Unsouled (Cradle Book 1) (11 page)

Her long hair drifted around her, luminescent green and shining against the darkness of space. She toned it down to a deep shade of jade barely distinguishable from black, then focused on her eyes. Her irises had expanded to take up most of the sclera, marked with a ring of symbols that a few people on the planet below might recognize as script. They were tools to help her see the flow of fate, but they might advance the development of Cradle scripting beyond acceptable limits. Her eyes burned as though she’d pressed them against red-hot iron, but she endured, altering them to a roughly natural shape in a matter of seconds. They were still large and purple, but they looked human enough.

Suriel’s will flickered to the Presence, which acknowledged her command. [Plotting course to the fated violation. Destination: the Sacred Valley. Distance: one hundred sixty-two thousand kilometers. Engaging route].

In a streak of blue, Suriel took off.

Chapter 7

Once the sling came off Lindon’s broken arm, he redoubled his training. The Seven-Year Festival raced closer, looming over him, and he resented every minute of rest that might cost him his chance to read a Path manual.

He still intended to find his own way in the sacred arts, as Elder Whisper had told him, but he didn’t know enough yet. He needed to research the Path of the White Fox, and once he did…well, maybe he would find that it fit him. Maybe he wouldn’t need to explore a new Path at all.

He spent the mornings in the Shi family courtyard with Kelsa, where her beating him counted as training. Afternoons belonged to the archive, and he spent that time studying the other technique manuals to which he was allowed access. He never found anything else as perfectly suited for him as the Empty Palm, but he studied the theories. In the evening, he cycled.

The cycling technique in the Heart manual was intended to prepare him for splitting his core, which he never expected to need. Still, it was also a technique meant to improve pure madra manipulation, and thus a better match for him than the Wei clan’s Foundation technique. So he continued to use it.

The orus fruit treasure had long vanished, its power incorporated into his own, and he no longer felt the tingling lightning in his core. He felt no stronger, but his results spoke for themselves: he could practice with Kelsa for hours, using the Empty Palm ten or twelve times, before he gave in to fatigue. And that was due to his sister’s relentless beatings more than spiritual exhaustion.

Three days before the Festival, only a few hours before noon, Lindon spotted an opening in his sister’s stance. He took it, driving an Empty Palm at her belly.

She knocked his wrist wide, stepping in to put a fist into his side…and froze, her elbow cocked back, loose strands of hair drifting in front of her face. Her eyes were fixed on something behind him, beyond him, and he knew at once something was wrong.

“Kelsa?” he asked, taking a careful step back. She didn’t respond, and if he couldn’t hear her breaths, he wouldn’t have known whether she was still alive. In fact, she was still breathing in rhythm according to her Foundation technique.

Her eyes still glazed over, she folded up and sat on the grass. Her hands rested on her lap, her breathing deepened, and tiny balls of foxfire began to dance in the air around her.

When Lindon realized what was happening, he ran for his parents.

He found them together, outside their house, his father cleaning a boar as his mother did something similar to a Remnant. A bucket of bloody guts sat next to a scripted basin containing loops of light and color. Claws of Forged madra slowly fizzed into nonexistence next to slabs of meat leaking blood.

Lindon skidded to a halt in the yard. “Kelsa’s advancing to Iron,” he announced, then he ran back the other direction.

His mother overtook him in seconds and his father wasn’t far behind her, hobbling on his cane faster than Lindon could run. They both reached Kelsa before he did.

Sweat already soaked her training robes, plastering her hair to her neck. Her breath came in labored gasps, and each exhale was tinged with White Fox madra. Phantom images danced in the vital aura around her, complete with sounds; half-formed, unrecognizable ghosts that screamed, laughed, growled, and muttered as they were born of dreams and light.

White Fox madra swirled around her in a cyclone of illusion and color. Purple and white predominated, but every color flickered through, like bright-scaled fish flitting in and out of the light. Purple sparks twisted in the air, cast off Kelsa as though from a bonfire.

Nearby, the underbrush rustled, and a snowfox peeked its snout out to watch. It was young—only one tail trailed behind it in the bushes—but it was still drawn to the madra it sensed was so similar to its own. According to legend, the first Wei Patriarch’s ascension to Jade had drawn snowfoxes from all over Sacred Valley in a pilgrimage that lasted three days.

