Underlord (Cradle #6)(45)

A death skull waited in front of him, and a blooming flower teeming with life behind.

In one quick inhalation, he pulled on the vital aura link between him and the treasures, reducing them all to ash.

And leaving behind a wisp of colorless flame that drifted into his soulspace.

Dross' mantra changed accordingly. [Soulfire is vital aura distilled. It is the power of the world condensed.] Lindon had never asked where Dross found this chant, but the spirit obviously hadn't made it up. It flowed too naturally and made too much sense.

[Feel how it resonates with everything around you, drawing you closer to nature. Now, follow that sensation back into yourself, deep into your soul. Into your mind. Now, tell me why....why do you practice the sacred arts?]

“To protect people,” Lindon and Yerin said at the same time.

Lindon braced himself, straining to detect any change in the soulfire inside him or the aura outside.

What was supposed to happen was a transformative resonance. Lindon's personal revelation would connect him to his own spirit, and the soulfire would carry that resonance to the outside world. For reasons he still didn't understand, that would draw on the aura to fuel his soulfire and burn away his old body and spirit, leaving him reborn as an Underlord.

The more soulfire he had inside him, the easier it was to trigger the resonance. Many potential Underlords, Eithan had told them, found their true revelation but failed to realize it because they hadn't gathered enough soulfire.

And the strength of the aura around them played a factor too. It was easier to connect to the unity of aura the thicker the vital aura was, and it made the actual advancement process faster and safer. Since the aura around here was a hundred times stronger than in the Blackflame Empire, it was a hundred times easier to cycle and to feel the unity of aura.

In fact, there had been many breakthroughs in the Blackflame Empire camp. Hundreds—maybe thousands—of Highgolds had broken through to Truegold, and Lindon had heard half a dozen stories of advancements to Underlord. None of them young enough for the competition.

But more importantly to Lindon, none of them were him.

He shot to his feet, stomping through the ashes left from his natural treasures. “This is ridiculous. I know why I started practicing the sacred arts. This is why.” He and Yerin had even tried different phrases for the same thing:

To protect those closest to me.

To protect those who can’t protect themselves.

To protect friends and family.

None of it worked. For either of them. Yerin had run down a few very different paths:

So I can do what I want.

To get revenge.

Because I enjoy it.

To get stronger.

…and she had sensed nothing. Still, for a change, she seemed perfectly content to take her time. It was Lindon who paced and shouted in frustration at the end of every day’s attempt.

[Maybe it’s because my voice isn’t soothing enough,] Dross suggested. [Do you think I should try for a motherly voice?]

Mercy hopped down from a nearby tree, where she had been watching over them. “I found it very soothing!”

With all the shadow aura around, Mercy had broken through to Highgold two weeks before. They had celebrated with her, but Lindon didn’t understand why she wasn’t Truegold yet. For that matter, he still didn’t understand why she had rejected the Heaven’s Drop. She gave up most of the natural treasures she gathered to Lindon and Yerin to fuel their soulfire, guarded them while they practiced sensing the unity of aura, and asked for nothing for herself.

It was starting to get on Lindon’s nerves.

Something tapped Lindon on the shoulder, and he turned to see nothing there. Wind aura.

Yerin sat ten feet away, still with her legs crossed. She wouldn’t be able to infuse her techniques with soulfire until she advanced, but she could still manipulate aura. A little. She was much better at it than Lindon was, perhaps because of her years of practicing a Ruler technique.

“I had a thought to try again,” Yerin said. “You aiming to give it another go?”

“Not right now.” At the moment, he thought he was just as likely to set fire to everything around him as to sense anything. “Do you need Dross?”

“I don’t suspect I do.”

Lindon nodded and strode off. He needed a break. At least when you were cycling aura, there was no chance of failure. Trying to trigger his advancement felt like rolling the dice day after day and getting nothing but losses.

He walked into the forest to catch his breath.

He knew it was Orthos leaving that had gotten him so worked up. He was short with Mercy and Yerin, he quit his cycling early, and he wanted nothing more than a good fight to clear his head.

Even Eithan was gone—either working for the Arelius family or for the Emperor. As an Underlord, he got called away every once in a while to serve the Empire in the fight against the Seishen Kingdom. The fight that Lindon still hadn’t seen.

He walked further into the shadows before Dross said, [Hang on. Do you hear that?]

Lindon stopped moving and strained his ears, but the Night Wheel Valley was always full of rustling.

[It’s your armor!] Dross said. [The communications construct. I’ll boost it, no problem.]

There was a moment of silence.

[Never mind, that makes it quieter. I’ll translate. Um, this is an emergency message for any Skysworn, ah, they’re under attack, there are some muffled screams, a few pleas for help, and then a lot of sobbing. Not much to go on, really.]