Unsouled (Cradle Book 1) (8 page)

She looked at him but kept her book open, so he didn’t remove the light. “It wasn’t until early this morning that I noticed the changes. Tell me, does your light seem brighter than usual to you?”

Lindon flipped the light over and examined it himself. It was almost impossible to tell how bright it was, especially compared to a memory. “Perhaps a little?”

“Keep watching until you can see a difference.”

Lindon knew his sister was headed somewhere with this, and he would exhaust himself eventually. He kept the light ignited, staring into it, looking for the slightest difference in illumination. He noticed nothing.

Finally, she told him he could stop. “How do you feel?” she asked him.

“Absolutely ordinary.”

“Yet you burned the light for fifty-two seconds, and you could have kept going. How long could you do it before?”

Unlike the brightness question, he could answer this one. “Thirty seconds, at most.” He had used this board to light his way while diving in the river, so he knew exactly how long he could keep it lit. But he must be wrong. When he sensed his core, he didn’t
feel
any stronger. “Are you sure you counted properly?”

She snapped the technique manual closed, wearing a pleased look. “The fruit’s madra integrates so smoothly with our own that we don’t notice. Yesterday I was Copper, and today I’m on the verge of condensing Iron, but I don’t feel any different. And yesterday, you wouldn’t be able to use the Empty Palm more than once without passing out.”

Lindon’s breaths were coming more quickly, and the flowers in the garden suddenly smelled almost painfully sweet. “What about now?”

She adopted a low stance, balanced and firmly planted, prepared to be hit. “How should I know? Now, disciple, Empty Palm!”

This time, Lindon snapped into action as he would for a real sacred arts master. He stepped forward and pivoted at the hips, launching a palm strike at his sister’s stomach. Synced with his madra, it should have driven energy through her core like a steel spike, but it splashed like a cup of water instead.

“One gust, not a breeze!” Kelsa barked. “Again!”

His head was already light and his limbs weak, but he tried until he passed out. When he woke, he tried again.

***

Four days later, the most prominent families of the Wei clan gathered once more before the Hall of Elders at the break of dawn. A few industrious sacred artists sat cross-legged in the courtyard, cycling in the first light of dawn. Everyone else stood, eager to watch the show. If something went wrong, an honored family might fall from grace today.

The Mon family waited on one side of a cleared space, Eri in front. She hopped in place, practicing attacks on an invisible opponent. Her scowl said she was looking to kill. Keth stood over his daughter, arms folded, scanning the crowd for the Shi family. Which was why Lindon had shown up together with his family. Kelsa and his father walked beside him, while his mother kept up as best she could while taking notes.

The First Elder stood on the stairs of the Hall, as he had before, but this time his brow was furrowed in a frown that seemed carved into his wrinkled face. “This is a duel for honor, and so it may continue. But any wounds to the young are wounds to our clan, so I must ask if there is any other way for the offended parties to resolve this.”

Eri executed a series of punches that veered ominously low. “No other way!” she declared.

Before his training with Kelsa, Lindon would have agreed with her. He’d seen no other way out. But while practicing the Empty Palm, he’d been struck by an idea.

A terrible idea.

He bowed toward the Mon family, bending over his wounded arm. “Honorable head of the Mon family, this one has a request.”

Keth straightened his back, responding to Lindon’s humble speech. “I will not release you from the duel.”

Lindon could probably appeal to the First Elder on the basis of his injury, and at least ensure a little more time. But there was an opportunity here, and if he let his own crippling weakness get in the way of opportunity, he’d never achieve anything. “This one would dare not ask so much. Instead, this one wishes to challenge another member of your family.”

Eri’s mouth dropped open in a comic show of disappointment, and she turned to her father as though to ask if he could
possibly
allow this. Keth, for his part, worked his jaw as though chewing the idea over. His eyes roamed to his fur-clad son, Teris, who still sat gingerly after his whipping. “Which would you challenge?” Keth finally asked.

Lindon met the eyes of this grown man more than twice his age, this fighter legendary for his unflinching courage in combat. “I challenge Wei Mon Keth.”

