“Go in?” Mercy repeated.
There was clear hesitation in Yerin’s voice too. “That’s a shaky bridge to walk. We’re not ready to go into the labyrinth yet, but you want to head in now that a Monarch’s getting ready to slam the lid on the whole thing?”
“The suppression field is gone,” Lindon said. “What do our preparations matter now? We’ll have our full powers inside.”
“Not our full powers,” Eithan corrected. “It is the domain of hunger madra, after all. It will slowly chip away at us as we remain inside, so we should keep this to a quick operation.”
The blob of white and black that Lindon had determined was Mercy spun toward Eithan. “You’re for this?”
“I’ll put it to you this way: if none of you come with me, I’ll head in by myself. Well, Lindon and I will. This is a unique opportunity that we won’t miss.”
Yerin pondered silently, and Lindon could practically hear her thoughts. She was skeptical about risking their lives for no reason, but then again, the labyrinth was a hiding place for all sorts of treasure. And if Eithan and Lindon were going…
Mercy turned behind her, looking for support.
“There’s a way to kill the Dreadgods in there?” Ziel asked.
Lindon nodded.
Ziel sighed. “And I’m part of the team?”
Lindon nodded again.
Ziel sighed again, more heavily. “And I still have some time left in my contract. Ah, well.” He walked out the door, leaving the other four of them behind.
“I don’t…” Mercy’s voice shook. “I can’t…Lindon, my mother…if she shows up and we’re still inside, she could…I don’t even know. She could seal us inside, but it might be worse if she didn’t. She’ll have our heads for this.”
There was something worse, something that no one had brought up yet, but Lindon remained silent.
Eithan slid up to his side and elbowed him. Lindon shifted away but remained quiet.
Yerin looked at the two of them, leaning close enough that Lindon could make out her face, and then she sighed as though she’d seen something in Lindon’s eyes.
“What?” Mercy asked.
“Somebody turned off the field,” Yerin said, speaking for all of them.
Lindon was certain that was the case, but he still protested. “It could have been natural decay after the damage from the Titan.”
“But it wasn’t,” Eithan followed up. “Someone modified the function of the labyrinth with intention. Now, they may not have intended to deactivate the suppression field, but they certainly intended to change something.”
“How do you know?” Mercy asked.
Lindon answered that. “The power shifted beneath the valley. Samara’s ring is now fueled by different aspects of madra than it was before. You could automate that, but there wouldn’t be any reason for it. If it was just damage from the Titan breaking the field, then we would have expected to see the suppression weakening before that. And Eithan…”
Eithan picked it up. “If I was indeed sensing a disruption in Fate, as now seems likely, then it must have been caused by someone. By every popular theory, natural cause and effect should not change Fate.”
Mercy let out a heavy breath. “How many people could get down there and make changes in the script formation?”
“I can’t see anyone below Sage or Herald having the ability to both survive and alter its workings,” Eithan said.
“So we’ve got a real fight coming,” Yerin said.
“Only if we go in,” Lindon said, fixing his gaze on Mercy. He tried to make his eyes clear. “I’ve gone through an abandoned laboratory before, and I was alone. Orthos was too injured to help. We have a limited window here, and I want the whole team with us.”
Mercy straightened, and even with Lindon’s compromised vision, he could see her brighten up. “We’re a team?”
“Of course we are,” Yerin said immediately.
“Eithan said he and I would go in alone,” Lindon continued, “but I don’t want to do that. We’ve only got one shot at this, so let’s make it our best one.”
Mercy paced anxiously, tapping her staff on the floor with every other step. “I don’t want to go up against an unknown enemy and the Dreadgods and whatever’s in the labyrinth and probably my mother.”
“That sounds like an adventure!” Eithan said.
Mercy’s voice was grim. “There’s no way this ends well. No way. Even if we get what we’re after and make it out, the Monarchs will punish us. Do we all know that?”
“You’ll have to walk me through how that’s different than now,” Yerin said.
“That was a worthy warning, Mercy!” Eithan declared. “Let us count the cost before we dive headfirst into one of the most dangerous places on the planet.”
Lindon thought longer before he answered. He could easily see the Monarchs taking a closer look at him than he wanted.
Though that was a normal consequence of gaining more power. The higher you climbed, the more eyes were on you.
“I understand,” Lindon said at last.
Mercy clicked her tongue. “Fine, then let’s get going. Maybe if I’m with you, my mother will hesitate before she locks us all inside.”
Or maybe she won’t, Lindon thought. He remembered Malice’s attitude toward Mercy in the Uncrowned King tournament.
But he wasn’t callous enough to say that out loud.
Belatedly, he realized something he’d forgotten. “I should have let Orthos out! He needs to hear this.”
“Can’t he hear every thought that goes through your head?” Yerin asked.
“No, he just gets impressions. He’s not Dross.” Lindon realized something even as he spoke. “…and we need Dross.”
He had waited for the better part of a year. Dross was as stable as he was going to get. Lindon had hoped for Dross to wake on his own—or for Northstrider to contact him—but without those things, there was only one thing he could try.
Without waiting for anyone else, Lindon opened his void key. He summoned a scripted box of stable, Forged dream madra that he had prepared. With his hunger arm mobile now, he didn’t need his goldsteel tongs.
And he had prepared for this operation for a long time.
Eithan’s eyes widened. “Decisive! Best of luck to you.”
“You’re not going to try and fix him here, are you?” Mercy sounded horrified.
Yerin gripped his shoulder, lending him strength. He reached into his own soul and found the slowly spinning purple orb at the base of his skull.
As he had done with his mother months ago, he projected Dross’ internal structure into the air. Purple rings expanded until they spun in midair around them all.
The largest ring was still thinner in one section than anywhere else. Lindon took a deep breath to steady himself, and another. Then he grabbed a loop of dream madra from the chest and, in one motion, fused it to the ring from Dross’ spirit with a lick of soulfire.
The change was immediate.
Purple light flashed through the ring, and then in the smaller rings around that one. It moved through the entirety of Dross’ spirit in a chain reaction, faster and faster. Lindon couldn’t slow down his breath any longer. His heart pounded.