Underlord (Cradle #6)(13)

Its wide eyes stared straight at Lindon.

“Good-bye, Lindon!” Mercy shouted. “It was fun talking with you! I'll see you later!”

The owl continued staring at him as Mercy pushed him away.

Dross spun off his shoulder and back into his spirit. [Some consider owls to be omens of death,] Dross said. [Especially mice.]

~~~

Yerin sat in the cramped confines below the deck of the airship, a sword in her lap, cycling. The aura was thin here, and she was almost wasting her time trying to pull power from the sword, but she would accomplish even less up above.

Lindon, Mercy, and Orthos were up there, but if Yerin spent more than two breaths on the deck, she'd end up drawing swords on somebody.

A few more breaths, and the weak aura finally broke her patience. She gave up and stabbed her cycling sword into the wall, where it stuck, quivering. If she had wrapped her madra around it, the weapon might have split the wall in two.

Cycling wasn't going to do anything for her, and besides, she'd spent most of the last couple of months cycling and running through the jungle. Lindon was back, finally; she wanted to do something, not sit here alone and wait on the mercy of the Skysworn. It was like getting a taste of freedom only to be hauled back by the collar.

She fiddled with the hilt of her master's sword, restless. She wanted to be let out, to go...

To go and do what?

She wasn't sure what she wanted to do, but she couldn't sit here anymore. The fight earlier had gotten her blood flowing. And speaking of blood, her Blood Shadow was as riled up as she was, seething inside her soul. They both wanted a challenge.

She found herself thinking back to the Blackflame Trials, back in Serpent's Grave. She'd had a challenge then, something to try and overcome every day.

And she'd pushed herself forward to meet that challenge. With Lindon.

Images of the fight with the Skysworn rose up in her head. Compared to her memories of him in the Blackflame Trials, Lindon today was like an adult compared to a child. Only a month or so out of her sight, and he'd undergone a heaven-and-earth-shaking change.

He was strong now. Too strong.

He'd given her a brief outline of what had happened to him in Ghostwater, but she still wasn't sure about the details. Whatever had happened, it had rebuilt him from head to toe. And he had kept her from joining him.

She'd always hoped that he would catch up with her one day, but it had happened so fast.

Her Blood Shadow surged inside of her again, and she kept it suppressed with the strength of her madra. It still disgusted her, but it was supposed to be a ticket to great power. It hadn't done much for her so far, but maybe that was her way forward. Her personal Ghostwater.

She shook herself. It wasn’t like her to worry too much about someone else. She should focus on herself and her path to Underlord. That was certainly what Lindon was doing.

A knock at the door shook her back to reality, and she rose with Goldsign blades poised over each shoulder. A quick scan, and she knew who it was, though she was surprised to sense him here.

She felt oddly guilty as she opened the door for Lindon, as though he might somehow have heard her thoughts.

Maybe he was feeling the same way, because he wore an expression like he was smuggling weapons under his outer robe. He looked uneasy, which—on his severe face—made him look like he was plotting a murder. He ducked inside before she could say anything, glancing behind him.

He grabbed the door from her and slammed it shut, pulling a small object from his pocket: a nail. Without a word, he started scratching runes into the door.

“You kick Gwei between the legs and run, or what?” Yerin asked. It was helping her mood to see Lindon acting this way; if there had been something really wrong, she would have heard explosions. And he wouldn't have left Orthos and Mercy up there on their own. Which meant he was getting himself all worked up for something small.

Still, she was curious. Maybe it was a big problem. She could hope.

When he'd finished his script-circle, he ran some pure madra through it, and the runes erupted in light. The wood creaked at the force of the madra running through it, and some splinters flew off into the air, but Yerin's spiritual sense was suppressed.

Lindon relaxed, slipping the nail back into his pocket. “Apologies, but I think there’s an owl following me.”

He turned from the door to her, and suddenly Yerin was conscious of how small this room really was. It wasn't much of a room at all, more like a closet—she'd piled bags of uncooked rice into the corner in order to give her enough room to sit and cycle without cramping her Goldsigns. The training sword she'd jammed into the wall took up half the length of the space.

Her face was on the level of Lindon's chest, and she looked up at him, standing over her. The heat from his body filled the space, and the quiet aura radiating from his spirit was stronger than it had ever been.

He looked down, eyes intense, and her heartbeat picked up. He was the same old Lindon, but the strength in his soul made him feel older, more reliable, and somehow new, like she had taken her eyes off him for a second and he had grown up. And he was so close.

Lindon stretched his hand out, reaching for her face. She stared at the hand approaching, thoughts whirling in place. Her heart hammered harder.

But his hand moved past her, reaching the side of the wall. She turned her eyes to follow him.

A door opened in midair.