Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (32)

She didn’t understand the danger. But of course she didn’t.

Lindon bowed to the two of them. “Once again, I do apologize for my intrusion.”

Kelsa mumbled something, which wasn’t usual for her—she tended to speak boldly and directly. Jai Long remained quiet as Lindon walked out the door and back onto the streets of Serpent’s Grave.

The Underlord caught up with him only moments later.

“Forgive me,” Jai Long said, as Lindon stepped off into the shadow of a building to get away from the crowd. Jai Long bowed almost all the way down to his waist. “We did not intend to keep our relationship a secret.”

Lindon sighed. “And what is your relationship?”

“I…we’re…not sure yet.” Jai Long coughed. “But I know that I have treated you badly, and I would understand if you held a grudge—”

“I don’t,” Lindon said.

Jai Long nodded with a serious expression. “I know. When you returned as powerful as you are, I was prepared to die.”

“I would have killed you,” Lindon said, “if I was like you.”

Jai Long paled.

Lindon held anger in his chest, but he didn’t let it speak for him. He kept it in a tight grip, and he used its heat as fuel. “I am grateful for what you have done for my family. But I do not look favorably on those who keep Coppers imprisoned as slave labor, or who kill Jades in their beds over a blood feud.”

Jai Long’s back straightened. “I will take responsibility for my actions.”

“I don’t want that person in my sect, and I don’t want that person in my family.” He looked deeper into Jai Long. “Is that who you are?”

Jai Long couldn’t hold Lindon’s gaze. “I don’t know.”

“Decide. And tell Kelsa what you’ve done.”

“I tried. She said she didn’t need to know.”

“That sounds like an easy problem for an Underlord to overcome.” Lindon removed the veil around his spirit. He didn’t particularly increase the pressure, but Jai Long found it harder to breathe. Lindon took a step forward until he loomed over Jai Long.

He wasn’t much taller than the Jai Underlord, but he loomed nonetheless.

With white fingers, he tapped the Twin Star emblem on Jai Long’s outer robe. “However you decide, remember that I will take anything you do while wearing that symbol as though it is done in my name. And you will answer to me for it. Tell me now if anything I have said is unclear to you.”

Jai Long dropped to one knee. “No, honored Sage.”

“I am glad.” Lindon restored his veil and offered Jai Long a hand up. His left hand.

Hesitantly, the Underlord took it, and Lindon pulled him to his feet. “Now, I think you have training to return to. Apologies once again for my disturbance.”

Dross drifted up from Lindon’s spirit. The dark purple spirit didn’t say anything, but pointed to his one eye and then to Jai Long.

Jai Long shuddered.





5





The stone door in the Ancestor’s Tomb opened as Lindon approached, and he strode for the inner door at the hall’s end.

[Do not worry,] Dross whispered, [I see that this is the perfect time for you to spend some time alone with Yerin. I would leave you alone…if she were here.]

“I could go get her,” Ziel suggested.

“I asked you here for a reason,” Lindon assured him. He, Dross, and Ziel walked into the labyrinth side-by-side, and soon they were surrounded by ancient stone walls filled with unbreakable authority.

Lindon merged his mind with his surrounding, feeling the labyrinth’s weight of significance like an anvil pressing down on the world. This place was ancient beyond knowing, and it had had many owners and guardians before him. Just as it would likely have many after him.

He focused, guiding the weight where he wanted it to go rather than wrestling with it. “Move,” he ordered.

The walls blurred around them, the exits from the stone room vanishing.

“This would have been handy last time,” Ziel observed.

“There are many restrictions to it, and I haven’t figured out the patterns fully yet.” Lindon could order the labyrinth to move things in its range fairly easily, but navigating the halls themselves remained just as confusing. Perhaps more so, though Dross had unraveled some of the patterns.

The halls couldn’t leave them in impossible positions, like splitting a room in half or stretching it across multiple locations, and couldn’t seal the visitors in any chamber with no exits for very long. Lindon didn’t need to learn all the possible alignments the rooms could make, but he wanted to at least become familiar with the rules.

Every time they went anywhere, Dross paid close attention. He hoped that soon, Dross would complete a clear picture of this place.

The walls stopped blurring, revealing another long hallway of small wooden doors. This one hadn’t been as thoroughly raided, and he quickly found the weapon he was looking for: a spear of pure white hunger madra, etched with scripts to funnel the madra into the person attacking.

Subject One would have been unable to reach the weapon, restricted as he was to the lower half of the labyrinth, but Lindon merely opened the door and grabbed the spear.