Eithan nodded, but he remained silent—watching—as they blasted through the skies.
Only when Lindon could see Samara’s ring with his own eyes did Eithan let out a breath of relief. His normal self leaked back into him.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I was frightened for a while there. It seems I may have thought too much.”
“Better too much than too little. But, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, you were frightening in your own right.”
Eithan flinched. “I have heard that before. I do apologize. Take it as my reaction to…”
He trailed off. The pillar of light on the western end of Sacred Valley had returned, but now it wasn’t golden-yellow. Now it was a soft white; a color that reminded him of Samara’s ring, in fact.
That was strange, but sometimes certain aspects of madra changed color as they lost power. Still, it was better to be safe, in case someone was tinkering with the structure of Sacred Valley.
Lindon extended his perception and opened himself to the Void Icon, reaching out to the Valley. He wouldn’t be able to feel anything past the border, but he could still get a sense of the surrounding aura.
Which, he realized, was changing before his eyes.
The chaotic powers of vital aura spun like a churning sea. He traced the sensation back, expecting his senses to weaken as they approached Sacred Valley.
But they didn’t.
“Lindon, stop!” Eithan shouted.
Eithan grabbed Lindon’s shoulder and his madra flooded into Lindon’s spirit, but they were both too late. A wave of power gushed out of Sacred Valley, rushing out in all directions, sweeping over their cloudship in an instant. A pure white aura that felt to Lindon’s senses like an endless, gnawing greed for more.
Hunger aura.
Power blotted out Lindon’s senses, and he was swallowed by blinding pain.
8
Akura Malice had submerged herself in a world of silhouettes. Her World of Night technique. Shadows and dreams moved around her, vague shapes she could make out only distantly.
But they came with impressions. As she saw the outline of a woman with a staff, she wouldn’t necessarily be able to identify it with her eyes. But her spirit felt Emriss Silentborn. The Remnant Queen would be involved in her future soon.
Close by, drifting in the emptiness, she found the shadows of a ruined city. There would be a battle here, but she felt as though the battle hadn’t included her. So she would travel to this place in the aftermath of someone else’s battle.
These hints and clues were difficult to piece together, but the World of Night was the best technique Malice had to interact with Fate. In these recent years, the future had been even more obscured than usual.
She had seen no hint of the Bleeding Phoenix rising, for instance, and usually the Dreadgods were as difficult to spot as sharks crammed into a bathtub. But this made twice within half a decade that she had failed to spot one.
Someone was meddling with her perception, or with the flow of the future. Fate, as she understood it, was only a tendency for things to happen a certain way. Just as you could stop an object from falling by catching it, so you could take action to prevent certain outcomes.
Most of the time.
Malice scanned these suggestions of the future, trying to piece them together, and realized she couldn’t. Some events seemed even to contradict one another.
Something strange was going on. She had immersed herself into this world several times over the last few months, spending every ounce of her attention to try to unravel the future. She couldn’t allow herself to be caught unawares again.
Moments after thinking that, she was caught unaware.
Four shadows suddenly loomed up in her World of Night, surrounding her, like black statues that had sprouted from the ground. A bird, a shelled warrior, a tiger with a halo, and a dragon accompanied by clouds.
She didn’t need her spiritual sense to recognize the Dreadgods.
They lurked in the distance forever, threats that always existed somewhere in the world, but now they were here. Right now. Looking down on her.
And with every passing second, they grew larger.
Malice tore the technique apart and stepped back into the real world.
“Dreadgods!” she called, and while terror coursed through her soul, her voice was that of a majestic queen.
Carried by her will, those words echoed throughout Moongrave. Everyone heard as though she stood before them.
And the entire city rushed into action.
They did not panic. They had prepared for this. Shelters were opened, powerful sacred artists were awakened, emergency constructs were wheeled out of treasuries, and messages flew all throughout her territory.
Malice herself reached out to Charity, who had contacted her at almost the same time.
Her granddaughter’s voice rang in her mind. “It’s the northwest, Grandmother. Mercy’s still there.”
“Then bring her back,” Malice ordered. “And move our people into position.”
Lindon sat up with his head and spirit screaming.
He had been brought to the second floor of his house on Windfall and lain on the couch. He had never entirely lost consciousness, but he didn’t remember much. Just the blinding sight of so much hunger, washing over the land in a wave.
If he hadn’t been open to the Void Icon at the time, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but he had his aura sight and his perception and his Sage senses open wide.
Even now, he was finding it hard to focus his vision. He kept sliding between seeing double, seeing blurs, and seeing only the colored wash of aura.
A fuzzy mass of red that Lindon was sure was Yerin broke off from talking, appearing at his side in a blink. “Whoa, steady there. Don’t rock the boat. Can you drink?”
A cup was lifted to his lips, and Lindon took a sip of water. Something waved in front of his face.
“Still got your eyes? How many arms do I have?”
Lindon peered at her. “Eight.”
She chuckled, and so did Eithan, who was apparently still in the room. They must have thought he was making a joke about her sword-arms, but he really saw four of her, each with a pair of hazy human arms.
“You’ll be fine after some rest,” Eithan assured him. “You were looking right at the field when it dropped.”
That spiked Lindon’s alarm. “The suppression field! The Dreadgods…”
He started to move, but Yerin had him by the shoulders.
Eithan made a sound of reassurance. “Don’t worry, they aren’t coming. This wave of power is contained to the valley…so far.”
“Is the labyrinth still locked?”
“It is not,” Eithan said, grinning.
“Then we have to move,” Lindon said. “This is our chance!”
The door swung open, and two blobs of color came in that Lindon eventually identified as Mercy and Ziel.
“My mother’s—oh, Lindon’s awake! How are you feeling?”
“How did you get here?” Lindon asked.
“The whole clan’s being mobilized,” Mercy said. “They set up a network of emergency gatekeys to take people west, to cordon off Sacred Valley. I snuck in, but Aunt Charity will figure out I’m here very soon.”
Lindon slipped away from Yerin and stood. At least his feet were steady, even if his vision wasn’t. “We have to go in. Now’s our chance.”