He had somewhat expected gasps from the surrounding families, or at least derisive laughter, but the crowd reacted with utter silence. A Foundation artist challenging an Iron wasn’t interesting gossip, it was like an infant trying to bite a tiger.

Copper souls could process vital aura, giving them a supply of madra that was both more expansive and more effective. But a quick or clever Foundation child could overcome that disadvantage. An Iron body was a quantitative difference; compared to Copper or below, Irons were superhuman.

Wei Mon Keth looked as though he’d lost what little respect he might once have had for Lindon, but he didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand. “Explain.”

“This one must prove his courage, as must your son, Teris.” A dark cloud passed across Teris’ face at even the indirect mention of his cowardice, but Lindon plowed ahead. “However, the opponent Teris faced was many levels higher than he. It seems only fair that this one should face an adversary as exalted.”

This time, a quiet murmur did ripple through the crowd. Lindon and his sister had spent two days making sure their argument was sensible enough that those gathered would have no choice but to take it seriously.

Within his sleeves, Lindon clenched his fists. He was close to the outcome he wanted, but he needed Keth to agree.

The head of the Mon family rubbed his short beard with two fingers. “This is a better way to demonstrate courage. What terms would you accept?”

Traditionally, the challenged would set the terms, which meant Keth would have been within his rights to set a fight with no restrictions and then knock Lindon onto the peak of the nearest mountain. But the other families would have looked down on him for abusing his power against a junior, so he took the honorable course and allowed Lindon to define the fight.

Which was Lindon’s only hope.

“One strike each, if it pleases you. First, you take one strike from this one without defense or resistance. Then you strike me in turn. The first to lose his footing is defeated.”

Keth’s brow furrowed. “You would be wise to set different terms.”

There was precedent for a duel like this, if not one so hilariously out of balance. Jade elders had once exchanged pointers one blow at a time, with the more confident party agreeing to take the first hit.
 

But this was supposed to look like Lindon was throwing himself on Keth’s mercy, and he had to hope that the Mon family head would see that. “This one hopes you might hold back when you strike, but at least this one may show that he is not afraid to take a blow.”

At last, Keth’s face lightened as he understood. Lindon was giving him a chance to administer a punishment equal to Teris’, humiliate Lindon publicly, and remind people of his own strength in one blow. As long as he didn’t kill Lindon, he would be seen as both strong and merciful, and he would only gain in reputation.

“You’re clever,” Keth said with a nod. “You show courage. I agree.”

That was it. The rules of the game were set, all his cards played. He almost couldn’t believe that it had gone so easily. He moved away from his family as though he drifted forward in a dream, opposing Wei Mon Keth across the open space in the center of the courtyard. He kept expecting someone from the Mon family to object, but none made a sound.

As the First Elder ordered them to face one another, Lindon’s heart pounded on the inside of his ribs. This was his chance. His first real chance since he was seven years old. It had been a long time coming.

So why did it feel too soon?

“If none object…” the elder said, almost hopefully. No one did, and the dawn air froze. The First Elder straightened his back, sweeping his hand to present the challengers. “Then may this duel begin!”

Lindon faced Wei Mon Keth, who stood taller even than he was, and twice as wide. The man seemed to take up more of the horizon than Yoma Mountain, looming over Lindon and blotting out the rising sun.

The older man’s arms fell to his sides, leaving his slate-gray robes completely undefended. “The first blow is yours,” he said. He didn’t even brace himself, as Kelsa had done. And why should he? With all of Lindon’s strength, he wouldn’t be able to tip over an Iron balanced on one foot.

Lindon stepped in, preparing his attack, cycling energy through his limbs to keep them under his control. He felt as though they would shake away from his body.

He cocked his upper body, drawing back for a palm strike. As he did, he focused his madra at the base of his palm, as he’d practiced. One pulse, like a gust of wind, but focused like an iron spike.

At the Copper level, this part of the process would be quick and simpler than breathing. His madra would have been dense and powerful. As it was, Lindon had to focus his entire strength on his palm for three breaths of time as he prepared. It was slow, it was clumsy, and it would never work against a prepared opponent.

