Bloodline (Cradle Book 9)

by Will Wight

  Lindon knew what he was going to do afterwards. He was going to return to his advancement without so much pressure hanging over his head.

  A faint smile crossed her lips again, and she gestured as though tapping him on the forehead one more time.

  Suddenly, he was hovering over Sacred Valley, a Thousand-Mile Cloud beneath his feet. Yerin and Eithan floated to either side of him, and the Wandering Titan stared them down.

  The three of them unloaded their most powerful attacks in coordination, and they struck a heavy blow against the Titan.

  Until its tail caught Yerin unexpectedly. Lindon lunged out of position, and the hand of a Dreadgod closed over him.

  Lindon died.

  Then he was on Windfall, and he decided not to go back. The months sped by as they gathered the remainders of Sacred Valley. There were more survivors than he expected; tens of thousands of them.

  They re-settled Sacred Valley one restored building at a time. The suppression field was weakened, and somehow—the vision skipped over this part—he managed to deactivate it completely.

  Lindon saw himself, looking virtually the same as he did now, tutoring his three black-haired children in the sacred arts with Yerin at his side. His future self reached out, scanning the children…and checking each of their twin cores.

  The futures washed over Lindon, so he only got a glimpse of each.

  There were futures where he and Yerin split up and went their own separate ways, futures where he had children, futures where he and Yerin ascended from Cradle in months, even futures where he married Mercy.

  And there were futures where he killed the Dreadgods.

  He saw himself years in the future, one arm white and one coated in what looked like black scales, his eyes black pools with white circles. He stood over the crumpled body of the Wandering Titan, cycling its power…and condensing the spare earth madra as he vented it, tucking it away for storage.

  Northstrider loomed up opposite him, moving for the Titan, and Lindon appeared in his way. The clash of their wills warped space, and the vision changed.

  Lindon saw himself with a giant white tiger—the Silent King—splayed open and hanging in the air in front of him. Blood spattered the room, and he sawed away with Wavedancer, carving out a beautiful binding like a smooth pearl.

  Outside, the world trembled under the pressure of the three remaining Dreadgods, but he had his prize already. He could do what no one had ever been able to do: forge a weapon with the power of a Dreadgod.

  The visions passed, leaving Lindon feeling out of breath. He sunk deeper into his chair, though surely he didn’t have lungs here.

  “That…those were…possible futures, right?”

  “Strands of Fate. All possible, if some more likely than others. And that list was by no means exhaustive.”

  “My children…” It seemed like a silly detail to focus on, but his curiosity pushed him forward. “Did they practice the Heart of Twin Stars?”

  “If things play out as they do in that strand, you’ll leave behind a more powerful bloodline legacy than just split cores. Not to mention the gifts they receive from their mother.”

  Lindon’s imagination spun ahead of him. How powerful would his children be? He might leave behind an ability that outshone even the Arelius detection web.

  He noticed Suriel watching him, running armored fingertips over the smoky lines that drifted across the back of her arm. “You could leave behind a bloodline that has all the advantages you lacked. They would have a much easier start than you did. But how many people, from powerful families with unending resources, have made it as far as you have so quickly?”

  The gray ghost of a woman appeared over her shoulder and began to speak, but Suriel stopped it with a gesture. “The legacy you inherit is nothing compared to the legacy you leave behind.”

  Suriel waved to her ghost, exchanging words with it that Lindon was not permitted to understand. That left him to his thoughts, chewing over her words.

  When their incomprehensible conversation ended, Suriel sighed and turned back to Lindon. “Even here, we don’t have unlimited time. But I hope this has helped you.”

  Lindon pressed his fists together and stood so he could bow deeply. “I cannot express my gratitude enough.”

  The Abidan continued softly. “I’m sure you remember what I said before. Any sage will tell you that every Path boils down to one: improve yourself. But you’re a Sage yourself now. You should know the rest.”

