Underlord (Cradle #6)(106)

Fallen Leaf elders wouldn't lower themselves to personally hunt for a thief, so this man wouldn't be Jade. Probably Iron, like her. She would have a chance to fight her way free.

But she couldn't afford to antagonize another School. As it was, if caught, she wouldn't be killed on sight. Instead, they would turn her over to Heaven's Glory.

Which might be worse.

The Fallen Leaf guard raised his lantern as a signal and called out a greeting. She flinched at his sudden voice, but he was looking past her hiding spot. Behind her.

Another green light approached from within the forest.

She had to move.

Slowly, so slow that it was agonizing, she inched out of the bush, sliding the bag of fruit along with her. While the guards were focused on one another, she could slip away.

If she opened her Copper sight, she could have seen the haze of dream aura around their heads. She was a Ruler on the Path of the White Fox, and could send them a distraction.

But then they would know for sure she was around. For the time being, it would be better to slip out unnoticed.

Her spirit shivered.

It was a Jade's spiritual sense. She'd been scanned.

The scan felt like a curtain of icy water passing over her, and the shock was so sudden that her body jerked. Her elbow snagged on the edge of the bush, which shook like a squirrel had passed beneath. In the quiet night of the grove, she might as well have rung a gong.

The two Fallen Leaf guards turned toward her.

Kelsa bolted.

She ran all-out, bag slung over her shoulder. Fear brought every detail of the run into focus, from the harsh scrape of her breath to the pounding of her feet on the earth. The Fallen Leaf guards raised a cry and sent up a signal as soon as they saw her, running after her.

She was tall, with long limbs, and she ran as part of her daily training. She would be able to outrun most other Irons, as long as none of them were an Enforcer.

A quick glance behind her showed her that the heavens had abandoned her. A young Fallen Leaf woman with an iron badge had cast aside her lantern, dashing after Kelsa with coils of green light around her legs. An Enforcer technique. She would catch up in seconds.

Kelsa kept a grip on her rising panic, forcing her breath into the right patterns, twisting her White Fox madra into a technique.

When the sound of footsteps grew close, Kelsa turned again, reaching out with her madra to the aura around the woman's mind. The Fox Dream settled around her head like a cage.

The Fallen Leaf woman slid to a halt, eyes wide, glancing around her. The specific illusion was born from the target's mind, so Kelsa could only vaguely shape what she would see. In this case, Kelsa didn't care what it was; anything that would attract the guard's attention was good enough.

In that opening, Kelsa started running again.

By now, she could hear cries coming from all over the grove, see sparks of green moving through the shadows. She would have to dodge all of these Irons and Coppers to escape Fallen Leaf territory, but that wouldn't be the end. She couldn't lead them directly back to her camp, so she'd have to run in the wrong direction to lay a false trail, then hide out for the rest of the night.

She gripped the bag of fruit as though it contained goldsteel treasures. Even if she had to crouch in a wet, freezing ditch for another day, it had been worth it. She had food.

So long as she escaped with her life.

Kelsa looked quickly for the largest stretch of shadows. Wherever she could see a gap, she'd take it.

The shadows were deepest to her left, so she dove into them, cycling her madra to her limbs and urging them to move faster and faster. A dull red light rose up from the darkness in front of her, but it wasn't green—at the very least, this wasn't Fallen Leaf madra.

Still, she altered her course to run around it. The guards weren't the only threats out here. Wild beasts, Remnants, and rogue sacred artists wandered the Valley, each presenting their own kind of threat.

Last fall, two young outsiders had torn through the Heaven’s Glory School, breaking their way into Sacred Valley. They were still at large somewhere, hiding just as she was. If she ran into them, she would fare even worse than the Heaven’s Glory Jades had.

It was best to avoid anything unknown.

A bulky shadow stepped out of the trees, cutting her off.

It looked like a mound the size of three horses side-by-side, glowing dull red and giving off a haze of smoke. She staggered as she tried to turn away at the last second, catching herself against a tree.

Two eyes, like circles of red in the darkness, moved toward her. A voice like rumbling earth said, “Wei Shi Kelsa?”

Kelsa jerked to a stop at the sound of her name.

“Took me long enough to find you,” he grumbled, “but a dragon does not give up.” Kelsa heard crunching. When she focused, she could see that this creature had leaned down and snapped up a tree branch. It chewed and swallowed a moment later.

Now the beast stepped forward, and she could see it in the light of Samara's Ring, paler and brighter than moonlight.

It was a turtle.

Kelsa gathered up her madra again. It must have been the Heaven's Glory School who had sent the sacred beast to hunt her. He hadn't attacked her yet, but that only meant he was under orders to take her alive.

“I am called Orthos,” the turtle said. “I come from your brother Lindon.”

Her madra trembled, her technique dissipating. She was still tense, her body telling her to run, but she also couldn't move.