As he stepped through the door, he saw Mercy in the section of the room that functioned as a kitchen. She was putting a bowl down and wiping her mouth with the back of one black-gloved hand.
At least Mercy’s presence solved the mystery of how they’d gotten in. Her room connected to his and Pride’s.
Mercy no longer wore the elaborate costume and makeup that represented the Akura faction, instead settling for a simple set of black-and-white robes. She melted in clear sympathy when he walked through the door, but her eyes moved to the other person in the room.
Yerin stood against the opposite wall, stiff as a board.
She had been fiddling with a gem-like dream tablet before he had come in, and her fingers froze around it. Her other hand gripped the hilt of her master’s sword at her waist, and she stared at him with eyes wide.
Lindon had spent much of the last two hours figuring out what to say to Yerin, but he knew what the first thing had to be. He gave her the most genuine smile he could muster.
“Congratulations, Uncrowned.”
She started to answer his smile, but her expression became complicated, and her mouth worked as she struggled with her words.
Which was all right with him, because he had more. He bowed to her.
“And please accept my apologies. I made you wait too long. I am honored to have felt your full power.” He tapped his ribs and added, “Right through the chest.”
Finally, her smile broke through like the sun breaking through clouds. She tossed the dream tablet behind her, accidentally launching it so hard it cracked one of the overhead beams.
She had crossed the room in an instant and was gripping his arms in both her hands. “It was amazing, true? I’m down to one thin scale and shakier than a drunken sailor, but I had one more move in me. And you! Making up your own techniques without me!”
She sounded delighted, not offended, which relieved him.
“You didn’t tell me about your master’s sword,” he pointed out.
Yerin ran a hand across the hilt of her weapon. “I thought my heart would pop when I used it. Was sure you’d thought of it.”
She tightened her grip on his arm. “And you, you’re scarier than a tiger at midnight, aren’t you? Blocking dragon’s breath is a chore and a half, when if I slip one inch I’m cored like an apple.”
“She has been talking like this,” Eithan said, “for the last two hours.”
Mercy threw a spoon at him, which he snatched out of the air without looking. “Give them a minute!” she insisted.
Yerin glared at Eithan. “You too stingy to lend me five seconds to celebrate?”
“On the contrary. I thought Lindon might enjoy himself more if he knew you were this excited while he was gone.”
Eithan was right. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Yerin so clearly happy.
It went a long way toward easing the pain of losing. He’d kept that disappointment at bay by focusing on immediate problems, like Northstrider.
Which reminded him of the reasons he’d been trying to find his friends in the first place.
“Wait! Apologies, but I need a moment of your time.”
He hadn’t yet told them about Sha Miara.
At first, he hadn’t been sure that she was really a Monarch. Could Monarchs restrict themselves down as far as Underlord? Maybe she was just someone with the same name.
But little things had kept adding up.
The Monarch meeting tonight had finally convinced him, but that brought him to the second reason why he had said nothing: he didn’t want to offend a Monarch.
He had heard repeatedly about the Monarch ability to hear their name spoken. He still didn’t fully understand it—Monarchs were figures of myths and legends, so surely there were too many people talking about them all over the world to pay attention to everyone—but he still didn’t want to refer to Sha Miara as anything other than a competitor.
What if the Ninecloud Court forced him to tell how he had seen through their Monarch’s disguise?
As the other three looked at him curiously, Lindon spoke aloud for their benefit. “Dross. Show them.”
[Right! I’ll show them. I’ll show them right now. Tell me again which—]
Suriel’s visit, Dross, Lindon added silently.
It was painfully awkward facing down Eithan and Yerin and Mercy’s inquisitive stares while he waited for Dross to project the right memory, and he couldn’t help but think how much more impressive it would have been if Dross had done as ordered immediately.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t warned Dross about this. They should have practiced.
[Got it!] Dross said triumphantly, and Lindon’s room melted away to show the Ninecloud audience hall. Just as he remembered it from Suriel’s vision, it was packed with richly dressed people of every description.
It wasn’t a perfect depiction of reality. Many of the details were vague, as they had faded in Lindon’s mind, and most of the faces were blurred as though they were seen through smudged glass.
He could see Yerin, Eithan, and Mercy clearly. Dross had left them where they were, changing the image of the rest of the room to match the memory. None of them expressed much surprise at being taken inside a projection—they all had enough experience with dream tablets and similar constructs.
Lindon looked eagerly to one side. Suriel would be clear, he knew. He remembered every detail of her perfectly.
“Luminous Queen Sha Leiala,” a woman’s voice said. “Path of Celestial Radiance.”
In the center of the hall, a rainbow cloud descended and a bright light shone, but he was staring in confusion at the woman who had spoken.
It wasn’t Suriel.
She resembled the heavenly messenger in many ways. She wore white, but instead of the smooth, almost liquid armor of the Abidan, she was dressed in a white-and-silver coat, shirt, and long skirt.
Her hair was more brown than dark green, and it hung naturally behind her. Her purple eyes made her look like a member of the Akura clan, and she spoke while stretching her neck and wincing. There was a bend to her nose as though she’d broken it at one point.
And she hadn’t really been the one who introduced Sha Miara and her Path. It had been the gray ghost on her shoulder, which was now missing.
“Tomorrow, an enemy nation is predicted to attack her city,” the Suriel imitator went on. “Sha Leiala will strike down their cloudships with one sweep of her sword.”
“Stop it, Dross,” Lindon said, and he couldn’t keep some heat from his voice.
The vision froze.
[You know, it’s hard enough projecting to three people, and holding it all in place doesn’t make it any easier.]
Lindon waved a hand around them. “I don’t need you to change things. Show them my memory.”
Color bled from the Ninecloud audience hall, then the vision vanished completely. They were back in his room, and Dross appeared in front of Lindon.
[Um…you’re not shouting at me, but it feels like you want to shout at me, and I don’t understand why.]
Dross often misunderstood Lindon or toyed with him, but this felt different. He sounded honestly baffled.
“I wanted you to show them the memory as it is. Why are you changing things?”
Dross’ mouth hung open for a second. [I didn’t change anything. That’s exactly how you remember it.]
For a long moment, those words made no sense to Lindon.
[If you’re worried about the blurring, that’s how memory works. The best way to get a pristine memory is to use a construct to record it as it’s happening. I could sharpen the faces of the crowd, but I’d be making it up myself, so they’d probably all end up looking like Eithan.]
“Good choice!” Eithan called.
Lindon stepped away, holding Dross in his Remnant hand. It was easier to grip him with that than with his left hand.
“Dross…that was how you see my memory?”
[Reproduced exactly!] Dross said proudly.