Kelsa’s eyes drifted closed and then snapped open, blazing with purple-edged light. All around her, vague dreams bloomed from the earth like squirming flowers.

“Second stage,” his mother noted, scribbling as she watched.

“She might be as fast as I was,” Jaran said, a proud smile on his twisted lips. “Copper to Iron in less than an hour, and no worse for it.”

“Then we should prepare for the third stage,” Seisha said.

“Prepare?”

“Not us,” she said, with a significant glance at Lindon. “You should leave, son.”

Lindon rarely defied his parents, but this was an exceptional chance. He’d never seen anyone advance to Iron before, and this was his sister. “I’d learn more if I stayed to the end.”

“Too dangerous,” Jaran said, hobbling over to take him by the arm.

Then a ripple of purple-white madra pulsed out from Kelsa, and Lindon learned what his father meant.

White Fox Forgers used the Fox Mirror technique to create illusionary copies of exact appearance but no real substance; some built false walls, or hid in fake trees, or adopted the clothes of their enemies. Legend said the Patriarch could create a twin of himself as indistinguishable as his own reflection.

Enforcers kept their madra close, even inside, and White Fox Enforcers deceived their opponents by hiding their steps or subtle movements in a skill called the Foxtail. Their punches looked slightly longer than they were, their steps shorter, their motions faster, their reactions slower. In battle, where victory or defeat could ride on the accuracy of split-second judgments, Enforcers of the Wei clan could be the most frustrating enemies.

Strikers cast their madra out to use on others, and White Fox Strikers learned to manipulate foxfire. They could make a target feel like he was burning to death, or illuminate a target with a spark only they could see, or cloud an enemy’s vision with phantom lights. The Striker technique was considered the weakest in the Path of the White Fox, but nonetheless it had certain advantages. Foxfire did no real damage, but it did inflict pain, and its purple-and-white flames could not be extinguished.

Rulers worked differently. Rather than manipulating their own madra, they used their madra as a catalyst to control vital aura. As for Rulers on the Path of the White Fox, they directed aura of light and dreams to trap their enemies in a Fox Dream.

As Kelsa’s power flew out of control, Lindon’s vision fuzzed as though every surface crawled with ants. One of the nearby bushes seized the ground with one branch and hauled itself out of the earth, its exposed roots trailing dirt. It scooted toward him, pale blue cloudbells bobbing. Shadows giggled and whispered, flinching away when his gaze moved to them. They scuttled away in shy groups to spy on him from another angle.

One of the clouds dipped down from the sky to look him in the eye, until his vision was filled with cottony white. Once it was pleased with whatever it saw in him, the cloud left on its merry journey.

He recoiled after a single glance at his parents’ faces. The scar at the side of his father’s lip expanded until the man’s face was only one giant mass of tissue, pale and puckered. His mother’s eyes glowed, and every word dropped from her lips with the weight of heaven’s decree. The earth shook as she spoke, and Lindon clapped his hands over his ears.

When the earth righted itself, he found that he was curled up fifty feet away from where he’d started, and his hands weren’t over his ears at all. They were contorted into claws, and his wrists were firmly pinned against his chest by his father.

“You won’t tear your eyes out now, will you?” Jaran asked.

Lindon shook his head, too afraid to say anything. He had hated the times when Kelsa injected her madra into him, but she hadn’t ignited any vital aura then. His delusions had been much more detailed this time, like an utterly convincing dream. Last time, shapes and colors had lurched around until he couldn’t tell where anything was, but this time…he had seen a plant uproot itself in full color, and now the cloudbell bush sat planted as solidly as ever.

“Even you can develop a defense against this sort of thing,” Seisha said, though most of her attention was on her daughter. “Your spirit has supreme control inside your own body.”

Lindon was very interested in learning more about that, but for now, one thing mattered more. “How is she?”

It wasn’t common, but there was always the possibility of disaster during advancement. When someone was interrupted while advancing, or tried to advance during a fight, or used elixirs to force an advancement early, they could end up facing a backlash. Their madra could turn against them, killing them or removing their ability to practice the sacred arts.

