Reaper(Cradle #10)(23)

Then the bush shook, and Lindon saw Orthos emerge.

At about the level of Lindon’s ankle.

Orthos snapped up a bee that had crawled along the ground too close to his mouth. “Don’t give me that look. My spirit is as strong as ever.”

Lindon knew that. If it hadn’t been, he would have sensed the change immediately.

But now Orthos was the size of an ordinary turtle. Maybe a baby one. Lindon was having trouble reconciling the sight, but Little Blue wasn’t.

She gave a flute’s whistle of pure joy and leaped off Lindon’s shoulder. When she landed in front of Orthos, she chattered about how happy she was to see him and threw her arms around his shell.

Orthos spat out a mouthful of insect. “Stop it! You’ll get burned!”

But Little Blue was sturdier than she had ever been, and the glowing red plates of Orthos’ shell didn’t harm her at all.

Lindon knelt, though he didn’t need to get any closer for a clear view. He was starting to feel like he was the awkward one for being so tall. “Did something go wrong with the soulfire?”

Orthos snorted smoke. “I told the Golds everything was fine. We’re going into the labyrinth, aren’t we? Well, now I can fit anywhere. You’re the one who might get stuck.”

He lifted his chin proudly, as though being less than a foot long was his life’s greatest accomplishment.

Little Blue sat cross-legged on top of his shell, the ocean blue madra of her dress draping over his sides. She chittered about how he should stay this size all the time.

“What happened to your voice?” Lindon asked.

“Nothing,” Orthos rumbled.

“That’s what concerns me.” Shouldn’t Orthos’ voice be higher pitched? Or at least fainter.

Orthos raised his head proudly. “I have a wonderful voice. I see no reason to change it.”

Little Blue peeped her agreement.

Lindon tried and discarded a number of responses. He eventually settled on “As long as you’re happy. We can get you some more soulfire whenever you want to change back.”

“It won’t be soon,” Orthos assured him. “Transformation is exhausting. And you can keep me in your void key while we’re flying, so I won’t feel it. Let’s get going.”

Orthos began marching back toward the fleet of cloudships as Little Blue rode happily along.

Lindon straightened to join them. He was a little worried about his stride, though Orthos could use the Burning Cloak. He’d keep up.

But no sooner had Lindon taken one step than he heard a deep clearing of a throat behind him.

“Carry me,” Orthos demanded.

“Are you sure? I thought you would consider it…demeaning.”

“If you had a shell, I’d ride on it. You owe me.”

That was true, and it wasn’t as though Lindon found it embarrassing. The thought of carrying Orthos was just very, very odd. Like him carrying a horse on his shoulders to market. He was strong enough to lift a horse easily, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t look strange.

He lifted Orthos, cradling the turtle in his arm, but Little Blue protested. She patted her own shoulder.

“On my shoulder?” Lindon asked.

She chimed once in agreement, scrambling over to his right shoulder and taking her usual seat.

Orthos didn’t object, so Lindon settled him on his left shoulder. He was a little worried that the turtle would wobble off, but claws gouged into Lindon’s skin as Orthos got a grip.

That wasn’t enough to puncture an Overlord’s skin, so Lindon merely waited until Orthos stopped wiggling around.

“Comfortable?” Lindon asked.

“Better than flying. Next time, I’ll try sitting on your head.”

Lindon walked back to Windfall, feeling very peculiar. He was also certain that, if Dross were around, he would have joined the other two. If Lindon wasn’t careful, he was going to end up with some sort of reputation as a Sage who kept tiny pets.

Unless, he thought, he had such a reputation already.

Lindon shuddered.





Below the deck of one of the larger cloudships, Jai Long swept his spear through Kelsa’s torso.

Her body vanished, the Forged illusion dispersing into essence of dreams and light. The aura around him trembled, and his sight wavered; for a moment, his vision started to flip upside-down.

With a flex of soulfire, he burst the incomplete Ruler technique and whipped the butt of his spear toward Kelsa’s throat.

She held up her hands in defeat before collapsing onto the deck. Wei Shi Kelsa was tall and broad, if not so large as her younger brother. She had enough reach to be a match for him with her own training spear, if only she were advanced enough to do it.

Now she panted in exhaustion, covered in sweat from a hard day’s training. He pulled his spear back, grounding it against the deck.

For him, this level of sparring counted as a break.

“Gratitude,” Kelsa said between breaths. “I still can’t…switch techniques.”

“Not quickly enough. Any of my teachers would have recommended focused technique training.”

By repeating one technique over and over, and practicing it under many different conditions, one could greatly improve their mastery of a technique. It tended to help those struggling to unleash their techniques more efficiently.