Uncrowned (Cradle Book 7)

by Will Wight

  The one concession the Akura family had allowed him was his badge. Halfsilver now, representing his rise to Lord, the badge hung over his chest. It sparkled with bright points like stars in a gray sky, and its presence near his chest made him slightly uncomfortable, like a spiritual itch.

  Halfsilver interfered with the orderly control of madra, and while it wouldn't hurt his sacred arts unless he tried to channel madra through it or kept it pressed against his skin, he still wished it were made of ordinary silver instead.

  Pride wore an outfit much like his, without the badge, and Lindon was somewhat relieved to know that he had found the one person with a less friendly face than his own. Pride stood as though he were looking down his nose at the world, but his perpetual glare made him look like he needed a good punch.

  Mercy looked just as at home as her aunt. Her outfit was sleeker and smaller than her male counterparts, and her hair had been tied up into intricate waves laced through by silver strings and dotted with amethysts.

  She stood perfectly at ease, her black-gloved hands resting in front of her, the hint of a smile on her lips. The clan had given her powders and paints for her face, so her skin was flawless, her lips a shade more red, her eyes deeper.

  The biggest difference between the three of them was their eyes. Lindon's were black—not Blackflame oceans of darkness, just ordinary dark human eyes—while the other two were the deep purple of the Akura head family. The same purple shared by the closest square of people, the ones arranged on a dais at the front of all the rest. Instead of standing on the courtyard, these each had a cushioned chair, their ranks rising up in tiered rows. The Akura head family.

  These weren’t just the elite Underlords who had been eligible to potentially compete in the tournament, though he spotted some of them too. Akura Grace leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, so that Lindon thought she might be cycling. Or sleeping.

  But she was one among hundreds of all ages, from white-haired old men and women at the top row to squirming children of six or seven at the bottom. Not all of them had the purple eyes—maybe about half, as far as Lindon could see.

  As a group, they stared at him just like everyone else.

  When Charity had finished speaking, and the overwhelming cheers from the audience settled down, an old man from the Akura family spoke up. He described the troubles the Akura clan at large faced—incursions along their northern border, famine in the south, a loss of territory to nature, and so on.

  As Lindon was beginning to wonder what his point was, he then moved on to how distinguished performance in the Uncrowned King tournament would solve all those problems.

  Respect of their fighters would cause the wicked Dragon King to stop his raids to the north. Rewards taken from the other factions would make them rich enough to settle the famine, and new trade deals would open with other Monarch nations. Soon they would see an unprecedented golden age, with their youth leading the way as they pushed into the north and drove the dragons out, conquering the continent for humanity.

  Thunderous applause followed, so much that Lindon couldn't hear Mercy commenting into his ear. The cheers continued for five minutes.

  Another weight settled on him. Whether victory in the Uncrowned King tournament would really make all those changes for the common citizen of Akura territory, he didn't know. This all may have been a show designed to draw support from the people for the competition.

  But at the very least, they thought it mattered to them. This human tide would be listening for news of his performance, deciding whether Lindon had done them proud or let them down.

  The Blackflame Empire’s fate would be controlled by this tournament, but so would the lives of millions of other people he would never meet. His performance, the people he defeated, would matter more widely than he’d ever imagined. The knowledge settled into him.

  He had to be worthy of it.

  When the cheers began to fade, a sleek black cloudship slipped in from overhead. Its design made it look small, though it dwarfed even the Blackflame Emperor's ship. It looked almost like a slice of Stormrock, the floating Skysworn city. Lindon's stomach lurched as his platform began to drift upward, toward the ship.

  Mercy and Pride raised their hands and waved to the crowd, Mercy eagerly and Pride reluctantly. Lindon did so as well, having been instructed to mirror anything the other two did. Once again, the crowd roared.

  The platform dropped the three of them onto the deck of the airship, and Lindon let out a breath. “Are we finished now? Is it over?”

  “Learn patience,” Pride ordered him, and Mercy rolled her eyes at her brother.