In that case, Kelsa might be no better than an Unsouled.

Seisha leaned over her daughter, brown hair falling into the girl’s face, and cast a clinical eye over her body. Kelsa was now lying in a heap on the grass, sweat-soaked but breathing evenly. She was streaked with grit like black mud, which gave off a stench that burned Lindon’s nose from yards away. Advancing to Iron refined the body, expelling impurities. Seisha pressed two fingers to the girl’s throat, and then to her core.

Kelsa groaned, stirring.

“Did you do it?” Jaran asked, leaning over her.

In response, Kelsa reached out and gripped a young sapling with one hand. In one simple movement of her thumb, she snapped it in half.

“Call the elders and break out the wine,” Seisha said. “The Wei clan has a new Iron.”

The same night, the clan turned out for a celebration in honor of Wei Shi Kelsa. Even some guests from the other two clans and four Schools were in attendance, having arrived early for the Festival. The Patriarch presented her with her new badge in front of all the gathered families, and the First Elder gave her a polished case containing a trio of valuable elixirs. They represented a significant expense for the clan, but the wise gambler bet on the fastest horse. Resources went to strengthen those who were already strong, not to bring up the weak.

It was the way life worked, and Lindon had no cause to complain. He might as well complain that the heavens hadn’t given him a stronger soul. Instead, he looked forward. His sister was ready for the Seven-Year Festival, and now it was his turn.

***

That night, Lindon stuffed a shovel into his pack and prepared to cheat.

The Wei hosted the Festival this year, an honor and a responsibility that increased the pressure on their families to perform well. As a result, the clan’s Enforcers had been working for over a year to construct a brand-new arena in which to display the contests.

The arena was circular and made almost entirely of orus wood, with one huge script etched around the inside to prevent power from spilling over into the audience. The seats were tiered in layers and separated by clan colors—purple and white for the Wei clan, green and gray for the Li clan, and brown and red for the Kazan. One higher box would contain guests from the four Schools, separating them from the common rabble outside.

The stage itself was a square of pure white stone a hundred yards to a side, divided in eight sections by lines in the floor. The Foundation children would use all the sections at once, with eight fights simultaneously until the number of participants was reduced. The Coppers would use a quarter of the stage each, the Irons half, and any pair of Jades who decided to settle a grudge or demonstrate their skill for the younger generation would have the whole stage to themselves.

Outside the arena were four polished wooden columns, each ringed in script and topped by Forged snowfoxes. These five-tailed white foxes, each an almost exact copy of Elder Whisper, paced on their columns or yawned or licked their paws just as live sacred beasts would have. They would be indistinguishable from life to every sense except touch, which explained why they were elevated so far above the ground.

If not quite famous in the Wei clan, Lindon was at least known, and the guards allowed him inside on the pretext that he was checking a script for his mother. She had led the work on the four foxes, for which she was expecting a reward from the Patriarch.

Under the protection of his mother’s name, Lindon had a thorough look around, inspecting the stage, the columns, the seats, and especially the ground inside the arena.

Then he walked into the woods.

He carried a spirit-map with him—his mother’s analysis of the local Remnants—and there were a few around here that might cooperate. When he reached a likely spot, he knelt down and scratched a script circle in the dirt around him. His skill as a scriptor had improved since he was a child, but only to the point where he wouldn’t embarrass his mother by laying a simple layer of protection. At least, not while he was copying it from a book.

Mount Samara loomed over the Wei clan to the east, lit by the massive halo of white light that they called Samara’s ring. It glowed brighter than the moon, casting all of Sacred Valley in white, but the depths of the forest were still bathed in shadow. He had expected to use Samara’s ring for enough light to read, but he had come prepared nonetheless, pulling a candle and a striker out of his pack.

Seconds later, he squinted at his mother’s scripting guide by candlelight. He could have used the scripted light in his pack, but he wanted his madra fresh to deal with the Remnant. He smoothed out one symbol, correcting another, brushing pebbles and twigs aside to keep each rune as close to the guide as possible. After satisfying himself that the circle was at least as secure as he could make it, he sat cross-legged at the center, book on one side and candle on the other.