  She stood from her own chair, lifting his face to meet hers. “You improve yourself, but not for yourself alone. For a greater purpose.”

  “Apologies,” Lindon said, “but this is my purpose.”

  “No, this was your goal. Not your purpose.”

  “So then…what is it?”

  She rested her hand on his shoulder, and rather than a messenger of the distant heavens, he saw her as a friend lending him encouragement.

  “You have the chance to show me that. Wei Shi Lindon…show me the future.”

  [—here! You’re just a guest! You—Lindon! Where did you go? Wait, are you back? Is it really you? Say something that only the original you, and not an exact, perfect copy of yourself, would ever say.]

  Lindon didn’t say anything.

  With a brief effort of will, he opened a void key. Not his. Sophara’s.

  Ekeri’s armored Remnant growled at Lindon as he entered, but he wasn’t here for her. At his intention, natural treasures began to rise from their sealed, scripted chests all around the room.

  There were two here that were more powerful than the others: a source of water and fire aura. They were sealed off now, in scripted jars of their own, but he could still feel them.

  For this, he didn’t need them. He needed balance. He gathered up some of the weaker treasures, matching them effortlessly to one another and burning them for soulfire. He needed to top himself off for this, and he had used up some of his soulfire. More had leaked away under the influence of Sacred Valley’s suppression field.

  When he had replenished himself, he began to arrange stronger treasures in a circle around him.

  [Advancing won’t be an advantage inside the suppression field,] Dross pointed out. [We’ll just lose power faster.]

  But it will help against the Titan.

  [“Help” is such a strong word.]

  Advancing to Overlord to fight a Dreadgod was like a child bringing two sharpened sticks to fight a tiger instead of one, but Lindon would take everything he could get.

  Someone sidled up beside him, but Lindon had felt him on his way. “You should stand back,” Lindon said. “If I make a mistake, you could be hurt.”

  “Don’t make a mistake,” Orthos said before crunching into an empty wooden chest that had recently contained a natural treasure.

  Lindon nodded absently. He was already hesitant to waste time advancing when every second counted, but the better prepared he could be, the more people he could save.

  When the treasures had been arranged neatly around him, Lindon felt the soulfire in his spirit begin to resonate. The aura that blew in from Moongrave, rich and thick compared to Sacred Valley, shook in harmony with his soul.

  And Lindon prepared himself with the words he had figured out days before. The Underlord revelation was about what motivated you to begin, but the Overlord revelation was who you were now.

  “I…advance,” Lindon said.

  He moved forward, onto the next challenge, no matter what stood in his way.

  Even the Wandering Titan itself.

  The aura shook around him, the treasures burned to colorless fire, and they swirled through him. Unlike his Underlord revelation, which felt like it had deconstructed and rebuilt him from head to toe, this advancement was a cleansing.

  The soulfire passed through him in a hot wind, searing and comforting at once. His channels grew stronger, his cores flared brighter, and the lingering weakness from his time in the suppression field was washed away.

&nb
sp; In seconds, Lindon walked away as an Overlord. He could have imagined it, but it seemed that Ekeri’s Remnant nodded to him.

  Orthos stayed where he was, watching the other natural treasures. “I would like to use these.”

  The turtle would need soulfire too, but Lindon didn’t at the moment. All the other tools he required were in his personal key.

  He took the golden ring on its cord off his neck, putting Sophara’s void key around Orthos’ head. Then he rested his hand on the turtle’s shell.

  “I’m glad we found you,” Lindon said quietly.

  “I was never lost.”

  Lindon walked back out of the void key, where of course everyone had felt his advancement. Yerin gave him a lopsided smile and gripped her sword, ready to fight. Mercy nodded, but she looked worried. Eithan stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  Lindon held up one hand to Mercy, and she tossed him the scripted stone.

  “Hold on a moment,” Eithan said, but he was standing too far away.

  Lindon caught the stone and focused his will. He met Yerin’s red eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”

  The horrified realization had only just appeared on her face when she lunged for him, but she couldn’t stop him that way. She would have been better off standing in place and pitting her willpower against his.