  “We're going to fly off to make it look like we're leaving,” she explained. “Cheers. Well-wishes. Promises of victory. Everyone's happy. Then we're going to loop around and pick up everyone else. The whole family's coming.”

  Except for the servants, Lindon would be the only one aboard the massive cloudship whose name wasn't Akura. That thought was no comfort.

  “How long do we have to travel?” he asked carefully.

  “It usually takes eight months to reach the center of the Ninecloud continent,” Mercy said, “though the journey is risky. There's never a guarantee of success. But the tournament is in two months, so the Ninecloud Court has sent us superior propulsion constructs and a navigational construct to ensure we reach our destination in six weeks.”

  [A navigational construct, you say? That sounds like it might be full of delicious, delicious secrets.]

  A different part of the statement had intrigued Lindon. “Ninecloud?”

  Pride sneered at him. “The tournament is hosted by the Ninecloud Court. I suppose you’ve never heard of them.”

  With Suriel at his side, Lindon had stood among the Court itself, watching Sha Miara's coronation. He hadn't known at the time, but he now suspected she was a Monarch.

  Lindon gave Pride a smile that made the shorter man ball up his fists. “It so happens that I have.”

  ~~~

  With her blindfold tight, Yerin sent her perception around the cloudship. The heavy scripts manipulated wind and cloud madra, keeping them in the air. Sealed in a construct below, powerful rainbow madra provided by the Ninecloud Court fueled the ship and gave them the speed necessary to reach the tournament in time.

  The crew of the ship were mostly on Paths of cloud or wind, which allowed them to do their jobs, but Yerin sensed at least one on a fire Path and one that used force techniques.

  Naru Saeya was a brighter spot than any of them, a concentration of wind madra, but Eithan proved more difficult to spot. Pure madra was easy to overlook. Yerin strained her perception not to reach further, but to drill deeper.

  Her Blood Shadow stirred, hungrily reaching out, which gave Yerin another thing to distract her. She pushed the Shadow down, still scanning the deck, gripping her sword tightly. If she had to wrestle with the spiritual parasite for long, she would never find Eithan.

  She heard nothing, but she felt him for an instant, a faint whisper of danger in her spirit. Her sword came up, ringing with her Ruler technique, and the air sliced apart by dozens of invisible blades. Many of the crew stopped in their tracks, and Naru Saeya's spirit quivered in surprise, but Yerin ignored them and tore off her blindfold.

  Eithan stood before her, frozen in mid-lunge, eyes wide. His one outstretched hand held a silver comb, which he had been using to attack. Its top half fell off, cut by the Endless Sword, and plinked to the deck. The edges of his ornate pink-and-gold outer robe were shredded, and a few strands of his hair drifted down.

  He wasn't cut, but Yerin had never felt so victorious in all her life.

  She raised her sword into the air and gave a triumphant shout as though she had just captured an enemy's fortress. Naru Saeya cheered along with her, applauding furiously, and several of the crew joined in.

  After a moment, Eithan's shocked expression melted into an appreciative smile, and he added a few claps of his own. "If I had thought you'd pick it up s
o quickly, I'd have tied my hair back."

  Yerin drew in a deep, satisfied breath, looking up at Eithan. "Next time, I'm drawing blood."

  "You sound so eager."

  She reached into her outer robe and pulled out the purple crystalline construct that had been delivered to her months ago. It wasn't the time for her to speak with Lindon yet, so he might not be able to answer, but it was at least the right day.

  Yerin held it out to Eithan, who provided pure madra to activate it. Sword madra would work, but it would wear the construct down faster. It was already on its last legs.

  But she wouldn't need it for much longer. In only seven more days, they would reach the Ninecloud Court. Lindon might be there already.

  The construct shot sprays of madra essence in brightly colored sparks, and the light within it flickered. Dream and shadow madra twisted around each other into a whirlpool, and Yerin caught the faint impression that it was drilling into something...deeper.

  But the impression was gone in a moment, and Lindon's voice came through, distant and weak. "Yerin, can you...may not...much longer."

