“Can’t imagine he’d let me grow enough to put a sword to his throat.”
“No. He will decide upon a level of loss that he will tolerate. He will not allow you to develop so far that you and I could join forces and defeat him.”
Yerin could feel the uneasy balance between the two Redmoon Hall factions in her mind. There had to be a way to tip the scales the way she wanted.
She rested a hand on her sword. “Jump that river when we get there. You ready?”
The Sage shook in place like a restless child and nodded furiously.
“Good. Got one more condition.”
He froze.
“I have a partner.”
Yerin burst out onto the deck, in the middle of a crowd of Redmoon Hall Emissaries. There were thousands of Hall members onboard the ship, but only those who had bonded a Blood Shadow were considered Emissaries.
Those were the only ones worth mentioning.
She caught sight of one of those that Red Faith had pointed out. It wasn’t hard; his Blood Shadow floated around his midsection in a ring and sprouted needles in time with his heartbeat.
Yerin had asked if there were any special Blood Shadows in the Herald’s faction. Like Yan Shoumei and her enhanced Shadow, Crusher.
While Crusher was a special case, of course there were Emissaries at every level of advancement who stood out. Some of whom could potentially provide a challenge even to Yerin.
“You Alden Zaius?” she asked. Netherclaw was bare and propped against her shoulder.
He nodded. Alden Zaius was an Overlord at least twenty years older than her, his skin scarred and rough. She knew from experience that scars like that would have been healed by advancement, so they must be relatively recent.
He was one of the toughest-looking men she’d ever seen if you didn’t count Monarchs, and the spikes rising from the ring-shaped Blood Shadow with every beat of his heart didn’t make him any softer on the eyes. No more than his Goldsign, which was made of more red spikes that covered his head like hair.
Yerin tapped her sword. “Looking to take your Blood Shadow.”
Alden scowled at her and his madra stirred. “I know who you are. The Sage will protect you.”
“Sage told me you were cracked in the head enough to worship a Dreadgod. Let me put in my Monarch eyes and tell you the future: I’ll be running this place inside the year. Only takes one person to finish their research, and you’re looking at her.”
Alden barked out a laugh. “Even if Redmoon allowed that, the Hall would never follow you.”
“Might be not. If they did, it’d just be for my power.” She extended a wrist. “Why don’t you take it?”
Now, Alden Zaius froze.
She’d been hoping he would fall for her taunts immediately, but this was good enough.
“Who knows what my blood essence would do for you? Can’t say I do. Got to imagine that would be a good test for the Sage. Wouldn’t be bad for them either if I took your Shadow and ate it like a nighttime snack, so I can’t see them twitching a finger to save either of us.”
Yerin’s Goldsigns stretched. “Does a duel sound sweeter to you now?”
Alden glanced down. The Herald’s madra remained stable from below, though Redmoon was clearly monitoring the situation.
The Overlord Emissary obviously took that as permission, because his eyes lit up. He spread his hands and circled her. “Not here,” he said.
“You lead on.”
He hopped over the edge of the ship and she followed. There were still many other Emissaries spread out here; the ship couldn’t go far, so many of them had made camp on the ground.
They looked up as Yerin and Alden landed on a hill covered in grass and sparse trees. For now. Yerin was sure that neither the trees nor the hill would make it more than a couple seconds into the duel.
“The Sage will know that you came to me with this,” Alden warned. “He will not punish me.”
Yerin tapped the flat of Netherclaw against her shoe. “You’ve got a bright opinion of yourself, don’t you?”
In an instant, red spikes shot out of the ring floating around his body and speared toward Yerin. She dodged one and met the other with her sword.
Her feet stayed in place, but the hill cracked beneath her.
Gray spikes rose from below her at the same time. Not sword madra, as she’d expected. Not quite. It was force madra, but if it was any sharper, it would be considered sword-aspect.
She leaped up, but a Ruler technique seized the force madra around her and sent her body plummeting down onto the spikes.