  “Return,” Lindon commanded himself.

  In a rush of blue, he vanished.

  With every swing of his spear, Jai Long cursed himself. He was a fool.

  They should have left the second they knew a Dreadgod was involved. Why had they ever stayed to take their chances?

  Now they were miles outside of Sacred Valley, but the world was still a nightmare battlefield. The forest around them—their leaves only slightly tinged black with the corruption of the Desolate Wilds—had been completely leveled. The battle between the Dreadgod and the giant had devastated the landscape for as far as he could see; footprints left lakes, and he could see straight through a hole in a far-off mountain.

  Or he could, if he could spare the attention to look.

  Each sweep of his spearhead traced white light behind it, and the Stellar Spear madra came alive with the will of the Remnant who had long ago infested him. The Striker technique became a snake that sought out enemies, drilling through their head or chest.

  But there were always more bloodspawn.

  Jai Chen directed Fingerling, who breathed his strange pink madra over a bloodspawn that looked like it had been made from scarlet scissors strapped together to walk like a man. Fingerling’s breath didn’t behave like fire, or even fire madra, but like a dense cloud that passed over the jagged spawn and dissolved it.

  But as this bloodspawn fell, it stretched out its arms and slashed at the legs of a man who was trying to sprint passed it. The man screamed, but even the new hole in his leg didn’t stop him from continuing to flee, hobbling and leaking a red trail with every step.

  And from that trail, another bloodspawn rose.

  Jai Long speared it as it formed, but they were surrounded by bodies, and either the Phoenix hadn’t moved far enough away, or its influence lingered. Blood gathered up into these grotesque puppets of men and women.

  He tried to use his techniques sparingly, but if he was growing exhausted, his sister could barely breathe.

  Around him, he felt only chaos. Pressure from the Dreadgods, malicious hunger from the bloodspawn, and disordered madra of every aspect from the crowds of people fleeing Sacred Valley and spreading into the forest.

  Jai Long looked east, and he saw a swath carved through the forest ahead of them. Black spots were dashing across that space, and only by focusing his spiritual perception did he realize those were dreadbeasts.

  First a few, but that trickle almost immediately became a torrent. Dreadbeasts were famously enraged by the approach of Dreadgods, and the Desolate Wilds was home to more dreadbeasts than anywhere else he’d ever heard of.

  Coldly, Jai Long realized that they were about to die.

  He had known they might be killed by the Wandering Titan, but that was like being killed by a thunderbolt or torn apart by an aura-storm. It was a force of nature you could do nothing about, and at least it was over in a moment.

  Now, the bloodspawn would wear them down. Even if they escaped, there were dreadbeasts ahead of them and the Wandering Titan behind.

  With one surge of soulfire-enhanced madra, Jai Long whipped his spear in a circle. The force of his blow and the power of his serpents of living madra tore open a clear space around him. Bodies and bloodspawn were equally torn apart and shoved back, giving him enough space to work.

  He leaped over to a log, dragging it closer. With a few quick stabs, he separated the fallen tree into segments, and dragged them into a circle around the edges of the empty space.

  A bloodspawn clambered over the side, and he blocked its Striker technique before returning one of his own.

  His core flickered, dim at the center of his spirit, but he focused on his task. Jai Chen had picked up on his project, and was helping him keep the circle clear. That took enough pressure off that he could begin carving symbols into the segments of log.

  The work couldn’t have taken more than two or three minutes, but it felt like hours before their crude script—stabbed into pieces of log arranged in a rough circle—activated with a flare of white light.

  It would push spiritual powers away, repelling Remnants and bloodspawn. Even dreadbeasts, to a lesser extent.

  But it couldn’t stop them. Any script that solid would put too much strain on the material, and the first impact against it would send his logs tumbling.

  Upon immediate activation, a bloodspawn with flourishing tree branches for limbs stumbled back, then shuffled around the edges of the script to look for prey elsewhere.

