For a massive, black reptile with a shell that smoldered with dragonfire, he didn't have much of a spine. Even now, he glanced from side to side with his black-and-red eyes wide. “We're not on the ground yet?” he demanded in a deep, rumbling voice. “We were supposed to land. Why haven't we landed?”
Cassias turned around, his hand reaching into his pocket. Beneath his outer robe, he wore a shirt and pants, which still looked strange to Yerin in a fight. Everyone she knew fought in either a sacred artist's robes or armor.
“I apologize, Orthos,” Cassias said. “I should have given you your medicine already.”
Orthos shifted from one leg to another like a wobbly stool, his eyes flicking from one window to another, staring at the clouds. “We're not...it's not...why are we so high? Hm? Why do we have to be all the way up here?”
Cassias held out a violet pill streaked with blue. “Take your medicine, Orthos. It won't be long now. We're on approach. When you wake up, you'll be with Lindon.”
“He was weak,” Orthos mumbled, stretching out his head to snap up the pill in Cassias' hand. “So weak. He's probably dead. I'll be going back to the way...I was...”
In seconds, he drifted off, withdrawing his head and his limbs into his shell. Now there was a great black mound in the center of their living room, smoke drifting up from him as though from a dying fire.
“He's cheerier than a ray of sunshine,” Yerin said. She'd already heard about Lindon's bout of weakness following his duel, but Orthos admitted that he might feel the same way if Lindon had died. He'd never felt a contractor's death before. He thought Lindon's madra had recovered since, but he couldn't be sure—maybe he was just getting used to the sensation.
So she couldn't shake a little worry. Not enough to distract her, of course, but some.
“Well, at least the pills still work,” Cassias said, eyeing Orthos' sleeping form. “They've kept his madra quiet as well, even when he's awake.”
“He hasn't torn the house apart. That's a prize and a half, if you ask me.”
Cassias turned back to the console. “That was our last pill, so we'll have to rely on Eithan and Lindon for the trip back. One breath of dragon’s fire, and we'll hit the ground like a meteor.”
He had angled the house down slightly, so that the cloud was now drifting toward the temple at the top of the mountain. She walked up to stand beside him.
“That it?”
“Eithan's down there,” Cassias confirmed. “I believe I saw some Remnant parts set out in a room as well, so Fisher Gesha must have set up.”
That, or some Remnants died in a cave. And she noticed he didn't say a word about Lindon, one way or another.
She turned to go find a seat—she'd learned it was best to be sitting during a landing. As she did, she felt a surge of power miles away to the south, the opposite direction of the mountain. Only a few miles, and it gave off the familiar feeling of blood madra.
At least it wasn't any closer. A sudden battle between experts could be like an earthquake in a ceramics shop. Maybe that fight would—
Her Blood Shadow unraveled.
That quickly, the knot tied behind her slipped free. The seal her master had left for her was gone. No warning.
Her belt loosened, uncoiling like a serpent.
No time to panic. She dropped to the floor with Orthos' heat behind her, focusing on her spirit. A bloody red light was already stretching deep into her, its roots questing for the silver light of her core. She pushed her madra through its cycles, her breath coming too fast, silver light forcing back the red.
It wanted to slither inside. Infect her.
And her master's protection was gone.
The thought made her breath come even faster, but she calmed herself before she lost control over her madra, pushing back, forcing the Blood Shadow to retreat. She was a Highgold now, and it hadn't quite caught up yet. She was still ahead of it. She could still keep herself under control.
Something shifted on her waist, and she snapped her eyes open.
The Shadow reached for Cassias.
It stretched out from her like a questing limb, the end of its blood-covered length splitting into fingers. A hand. It was actually reaching for Cassias now, its fingers grasping for the back of his head. Its fingertips were sharp as knives—shaped by her sword madra.
She croaked out some kind of warning, but it was hard to talk while every part of her was straining to hold back her uninvited guest. She even seized it with both hands, trying to pull it back, but it dragged her seated body a few inches across the floor.
The parasite's knife-edged hand closed on Cassias' golden curls.
And without turning around, he slid away.
With one punch, he drove a spike of silver madra from his fist and into the center of the crimson palm. Blood madra spattered on the ceiling and then dissolved into essence with a hiss.
Yerin was still trying to push out her warning, sweat streaming down her face, but she finally closed her mouth. An Arelius might as well have eyes in the back of his head.
The Shadow moved again, a blur of red, and Cassias stood his ground. Both of his hands struck, blasting pieces away from the Blood Shadow.
But when the exchange ended, there was a scratch on his arm. It oozed a single drop of blood.
“Get away,” she managed to grunt out, hauling on her uninvited guest. “Blood!”
Cassias looked from her to the parasite and dashed back without asking questions, but the drop had already fallen to the ground.
The Blood Shadow fell on it like a hawk taking a fish, slapping its palm down on the droplet on the floor. Blood aura and madra flared, twisting with one another into a horrible and complex technique, even as the parasite relaxed. It retreated, allowing her to haul it back a few feet.
She knew why. She had seen this technique before.
It had destroyed her home.
As though that single drop of blood had been a seed, a creature sprouted in seconds. It was a doll of pure crimson, formed as though from solid blood, shaped like a man but only half the height. It had no features on its head, but it turned to Cassias like a hunting dog. It loped toward him, using its arms for balance, like an ape.
Her master had called them bloodspawn, and they were the stuff of her nightmares.
She shouted a warning to him, still hauling on her Shadow. Cassias kicked off, away from the console, a flash of silver driving a hole in the floorboards. His Silver Step technique brought him forward with such speed that he vanished, reappearing behind his opponent. He slashed his hand back, trailing silver light, passing through the bloodspawn's head.
Its head was blasted apart, but it was made of ooze. It latched onto him, grabbing him by both shoulders and across the chest.
Each bloodspawn was different, but this one had been grown by a Shadow that fed on her madra. She knew what would happen next, but it still caught her off-guard with its speed.
It sharpened into a forest of blades, like it had sprouted razors.
Cassias let out a sound like a grunt, soaked in his own blood in an instant. The bloodspawn dissolved, having poured its own power into the technique, but the wounds remained. His shirt was shredded, and a stain slowly spread over his chest. He staggered, even as a sheet of blood fell from his wounded scalp and covered his eyes like a waterfall.
He looked up to the window, where the mountain temple had grown huge in his sights. He stumbled to the controls, leaving a bloody handprint on them, starting to level off their flight.