Uncrowned (Cradle Book 7)

by Will Wight

  “I have certainly withheld other information from you, but you've never once asked me where I came from.”

  “Oh. Apologies. So...where did you come from?”

  Yerin shouted as Pride's hand closed around the crown, and both Eithan and Lindon turned.

  Yerin had a hand on the hilt of her sword, and Pride's body swirled with Enforcer techniques as he kept his eye on her and held the crown in one hand. Gold light still streamed from the ground into the sky, passing through his arm.

  “I'll be dead and buried before I let you wear that,” Yerin said.

  Pride stood about two inches shorter even than Yerin, but he still looked down his nose at her. “You have quite an attitude for a servant.”

  Her Goldsigns flexed, silver madra gathering on their points, and Eithan stepped out with his hands raised.

  “Hold on, everyone, hold on! It's times like these that we should remember that we are on opposing teams and should therefore fight to the death.”

  Saeya held her sword defensively between her and Mercy. Mercy looked frustrated, but still conjured an arrow to defend herself.

  Lindon felt as though they were all rushing to conclusions. “Pride,” he called, “who should get the crown?”

  Pride continued his staring match with Yerin for a long moment before he looked over to Lindon. “The one who has the best chance of making it to the end of the competition. My sister.”

  Yerin and Mercy looked equally surprised.

  “Agreed,” Lindon said. “But there are supposed to be twenty-eight more crowns. We should carry this one with us until we have at least two more.”

  “So that your team can use them all?” Eithan squinted suspiciously. He raised his fist to the sky. “The Akura family keeps their boot-heel on the common man once again! Down with the oppressors!”

  [Ah, there's...one more thing you should perhaps consider,] Dross said, but Lindon continued the conversation.

  “Apologies, five more,” Lindon corrected, keeping his frustration under control. “If they keep to the pattern, another one will appear in six minutes. Ten an hour, at which point the first round of people eliminated will return. If we're the largest group here, that's plenty of time for us to get enough for everyone and wear them all at the same time.”

  Dross tugged at his attention. [That's a great plan, I really admire that plan, but there's some information you might not have.]

  Yerin and Pride nodded to one another, withdrawing their spirits. Saeya sheathed her sword, and Mercy had already happily banished her technique.

  Eithan held up a finger. “Ah, but what if more crowns stop appearing after a certain number are held in place? Also…” He lowered his finger to point off to the east.

  [Oh, now you pay attention! I grab your brain, and nothing, but as soon as he twitches a finger...]

  Two golden lights, clustered together, were moving closer.

  A trio of dragons flew over the trees, their screams echoing through the jungle. Lindon extended his perception.

  “How many are there?” he asked Eithan.

  “Seven. Three golds, two reds, a green, and a black. It’s nice that they’re colored for easy recognition.”

  “Change of plans,” Lindon said to Pride, but the Akura was already ahead of him.

  He tossed the crown beneath some of the intact trees, the golden beam of light following it. The crown itself couldn’t be seen from the air through the thick canopy, only the beam of light. Then he veiled himself, slipping behind a bush.

  “Back to the plan,” Yerin said.

  Lindon’s intention had been to gather up all the remaining Akura faction competitors and ambush Sophara together. While she would certainly have gathered allies of her own, he was confident that with at least ten people, they could overwhelm her and retreat.

  It almost didn’t matter if some of them were lost. The farther back they could push Sophara, the better their chances of eliminating her.

  Lindon switched to his pure core, tightly restraining his madra into a veil. He crept closer to the dragons, tucking himself beneath a thick leaf so he could still see a hint of golden light in the distance. Naru Saeya and Yerin moved nearby, with Mercy and Pride behind the crown. He had lost track of Eithan almost immediately.

  The dragons would be suspicious if they saw the crown and no fight around it, but they would have to get close enough to see it. They could burn through the trees and descend from the air, but they probably wouldn’t; flying so high toward one of the gold beams of light would make them easy targets for Striker techniques.

