Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (63)

In that first moment, the Sage of Red Faith tilted his head to his twin and long-time opponent. He conceded the match.

Redmoon the Herald gave a fractional nod in return. A gracious victor.

But not a merciful one.

A fake expression covered Redmoon’s face: crazed anger. He bit through the skin of his knuckle in feigned outrage. “Traitor! I knew your selfish pursuits would lead you to betray us one day. If you have any conscience left within you, surrender yourself to face the punishment of the Hall!”

They both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Red Faith knew what his opposite would expect. The Sage had only one advantage over the Herald, and he would try to escape by traveling through the Way. However, if Redmoon were ready for that, he could disperse the Sage’s working.

In case he couldn’t, Redmoon had strategically placed Archlords nearby. One of them was still in the room, another in the hall outside, and two more on the deck above.

While none would be Red Faith’s opponent individually, he couldn’t overwhelm them either, and they had enough refined control over their willpower to interfere with his workings. But if he kept the fight to raw sacred arts, the Herald would always have an advantage.

His options were limited, but worst of all was doing nothing.

And he did have some preparations of his own.

From his soulspace, the Sage of Red Faith summoned a set of nine floating daggers. They appeared immediately and shot in nine different directions.

Redmoon knocked them from the air before they could kill his subordinates, but that was a moment of distraction. The Sage’s void space tore open, a ragged red hole in the world, and he pulled out a gatestone and crushed it to sapphire powder in an instant.

As the transportation began, the Herald’s will crashed down on him like a wave, anchoring him in place. Blue light shone, then faded.

The Sage allowed it; the gatestone was only a diversion. While Redmoon focused on that, Red Faith began a new transportation.

His authority was not well-suited to spatial travel, but centuries of practice had their benefits. He disappeared from the cloudship and appeared outside, on a grassy plain beneath the sun.

A hand grasped him by the back of the outer robe and hauled him back.

Red Faith knew what had happened without needing his senses to confirm. Redmoon had torn his portal back open and seized him, more quickly than the Sage had hoped.

Red Faith controlled flying daggers with his mind, driving eight of them at the Herald. One he caught with his own hand, whereupon he struck out with a Striker technique layered over an Enforcer technique.

Scarlet madra crashed into the Heralds fist and splashed around him like water crashing into a boulder.

The Blood Sage turned off his own sense of pain just in time.

Redmoon hurled him through the wall, and he crashed through room after room before slamming into the inside of the outer hull. This fortress had been constructed and scripted to endure the presence of a Dreadgod, and had recently withstood even a Monarch-level battle. The Sage of Red Faith was not capable of breaking it with his body alone.

Unfortunately, it was capable of breaking him.

His consciousness was only scattered for a moment before he initiated his own inner Enforcer technique, which knitted his bones and flesh back together.

Not in time. The Herald loomed over him, and his command of blood aura lifted Red Faith into the air.

Red Faith met the eyes of his copy and matched his will.

“Release,” the Blood Sage commanded.

For an instant, the Herald’s control of the blood aura broke, and Red Faith’s body was free again. In that fraction of a second, Red Faith dashed for the ceiling…and then he froze. The Herald had reestablished control.

The point of Red Faith’s dagger drove into the ceiling. While the outer hull was nearly impervious, the decks overhead were not. They were made of ordinary, if high-quality, wood, and that had been his chance to dig his way out.

He felt himself pulled down by blood aura, his limbs spread out as he drifted before his former Blood Shadow. Redmoon stroked his chin and examined Red Faith from every angle.

“Do you know what I will do to you?” the Herald asked curiously.

Of course he did. Exactly what the Sage himself would do were their positions reversed.

“Force me into a situation in which I have no choice but to bind myself in soul oaths, then use me as a tool to accomplish your ambitions.” It was the most practical solution.

Traditional wisdom said that soul oaths could not be coerced, but Red Faith had discovered exactly the boundary at which that restriction became vague. Compelled soul oaths were weaker, but they would be binding enough.

Redmoon nodded. “After all this time, we will be united in purpose.”

They would be.

Red Faith tried to set aside his anger, his hatred, and his bone-deep rejection of working for the purposes of another. Maybe this was the way forward. Maybe this was how he could overcome the flaw that had ruined his ascension to Monarch, so long ago.

He couldn’t do it.

He would rather toss his soul to the nameless creatures in the Void than be kept as a slave by this ghost of himself.

Any sentient individual had authority over their own body, and as a Sage tied to the Blood Icon, he had exceptional control over the flesh. The Sage of Red Faith focused his will on his own heart and began to squeeze.

As expected, Redmoon turned all his power and attention against him, but this was where he was outmatched. The Sage of Red Faith gave him a cold smile as both of them wrestled for control.