But he wasn’t facing a prepared opponent.

The Empty Palm landed accurately, just below Keth’s navel, along with an invisible thorn that he drove like a hammer driving a nail. Lindon felt his own madra snapping into the man’s core, sensed the shiver of feedback that ran through the spiritual lines that crossed his body like veins.

Keth trembled and looked at Lindon in shock, but he didn’t stagger backwards as Lindon had hoped. He hadn’t taken a single step.

Panic shook Lindon even more than the Empty Palm shook Keth. His Empty Palm had been
perfect…
but if Keth didn’t lose his footing, it wouldn’t matter. Lindon would have to take a blow from an Iron Striker who knew that he’d been tricked. If Wei Mon Keth caved in Lindon’s rib cage with a fist, he would face no more than a fine.

“What have you—” Keth began, but Lindon followed up with a second attack driven by all the raw-nerved terrified desperation in his soul. This one wasn’t guided by any technique or sacred art; it was nothing more than an ordinary punch to the gut. Every observer in the crowd would know how useless it was. He would have a better chance punching an iron plate than an Iron practitioner.

Pain echoed up Lindon’s knuckles and reached his shoulder as though he really had punched a metal plate, but Keth’s breath whooshed out of his lungs. He clutched his stomach and took two steps backward, his legs shaking as he tried to stop himself from going to his knees.

Except for Kelsa and Lindon, every single other person present drew in a sharp gasp. It sounded like a ghost passing over the crowd.

Before anyone could speak, Lindon bowed to his still-staggering opponent.

“This one thanks you for your instruction,” he rushed out. “You are the victor.”

Then he scurried back to his family.

He didn’t need to win, after all. He only needed to save face. And while he may have been able to endure an attack from an Iron sacred artist who adhered to the honorable rules of a duel, he would never survive a blow from an enraged Iron with blood in his heart.

“Stand where you are, Unsouled!”
Keth roared, and the shout was driven with all the force of his madra and fury. He straightened, which meant he’d recovered his spirit from the disruption of the Empty Palm. During Lindon’s tests with Kelsa, it only took her four or five breaths to recover, so it wasn’t surprising that someone at the Iron stage would be even faster.

Power gathered around Keth’s fist until it was visible, warping the air in a haze that reminded Lindon of the attack Teris had used to fell the ancestral tree. “I owe you a strike.”

His imagination provided him with an image of his body cracking in half as easily as that tree had, his bones snapping like dry branches. He was relying on someone to intervene on his behalf. His life was in the hands of the crowd, and for a long second, they were all silent. Even his father, Jaran, stared at him in confusion, still too shocked by the events of the duel to do anything to help.

To Lindon’s relief, the First Elder stepped between him and the Mon family head, his long eyebrows and wispy beard flowing in the morning wind. “Wei Shi Lindon has surrendered. The duel is over, and you are the victor. Congratulations.”

Lindon let out a heavy breath, and the sudden rush of relief stole his strength. He half-expected to collapse onto the stone at that instant.

Even the First Elder’s harshest critic could not have found a trace of mockery in his words, but Keth turned to him in a fury. “He cheated! He violated the terms of the duel by striking
twice,
in a deliberate attempt to humiliate me!”

“For which he deserved to lose,” the elder reminded him. “As he admitted his loss.”

Keth drew up in absolute rage, swelling to seemingly twice his size. “He conspired to ruin my dignity as an Iron!”

Jaran’s laughter was high and scornful as he hobbled his way forward, leaning on his cane. He’d finally overcome his confusion to side with his son…or at least against an old rival. “Whatever trick a mouse uses, it cannot defeat a lion. If Lindon decided to charge you with a spear, what is that to you? His strength should never have been able to harm you, no matter how he cheated. A
true
warrior of the Iron stage would not be shaken by a child’s punch.”

Lindon winced and pushed back further into the crowd. He had more or less expected Keth’s reaction, but he hadn’t anticipated his father making everything worse.

His sister caught him by the shoulder as he tried to sneak by. “Well done,” she whispered. She moved in front of him, ready to defend him at need.