  The cloudship shuddered as the crew prepared them for landing; they would touch down soon to allow their scripts to draw on aura and refuel. The wind picked up as they descended, which didn't make it easier to hear.

  "Lindon," Yerin shouted into the construct. "I cut Eithan!"

  "That's not strictly true," Eithan pointed out, but she waved him to silence.

  "...apologies...what did you...Eithan?"

  "I cut him! I finally sensed him coming!" She had shared her progress in this training exercise with Lindon, and while she had sensed Eithan before, it was never quickly enough to interrupt his attack. He strengthened his veil every few days, and she’d begun to worry that she would never catch up.

  Lindon's distant voice grew excited. "Really? That's...how did...even him."

  The construct's light flickered again, and the sound died out. Yerin lowered it, trying to shake off her disappointment. Eithan could power the device again, but it was reaching the end of its life. Besides, she would be able to talk to Lindon directly in another week. Their cloudships were both supposed to arrive at about the same time; two weeks before the start of the tournament.

  She pushed out a smile for Eithan and tucked the construct away. "You'll have to watch yourself from here on. Won't be able to sneak around like a rat."

  "I wouldn't be so sure; I have many other rat-like qualities that will serve me well."

  Naru Saeya stepped up, multi-colored sword in her hand. "My turn to cut Eithan."

  "While Yerin is making excellent progress, she did not cut me. I want that to be clear."

  "Draw your comb."

  Yerin stepped back while Naru Saeya and Eithan exchanged blows. They both had Iron bodies suited for speed, which had recently made it hard for her to follow their matches.

  Now, by extending her perception over the both of them, she could sense the changes in their spirit much more clearly and quickly than before. Those small shifts gave her a sense of what would happen a moment in advance.

  She continued thinking about it as their cloudship touched down. It felt similar to how her spirit sometimes warned her in moments of danger, as she sensed signs of approaching hostility that her conscious mind was not yet aware of. That was the ability she was training.

  But there was another layer to it, one she was just beginning to touch. Sometimes her spirit warned her of danger before she could have sensed anything. What was it feeling?

  Her mind returned to the construct that allowed her to speak with Lindon regardless of the distance. She could track the shadow and dream madra as they twisted into one another, but they were held in place by...something else. There should be a third element there, but she felt nothing.

  It was a vague concept, and as she wondered about it, she extended her perception around her. Beyond Eithan and Saeya's fight, she stretched it into the trees that now rose over their cloudship.

  The aura was rich here, and she felt the power of the wind as it played through the leaves. A storm gathered overhead, but fire aura had gathered within it, so it was going to be a bad aura-storm.

  Those happened sometimes, especially in lands with strong vital aura. She and her master had been forced to travel through rains of fire or winds of scorching poison, though of course she’d had a Sage’s protection at the time.

  She found herself sensing for gaps in the aura, still chewing on the vague feeling she’d gotten from the construct.

  Instead of an answer, she felt danger.

  Saeya and Eithan jumped away from her at the same time Yerin's spirit screamed a warning, and all three of them shouted to the crew at the same time. Far overhead, a winged golden form split through the clouds, diving down toward them.

  A gold dragon. It must have hidden in the overwhelming fire aura gathered overhead, disguising itself even from Eithan.

  It had a serpentine body, four clawed limbs, gleaming fangs, and shining eyes. Its scales glittered even in the dim light of the overcast day, and it descended on them like a golden spear.

  Yerin's sword leaped into her hand, and her six sword-arms flashed behind her. She gathered up the sword aura, shaping it to her will, focusing the Endless Sword on the tip of her master's white blade.

  Saeya stood upright, her emerald wings spread behind her, peacock feathers standing up straight behind one ear. She made a fist, and wind aura snagged the dragon's wings in mid-flight.

