Both of Sophara’s hands rose in front of her, and a flood of liquid golden dragon’s breath obliterated one side of the arena.
It was like half of the sun had been born in an instant. Sophara was only a silhouette, dwarfed by a wall of her own madra.
The thunder was deafening. Scripted wards all around the stands stopped the heat from reaching them in the stands, but Lindon felt the spiritual force of the attack.
“Overlord,” he said aloud.
Mercy slowly shook her head, and her mouth was set in a grim line. “She’s not. She hasn’t advanced.”
“I know.” That only made it more frightening.
She had filled the attack with soulfire, but even accounting for that, the scope and force of the technique were clearly on the level of an Overlord. Though Sophara herself was still an Underlady.
What kind of madra channels did she have to be able to force out an attack like that? And so quickly? Juvari’s dream techniques didn’t have a chance to touch her.
“Victory,” the Ninecloud Soul declared, and only then did the Flowing Flame madra from Sophara taper off.
There was no sign of Juvari. A channel had been scooped out of the arena floor between Sophara and the far wall, the sand melted into streaks of red-hot glass.
Sophara turned and walked calmly back to her waiting room.
Lindon looked over to Yerin, who met his eyes with a bleak look. She shook her head.
He turned to Mercy, who rubbed her temple with madra-clad fingers. “I don’t know,” she said, in answer to his silent question. “We have to win. I just don’t know if we can.”
6
Min Shuei, the Winter Sage, had petitioned Northstrider ceaselessly all week. Every time she could track him down, she requested to be allowed to train Yerin.
He didn’t turn her down. He just ignored her.
She had quickly suspected that he was waiting for all the Uncrowned to be selected before he allowed any Sages to select students, but by that time her stubbornness had set in. If he wouldn’t allow her to persuade him with words, he would have to at least respect her persistence.
So she had followed the Monarch day and night.
When Sophara’s match concluded, finally settling the roster of the eight Uncrowned, then Min Shuei knew Northstrider could have no further excuses.
Indeed, she sensed him in his own guest tower in Ninecloud City, waiting on the highest floor. He had set no barriers to keep her out, and while he hadn’t answered his door yet, he would eventually.
She sat in the guest room outside his study. Since he had moved into the room, he had redecorated in his own style.
The guest room was a plain box painted dark gray. No decorations. By way of furniture, he allowed only three chairs for those he had summoned.
That was all.
She found it suited her image of Northstrider: plain and functional. She tried to imagine him picking out curtains or painting walls and chuckled to herself.
There was one window, but it was so high in the wall that it provided no view from the chairs. She paced the room in laps when Northstrider didn’t call for her immediately, glancing down whenever she passed the window, but the window didn’t take much of her attention.
Until she felt someone approaching.
She knew who it was even without a glimpse. She had expected him; in fact, she had thought he would interfere earlier.
When the window slid open and a man slid up the side of the building, she greeted him with her back to him and a hand on her sword.
“Red Faith,” she said.
He said nothing, so she turned.
The Blood Sage, founder of the Bleeding Phoenix’s cult, looked as though he had no blood in him at all. His skin was as pure white as his hair, which was so long that it reached down to his bare feet.
His black-and-red clothes were tight enough to reveal his skeletal frame, and lines of red paint ran down his cheeks from both eyes like tears. He perched on the windowsill, hunched like a monkey, chewing on his thumbnail and staring at her with unnerving intensity.
She felt nothing but disgust for this creature. At some point in the past, he was supposed to have been an accomplished researcher, pioneering investigation into dreadbeasts and the nature of spirits.
She couldn’t be sure how much of his intellect had survived his Blood Shadow separating from him, but now he was…the kindest word she could think of was “unstable.”
He had given up everything in his pursuits. Even his name.
“What brings you here?” she asked. There was no doubt that his reason was the same as hers.
He chewed more viciously on his nail until he drew blood.
Many Sages without significant family backing went by their title rather than their name. It was the same for her; almost everyone referred to her as the Winter Sage or the Sage of Frozen Blade.
But the Blood Sage had lost his name entirely. She wondered if he had forgotten it himself.
When a slow red rivulet ran down the edge of his thumb, Red Faith hurled a glob of blood madra at her.
The Striker technique took on the aspect of a bird, shrieking and diving at her, imbued with the will of the Bleeding Phoenix.
Her white sword split it in two.
The halves began to re-form, gathering into two smaller birds that would continue to attack, but they froze into half-shaped lumps and shattered, fuzzing away to essence.
The righteous anger she’d felt at being attacked faded as the attack did, turning to amusement. She gave him a contemptuous smile. “You almost stained the carpet.”
He returned to chewing on his thumb, but this time he was more agitated.
And while she could never know what was going through his head, this time she was prepared when his hand made a claw. All the blood aura in the room clenched, and a pain shot through her body.
Ready or not, she had little time to defend herself. He was still among the oldest of the Sages.
“Break,” he commanded, adding authority to his Ruler technique.
But she spoke at the same time. “Stop!”
Pressure came from inside and outside her body as his technique tried to crumple her into a ball. Meanwhile, he was frozen in place. A droplet of blood from his thumb hung suspended in the air.
He struggled as she did, each pushing against the other in a silent struggle. The air trembled between them.
Even vital aura was frozen by her will, so his Ruler technique couldn’t progress any further, but she still had to pit her will against his command. Otherwise reality itself would break her.
At the same time, he was having his own struggle. His whole body, including his heart and lungs, had been stopped at her word.
This wouldn’t finish either of them. They would break out of this stalemate, complete their next techniques, and then—
Their authority was overwhelmed in an instant, and they were both released.
Min Shuei glared at the Blood Sage, furious that he would attack her, but she sheathed her sword. There would be no further combat.
Red Faith evidently didn’t agree, because he threw himself at her like a wolf, an Enforcer technique already blazing on his hand and drowning the room in red light.
She spat on his forehead.
Her spittle landed, but his technique didn’t. He was locked in place by the same working she had used earlier, only this time it was backed up by greater authority than hers and greater command over blood aura than his.
Northstrider’s door slid open and he walked out, a huge muscular man in mismatched rags. Golden eyes glared at the Blood Sage. “You know better than this.”
Red Faith’s technique died out, and so did Northstrider’s restriction. The pale man fell, but he landed easily on all fours.
“People think Sages can’t be defeated by sudden attacks,” the Sage of Red Faith said quietly, “but of course they can. Was it likely? No. But no one wins a bet without taking a chance. Perhaps the Winter Sage thought she was safe in your waiting room. Perhaps she was simply slow today. If I had been successful, you would have had no other option but to allow me to tutor Yerin Arelius.”