“What happens when Fury loses?” Lindon asked.

“This isn’t a fight,” Mercy responded. “This is him saying he won’t back down. But…I know him. There will be a fight.”

Lindon noticed they were still heading straight for Sky’s Edge.

[I appreciate how fast and fuel-efficient this cloudship is,] Dross said, [but don’t you think we should check its turn radius? For instance, we could turn around and go the other way.]

“You can drop me here,” Mercy said. She tapped Suu on the deck, and the staff’s dragon head hissed. “I’ll go the rest of the way myself.”

“There’s no barrier stopping us from entering?” Lindon asked Eithan.

“None. If I had to bet, they won’t mind our arrival at all. But they may take issue if we try to depart.”

“And the Lords are fighting on the ground?”

“The strongest participating in the battle are Overlords. They would very much appreciate the arrival of a few more skilled combatants, I suspect.”

“No,” Mercy said firmly. “I have responsibilities here, but there’s no reason for you two to risk your lives.”

Lindon continued speaking to Eithan. “If Sophara wins, are we all going to die?”

He would happily put his faith in Yerin, but he didn’t want to bet his life on the Uncrowned King tournament if he didn’t have to.

Yerin hadn’t even made it through the top four yet.

“Malice has certainly prepared for this, which means that Fury has a way to escape. It’s probable that we will have an opportunity to survive, even if the worst happens and the Monarch is killed. But…” He shrugged. “We will certainly be safer if Yerin wins. Or if we don’t go down there at all.”

Lindon thought of his expression in those tournament recordings.

And he thought of what he’d felt when Suriel gave him a second chance.

He looked down into his palm, where Little Blue was hugging Suriel’s marble. The tiny blue candle-flame matched her perfectly.

“Apologies, Little Blue,” he said. “I need your help.”

She dropped the glass ball and gave a whistling cheer.

There was only one step he could take at the moment to improve his power, and Dross had confirmed it would work. He had hesitated only out of fear for Little Blue’s safety.

But she was eager to help, and he needed her.

“I swear to open my core to you and share my power,” Lindon said, for the second time in his life.

Little Blue regarded him solemnly as she knelt and pressed both hands to his skin.

Then she gave one bright, piping note of agreement and their contract was complete.

Deep blue power slid into him; not an overwhelming amount, certainly not compared to the sea of pure madra he already contained. But more than he’d expected from the Sylvan Riverseed, and more than enough to stain his pure core a deeper blue.

As it did, his own power crashed into the Sylvan Riverseed.

She fell over on his hand, and if Lindon could have interrupted the process, he would have done so out of panic. Her color brightened to a lighter shade, but she became clearer, more solid, more defined. Her eyes gained a new shine, and legs and feet appeared beneath her long skirt.

She doubled in size until she was about a foot tall, and Lindon wondered if she might grow to human size until her form settled.

When she stood on his hand, he felt her weight more than he ever had before.

A new sensation settled in his pure madra as it took on a cleansing, emptying aspect. It wasn’t entirely like her original power, but not exactly the madra he was used to using either. A combination of both.

Little Blue lifted both her eyes and gave a loud chime.

He didn’t hear words, but now he could vividly understand the emotion behind them.

Victory.

Now, after so long being carried around, she could help carry him.

18

Pride trembled, bruised and panting, on the stony ground. He wanted to sink to his knees, but he would rather die than kneel to these opponents.

Not that they seemed likely to kill him.

Most of the Akura forces were inside the fortress walls that the Seishen king had raised in Sky’s Edge, but Pride and his team had been caught on the stony hills outside when the dragons had arrived.

The mine was all but empty, everything of value stripped from the town, and they’d evacuated everyone for miles. The territory was ready for the Dreadgod to arrive, and Pride had only been supervising the return of the Gold workers.

When dragons had swooped in, cutting off their retreat, he hadn’t been too alarmed at first. They would receive support, and there was no one in this group of dragons above Overlord. And they clearly weren’t thirsty for blood, or their Herald would have annihilated them from a thousand feet up rather than sending her descendants.

Then the other Dreadgod cults had arrived, and his heart had fallen past his knees.

Even when Uncle Fury had begun fighting, it hadn’t helped Pride’s position at all. A dozen Lords sat on clouds or floating mounts around Pride and the others, watching. Four of them were Overlord. Five times that many Truegolds and Highgolds watched from further back, a mix of cultists and dragons of all colors.

They just kept sending Underlords forward to duel. There was some joke about reenacting the Uncrowned King tournament for themselves, but really they just wanted to see their opponents suffer.

There were no rules. Whenever it looked like one of them would win, an Overlord on the bench would throw in a Striker technique and claim he was swatting a fly.

Every one of the Underlords on Lindon’s team was beaten and bloody. Grace had a cloth wrapped around a missing eye that became harder to heal with every passing second, Courage was unconscious with a mangled lower half of his body, and one of the Maten twins was covered in burns.

Pride had just been forced to fight, even with his core almost empty and his flesh battered, and he thought he’d made a good accounting of himself. One of the green dragons, in a humanoid form, was now missing a tail.

She’d have it reattached, but it had felt good to tear it off with his bare hands.

Naru Saeya was fighting now, hammering away at an Abyssal Palace priest with a chipped and broken rainbow sword that was slowly losing light.

The priest weathered the blows, but they were beginning to draw blood. Saeya was spattered in more blood than anyone, most of it belonging to others, but she was running more on anger than on madra by this point. She used no techniques, screaming as she hacked at her opponent.

The enemy Lords and Ladies laughed and shouted bets.

Pride was certain he would already be dead if not for his name. While the enemy at large was hesitant to end too many lives before the tournament concluded, there had been a handful of deaths among their Golds. Courage and the Frozen Blade woman would die if they weren’t healed.

This was a game for them. The Akura sacred artists would be humiliated and eventually released.

Pride would have greatly preferred a straightforward fight to the death.

Their side was surrounded, their retreat cut off, and the dragons controlled the air. Archlords were rare, so there were none close, but enough Overlords were here to make reinforcements almost impossible.

Pride had to hope that Uncle Fury would conclude his fight and come to save them. Without teaching the other side a lesson and wiping them all out.