The idea had haunted her since she was a little girl.

Yerin kept the shaking from her voice. “Can’t bet my soul on it. But that’s what I’ll be doing.”

Ruby paced over to her. She looked Yerin up and down, and Yerin could feel the hunger in her spirit.

“Nah,” Ruby said. “No hope of that.”

She sat down on a bench, turning back to the Heart’s Gem.

Yerin didn’t trust her ears. “You acting like we’re lifetime friends now?”

Ruby shrugged one shoulder. “Lindon would hate me.”

For some reason, that answer enraged Yerin more than any other.

She stalked over and seized Ruby by the collar of her robe. “Bleed and bury what Lindon wants!” Yerin shouted. “What do you want?”

Ruby stood and met her face-to-face. “I’m aiming for us all to live! You hearing me? Everybody!”

Every passing second was another second closer to Yerin’s third loss. The pressure squeezed her heart until she thought it would pop.

She’d spent months trying to tap into the Sword Icon. It was ordinarily something Archlords spent lifetimes pursuing; she had made it so far only because she’d had Sages to teach her. Not just now, but all her life.

How could she force that now? How could she count on it?

I am not the Sage of the Endless Sword.

What did that mean for her? Should she be chasing down some other Icon?

Malice had asked her: “What is your signature?”

Bleed me if I know.

Yerin’s trembling stopped. Her eyes fell on the Heart’s Gem that sat in the corner, the scarlet chunk of petrified blood drifting in its scripted glass tank.

Thinking too deeply didn’t suit her.

Why was she trying to be a Sage again?

She gripped Ruby’s robe with renewed intensity. “We should combine.”

Ruby narrowed one eye. “You cracked in the head?”

“Like Heralds do with their Remnants!” Yerin insisted. “The Blood Sage was all lit up about us doing it at Archlord.”

“You don’t look like an Archlady to me,” Ruby said.

“Supposed to wait for Archlord to be a Sage too, aren’t we? If we’re jumping the fence, let’s do it all the way.” Yerin released Ruby’s robes and grabbed her shoulders. “It fails when the Remnant and the artist fight each other, so they end up destroying the other, but we’re nine parts the same. We going to fight each other?”

In eyes that were a red reflection of her own, Yerin watched doubt ignite into baseless, reckless confidence.

“Bleed and bury me,” Ruby said, “I’m in.”

There was a trembling to her spirit, a deep underlying terror. She was easily as afraid as Yerin was.

But they were both more afraid of losing.

They clasped identical hands.

Yerin opened her spirit and focused her will, pulling the Blood Shadow back into her spirit. Where she belonged.

Ruby didn’t melt and flow back into Yerin’s spirit, but while Yerin was pulling, Ruby started to push. Her own will flowed into Yerin, trying to take over Yerin’s body as Yerin fought to take her spirit.

It was so much harder than Yerin had expected.

Her every instinct was to reject intrusion from an outside power. Even without her consciously directing it, her spirit fought against Ruby, trying to push out the Blood Shadow.

Ruby was the same; her madra fought against Yerin’s command even when Ruby wasn’t controlling it.

It was only then that Yerin appreciated what Charity had meant when she’d said that there was no better willpower training than fighting a Blood Shadow.

Every time the Shadow tried to take over Yerin and Yerin resisted, it was a direct clash of wills. Yerin grew stronger as she resisted.

But the opposite was true too.

Their years of fights had sharpened Yerin’s will, but they had also sharpened the spirit that would become Ruby.

And all that sharpening against one another had perfectly prepared them to work together.

After a few endless seconds of intense struggle, their wills snapped into place. They wanted the same thing, after all, they were just coming at it from different angles.

Red madra began to flow through Yerin’s channels in reverse.

And her silver madra let it happen.

At that moment, the door burst open. The Winter Sage marched in, fury and terror whipping the air around her.

“Stop!” she shouted, and reality responded to her authority.

Yerin and Ruby froze.

Their spirits froze.

Even the air froze.

Together, they recognized what would happen if this continued. The Winter Sage would separate them, afraid of what they would become, and then they would go into the third fight no better prepared than in the second.

They focused on her working, and together they pushed against it.

An unseen force snapped, and their madra flowed freely again.

The Winter Sage gasped, then set herself to try again. Yerin clenched her jaw, and Ruby made the same motion. If they had to keep resisting a Sage, they would lose control of their fusion.

Charity threw out a hand. “Stop! Don’t take away what chance they have!”

Reluctantly, painfully, the Winter Sage backed down.

Yerin returned, looking back to Ruby. New memories flowed into her now—records of Sophara that Dross had given her, wielding the Endless Sword to protect an unconscious Lindon from a sea of dreadbeasts, Lindon holding her hand as she tried to fall asleep.

There was no resistance, but Yerin felt grief and regret flow from Ruby along with her madra. Her time had been too short.

Then it was her grief. Her regret.

And what was she sad about, anyway? She wasn’t going anywhere.

Madra soaked into Yerin’s channels, her spirit, and stained the bright silver a vivid crimson.

Her body tore itself apart, but there was no pain. She dissolved into silver-red light…and she felt a chance.

She had to Forge herself back together.

But her old body wasn’t quite…right. It didn’t represent who she was anymore. She had some choices to make.

She hadn’t liked bright red hair, but it had become part of her. Maybe one lock. Her eyes…she didn’t really want eyes so similar to Fury’s. Then again, when she tried to change them to Yerin’s black, she found it easier to keep them as Ruby’s red.

She didn’t mind what color her eyes were anyway.

She could make more dramatic changes to her body, but she didn’t need them. She liked the way she looked. It was her, and now there were enough changes to represent the new her.

One change, though, she didn’t have any control over.

When her body returned, condensing into reality, she extended all six of her Goldsigns. They still had a metallic gleam, but now they were a bright, vivid scarlet.

Two spiritual perceptions swept through her as the Sages checked her.

“Heavens above,” Charity breathed.

The Winter Sage’s eyes filled with tears.

Then other spirits scanned Yerin. Though most weren’t close by, she recognized them.

The Monarchs.

At some point, the door had opened completely, but Northstrider hadn’t moved her outside. Instead, he stood in the center of the arena with his arms crossed.

Experimentally, Yerin examined herself. She didn’t feel so different. She remembered being Ruby, but it didn’t feel like being a different person. Just…herself in a different mood. Or in a different light, maybe.