Mercy smiled. “Now, Akura Charity owes me a favor. She owns the Night Wheel Valley, and the vault itself. She might not give me the treasures, but if I took them, she would look the other way. It would be a nice consolation prize for being forced to leave.”
“Too shaky,” said a large, bearded man with a hammer on either hip. The stormcloud hanging over his head reminded Lindon of Renfei’s Path of the Cloud Hammer. “No offense to you, Akura, but we cannot rob a Sage based on your judgment of a relative's possible actions. What if you are wrong and she kills us all?”
“Oh, she knows who is responsible,” Mercy said, waving a hand. “The punishment would fall on me, not you.”
She had treated his concern too lightly, Lindon could feel it in the room. They didn't believe her, thought she wasn't taking the situation seriously. It didn't help that she lurched in place a moment later, steadying herself against the wall.
“I think we can do it,” Saeya said, leaning forward. “All at once. Scouts show that the Kingdom isn't holding our portal tightly. They're concentrated on the center of the Valley, where the aura is thickest. We punch through, everything we've got, and seize the vault. Where is it?”
“Even better news!” Mercy said. “It's slightly closer to us! Just outside the southern walls of the house.”
The room went silent as they all pictured the imposing Akura nightmare fortress that had taken over an entire mountain.
Naru Saeya leaned back.
But her older brother spoke up. “This could be done,” the Emperor said. “They have only one Overlord, and he cannot come alone. It will take them time to gather their forces. At our maximum speed, we could be in and out in two hours. Long before they can gather enough strength to challenge us.”
He laced his fingers together. “However, we will not act without the Sage's permission. With her mediation, even if we fail, we will only be sent home in shame rather than annihilated. And only with her approval can we be sure we will not face her wrath, even in victory.”
Mercy shrugged. “Then ask her.”
Her eyes rose up to the corner of the room.
Everyone in the room turned. There, in the high ceilings, waited a silver-and-purple owl that none of them had seen.
Naru Huan stood and bowed. “The Emperor of the Blackflame Empire greets the Sage of the Silver Heart,” he said.
Seeing the Emperor doing so, everyone else in the room except for Mercy stood and bowed as well.
“This is how she monitors the battlefield,” Mercy said. “She has seen and heard everything. If she allows us to move forward, then she approves.”
The owl gave a soft rustle, like wind through leaves.
The gray-skinned Kotai Underlord, an old man with a stone gauntlet for a hand, snorted. “How could we be sure this is really—”
The owl turned its eyes on him. There was a flare of dream aura, tightly concentrated, and the Underlord's eyes went out of focus for a second.
When his consciousness returned, he trembled, pressing one giant fist against one normal-sized one and bowing deeply. “I apologize for questioning the Sage.”
There were a number of questions directed at Mercy, which she answered as she could, but the tone of the room had shifted. The Underlords were gathering themselves. Lindon could feel their spirit slowly turning. None of them had liked retreating and waiting around either, and now they were restless for the chance to return to battle.
Finally, Naru Saeya slapped a hand down on the table and stood up. “What time do we leave?”
~~~
All the Lords, Ladies, and high-ranking Truegolds of the Seishen Kingdom had been gathered on top of their castle in the Night Wheel Valley. The roof had been turned into a celebration banquet, and even the gloom of the Valley was dispersed by shining scripts, lights, music, and soaring bird-Remnants of every color.
Seishen Daji, Kiro’s little brother, stood on a platform of Forged madra that lifted him above all the others. He wore traditional robes of Seishen royalty, which were plated to give the impression of armor, and a silver crown gleamed on his head. He looked out over the crowd with a triumphant, arrogant expression.
And he did nothing to restrict his spirit, which pulsed with the power of a newly minted Underlord.
The other important members of the Seishen Kingdom were taking turns standing up to lavish the second prince with praise, whereupon he would respond with either false humility or praise in return. With every word, Daji puffed up further, shooting the occasional glance at his father. King Dakata stood to the side of his son’s stage, the very picture of pride.
Kiro leaned against the wall, out of the center of attention, watching.
A hand gently brushed his back. “Are you not feeling well?” Meira asked, a hint of panic in her eyes. She set aside the bowl of food in her right hand, beginning to conjure life madra.
“I’ve been fine for weeks,” Kiro assured her. She had healed the stab wound in his back instantly, and the Kingdom healers had given him far more medicine than he could possibly have needed.
He had passed out during the healing process, and later found that his father had been furious. Meira might have been executed, if she hadn’t been even more distraught than King Dakata himself. He had been forced to personally restrain her to keep her from diving through the Blackflame Empire portal and attacking all on her own.
Instead of picking her bowl back up, Meira chewed on her thumbnail, her gaze growing distant and empty. “We could demand her as our prize,” she said. “The Sage would give us one sword artist.”
“We won’t see her again,” Kiro assured her. As far as he was concerned, that was a good thing. The young woman with the sword and blood techniques scared him as much as Lindon did. He had been skeptical of his father’s plan to drive the Blackflame Empire away, but if it had prevented those two from becoming Underlords, then it had been worthwhile.
Meira finally picked her food back up and started eating, tearing into her food as though it had personally offended her. She was disappointed that they wouldn’t get a chance for revenge; she and Daji were alike in certain ways.
Suddenly, the colorful lights and the music dimmed, as though the shadows of the Night Wheel Valley had crept inwards.
The woman who had been giving a speech about Daji froze, her drink raised. Conversation died, and Kiro couldn’t tell if it had happened naturally, or if the shadow was dampening sound.
King Dakata stepped forward, unleashing the spirit of an Overlord, but the shadows deepened in front of him. They melted together and rose into a lump of darkness.
Akura Charity stepped out of the dark, face-to-face with the Seishen King.
Hurriedly, Kiro and everyone else there swept into a bow. Charity looked Dakata up and down, then turned her attention to Daji. He had bowed only reluctantly, with a clearly resentful look on his face.
The Sage of the Silver Heart raised her delicate hands in front of her and, after a long pause, clapped exactly three times. The sounds echoed through the silence.
“Congratulations to the Seishen Kingdom,” Charity said. “It seems you have benefited greatly from my garden.”
King Dakata had already withdrawn his spirit, controlling his madra. He recovered quickly from his surprise, laughing loudly. “Of course, of course! How could any land of the Sage’s be less than extraordinary? There were a few pests, but not to worry—we drove them out for you.”
He laughed even louder at that. A handful of brave souls joined him.
Charity looked out over the crowd. “Hm. Bold of you, to drive them out as you did. You pushed at the edges of my command for restraint.”
Her words were completely calm, but Kiro thought his father was about to start sweating nervously.
“We were very careful not to do anything that might weaken fellow servants of the Akura clan,” King Dakata assured her. It was strange to see him taking such a submissive stance, like seeing a tiger acting like a lapdog. “But we knew bold action was necessary to grasp the victory.”