He sprawled onto the cloud, pushing down the pack full of loot with his body. She hopped on in front of him, feeding her spirit into the cloud construct. It was off like an arrow, shooting through the door and away before any of the stunned Heaven’s Glory disciples outside could react.

“That’s the heart of my Path,” Yerin said. “All swords are one.”

While she spoke, she steered the cloud down the street. It only hovered about three feet over the ground, but under the influence of Yerin’s powerful spirit, it was faster than a galloping horse.

“I will do anything, anything, if you can teach me to do that.”

Streaks of light blasted after them, scorching rainstone buildings, as Yerin navigated them away from the school. Her scarred face was tight with concentration.

“He’s not dead,” she said, ignoring his comment. “But I’d contend that I won.” She nodded decisively. “Yeah, we’ll mark that one up as a win.”

They streaked toward the Ancestor’s Tomb, leaving their pursuers far behind.

Chapter 19

As the sun rose, Lindon and Yerin flew over the rough terrain of Mount Samara. Yerin kept the rosy cloud skimming the rocks, scattering snow as they blasted north toward the Ancestor’s Tomb.

Meanwhile, Lindon concentrated on not falling off.

Once he had found a position that he felt he could survive, he slowly began picking through his pack of stolen items. Once they landed, they might not have time to take full inventory.

The Thousand-Mile Cloud itself was probably their greatest prize, and Yerin insisted that even Lindon’s madra was enough to power it. Though he would travel much more slowly. According to her, clouds like this were valuable transportation beyond the valley.

There were forty-eight spirit-seals in the stack, and they were prepared to use all of them on her master’s Remnant. But if they had a few left over, the seals would be precious advantages against other Remnants in the future. Still, it was best not to count on that. The Sword Sage was their priority.

The Starlotus bud would help him break through to Copper almost immediately, and he had to remind himself more than a dozen times that it would be foolish to eat it now. The ancestral orus fruit had taken him days to digest, and the Starlotus should take even longer. The last thing he needed was something in his own core distracting him when he might need to fight. Even so, he longed to swallow at least one petal.

Instead, he occupied himself watching the Sylvan Riverseed, the little blue-flame spirit that danced around in its glass enclosure. The river that spun around the inside of the little tank had remained steady as they flew, neither spilling nor splashing, but the spirit had thrown itself against the glass walls to stare at the passing landscape.

Lindon had asked what the Riverseed could be used for, but Yerin herself was unclear. They were rare, she knew that, and you were supposed to raise them. Or maybe plant them. Either way, she was certain it was worth more money than anything else they’d snatched, including the cloud.

The parasite ring was like the Starlotus bud, in that it would eventually help Lindon overcome his deficiencies but wasn’t of any immediate use. He added to that the halfsilver dagger—his parents had owned a few halfsilver weapons, but he’d never had one of his own—and the White Fox boundary flags as the least valuable treasures they’d stolen. The boundary was difficult to obtain, but it also took a long time to set up, and a powerful enough opponent would simply tear through it. He had been lucky to use it against Kazan Ma Deret.

Seven treasures. They were an unspeakable fortune to a Wei clan Unsouled, but looking at them like this, they were almost disappointing. When he compared them to what they could have gotten away with, had they been allowed just another minute in the Treasure Hall…

“Dragon fever,” Yerin said from the front of the cloud.

Lindon jerked up, startled out of his daydreams. “Dragon?”

She laughed into the wind as they skipped off of a outcropping, floating down to land above the ground again. “That’s what master would say. Sacred arts are expensive, and it takes a pile of pills and treasures to advance. It’s when you get lost in gold for it’s own sake, that’s the dragon fever.”

Lindon’s face heated. She’d seen through him without even looking at him. “I’m not trying to take your share. My contributions pale beside yours. But some of them, I think, might not suit someone of your strength.”

“No, don’t get me wrong. I’m burning up with the fever. I’m just boiling to turn around and scrape that Treasure Hall clean.”

He exhaled, relieved. “This is a bigger fortune than I’ve ever seen, and for some reason I’m disappointed it isn’t bigger.”

“Dragon fever,” she said decisively. “Helps to keep your eyes fixed on one thing. Grab whatever else you can, but don’t go blind to what really matters. My master says—” She stopped. Wind whistled by. “My master used to say distraction kills more sacred artists than enemies ever do.”

He couldn’t ignore that pause. Having never been trained, he’d never had a master, but how would he feel if his parents had been taken from him?

Suriel’s vision flashed through his head, Sacred Valley blasted out of existence, and he spoke with real sympathy. “He must have been a great man. Even in the outside world.”

“The spine of the matter is, he only came to the valley for me,” she said. He couldn’t see her face, but suddenly he could barely hear her words over the wind. “Wouldn’t have bothered coming on his own, it was just a safe place for me to train. But it doesn’t matter how strong you are when you’re poisoned in your sleep.” By the end, her voice carried the ring of cold steel.

“I wish I could have met him,” Lindon said. It was true, but it was also what he was supposed to say to a grieving relative.

“He might have taken you with us, had you asked him. He could be soft that way. But first, he’d have killed your clan elders for what they were teaching you.”

Lindon leaned around her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of her expression. “Forgiveness, but…what did they teach me?”

He crashed into her back as the cloud came to a sudden halt. A massive square building loomed in the distance, set with huge columns and a stone mural of four beasts locked in battle. The whole edifice lurked on the edge of an enormous cliff as though it had done so since the beginning of time.

“The Ancestor’s Tomb,” Yerin said, and vaulted down from the cloud. “Master went to the Heaven’s Glory in particular just for this. They say it leads down into some labyrinth where even my master couldn’t step easy.”

Her hand was on her sword, black sacred artist’s robes trailing shredded edges in the wind. She pulled the stolen badge over her head and tossed it to one side. “They poisoned him and they stabbed him, so he tried to hide in the Tomb. Died two steps from the door.”

She looked back at him, but her scarred face wasn’t as cold as he’d imagined from someone seeking revenge. It was etched with grief. “Last thing he said to me, he told me to finish forming my Path. He didn’t know he’d be leaving me his own Remnant, but…he did. Nobody else touches his spirit but me, and that’s the fact of it.”