This had only been a possibility glimpsed in the future by Emriss Silentborn.
She’d been sending him predictions and helping him with his plans since he killed the Dreadgod, which he appreciated. The Silent King’s madra should be useful in divining the future, but neither he nor Dross had made any progress on that front.
A white flash appeared in the distance, and Lindon felt Yerin’s madra. He turned to the others on the hill. “Cassias, I have a home set aside for you and your family. Fisher Gesha, you’ll be aboard Windfall, with my family. I’ll make introductions, but it will have to wait for a moment.”
Gesha waved a hand. “No, see to your Sage business. I can introduce myself.” The eight metallic purple legs of her drudge extended from the bottom of her robes, and she was lifted on spider legs before click-click-clicking away.
Cassias dipped his head to Lindon. “If you could show us where to go, we’ll settle our belongings before we meet with the rest of the family.”
“Dross,” Lindon said aloud.
Cassias lifted his eyebrows as he saw a sign pointing toward the house where he was supposed to stay. It was one of the few original Wei clan buildings that had been reconstructed after the Titan attack.
The sign was a picture of Dross pointing downward, and one large character that said, ‘HERE!’
“My thanks. Good luck to you, Lindon.”
Cassias started to walk, but then he hesitated. “Actually, I apologize, but there is one more thing I was wondering. Eithan…was he really…”
“Yeah.”
The Truegold’s brow furrowed, and Lindon wasn’t sure how to read the expressions crossing his face.
“Why?” Cassias asked at last.
“I’ve asked that myself every hour since he left,” Lindon said. “If you’ll pardon me for half a guess, I think he was lonely.”
Cassias nodded. “Yes. I think he was.” He straightened his spine and gave a crisp bow, then walked off to join his family.
The Arelius clan in the Blackflame Empire may have survived, but not everyone had.
Jai Chen sat listlessly on a rock, staring haunted into the distance. Fingerling crooned on her shoulder, and she held a blue spear across her knees.
Lindon knew what happened when he saw her. He had already suspected when he didn’t sense Jai Long anywhere in camp.
Kelsa was nearby, but not outwardly grieving. She was answering the questions of a nearby family, pointing them off in some direction, but her expression was a hollow mask.
Lindon walked up to Jai Chen and sat next to her.
“Apologies,” he said quietly.
Tears brimmed in her eyes, but they didn’t fall. “Why didn’t you protect him too?” she asked.
The question hurt worse than he’d expected.
“I didn’t think he’d need it,” Lindon said honestly. He had a limited number of resources and a limited amount of time in which to plan. An Underlord, as far as he was concerned, was much more capable of defending himself than Kelsa or Jai Chen were.
The best Lindon could do to protect everyone was to take down the Dreadgod.
“I didn’t either,” Jai Chen whispered, and then she swiped angrily at her eyes.
Lindon looked down at his chalk-white palm and considered what he could say. He didn’t know much about Jai Long that was positive, but this seemed like the time to say something.
Kelsa stomped up while he was still trying to make up his mind. “Gratitude. Without you, we wouldn’t have made it out alive.”
She gave Lindon a stiff bow, but Lindon tried to catch a glimpse of her face. She was still wearing that stony mask.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“Better than I would have been if a monster had stolen my mind.” She met his gaze directly. “Did you kill it?”
“Yes.”
Dross slipped a comment into the conversation. [For context, I believe you should know that the Dreadgods have lived for thousands of years, and are considered all but impossible to kill.]
“But you did kill it.”
[Well yes, we did, I was only worried that you might not understand the full weight of that statement.] Dross paused for a second. [And my condolences for your loss, of course.]
“I’m glad you killed it.” Kelsa was standing perfectly straight and looking ahead, as though her spine had been replaced by a wooden post.
Lindon looked from Jai Chen, who was clearly grieving in her own world, back to Kelsa. He hadn’t spent much time with his sister over the last few years, but he suspected she blamed him for Jai Long’s death…but she knew that wasn’t fair, so she was wrestling with herself inside.