  It would help…but it wouldn’t stop everything.

  Sure enough, a dense, more advanced bloodspawn shaped like a man with a sword in his hand shied back from the script, but he crawled over the log to get to them. Jai Long faced him with no techniques, but they had to exchange blows several times before he got the better of the spawn, sending a chunk of its madra fizzing away to essence.

  Jai Chen had finished another on her side, but even Fingerling was growing tired, drifting lower in the air.

  More bloodspawn flowed around them, but some still ignored the repulsion and climbed in.

  They would still die now, only slower. This was nothing but a way to stall for a little more time.

  But wasn’t that every day?

  A bear-like dreadbeast leaped over the back log, and Jai Long braced his spear against the ground. The rotting bear impaled its chest on the length of the spear, but didn’t seem to care, rabidly snarling and swiping at Jai Long.

  He left the spear and the bear, turning to stiffen his fingers and Enforce them like a weapon. The Star’s Edge technique sharpened his hand with a point of bright white sword-and-light madra, and he drove his fingers through a bloodspawn’s chest.

  While the technique was still going, he spun and slashed open the bear’s throat.

  Jai Long was breathing hard, and his mask seemed to be getting in his way. Roughly, he tore off the bandages, baring his hideous fanged smile to the world.

  The air wasn’t fresh, it was filled with smoke and dust and the stink of blood and rot, but he gulped down deep breaths anyway.

  He seized his spear, kicked the dying bear dreadbeast off the end, and turned his weapon to work on a bloodspawn.

  The last of his madra failed him, and soon he was fighting with nothing but the strength of his limbs. Even so, he swore an oath to the heavens.

  If nothing else, he would die before his sister did.

  One long second after vanishing from Moongrave, Lindon landed on his hands and knees in half-melted snow, surrounded by debris and wind-torn trees. People screamed around him as they fought featureless humanoids of red madra that rose from mere droplets of blood. To the east, Lindon felt hordes of dreadbeasts filtering ou
t from the Desolate Wilds, driven mad by the presence of a Dreadgod.

  As he recovered from the exhaustion of his working, Lindon felt nothing but relief. Mount Samara was still in one place. He’d made it.

  The earth shook beneath his hands to a steady rhythm. Footsteps. Lindon heaved a breath and pushed himself to his feet.

  He hadn’t come here to rest.

  The chaos around him resembled a battlefield. More and more people poured endlessly from the Heaven’s Glory pass, stumbling over bodies, and Lindon couldn’t tell if they had been destroyed by the powerful wind or the falling boulders or if they had simply been trampled alive.

  Formerly bound Remnants ran wild, darting through the crowd. Children hunkered together behind a broken and overturned cart. And everywhere, people ran from or struggled with freshly risen bloodspawn.

  All the while, the dreadbeasts were on their way.

  Do we have enough launchers? Lindon asked Dross.

  [We need to hurry.] The earthquakes now couldn’t be compared to the ones from before; with each heavy pound of the Titan’s footsteps on the earth, Lindon was lifted off his feet. […but yeah, we have enough to eliminate a majority. The bloodspawn here are especially weak, thanks to the aura and the general flimsiness of the hosts.]

  Lindon’s void key opened, causing several people nearby to scream and flee. Launcher constructs, some complete and some half-formed, flew out on gusts of air. He had stocked up, in case he needed to make another cannon. Wavedancer followed, sluggish in this aura.

  Take over.

  [Yes, Captain!]

  Lindon rose into the air on cushions of wind aura. Though the vital aura here was weak, he still had an easier time controlling it thanks to his Overlord spirit. He wouldn’t be able to freely fly like this, but he could hover in the air, giving Dross a better vantage point. Now they could see far more targets.

  Lindon controlled the aura and powered the constructs, but Dross handled targeting. The spirit’s attention split thirty, forty, fifty ways.

  [Aaaannnnd done!]