shadesilk pockets of his pack and withdrew a glimmering gemstone the size of his smallest fingernail. It was hollow on the inside, like a stoppered flask carved for a doll, though this one was filled with a few drops of blue light that danced through the crystal’s facets.

When there’s only one road forward, take it with a smile. It had taken him weeks to fill up this crystal flask, which was capable of storing and purifying madra. He hated to waste weeks of his time here, but if he could restore the orus fruit, it would be worth more than a year of cycling. If he failed, though…

He slowed his breathing, cycling his spirit in a rhythm with his steady, even breath. When he could feel power filling all his limbs, tightening his focus, and drawing his body into a unified whole, he acted.

Lindon placed the tiny flask, glowing blue-white, at the very edge of the Remnant’s reach.

The purple tree turned to him as though it could smell the energy, silence falling over the woods. Lindon hurried to the side, but the Remnant’s attention was all on the miniature crystal.

This was the main way his family used crystal flasks. They had other uses, but for a Soulsmith, this was by far the most practical purpose. All Remnants hungered for pure human madra, which could become virtually anything. On such a diet, a Remnant could even develop its own consciousness, independent from whatever it had been in life.

As the tree lunged, so did Lindon. He ran for the circle, leaping as soon as the tree bent down.

He might not have the strength of a true sacred artist, but Lindon still trained his body the same as the rest of his clan. He landed on the back of the Remnant, clutching its branches.

It felt more like clinging to slick, oily bone than wood, but he didn’t waste time examining the sensation. He reached out, grasping for the glowing white fruit, hanging like a full moon.

A branch slammed into his arm with the force of a kicking horse, and he heard something crack.

The impact knocked him off the Remnant’s back, and he had the presence of mind to roll away from the script as he fell. If he kicked one of the runes, the circle would break, and he would likely die.

But the Remnant didn’t seem to have noticed him. It tossed the empty crystal flask to the ground, having finished its brief meal, and then stilled. The wind was the only sound now, and the spirit looked like nothing more than a thin purple tree planted in the earth.

Lindon saw all this through tears of pain. He clenched his jaw to keep from screaming and potentially drawing the Remnant’s attention back to him. His forearm was broken, his hand dangling loosely, and it felt as though the weight of his own flesh would tear the arm apart. The pain kept him on his knees, drawing huge breaths in his lungs.

He forced a smile through his agony. In his uninjured fist, he gripped a shining white fruit.

It didn’t feel like a natural orus fruit any more than its source had felt like a natural tree. Rather, it squished in his hand like jelly, but as soon as he stopped applying force it snapped back into form. He wasn’t sure what aspect this madra held, or even how powerful it would be, once his mother restored it.

But he’d made it.

He tucked the Forged fruit into his pack next to its physical counterpart, plucking the transparent crystal flask and tossing it in next. Now he was only faced with the task of traveling a dozen miles through the wilderness, on foot, with a broken arm and a bulky pack.

Triumph made the journey easy.

***

Almost a million people called Sacred Valley home, and the Wei clan alone accounted for over a hundred thousand of those. Even so, the one resource no one lacked was space.

Each family received a generous portion of land, with a small house added on to the main complex for each member. Typically, children received their own house along with their wooden badge, as a mark of independence. Even Lindon, who could contribute nothing back to the clan, received a housing allotment inferior to no one’s.

His house was made of tight-fitting orus wood, pale and smooth, roofed in purple tiles. His bed lay against the wall opposite of the hearth, in which a fire burned merrily to ward off the spring chill. He lay in his bed, broken arm splinted and tied, with a scripted ribbon wrapped around his bicep to contain the pain. It would wear off in a few hours, at which point his mother would replace it with another one.

At the moment, Lindon was as physically comfortable as he had ever been. He couldn’t feel his arm, the fire was warm, and his bed was so soft it felt like lying on a cloud. He was used to that; his mother had packed his mattress with Forged cloud-aspect madra she’d purchased from one of her contacts. Even the Wei clan’s Patriarch didn’t have a better bed.

But Lindon couldn’t enjoy any of it. His family was here.

The fruit now shone with the bright color of a Remnant, but it held all the wrinkles and imperfections that showed it to be real. His mother had restored it to full power in minutes. It sat on the center of Lindon’s table, and the other three members of his family surrounded it like wolves circling a wounded deer.

“If I had found this years ago, I would take it,” Lindon’s father said. “But it’s too late for me now. Kelsa will fight for us in the Seven-Year Festival, so she needs it the most.”

Wei Shi Jaran had participated in the Festival before last, which had left him with a lip scarred into an eternal smirk, and a limp that required a cane. He hadn’t fought since.

“It wouldn’t have helped you,” Lindon’s mother responded. She was one of the more eye-catching figures in the Wei clan, with her long brown hair. Everyone else, including her children, had black. “This spirit-fruit has no aspect of life. It only purifies energy, helping you advance in your Path. It does nothing that months or years of regular cycling wouldn’t do.” Seisha scratched away at a portable slate as she spoke, her chalk pausing only rarely. Scripts wouldn’t check themselves.