  And if any did dive straight for the crown, Mercy and Pride were there to hit them as they landed. Everyone else was arranged to attack if they approached on the ground.

  It wasn't anything like a perfect plan, but it was a quick strategy that would serve them better than a stand-up fight. Not only did the dragons have seven to their six, but Sophara frightened Lindon. Based on his practice against Dross' model of her, he wouldn't be surprised if she could eliminate him and Yerin together.

  Unless Dross could get some more first-hand observation of her and build a combat solution against her. Or if Yerin's Blood Shadow ended up being more of a factor than he hoped. He hadn't seen the gold Underlady fight against any real sacred artists yet—only trials and projections.

  He crouched in the damp soil and the humid heat, occasionally flicking away insects the size of his thumb. Veiling himself restricted his spiritual perception, making him feel blind, as though the dragons could be sneaking up behind him at any second.

  He would’ve felt much better with Blackflame running through him—not only would the madra itself give him some much-needed emotional support, but then he'd have a Striker technique ready. But veiling pure madra was much more effective than veiling the Path of Black Flame.

  His tension reached its peak when two streaks of golden light loomed closer, moving through the jungle. Bushes rustled, as though something large were pushing its way through the leaves, and then trees began to crack.

  Two trunks split in either direction as huge, bestial red dragons shoved their way through. Sparks flew from their nostrils, smoke from their crimson scales, and burning ember eyes flared as they twisted serpentine necks from side to side. They scanned the jungle, their perceptions passing over him...without reacting.

  Lindon let go of some tension. Shadow madra and pure madra were difficult to detect when veiled, but that only accounted for four members of the group. Yerin and Naru Saeya would have a harder time veiling themselves, but obviously it had worked.

  He could almost see the fire aura around the red dragons even without opening his Copper sight, and just their presence ignited some of the sticks and dry leaves beneath their feet. Flames licked their claws, smoke drifting up into the sky.

  The others followed next.

  The green dragon was a young man who appeared mostly human. His human skin was a brown almost as dark as the pair from Dreadnought City, and green scales ran down his ears and the sides of his neck.

  A pair of wooden horns twisted up from his forehead. He wore emerald robes and carried a twisted driftwood staff that matched his horns. His hair flowed like moss down his back.

  Two gold dragons came next, and like him, they looked more human than dragon. From their heads hung strings of scales that imitated hair, and the scales that ran down their throats only accented their pale skin. One was a man, the other a woman, but not Sophara.

  They carried themselves with no weapons and visible arrogance, thin tails whipping at the underbrush as they walked. They were dressed in rich robes and jewelry, as though to cover themselves in gold to compensate for the scales they'd lost.

  The columns of light from their two crowns hung back.

  There were five people here. Eithan had said seven. Sophara and her black dragon must’ve hung back, holding on to their two crowns, sending the rest of the team forward to pick up the third.

  Lindon tensed. He had no way to signal t
he others. The first person to move would commit them all to an attack. Should he wait? He was almost as afraid of the black dragon as he was of Sophara—he would be able to withstand Blackflame far more easily than Lindon could, which meant that Lindon had virtually no way to hurt him.

  He hadn’t been able to do much research into the black dragon team; there were too many contestants remaining, and some of them were less well-known than others. One of their contestants was listed as ‘Black Dragon Prisoner,’ so he wondered if the black dragons might be forced to fight by the gold dragons. That might be a weakness they could exploit…but it might not. He would still prefer not to fight a black dragon.

  Attacking now meant they could weaken the enemy party while the two most frightening members were gone, but Sophara would only have to flee for an hour. Then she could have her revenge on anyone left.

  While Lindon debated, the gold dragons passed him, and the choice was taken out of his hands.

  A green blast of wind madra caught one of the reds in the body at the same time as a wave of silver sword-madra. Pride was there so quickly it looked like Yerin's Striker technique had carried him, and he slammed a foot down onto the other red's skull.

