Lindon looked up to see a dark blue cloud hanging inches over his head. He’d summoned the entire cloudship, and it had taken virtually no effort.
Of course, this was something he owned, but it was still encouraging to see his powers grow.
He flew Yerin up to the highest room in Windfall—though a good quarter of its roof was still missing—and laid her on the couch, then continued with Mercy and Ziel. He had to be most careful with Ziel, balancing him on a smaller Thousand-Mile Cloud while Orthos and Little Blue kept him stabilized.
Now that he had them in a steady, clean location, Lindon relaxed the grip he’d taken on his own heart.
As soon as he permitted it, fear sliced through him with a razor-edged chill. Any or all of them could have died while he was gone. Ziel would have died.
[It’s a miracle they held on,] Dross said, subdued. [Without the training you gave them, they would have all collapsed. And without their own hard work, of course. And their exceptional coordination, given by me.]
Lindon gave Dross a reproachful look, but the spirit shrugged. [It’s true. All instances of me worked very hard to keep them alive. It was not easy. I deserve praise.]
Lindon laid his human hand on Dross’ head. “Gratitude, Dross. How close was it?”
[Not that close. Don’t worry about it.]
“How close?”
[Not worth worrying about! Just stop worrying, take my word for it, and never ask me that question again.]
Lindon waited for an answer.
[…If the Weeping Dragon had died one second later, Ziel would be dead,] Dross finally muttered. [If it held on for five more seconds, Yerin would be dead and Mercy would be gone. If Ziel’s strike had missed the Weeping Dragon, they would all be dead. If you hadn’t dropped a Penance arrow where you did, you would be dead. The Dragon would have eaten you.]
Dross didn’t project any images of those terrible fates into Lindon’s head, but Lindon saw them anyway. His own imagination provided them.
Every sentence hammered another nail into Lindon’s heart. He had almost failed them all.
He would have to do better.
[It’s hard for me to read your thoughts when you’re like this, but I’ve still hung around here for a while. You’re thinking you shouldn’t have trained them this far. You’re planning to fight all the rest of the battles on your own.]
“I’m not.” Lindon cleared his thoughts so Dross could see them more easily, and Dross’ eye widened. “We will not stop,” Lindon said.
Eithan had descended from the heavens in search of companions. Suriel didn’t fight alone, and she had encouraged him to seek out Yerin and to fight alongside the others.
Clearly, no amount of power was worth moving forward alone.
He had chosen to believe it. So he chose to continue believing.
Dross wiped an imaginary tear from beneath his eye. [It’s every parent’s dream to see their little boy grow into such a fine young Dreadgod.]
“You’re not my parent.”
[Well, I don’t like your parents, so I choose to replace them.]
Lindon returned his attention to the three injured people in front of him and rolled up his sleeves. “I’d like to try something, but I need an isolated experiment first.”
[As usual, I’m three days ahead of you.] Dross highlighted a cut to the side of Mercy’s eye. [Flying debris. Should be simple to heal.]
Ozmanthus had mentioned that restoration should be in the purview of the Void Icon’s authority, and Lindon intuitively felt that to be true. He could reduce these wounds to nothing, essentially making it so that the injuries never happened in the first place.
Or so he thought. His previous efforts had accomplished nothing.
He focused on the cut on Mercy’s head, which wrapped around from above her eyebrow and almost reached her ear. “Begone,” Lindon commanded.
The wound vanished immediately.
It didn’t fade, as he had expected from healing. The injury ceased to be.
[Huh. That worked exactly as it was supposed to. Try these.]
Dross highlighted several small cracks along one of Mercy’s madra channels. Little Blue had soothed them with pure madra already, but clearly Mercy had stretched herself too far again.
While these injuries were self-inflicted, they carried authority from Penance and the Silent King Bow. That made them resist Lindon’s will a bit, and he pushed against them as he issued his command.
He had authority over the Penance arrow and the Bow. The cracks resisted him for a second, then vanished.
Lindon stepped back, waiting for Mercy to wake up. She didn’t. Her core didn’t refill either, nor did her soulfire, though they should have been depleted by the same action that wounded her channels in the first place.
Dross happily explained Lindon’s own thoughts, but Lindon didn’t listen. It was against the nature of the Void Icon to add. It was, inherently, the power to subtract. To remove.
Some problems would have to heal on their own.
With that, Lindon turned to Ziel. His wounds were like a combination of Mercy’s and Yerin’s. He had not only strained his body and spirit to their limits, but he had taken a beating while doing so.
These wounds took more of Lindon’s concentration to erase, but soon Ziel was healed. There were no complications from Lindon’s working—at least, none that Lindon or Dross could find—and Ziel’s breath came more easily.
Orthos and Little Blue stepped away from him in relief.
Then Lindon turned to Yerin. His worry had lessened quite a bit. Not only was Yerin sturdier than Ziel, but the healing had gone so well that he had few doubts of his ability to restore her.
Though she looked terrible. She was covered in so many burns, cuts, and bruises that he could hardly see her skin, and while many of them had begun to fill in with silver-red madra, many had not.
“Begone,” Lindon commanded her wounds.
His willpower strained and reality twisted, but none of her injuries disappeared. The working passed with no effect.
Upon closer examination, he understood. The Weeping Dragon had attacked her with the full force of its will. It had caused them intentionally and directly.
To heal them, Lindon would have to exert effort greater than what the Dreadgod had spent.
[Hold back,] Dross advised. [What’s a night of sleep to Yerin? She’ll heal these on her own.]
Lindon scraped together his already-strained mind. He set aside his concerns about his own fate and invited the Void Icon closer.
“Be not.”
[Yeah, no, that’s a good point. Why listen to me?] Dross muttered.
By the time Yerin’s wounds had lessened and her breath rose and fell evenly, Lindon was covered in sweat and his own breaths were ragged. In terms of his willpower, he’d traded another series of blows with the Weeping Dragon after the fight was over. And he hadn’t even restored her fully; Yerin had her own healing to do.
But given what Lindon had Consumed from the Dreadgod’s corpse, it was still a worthwhile trade.
All three were asleep now, and even Orthos and Little Blue had gone off to rest. Little Blue was very excited about the prospect of having a human-sized bed all to herself.
Which left Lindon to consider his other problems.
He opened the Soulforge and entered, carrying the shards of Yerin’s broken sword with him. Dross drifted after him.
[I can hear what you’re thinking, and it’s a bad idea. You know it’s a bad idea, because I’m using your memories to tell.]
Lindon laid the shards of Netherclaw onto the silver altar at the center of the Soulforge and considered trying the same thing on the sword that he’d done to the injured outside.
[I knew you were thinking that. It won’t work. You know it won’t work. It’s completely broken. That would be like reviving the dead.]