So naturally, the Shadow was getting battered all the way around the sword training area. It was impaled on a thicket of sharp blades, screaming in pain as the Winter Sage danced past and lopped off its hand.

“Wrong!” the Sage shouted, grabbing Yerin’s Shadow with one hand and tossing it to the ground so hard that it sounded like thunder. “You have no grace! No thought!”

The spirit panted and shoved its severed hand back onto its stump. It looked so human now; its red hair was matted with sweat and stuck to the back of its neck, and it glared at the Winter Sage in furious frustration.

The Shadow snatched up its black blade and attacked, but the Winter Sage slapped the attack away contemptuously and then clubbed the spirit on the head.

“Mindless beast!” She slapped it with the flat of the sword. “Clumsy ape!”

Yerin retrieved a round circle of bread and began piling grilled meat and vegetables on top. She needed a snack to go with the show.

Charity was making notes nearby, and after a moment she folded them up to join Yerin. Every day in here, she wore an outfit like what Yerin had first seen her in: plain gray clothes and a stained artist’s smock, with her hair tied up and out of her way.

“Did you feel any progress?” the Heart Sage asked.

Yerin spoke from around a mouthful of food. “Right in the middle between zero and none.”

“Thinking about yourself on a deeper level always brings some benefit,” Charity said. “Of those attempting to reach Overlord, most fail because they lack the talent, the foundation, or the resources. You, of course, are in none of those categories. Those who knowingly discovered their Underlord revelation are almost always capable of discovering their Overlord insight as well.”

The Winter Sage kicked the Blood Shadow away, and a red blur crashed into the sandy beach. “As I said, this thing has no sword authority at all. You will never touch the Sword Icon with it inside you.”

“That seems hasty,” Charity observed. “It’s rare to have any stable connection to the Sword Icon before Archlord.”

Min Shuei slammed her sword back into its sheath. “I’m taking a break,” she announced, stalking off and leaving the Blood Shadow to clean itself of sand.

“Is it really going to keep me from the Sword Icon?” Yerin asked, her voice low.

“The only thing stopping you now is that your willpower is unfocused, but your will is refined as you advance through the Lord realm. Bringing you to Overlord accomplishes both goals.”

“Didn’t think we’d made it that far yet,” Yerin said. The Akura clan contribution to her training was an absolute trove of advancement resources; they were going to force her to advance to Overlord if they had to cram her to the gills with elixirs day and night.

But there was only so much she could process at any one time.

Charity reached into the black hole that was her void key and withdrew the blue crystal nest of tubes. The Madra Engine.

The Blood Shadow looked up sharply at the Divine Treasure’s power.

“The power of the Heart-Piercer Fruit has matured inside you sufficiently,” Charity said. “We need to introduce the Engine now to give your spirit time to adjust, but I must warn you again: I would ordinarily advise you to stay an Underlady for at least another year to integrate all these changes and the sudden growth to your spirit.

“Pushing you to Overlord so quickly and with so many added powers will make it more difficult to reach Archlord. Then, even if you manage to manifest the Sword Icon, you will never become a full Sage. Unless you win, and the Monarchs reverse the injury.”

Undoing the damage she was about to do to her spirit would require not only spiritual surgery, but rewriting the fundamental principles of madra at a level only several Monarchs working together could achieve.

As long as she won the tournament, it would be no problem.

Yerin could easily see a future in which she couldn’t keep up with Lindon. Her fear said that he would leave her behind, even if her head knew it wasn’t true. He would spend the rest of his days looking for a solution before he abandoned her.

Then there was the fear that they might go to all this trouble and expense and find out that she couldn’t handle it. That they were wrong, that the Sword Sage had been wrong all those years ago. That she wasn’t good enough to justify their faith.

“No point in stewing on it,” Yerin said finally. “There’s no backing out now.”

The dice had left her hands as soon as she’d beaten Lindon in the fourth round.

Charity swept a spiritual scan through Yerin, checking her condition. “While that’s true, the Madra Engine will settle faster if you are at peace with this.”

“I’m more at peace than a frozen corpse.”

So Charity sank the Madra Engine into Yerin’s midsection.

The process didn’t feel like much. The construct settled into the center of her madra channels, surrounding and containing her core. While her core was full, it wouldn’t do anything.

Charity warned her to use as little madra as possible for at least a day or two, to allow the bond to settle with minimal chance of failure. So Yerin spent the rest of the day bored, cycling sword aura amid a forest of blades.

She usually spent two hours a day harvesting aura, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t boring. It just meant she’d gotten used to the boredom.

She didn’t know how many hours had passed when she felt a disturbance next to her. Not much, nothing so sharp as danger, but just enough of an annoyance to break her out of the cycling trance.

Finally, she looked over to see her red-haired twin in a cycling pose next to her.

That was startling enough on its own, but the Blood Shadow was also blindfolded, and balanced a dark, shimmering brick in its lap. The sword codex from Emriss Silentborn.

Yerin watched for a few minutes as the Blood Shadow cycled aura under its own power. Then it rose and—still blindfolded—pulled its black sword.

It went through the motions of several sword styles. One would be fast and aggressive, another had wide circular motions, and a third had sweeping patterns that were clearly meant to launch Striker techniques.

Each one was visibly distinct, and the Shadow executed them well. Too well. Maybe as cleanly as Yerin could have done herself.

“You seeing if you can beat me to Sage?” Yerin asked.

The Shadow tore off its blindfold to scowl.

“Heaven’s luck to you. Maybe you can go off on your own. Then you can eat all the babies you want. Me, I’m going to win a tournament.”

She closed her eyes before the Shadow could respond, reaching out for sword aura. Though she still kept her perception extended in case of an attack.

But her madra froze inside her when she heard a perfect echo of her own voice speak.

“Well,” it said, “cheers and celebrations for you.”

20

Northstrider resented anyone summoning him.

Especially if that “someone” was a low-ranking Abidan who saw everyone still in Cradle as misguided infants.

He stepped through the Way into the audience chamber of the Ninecloud Court, where the Monarchs usually gathered. Shen was already there, for once without his golden stage or other ostentatious prop, though he still swirled wine in a jeweled goblet.