  Neither dragon died. They roared, sending fire madra flooding around them, but a wave of pure madra almost instantly wiped it away.

  The attack had taken only an instant, but the other dragons weren’t waiting around. Golden streams of Flowing Flame madra spewed into the woods, washing over the human attackers, just as the green dragon released a pulse of life madra. It felt more like a perception technique than an attack; he was looking to pinpoint them amidst the jungle.

  So he was the one who shouted and turned when he felt Lindon behind them.

  With the speed and grace of the Soul Cloak, Lindon had dashed behind the two gold dragons. Focused on their Striker techniques, neither reacted quickly enough to stop him.

  He used an Empty Palm in each hand. Just for good measure, he added a wisp of soulfire to both techniques.

  His hands struck them both in the lower back, and huge blue-white handprints flared at the hit. Pure madra flooded them, disrupting their madra channels, and they staggered forward. The woman whipped her tail at him, but without madra Enforcing it, it didn't have enough force behind it.

  She was still an Underlady and a dragon, so she hit like a kicking horse. But Lindon had the Soul Cloak moving through him, and he snatched the tail from the air with his right hand. He hauled on it, pulling her off her feet.

  In the meantime, both red dragons flowed away in pulses of white light.

  For a few seconds, Lindon was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with both gold dragons. Without his training at the Akura family, he would have had to disengage and run. This time, he held his own, matching their blows without giving ground.

  Even without Enforcer techniques, they were almost as strong and fast as he was. But the Soul Cloak made the difference, so he was able to move around them, keeping them in each other's way, preventing them from using their number to their advantage.

  Lindon had been most concerned about the green dragon interfering, but he was filled with black arrows. His scales glowed emerald as he focused his life madra on himself, trying to purge himself of Mercy's shadow-venom.

  It did no good when Naru Saeya's rainbow sword slashed through his neck.

  Eithan strolled up to Lindon's fight, casually slapping the Underlady in the face as he tripped the Underlord. They rolled to the ground, and Mercy had them bound in Strings of Shadow before they could react.

  Even so, they began to tear through the madra. Their spirits were coming back under their control...slowly but surely, they would regain their powers from the effect of the Empty Palm.

  But Lindon was no longer concerned about them. He stared through the trees at the two retreating pillars of golden light. Sophara was running.

  And something else was barreling through the trees at them.

  The black dragon obliterated the two trees that the reds had knocked over. Lindon couldn't tell if it was a male or a female; it had a long, snake-like black body, with two huge wings and a pair of massive claws in front. Its eyes were like Orthos'—solid darkness with two fiery rings where its irises should be.

  It blew dragon's breath down the forest.

  Rather than black-and-red, like Lindon's, this was a solid bar of darkness with a few red sparks here and there. It radiated the power of destruction so strongly that the smaller pieces of debris nearby crumbled to dust and burned away in its passing.

  Eithan, of course, reacted first. He held both hands out, and pure madra spun around him, catching the Striker technique as though in a whirlpool. It twisted, spinning back at the dragon.

  But the black serpent took his own attack on his scales, ignoring it, and swept its breath from side to side.

  This time, it was Lindon's turn.

  He dropped his pure core and drew on Blackflame, his eyes heating up as they matched the black dragon's own. The Burning Cloak ignited around him and he leaped forward, driving his white fingertips into dark scales.

  His hunger arm began to feed.

  Before reinforcing his arm with the Archstone, it had been difficult to draw madra into his cores. The Ancestor's Spear had used scripts to guide madra in that way, and though the binding was capable of the same thing, it had to be carefully controlled.

  Since then, Lindon had grown much more familiar with the technique, and it had grown stronger. But he rarely encountered madra that he wanted in his core.

  This time, he feasted.

  The dragon's madra flowed through his arm and into his channels, surging into his Blackflame core. The energy was wilder than his Path of Black Flame, more primitive and savage, with a heavier emphasis on destruction. It was as though his human madra had diluted it, and this was the primal source. But it was compatible, so he drew as much as he could.

