Underlord (Cradle #6)(78)

But the hourglass was running down, and Lindon couldn’t think of anything else to do. How could he push someone else toward a personal revelation?

Mercy waved good-bye and headed off to the Emperor—she was to be the native guide on this expedition. And, Cassias informed them, Eithan and Naru Saeya were serving as navigators.

Lindon glanced around to where he’d last seen Eithan and instead found the Arelius Underlord standing not three feet away, grinning at him.

Startled, Lindon took an involuntary step back.

Eithan reached into his robe, withdrawing an object with a flourish: a smoky orb a little smaller than a man’s head. Shapes seemed to eddy and shift in its misty depths.

The Archstone.

Lindon could feel a resonance with the hunger madra in his arm, as though they longed to reunite.

The Truegolds around them exclaimed, parting to create an open space around Eithan, and the binding wasn’t even activated.

“You have no idea the things I had to do to procure this for you, my beloved disciple,” Eithan announced clearly, so that the entire crowd could hear. “The indignities I had to suffer, the depths of depravity to which I had to sink.”

Lindon reached out to take it, but Eithan pulled back.

“Truly,” he cried, “the heavens must have wept the day they created a man of such generosity, such selfless spirit, as your master! Please, do not weep! Instead, take this gift and know that I would gift thee with my very beating heart should you request it.”

With that, he bowed low, extending both hands and offering Lindon the Archstone.

The Underlords at the front of the ship, no doubt used to Eithan, shook their heads and returned to their conversations. The Truegolds clearly had no clue how to respond. Some of them applauded. A few looked curiously at Lindon. He spotted Bai Rou against the railing, his yellow eyes burning beneath his wide straw hat. It was hard to tell, but it looked like the man was glaring at him.

Face burning, Lindon took the Archstone. He wanted to open his void key, but he couldn’t reveal its existence to this many people.

Instead, he drew it into his soulspace.

It was somewhat like devouring madra through his hunger madra arm, but when he looked within and inspected his madra, he could see the Archstone floating among his madra channels with perfect clarity. It hung above his cores, a white moon above a blue star and a dark one.

He had practiced bringing objects in and out of his soulspace ever since he’d opened it, but he hadn’t determined what to keep there. Maybe, if he ever learned to use a weapon and bonded one, he would store a sacred instrument. Or maybe he wouldn’t fill it with anything permanently, but would keep surprises in there. The Archstone counted.

“Gratitude, Eithan,” he said, trying to ignore the stares. “Please, lift your head. Really, please.”

As though he had done nothing out of the ordinary, Eithan straightened up. “I would wait to break that until you’re ready to Forge it, by the way,” he said, sweeping his long yellow hair back over one shoulder. “You don’t want the madra to lose any potency, and you never know what it will do if you break it uncontrolled.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He saluted, fists together. “And I am truly grateful.”

Eithan accepted that and said a few words to Cassias and Naru Jing. But as he turned to go back toward the Emperor, he paused as though he had forgotten something and turned back. To Yerin.

He placed a hand on her head. “Be calm, little sister,” he said quietly. “You have many years ahead of you.”

Then he spun and walked away, waving behind him as he did so.

Yerin looked as though she had seen the heavens and earth flip upside-down. Lindon moved to stand next to her.

Cassias tightened a glove. “One day, I will see him truly surprised. I think the shock of it might kill me.”

The wind picked up, swirling around them. Power gathered to the propulsion constructs in the back of the ship, until the entire vessel thrummed with palpable force.

All eyes naturally turned to the front. To the Emperor.

He had changed clothes again, and this time looked like he belonged on the battlefield. He wore green sacred artist's robes, his wings spread behind him, and he gave off the air of a warrior king. He spread his arms, and in Lindon's Copper sight, the aura around him burned a pale green.

The ship lifted up, the propulsion constructs gathering even more power. Lindon could hear them now, like spinning blades.

With one gesture of the Overlord's hand, the cloudship shot forward.

Mercy stood to his left, tethered to the deck with Chainkeeper madra. Eithan and Naru Saeya stood on his right, each peering forward.

As they blasted away from the Blackflame capital and into a column of dark power.

Yerin's face was tight, her spirit in chaos. The lowest pair of sword-arms had driven into the wood of the deck, but the others had been withdrawn. She stood with hair whipping in the wind of their passage, eyes focused on the darkness.

Lindon had knelt, letting his Remnant fingers stick into the wood and materializing them enough that he could get a grip. He held himself in place as they flew, reaching the portal in only a few breaths.

Underlord waited on the other side.

As they passed through the seemingly endless darkness, the others faded from Lindon's perception. He took the moment to steady his own breathing.