How could there be secrets on Arelius grounds?
Eithan landed the dark blue cloud at the top of the stairs, hopping out and strolling inside without a word. After taking another few seconds to scan the premises, Cassias followed.
The room inside the temple was small and almost empty. Light streamed in from the far wall, which was made of glass—it angled slightly downward, which meant it wouldn’t gleam and reveal its presence to Lindon and Yerin. A massive script-circle was etched into the glass, taking up most of the window, and a broad table of gold and ivory spread out beneath it. Dozens of smaller scripts covered the table, which told Cassias it must be a control array of some kind. A cheap wicker chair—obviously a recent addition—gave the person manning the table a place to sit.
“What is this, Eithan?” Cassias asked wearily.
Eithan turned to face him; Cassias knew it was no accident that he was standing in the very center of the room. “Familiarize yourself with this room, because it will be your sole responsibility for the next…well, quite a while.”
Cassias ran strands of detection over the controls, as well as his spiritual perception. “This course operates independently. It doesn’t need controls.”
“While that is indeed what we have always told the imperial clan when they used this course to train their students, it is not strictly true.” He looked so pleased with himself that Cassias already missed the uncertain, vulnerable Eithan from the mountain below.
“This—” Eithan spread his hands to indicate the whole room. “—is the control center for the Blackflame Trials. The courses will run themselves, but they will not carry out detailed or advanced maneuvers. With supervision and direction, the Blackflame elders could truly test their juniors far below.”
“I am to have authority over their training?” Cassias asked. If it were up to him, neither of the children would be here: the course was too advanced for Yerin alone, and Lindon’s presence would only hinder her, if anything.
“If you would like the authority to decide between making the course slightly more difficult than usual or truly sadistic, then yes. That is entirely within your power.”
Cassias continued scanning the control circles. “And if I wanted to deactivate portions of the Trials?”
“That, happily, does not fall inside your purview. You can choose when and how to lend your power to certain constructs, or you can choose to do nothing, at which point the Trials will operate at their standard level of difficulty.
Eithan gestured, releasing some madra, and the script-circle in the glass flared. Suddenly, the view at the window showed Lindon reaching for the activation crystal with Yerin standing beside him. As though they were only feet outside.
Fascinated, Cassias ran a strand of his bloodline power through the glass. Scripts only manipulated madra; they wouldn’t be able to change the magnification of glass. Unless…
He found it only a breath after he started looking for it. A light-aspect binding intended to allow vision of faraway objects. The script merely activated it and applied its effects to the window.
That was still an incredible feat of Soulsmithing and scripting, though. How had Eithan managed to restore it? Surely a setup like this one, centuries old, would have decayed by now.
Eithan looked fondly through the glass. “It will rest upon you to test the children. Push them. Hold them in the fire and hammer them, that they might be forged.”
Cassias straightened himself, waiting for the Underlord to turn around and meet his eyes. “I will not be part of breaking members of our own family. If you adopted them only to abuse them, I will report to the branch heads and have them removed from Serpent’s Grave.”
Eithan didn’t respond, so Cassias continued.
“Besides, the Arelius cannot spare my absence. Not in times like these. The Jai clan will have free reign of our lands.”
Eithan rested a comforting hand on Cassias’ shoulder. “I go to deal with the Jai clan myself.”
That really was comforting, though Cassias didn’t say so out loud.
“In the meantime, I will make you a deal. If you manage to push Lindon and Yerin so hard that either of them gives up, I will release them from the Trials. And Lindon from his obligation to Jai Long. In that case, you will also be allowed back to your normal duties in the shortest time possible.”
Eithan beamed at him. “So you see, the most prudent and merciful course of action is really to come at them with everything you have.”
A fist clenched Cassias’ gut, but he couldn’t argue. There was a fine line between preparing the young for a harsh world and abusing them, but it shouldn’t be too hard to get them to surrender quickly. Lindon, at least. Once they did, Eithan would honor his word.
The Underlord patted the ivory table. “Now, it seems we’re in luck. They are trying the course for the first time. Let me show you how this works.”
Chapter 13
Lindon hefted the crystal ball in his palm, Blackflame madra swirling around his body, and the crystal flared with a dark, bloody light. He faced the thick forest of stone pillars as scripts ignited all through the ground.
Dark gray shapes started condensing in the shadows, like gravel pulled together by an unseen force to slowly build a larger figure. They gained definition as they formed, until they looked like statues of ancient soldiers: bulky, clad in layered armor, and carrying thick shields and swords or spears.
Three of them were almost finished forming, but there were other half-assembled shapes in the darkness behind them.
Yerin raised her sword.
Lindon bolted for the pillars.
Whether these were constructs or impossibly solid Remnants, his task remained the same. He had to keep the Burning Cloak up in order to keep the crystal active, and his Blackflame core was already on the verge of emptying itself again.
But these soldiers were taking their time to form, so what would happen if he just…skipped them?
He leaped over the first rank of soldiers, pain lancing through his ankles and calves, and the power of his jump almost carried him face-first into a pillar. He stumbled to an awkward landing but kept running, ducking around columns whenever he would run into a half-formed soldier.
It was working. The soldiers at the front formed faster than the ones behind, so he could outrun the Trial.
Even with the enhancement of the Burning Cloak, it took him five or six slow breaths to reach the end of the columns. When he did get past them, they vanished abruptly, leaving him standing in the sunlight again.
Another arch stood before him. It was a twin to the original entrance, with two exceptions.
First, the air between wasn’t clear. It was opaque and smoky, so he couldn’t see what waited beyond. Second, the paint on the support said, ‘Trial Two’ instead of ‘Trial One.’
A sense of warning shook his soul as he considered that gray area in the center of the arch, which he took as an alarm from his new Jade senses. He slowed, examining the smoke more closely. It was dense aura that sent a shiver through his rib cage.
He didn’t know what aspect of aura that was, but he could be sure of one thing: he wasn’t touching it.
Lindon scooped up a handful of gritty dirt and tossed it at the barrier between the arch. The dirt sizzled and disappeared.
He turned back to hear Yerin’s shout, the sounds of metal clashing against stone, and a roar like rocky plates grating against one another.