  The creature shuddered as though stumbling in midair, losing a bit of speed, but broke the Ruler technique after a moment of concentration.

  Eithan looked up at the sky, yellow hair streaming behind him and hands in his pockets. Behind him, blue-white stars of Forged madra began to appear.

  "Too late," he said.

  At the same time, the gold dragon cracked open its jaws. It spewed bright orange liquid flame in a thick stream, like a burning river, down on their ship. Gold dragon's breath. The Path of the Flowing Flame.

  Yerin unleashed the Endless Sword which, as expected, only scraped a shallow line across the gold dragon's scales. She hadn't intended it to be a lethal blow, she only wanted to throw off the dragon's aim.

  It didn't work. The dragon's head jerked, and the line of Flowing Flame madra scorched the ground to one side of the ship, but only an instant later the sacred beast pulled its head back. Fire madra blasted through the bottom of the ship with a sickening crunch that Yerin could feel through her feet.

  The dragon caught itself in the middle of its dive, flapping its wings to hover in midair. Yerin could feel the force of the wind and the pressure of its spirit; it had the power of an Underlord.

  Yerin pooled madra in her sword, gathering up the Rippling Sword technique, and slashed at the air. A wave of razor-sharp energy swept at the dragon, but a round plate of bronze emerged from behind the creature, sweeping around and catching the Striker technique. Yerin's madra burst apart on the shield.

  The dragon reached out to the aura around it, resonating with its soulfire. It was far too weak to be an attack—Yerin could feel that immediately—but it was still a complex aura manipulation technique that Yerin wasn't sure she could match.

  Words, half in her ears and half in her head, soon formed from aura of wind and dreams. "Where is the Blackflame?" the dragon demanded in a feminine voice. A voice Yerin had heard before.

  She hadn't heard it in many months, and she had never seen this form before, but a female gold dragon with a grudge against Lindon...there was only one she knew of.

  "He's dead," Yerin said to Sopharanatoth. "Choked on his soup."

  A spiritual scan passed over the whole cloudship, sending a shiver passing through her soul. Yerin didn't expect the dragon to retreat just because she found out Lindon wasn't around, and besides, Yerin wasn't the same weak Highgold that she had been when she'd first met Sophara. She had no problem challenging an Underlady now.

  Yerin slid up to Naru Saeya, keeping her sw
ord out. Voice low, Yerin asked, "Can you get me up there?"

  "That would be a bad idea," Saeya responded. Sweat rolled down the sides of her face, and she licked her lips.

  Yerin looked to Eithan for confirmation, and he nodded.

  He didn't seem as worried as Saeya did, but he hadn't banished the stars gathering in the air behind him either. "Feel for yourself."

  Yerin reached out toward the dragon with her perception...and suddenly Sophara loomed a hundred times larger in her vision. Yerin’s spirit quivered like a kicked puppy.

  This was not someone she had any chance of defeating. Not on her own.

  But she wasn’t on her own.

  Sophara showed no intention of attacking. She gave an angry roar, her wings beating the air, and turned to fly away.

  A Rippling Sword caught her in the flank the same time as a lance of light from Eithan's star. A fist of green wind madra grabbed at her tail. Yerin's technique actually drew blood, Eithan's crashed onto the bronze shield floating around her, and Saeya's drew her up short.

  "I have not allowed you to leave," Naru Saeya declared, rising up on wings of her own.

  Yerin felt a burst of pride that all three of them had come to the same conclusion. None of them were a match for Sophara, but she wasn't invincible, and she’d been foolish enough to come here on her own.

  This was exactly the time to attack.

  The cloudship's crew had leaped over the side at the first sign of Underlords clashing, and the ship itself still listed to one side, having a chunk burned out of it by gold dragon's breath.

  Sophara only flinched at the damage from their techniques. Blood rolled down her scales, but she still faced them with slowly flapping wings. "I don't need to waste time with you," her aura-born voice said. "You are already done."

  Once again, she turned. Another volley of techniques reached her, but they were either dodged, deflected by the floating shield, or crushed by her own madra.