  In only a second, the dragon noticed what was happening. It cut off its breath, convulsing wildly, trying to shake Lindon off. Lindon held on with the strength of the burning cloak and the power of his Remnant hand. The hunger madra even helped, latched on to the serpent like a leech.

  Finally, the dragon twisted around and breathed a Striker technique into Lindon's face. Lindon raised his left hand and met the dragon's breath with the same technique.

  From inches away, Blackflame met Blackflame.

  Dark fire exploded, incinerating leaves and consuming the edges of Lindon's Akura sacred artist's robes. He stumbled back, the force of the dragon's spirit pushing him away, losing his contact with its scales.

  For a moment, they glared at each other with identical eyes, neither backing down.

  Then the dragon was riddled with Striker techniques.

  The rest of Lindon's team tore it to shreds, and the sacred beast shrieked and twisted. He was astonished that it didn't die immediately.

  It tried to get off another dragon's breath, but finally it dissolved into white light.

  Lindon caught his breath, trying to still the fiery storm in his core. His channels ached, and he would need Little Blue's help when he returned, but they were victorious. Their ambush had worked flawlessly.

  An enraged scream shook the forest ahead of them.

  “BLACKFLAME!” Sophara's voice echoed.

  And the two crowns moved back toward them.

  Lindon hurried over to Eithan. “We have to stick together. There are six of us. We can hold her off.”

  Eithan looked into the distance. “Can we?”

  Lindon thought he understood the implication and cast out his perception. They had not been quiet, and Eithan must have sensed enemies closing in.

  But Lindon didn't feel any. Even the few native creatures of the island he sensed were fleeing, as though they had been frightened off. It was only Sophara.

  Pride stood at the front of the group, black lines on his skin whirling, chin tilted up. Shadow madra shrouded his arms.

  Mercy crouched in a tre
e, arrow held in each hand. Eithan stood off to one side, and his smile looked more like a grimace of anticipated pain.

  Saeya cradled one arm and spread her wings, forcing her sword up. Yerin stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Pride, blade clutched in both hands.

  Lindon's spirit and body ached, but whatever burst through the underbrush, they could handle it. He coaxed some soulfire out of his spirit and fed it into a dragon's breath.

  [We certainly look prepared,] Dross said. [I have a good feeling about this.]

  As the two columns of light from the crowns approached, Lindon and his allies all unleashed Striker techniques. Even Pride hurled a stick like a spear.

  Flames of liquid gold crashed through them like a tidal wave. Lindon couldn't imagine releasing such a large technique so quickly; one second, there was nothing, and the next second the trees had been swallowed by gold dragon's fire.

  His bar of Blackflame punched through, as did Eithan's pure madra, but before he could sense if they'd done anything, Sophara was among them.

  Eithan and Pride reacted first as the dragon-girl landed, tail lashing, golden scales falling around her face like hair. Pride's strike was like a crack of black lightning, and Eithan came down on her with a spear of blue-white light.

  A golden disc, etched with script, was Forged in the air above her head. It intercepted Eithan's attack, and she ignored him, instead wrapping her tail around Pride's wrist and wrenching his attack off-course.

  But she didn't follow up with an attack. Instead, she rushed forward, fueling her jump with a soulfire-assisted Enforcer technique. She was dashing to the back...where Mercy, Saeya, and Lindon waited.

  Dross, Lindon demanded. He had already called up the Burning Cloak, and black-and-red light played around him. The explosive strength of Blackflame filled him.

  [I can give you an edge, but the rest is up to you,] Dross said. The world didn't stop, like it had against Harmony or Seishen Kiro, but Lindon could suddenly follow Sophara's movements much easier than before. She was going for Saeya.

  He kicked ahead of her, drawing dragon's breath into his hand. Thanks to Dross, he knew where she would go. He could see his Striker technique burning through her.