“I thought you…well, I mean, I just wanted to talk to you.”

She forced another smile. “Thanks. I guess it’s up to Yerin now, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” he said simply.

For some reason, she hadn’t expected that.

Then again, she hadn’t expected him here at all. He had broken through the Ninecloud seals, and her mother must have allowed this, but he had come entirely out of sympathy. It wasn’t like Lindon to act on sentiment.

But he knew how she felt, didn’t he?

“I know…” he began, but caught himself. “Well, I can’t say I know how you feel. But I know how I felt.”

Tears welled up in Mercy’s eyes.

“I wanted to win,” she said at last.

“I know.”

“I tried really hard.”

“Yeah.”

Her tears were coming more freely now, and she leaned into his shoulder. “Just…give me a minute, okay? My family…I can’t…”

She couldn’t talk to her family like this. How could she? She’d let them down. If anybody had a right to cry or be angry, they did.

After a minute or two, she realized she was leaving a mess on Lindon’s outer robe and pulled back. She wiped her face with the edge of her sleeve. “Sorry. I’m all right. How’s Yerin?”

Yerin was the only one left in the tournament. Whatever happened from then on, it was all on her shoulders.

Lindon looked upward. “Actually, she came to find you right after I got through the door. But the Ninecloud Soul is mad at me, so I’m locked in. I was trying to figure out how to go back for her.”

Mercy extended her spiritual perception. It was hard to penetrate the walls in here, but sure enough, there was a mass of familiar sword madra outside the door a few floors up.

“Pardon, but Dross and I should probably get back to work. If we don’t open the door before she loses patience, she’ll—”

A lance of silver light blasted the door apart, sending debris raining down on Lindon’s face.

“…apologies.”

In his waiting room, Calan Archer meditated and focused on his cycling.

There was no one in here with him. Therian would have come down here to join him if he’d been allowed, and the other Uncrowned in his faction—Yan Shoumei—had been called away by the Blood Sage.

His own Sage, the leader of his sect, hadn’t shown his face once all month.

Calan had taken whatever lessons he could from the Sage of Red Faith, but the Sage had his own student. Students, really, if you counted Yerin.

He’d never met Reigan Shen, of course—people didn’t meet Monarchs, even if you represented their interests on a global stage.

Which meant there was no one left who could support him here, as he prepared to face Yerin in battle.

He decided to use the isolation to focus on his task.

Yerin, he knew, had others pressuring her to win. Like the other seven Uncrowned, Yerin was concerned about the broader situation in the world. If she lost here, Penance would go to the Dragon or Lion Monarchs. The political landscape would shift, and great sects would rise and fall.

Calan didn’t care about any of that.

He had always been a talented sacred artist, but great schools and sects and clans lived in their own worlds.

He had earned his way up to the top of his generation on his own, and he would win this tournament for his own sake.

A disc-shaped Divine Treasure floated in his soulspace, and seven jade rings hovered around him. The rings around his biceps crackled, and his madra moved smoothly.

After poring over the records from Yerin’s fight against Lindon, Calan had a good idea of her capabilities. She was impressive, certainly, but he could win.

He strode out of his waiting room to the roars of the crowd and examined his arena.

They had plenty of open space, but blades the size of his whole body jutted up from the sand every few yards. Three or four dark clouds made lazy circuits of the space, flashing with lightning.

Calan didn’t position himself exactly in the center of the arena, moving as far as he could from the swords. These arenas were supposed to be designed to allow each participant to show the full extent of their Path, but from what he’d seen of Yerin’s Endless Sword, he would lose the second he stepped too close to one of these blades.

Or if he brought his own flying blades too close to himself, for that matter. He spread the seven razor-edged jade rings away from them, so they hovered and spun at least thirty feet off the ground.

Yerin nodded when she saw him, but her jaw was clenched. She wore the pressure she felt openly, even closing her eyes and rolling her neck to release tension. She hopped in place, grip tightening and loosening on the hilt of her sheathed sword.

Calan still thought that Northstrider looked nothing like any Monarch he’d ever imagined, with his scruffy unshaven jaw and wild hair, but he certainly carried himself like a king. He looked from one to the other and ordered them to prepare themselves.

Stormcaller madra coiled and writhed, hungry to be unleashed. Calan cycled the beginnings of his Ruler technique, sure that Yerin was doing the same.

Northstrider looked over them both, spread his hands, and ordered them to begin.

Calan released his Harbinger of the Storm. Everywhere the Weeping Dragon flew, a storm followed, as it agitated the water, wind, and lightning aura for miles around.

This technique had been modeled on that one, and it allowed Stormcallers to slowly dominate a battlefield. Dark clouds gathered overhead, merging with the clouds the arena already contained.

Rain fell, and lightning cracked down to the sand. The storm was self-sustaining, and as time went on, it would grow more violent and powerful until it peaked. There was no stopping it now.

Yerin hadn’t moved. Or opened her eyes.

Calan didn’t question it. He controlled his seven bladed rings together, directing them so that they would collide with Yerin at a different angle and timing. This wasn’t a formal madra technique that created a binding, but a skill that he’d spent years mastering. He could control more constructs and weapons at once than anyone he knew.

Yerin’s sheathed sword chimed, and sparks flew out as every one of his flying rings was deflected by invisible blades.

He had expected as much, and he’d prepared two responses.

Simultaneously, he brought his rings back around for another pass, directed the storm aura to target Yerin, and began preparing a Striker technique.

His crackling blue-gold madra formed the head of a roaring dragon in his palm. Stormcaller madra was born when a person took madra from the actual Weeping Dragon inside of themselves. Later they built on it by harvesting the different aspects of storms, but members of their sect forever carried a measure of the Dreadgod’s hunger and animating will.

This Dragonblood Thunderbolt technique was not only the most powerful technique in his Path, but it was how the Weeping Dragon fed. It was closer to a Forger technique than a Striker technique, but he’d heard it called both, and its power was undeniable.

Calan hurled the dragon of storm madra, and it twisted through the air, a serpent made from gold-and-blue lightning. At the same time, his Jadeclaw Rings fell on Yerin and lightning flashed from the cloud above.

Yerin’s eyes opened.

Blood spurted from Calan’s neck.