Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (118)

Lindon leaned forward, and his new eyes burned. “And we are going to beat them anyway. We are going far past them. I barely killed the weakest Dreadgod with the help of three Monarchs, but now I’m going to carve out its heart and make it a weapon. Next time, the seven of us are going to crush a Dreadgod, we’re going to mount it on a spear, and we’re going to use it to kill the next one.”

Yerin’s and Orthos’ eyes glowed in two different shades of red. Little Blue nodded, uncharacteristically solemn. Ziel raised a hand.

“There are six of us here.”

“Yes. But there are seven of us.” Lindon looked to Yerin as Dross projected several dozen images into the air. “The rest of you have training to do in the labyrinth. Cycle as much power as you can and prepare to advance.”

Orthos rumbled deep in his chest. “It will take months to prepare myself.”

“Then we will have to find you some months.” Lindon nodded to Yerin. “Time can be compressed into pocket worlds.”

“That takes Monarchs years to do,” Ziel pointed out.

“If they can make it, we can take it. Which brings me to what Yerin and I are about to be doing.”

Yerin looked down from the images floating in the air and finished his sentence with relish. “Stealing.”

“The Monarchs keep their best treasures in their void spaces at all times, but they own too much to carry everything. They have a lot of assets to defend, but not so many people who can stop me or Yerin. And they can’t move as fast as we can.”

He pointed to the images floating overhead. “These are attack points that a sympathetic Monarch helped Dross identify.”

[A Monarch who shall remain nameless,] Dross said before he coughed out a mouthful of leaves.

“The Monarchs can predict the future. We can’t. I can hide us with the Void Icon, but this will be a shifting situation. Since it is our intentions that influence Fate, we will each pick our targets separately, and not inform the other until the last moment.”

Lindon intentionally didn’t look at one particular destination floating in the air. He didn’t even think about it. Dross whistled casually in his head.

Even just having it up there skirted the edge of their oath, but they could justify including the assignment in their list. They hadn’t picked it, after all. And they weren’t encouraging Yerin in any way to pick it.

Yerin scanned them with her spiritual perception, and each image contained a message from Dross highlighting the location, the prize, and the probable defenses.

Her eyes glittered, and she gave a low whistle. “Can I take all of them?”

“We’re going to try,” Lindon said with feeling. “But the fewer remaining choices we have, the easier it will be to identify us. Start with three apiece.”

Yerin clicked her tongue in disappointment and began to look through the possibilities more closely.

Lindon ignored the one Everwood assignment and scanned through. He was familiar with the targets, but he had intentionally stopped himself from thinking about them until this moment so his will didn’t touch Fate.

A jeweled castle sealed in ice at the north of the Ninecloud continent contained the plague that had been used as a weapon to strike the previous Ninecloud Monarch dead. While it had Monarch-grade defenses, they were unmanned.

The shifting desert vault of the Dragon Monarch, which hadn’t yet been plundered by Malice. The ancient Herald of the green dragons had made his home there, but it was certain to contain a dragon’s hoard.

A museum in Rosegold, defended by a Herald from House Shen, contained relics from Reigan Shen’s first collection. A low-level Abidan artifact was rumored to be among them.

Lindon coveted them all, but he had criteria beyond raw materials.

Above all, they needed two things: borrowed authority and time.

Granting power was easy, but granting stable power quickly was difficult. It had taken multiple Monarchs combining their authority to stabilize Yerin’s spirit after merging with Ruby. She may have been able to become a true Herald without it, but then her progress would have ground to a halt. She wouldn’t have been able to attempt Monarch for centuries, if ever.

Lindon understood better now why that had taken several Monarchs in concert. It wasn’t a question of power, but of compatibility. Some Icons could do things others couldn’t.

Now, Lindon had his own Void Icon, which was useful for removing obstacles and hiding things. He had the script of the Rune Queen, which manipulated time, but only in one specific way. He had the Remnant of the Blood Sage, which would be extremely useful if he could get it to cooperate.

Living will could be flexible in the exercise of authority, but items were set in their function. It wasn’t enough to just have an artifact made by a Sage; it had to be made for the purpose he needed.

So, as Yerin plucked memories from the air like fruit, Lindon skimmed his until he found the three he needed.

He kept his perception away from Yerin so he didn’t sense her assignments, and blinded himself to keep from seeing whether she was looking at the Everwood assignment.

[There are other assignments in Everwood,] Dross pointed out. [But there’s only one the Everwood assignment. Which I’m not thinking about. And neither should you! Stop listening to me!]

Lindon blocked him out and turned to Yerin. She folded her arms and grinned. She was ready.