It was only if he thought he could get more out of her by dissecting her that he would cause a problem. The soul oath that bound Yerin also bound Red Faith…though not the Herald that had once been his Blood Shadow.
Lindon had been the one to suggest this course of action, which Dross expected had a “reasonable” chance of going well. And now that he was standing in front of it, this seemed like too terrible of a risk.
Little Blue was veiled and curled up inside Yerin’s soulspace, but Lindon could feel that she was only holding onto her courage thanks to his own confidence. If he doubted the plan too much, she might panic.
There were more Emissaries of Redmoon Hall surrounding them now, their Blood Shadows in various forms, but Lindon wasn’t listening to them. As far as he gathered, they were panicking at the lack of response and trying to get some reassurances that Lindon and Yerin weren’t about to murder them.
They could wait.
Lindon pretended they didn’t exist and kissed Yerin goodbye, which he thought would help him accept the situation. It didn’t work. He leaned over her and muttered, “There has to be a less risky way to do this. How would you feel about replacing your arm?”
Yerin looked to his Remnant hand. “That’s a thought. Maybe we’ll call that a backup. Still got the Bridge as my ticket away; he can’t stop me from zipping out whenever I want.”
“Yes, he can,” Lindon said. “It’s called a spatial lock, and that’s why you have the gatestones. If he locks down space, you should be able to stress the field by throwing the stone, then use the Moonlight Bridge while the lock is disrupted. You know, now that I think of it, one gatestone and one extra probably isn’t—”
The voice of the next Redmoon Emissary shook the canyon in which they stood like thunder. Sand danced like fat popping in a pan. “Void Sage! Overlady Yerin Arelius! We require acknowledgement of your intentions!”
Irritated, Lindon looked at the man without removing his veil. He spoke quietly. “Pardon, but who requires it?”
The man, an Overlord, didn’t flinch. “The Sage of Red Faith!”
“Then bring him out.”
“The Sage will arrive soon! He instructed us to keep you here and determine your intentions!”
“Our intentions are peaceful, so why don’t we all wait here for the Sage? Quietly.”
“We have to determine—”
“Quiet,” Lindon commanded.
The man’s mouth moved and his throat worked, but no sound came out. Yerin gave a low whistle. “That was a fun one!”
“I’ve been practicing. There’s a trick to that. If I ordered him not to speak, he could break the working. So I remove the sound as it leaves his mouth.”
The Overlord looked horrified, and the other members of Redmoon Hall had not said another word.
“That will fade in a minute or two,” Lindon went on. “I was planning to use it on Eithan.”
Yerin sighed. “Probably wouldn’t have worked.”
“I think he was looking forward to me trying it. I found several constructs in his outer robe before he veiled them. He had recorded responses ahead of time.”
“Sometimes I—” Yerin began, but she was cut off by the Sage of Red Faith’s arrival. His spirit appeared on the cloudship over their heads, which he must have used to anchor the coordinates of his transportation.
A moment later, he dropped from the sky.
Lindon had only seen the Blood Sage on a few occasions, and the man looked like a skeleton with the bare minimum of skin and flesh to qualify as “alive.” He was thin to the point of starvation, with long white hair and scarlet lines running down from his eyes like tears of blood.
He landed in a squat and didn’t straighten up, piercing Yerin with pink eyes. “You have arrived, as I knew you must. None can resist the song of true power for long.”
“Told you I was coming, didn’t I?” She glanced back at Lindon. “My friend here trusts you almost as much as I do, so he wants your word. You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
The Sage’s eyes widened. “Kill you? While you are assisting me in understanding your experience, you are far safer with me than with a young Sage who has barely explored his powers. You are safer than a bird in its mother’s nest. I will not only leave you unharmed, but I will protect you even from the Phoenix itself.”
Yerin scratched a spot over her eye. “Yeah, now I’m not stone-certain about this either.”