Like a vanishing candle-flame, Lindon’s power flickered out.
It went from such an overwhelming force to nothing so quickly that it couldn’t have been intentional. Or healthy.
Then Lindon plummeted from the sky.
The ground was shaking for miles around as the Weeping Dragon thrashed around on the landscape like a dying snake, but it wasn’t dead. Ziel felt nothing but a furious will from the Dreadgod.
And from himself.
A ring of green runes sprang up around him, made from what madra he’d managed to recover. Despite the burden it placed on his Divine Treasure, he forced out a ring of silver runes as well. Ziel launched himself toward the Weeping Dragon, and Mercy followed a second later. Yerin had shot off on her own already, but he overtook her as he flew through the air under the influence of his scripts.
Lindon had given them a chance.
Now he was going to kill a Dreadgod.
19
Orthos coughed out smoke and shoved a chunk of stone off of him with one hand.
Hand. He still wasn’t used to having one of those. A shell would have been much more useful.
The ground pitched around him like the deck of a sinking ship, and he was deafened by the cries of the Weeping Dragon. A loop of blue scales passed over them as the Dreadgod thrashed, covering them in shadow.
Orthos sensed Blue nearby and looked to her, only to see her punching her way out of the side of a cliff. Stone sprayed out and she stumbled after it, blue hair frizzy. She panted and looked around with wild eyes, but when she saw Orthos, she nodded.
They could both feel Lindon, and it wasn’t what they did feel that concerned them. It was what they couldn’t feel.
His cores were completely empty, and even the sense of his presence felt weak. He was unconscious, not dead—Orthos wasn’t sure Lindon could truly die, now that he was bound to the Dreadgods—but in every other respect he might as well have been killed.
Just as concerning, Dross had vanished from their heads.
“Do you have it?” Orthos asked.
Little Blue withdrew the tank from her soulspace. It was made entirely from spiritual components, so it could be stored inside her spirit, but Orthos worried that being inside a soulspace would affect the delicate purple orbs floating within the tank.
But they felt fine to his spiritual sense, so he opened one of his human hands. With its fingers.
“It’s time,” he said firmly.
He expected her to argue, but she had already withdrawn one for him and one for herself. He caught it, and the madra felt squishy and insubstantial at the same time, as dream spirits often did.
Orthos examined it thoroughly with his spiritual sense. He’d wanted to do this with Dross’ guidance. It would probably be best to have a Soulsmith insert this into his soul, but they had no time for that.
If his spirit broke this down for madra or dream essence, the entire project would be wasted. Lindon had used materials from the Silent King to create these, not to mention irreplaceable fuel for the time-warping Grand Oath Array. Even in the heart of an apocalyptic battle, this deserved thought.
Little Blue swallowed the orb whole.
“Don’t break it!” Orthos shouted. “Control it carefully!”
From her wide-eyed look and the way she hurriedly took control of her internal madra, he saw that she hadn’t intended to control the process at all. She was just going to see what happened.
The earth trembled around them, beneath the Weeping Dragon, as Orthos coached her to move the featureless dream-spirit through her soul. She had incredible madra control, as a Herald and a spirit of pure madra, but Orthos had many times her experience and had even worked with Lindon more directly.
Once they had the dream-spirit in place, Orthos let out a relieved breath. “That’s good. You did well. Now, let’s get these to the others. You’ll have to help them.”
She tugged the edge of his sleeve and made a questioning sound.
“We can’t hurry it along. It takes as long as it takes. Without Dross here, it might not—”
[Aaaahhh!] Dross screamed. He spun out from behind Little Blue’s neck, holding one tendril to his forehead. [How did I get here? Where’s Lindon?]
Orthos’ hand tightened involuntarily on the squishy purple orb in his palm. It was that easy. He should have swallowed the thing himself.
“You’re not the original Dross,” Orthos explained. Dross had prepared them for this.
[Yeah, I’m a copy. I get it. It’s not the existential crisis for me that you’d think.] Dross looked up at the Weeping Dragon and flinched, then shot over to Orthos. [What are you standing around for, are you not aware that we could die at any second? Pop yours in!]
Orthos nodded and opened his mouth, bringing up his own Dross copy to swallow it.
[No, no, stop! What are you doing?] He spun back to Little Blue. [Is that what you did?]
“Mmm-hmm!” She made a triumphant face.
[Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that. Give it to me. Give me to me right now.]
Orthos handed over the purple ball, which Dross grabbed and carried around to the back of Orthos’ head. There came a sharp pinprick of pain in Orthos’ spirit.
Then his senses opened up.
It was as though he hadn’t been using his eyes correctly before. Although he supposed that, technically, these human eyes were new. The world was cleaner, sharper. His thoughts moved more quickly.
Another Dross spun out from his spirit, and this time Orthos could feel him. Not in the same way he had always sensed Dross, nor even in the indirect way that he felt Lindon’s emotions. He and Dross were connected now.
[That’s it! Process complete!] the new Dross said.
[Let’s go to the others now!] said the first.
[Why are we waiting around? Is it ‘wait to die’ time and no one told me?]
[You can just start walking and we’ll take it from there.]
Orthos began to run, and Little Blue kept up with him. She made a confused sound, which he interpreted easily. It echoed his own feelings.
“How are we supposed to tell you apart?” he asked. He could sense his own connection to one Dross, but if everyone had one, it would be many times more confusing even than dealing with Yerin and Ruby had been.
[No need,] said his Dross.
[We’re the same,] said Blue’s Dross. [Think of it as me projecting myself into many bodies. I’m just doing it more efficiently, and now Lindon doesn’t have to be around for you to benefit from my infinite wisdom.]
[We were going to make blank mind-spirits for all of you, which would then grow into your own individual partners, but that would take…]
[We’re not sure. A long time. Instead, we started with a copy of me, so it’s useful immediately!]
[And here’s a bonus: when we develop our own individual personalities, they’ll all be based on mine!]
Blue’s Dross drifted in front of Orthos’ face. [I can sense you don’t think that’s a bonus. I can’t even read your mind, but I can tell.]
His own Dross crossed a second later. [I can read your mind, and I can sense it too.]
Orthos met the purple eye. “This is a thousand times better than when you spoke in death poetry.”
Both Drosses shuddered.
[Forget that. Erase it from your mind.]
[No, don’t bother, I’ll do it.]
Orthos was going to retort, but he felt something in his mind speed up. The world around him seemed to slow.
[Incoming!] Dross called. [Throw me!]
He was talking to Little Blue, who already had a copy of Dross in her hand. Orthos pulled one out of the tank as well.
He could see the trajectory he needed and knew exactly how hard to throw it. Yerin and the others were flying in so fast that Orthos doubted he could hit them accurately in mid-flight.