Finally, hands lifted him up by the shoulders, causing him to groan in pain. It was all he could do to avoid screaming.

“Hold on,” the boy carrying him said, and Lindon recognized his voice. It was the disciple that had delivered him to his room the day before. “I’m taking you to the Medicine Hall.”

Lindon wondered how many halls there were in the Heaven’s Glory School, but idle thoughts didn’t survive long amid the sea of pain. The disciple had lifted him off the ground and was carrying him over one shoulder, which was no doubt easy for someone with Iron strength, but every step sent agony shooting through Lindon’s body.

“I thought something like this might happen,” the disciple went on. “I was going to take you to see Elder Anses myself so no one singled you out, but I didn’t think I’d be too late.”

Lindon tried to say I was stupid, but it came out as “Shtupid.”

The disciple grunted. “They let the disciples compete against each other for everything. The strongest rise to the top, and they only want the strongest. As long as nobody dies, the elders don’t care, but I don’t know why they let an Unsouled in here. Even the Coppers will be eyeing you.”

He ascended some steps, which Lindon’s ribs did not appreciate, and then a pair of doors swung open. The smell that wafted out was equal parts metallic blood, putrid sickness, and a sharp herbal scent that Lindon associated with medicine. The moans and muffled screams within were less than comforting.

“Another casualty?” a man asked.

“No, this one wasn’t her.” Lindon’s benefactor laid him down on a bed gently, but the impact still made him choke back a shout.

“New disciple,” he added.

“Ah. Leave him here, we’ve got limbs to sew back on first.”

The disciple tossed a blanket over Lindon and hesitated before leaving.

Gratitude, Lindon said, but it passed his injured jaw in a garbled mess of syllables. The disciple looked at him as though debating whether to say something or not. Finally he let out a heavy breath and leaned closer. “Listen. They don’t let disciples leave once they’re here, not unless something goes really wrong. But you…I don’t think the elders would chase you down if you just left. You’re from a clan, so go home. You won’t die here…but you might find that you want to.”

He left, leaving Lindon thinking fond thoughts of home. His bed was soft, the air didn’t have this permanent chill, and while no one treated him with any respect, they didn’t beat him in the streets either. And this was only the beginning of his journey. The outside world was a thousand times more dangerous.

Lindon’s bed was not private, crammed as it was between dozens of other beds filled with men and women with injuries at least as bad as his own. As his heart grew heavy and he blinked away tears of self-pity, he couldn’t help overhearing a conversation from the bed only inches away.

“We had her cornered,” the girl said through gritted teeth. “She was—go slower, that burns—backed up against a cave. Fifteen of us, one of her. Then she drew her sword, and we were all cut.”

“Was she that fast?” a woman asked. “Bite down on this, it will sting.”

A minute or so passed with the girl groaning in pain before she finally responded. “Not…fast. She’s not an Enforcer, I think. Probably a Ruler. When she drew her sword, we were all cut. Out of nowhere. She didn’t move.”

“The Sage was an Enforcer. Would he take a disciple with a different spirit?”

“How could I guess the thoughts of the Sword Sage? But she cut fifteen of us to the bone in one move, then she ran away. A few Enforcers followed her, since they held up better than the rest of us.”

Lindon gingerly craned his neck to the side, speaking as clearly as he could. “Forgive my curiosity. Where was this?”

Chapter 16

A woman of about forty carried a fistful of wild grass in one hand and a knife in the other. She leaned over the girl in the bed, smearing a paste on the girl’s wounds with the flat of her blade. The disciple’s face was red and covered in sweat, but both of them looked over after Lindon’s words.

He shifted position to make sure his badge was hidden beneath the sheet, so the girl would assume he was a fellow Iron. It must have worked, because her tone became defensive immediately. “We almost had her. Our Rulers put down a barrier formation to stop her from escaping, but she’s…if she’s not Jade already, then her sword must be some kind of treasure.”

“She couldn’t have escaped you without some dirty trick,” Lindon said. He’d learned years ago how to flatter a sacred artist’s ego, but the pressure of speaking clearly was burning his jaw. He tried to shorten his sentences as much as possible. “I’m tracking her down. Where did you see her?”

Something of a lisp had crept into his voice by the end, and he had to cut off the last word before pain brought tears back into his eyes. Hearing this, the girl looked at him in sympathy. “Did you run into her after us? Heavens grant you favor, but I’m not going after her again. My pride isn’t worth my life.”

She hissed as the healer applied another dose of the paste. The woman spoke with the tone of one who had great experience, “Pride is more important than you think. The elders haven’t acted against the girl because it lowers their status to treat a disciple as a threat. But now she’s killed six Irons and incapacitated nigh-on forty. At this rate, we won’t have anyone left with a whole body by Sun Day, but which elder would lower their station to fight a disciple? At a certain age, pride is all you have left.”

Lindon tried to speak, but his mouth might as well have been wired shut. The healer noticed and put her herbs down, rinsing her hands in a nearby basin. She moved over to Lindon’s side, cold fingers probing the side of his face.

The injured girl winced as she shifted position. “If you want to go after her, you’ll be going by yourself. I don’t know anyone else who’s willing to risk their lives for it by this point, no matter how much the elders are offering. We saw her in a cave on the north side of the mountain, a few miles up from the Ancestor’s Tomb. Don’t know how she survives the Remnants out there every night. Samara’s ring gathers them like flies to honey.”

The healer poked at his ribs, making him grunt in pain, and then tested his elbow. “Nothing broken,” she announced. “You’re lucky. You’d heal in a few weeks on your own, but we just got a delivery of herbs from down in the valley. Had extra thorngrass, so we made a batch of these. Elder’s orders: anyone who has to fight against the Sword Disciple gets one of these to bring them back to fighting shape.”

She pinched a tiny pill between her thumb and forefinger. It was red and green, and it smelled so sharp he thought his nose would bleed. “This won’t do anything for your spirit, and you won’t like the way it feels, but cycle it for a few days. If you don’t feel fresh as a Copper in three dawns, come back and see me. The problem might be deeper than I thought.”

Lindon gave her the hint of a bow, which was the best he could manage from a seated position with his ribs as tender as they were. She accepted it, bowing back, and handed him the pill.