Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (85)

Now she had books and scrolls and tablets all over her table. Records of the Path of the White Fox and a few other related techniques. She had to have this lesson ready by the morning, and if it wasn’t for her own self-control, she would have put her brush down and gone to bed hours ago.

Although…

Maybe you should go to bed, a voice whispered to her. Why not? You can wake up early and finish then.

She shook her head. No, she couldn’t do that. Students from the sect were counting on her.

They’ll wait a day, the voice reasoned. Who else will care if you’re a few hours late?

Kelsa was considering that when a jolt of attention and concentration brought her fully awake. It was like a tiny lightning bolt had run into her brain, and she realized it was coming from the place on her wrist where she’d tied Lindon’s dream construct against her skin.

She looked at it, amazed. Did it have a function that improved her concentration? Lindon’s Soulsmithing really was amazing; her mother kept swinging between giddy at all the things he was teaching her and despairing as she wondered if she’d wasted her entire career.

Kelsa picked up her brush, reinvigorated, and dipped it back into ink.

Then she felt something bobbing toward her. A strange mix of powers, but one she was familiar with.

She opened her front door as Fingerling, Jai Chen’s bound spirit, floated up to it. The dragon keened and bobbed in agitation, clearly trying to alert her to something. It started jerking its head in one direction, and Kelsa got the hint to follow.

The night was dark, though there seemed to be more people awake than usual at this time. White lights shone through windows here and there, and that itself was a little strange. Rune-lights were usually many different colors, but these seemed identical.

Even the dream aura, which was thick in any city, felt…odd, tonight. But not in any way she could put her finger on.

Kelsa’s tail lashed faster, and this time she didn’t stop it.

Fingerling led her down to another part of the Twin Star Sect’s land. A section she was well familiar with.

When she heard Jai Chen’s raised voice, Kelsa broke into a run.

“…calm down!” Jai Chen was shouting. “I’m getting help. Can you hear me?”

Jai Chen’s hair was unbound and messy, and she wore a loose robe, like she’d been awakened suddenly. She held her hands out to her brother, urging him to stay put, but she didn’t seem willing to touch him.

Jai Long knelt in the street outside the home he shared with his sister. His body shook unsteadily, and if it weren’t for the spear he held in his right hand, Kelsa thought he might topple over. Blue light spilled from his newly healed jaw, and the scripted cloth was missing from around his forehead.

In its place, he had Forged a circle that hovered over his head, shedding bright white light on the whole scene.

Sickness rose in Kelsa’s throat and she came to a stop. Her own hands were unsteady, and her tail quivered.

“Jai Long…?”

Part of her wanted to run up, to ask him what was wrong. But she remembered the construct on her wrist, and she wondered if the technique it had just broken was the same one floating over Jai Long’s head.

Fingerling flew around Jai Chen, and both of them were in clear distress. Jai Chen looked to Kelsa with tears in her eyes. “He…he woke up screaming.”

Kelsa snapped herself out of it. This wasn’t time to wait around.

With one hand, she started untying the knot that held Lindon’s construct to her wrist. With the other, she guided aura of light and dreams.

Kelsa used the Fox Dream. The Ruler technique seized the dream aura around Jai Long and invaded him. It was designed to create distracting illusions, and she was skilled enough to guide those distractions in the directions she wished. Tonight, she didn’t care what she showed him. She just wanted to break the technique that was already on him.

Her technique settled around his head…and broke like rotten thread.

The halo around his head flared brighter. It didn’t seem fully Forged yet, fuzzing and crackling like an unfinished technique.

Kelsa ripped the construct off her wrist the rest of the way and marched up, shoving it against the back of Jai Long’s neck.

Pinkish-purple light flared, traveling through his entire spirit in a moment. His body convulsed, he made a sound of deep pain, and the halo blurred.

Her construct overloaded and crumbled.

Jai Long sagged to the ground, hand still on his spear. The halo seemed to flicker between existence and nonexistence.

His sister fell to her knees. “Jai Long?”

Shakily, he raised his head and looked between her and Kelsa. His teeth flared blue with his one spoken word.

“Run,” Jai Long said.

Jai Chen was paralyzed by confusion, but Kelsa wasn’t.

She seized the younger girl by the collar and hauled her away as the white halo finished Forging around Jai Long’s head.

He stood up, rising to his full height, and pulled his spear back into a ready position.

Then the Underlord attacked.





15





The dream technique from the Silent King washed over Moongrave in a wave before it let up. Lindon let his Hollow Domain drop to catch himself on his Thousand-Mile Cloud.

Three spiritual perceptions passed over the city at the same time, taking stock of their forces. One was Malice’s, passing over everyone like a shadow. The second was Charity’s. Then it was Lindon’s.