This time, he was left smiling at his door. Firmly shut.
He kept his expression in place as each breath stretched on. He hadn't heard anyone walk away, so surely someone was still there. Was this silence designed to make him uncomfortable? Or had it only been a few seconds, and his frantic mind was stretching each instant into an eternity?
He took three deliberate breaths and confirmed that no, they really were making him wait. Why? Every other day, they had simply delivered the food.
An instant later, he was given his answer.
The door swung open.
Normally, a balding old man delivered a box with his meal in it, collected his old box, and left without a word. Lindon had deliberately not picked up his old box today, in the hopes of prodding a sentence out of the man—a demand, a curse, anything. It hadn't worked when he'd tried that before, as the man had simply gestured and the wind had carried Lindon's empty box to him, but surely anything worth trying was worth trying twice.
Eithan and Yerin stood outside, both smiling.
The Underlord had a smug grin on his face, hands in the pockets of his blue silk robes, long yellow hair tied behind him. He looked like a child who had the satisfaction of seeing a trick he'd pulled work flawlessly.
Yerin's smile came with a breath of relief, as though she hadn't expected to find him here. He stared at her like he hadn't seen her for months: her skin covered by razor-thin scars, her black robes sliced and tattered, and two silver blades hanging over her shoulders. A sword was buckled onto her hip, strapped onto a red belt that seemed to be made of liquid...or perhaps a living Remnant.
Even after all the times she’d saved his life, he’d still never been happier to see her.
Eithan...he couldn't be quite so happy to see Eithan. Usually, when the Arelius Patriarch popped up unannounced, that meant he was about to put Lindon through something dangerous.
Lindon stared at them for longer than was appropriate. He knew his eyes were wide and his lips parted, but he still couldn't quite believe that they were here. Now, with no hint and no warning.
“You like looking at me so much, I might get the wrong idea,” Yerin said, grinning and rapping her knuckles on the lower half of the door, which was still shut. “You going to ask us in, or what?”
Lindon stammered for a few moments before saying, “...in? You're not coming to get me out?”
Eithan put on an offended look even as he levered the handle and slid the rest of the door open. “Get you out? After all the trouble we went through breaking in here? That would just be rude.”
He shut both halves of the door behind them when they entered.
Yerin glanced around the room and nodded approvingly. “Not bad. Can't even call this a proper prison, can you?”
Eithan ran his hands over the scorched hole in the wall paneling. “Ah, what happened here? Training accident?”
“No, I was trying to escape. I stopped because I thought you might come for me.”
“Just to visit you,” Eithan said, leaning against the wall and folding his arms. “Looks like you have a cozy place to call your own. I wouldn't want to ruin that.”
Lindon had no response.
Yerin kicked the side of Eithan's leg so hard that it sounded like a hammer hitting the ground, but the Underlord didn't so much as flinch.
“The Skysworn say they haven't arrested you,” Yerin explained. “They like to fiddle with words. Basically, they're keeping you like a fish in a pond so they can keep an eye on you. You're not in danger.”
That was a relief, but it didn't explain why they weren't freeing him.
Eithan buffed his fingernails on the edge of his robe. “I'd prefer not to antagonize the Skysworn more than I already have, but I couldn't let your training stagnate with such an important deadline looming. So I decided to bring the training to you! We can all three continue our pursuits in this very room. Convenient, isn't it?”
Lindon wouldn't have called it convenient, but he still had to admit he was greatly relieved to see them here. At least he wouldn't be alone anymore. And there were some burning questions he finally had the chance to ask.
From his pocket, he withdrew a glass ball that burned with a blue flame in the very center. The Skysworn had confiscated it from him—along with most of his belongings—when they brought him here, but it had appeared beside him one morning when he woke up.
“You showed me something like this before,” Lindon said, voice low. “Where did you get it?”
Eithan tapped his fingers together. “That's an interesting first question. You don't want to know about my Path, perhaps? The techniques I could teach you?”
“Of course, yes. But this first.”
“Very well. I inherited it from my family.”
Lindon waited for more, but none came.
“Did you know all along?” He asked. “Is that why you...picked me?”
This was one of the questions that had needled him ever since he'd seen Eithan produce the marble with the void at its heart. Had Eithan really singled him out because he saw a singular opportunity, or because he'd recognized Suriel's marble? Was Lindon only special because of the glass ball in his hand?
Eithan patted the pocket on his right hip. “I keep mine in here. Close your eyes and stretch out your perception, if you would.”
Lindon followed instructions, reaching out to sense Eithan with the extra sense he'd developed when he grew to Jade. He was still growing used to the impressions given by his spiritual sense—it seemed to only feel the nature of madra, ignoring anything physical, so something could feel as though it was right next to you even if it was blocked off by a brick wall.
At first, he felt Yerin's power: sharp, cold, and somehow not fully formed, like a gemstone halfway through cutting. The sword on her hip gave off a different power, distant and cold as a far-off mountain. He couldn't get a grasp of exactly how powerful that weapon was. Her belt...he pulled his perception away from the belt. It always made him think of murder, of blood-drenched hands and the scent of a slaughterhouse.
He felt almost nothing from Eithan, as though the man were made of air. Eithan had mentioned before that he wrapped his core in a veil: a technique that allowed him to mask his power. Lindon wondered if Eithan would teach him, now that he had enough power to mask.
Sharpening his focus, he dove into Eithan's pocket and encountered...a gap.
He wouldn't have noticed anything strange if he hadn't been specifically looking for it, but it was like something in Eithan's pocket was hidden, concealed so that he couldn't sense a hint. He pushed further, tightening his perception, trying to penetrate it.
He may as well have saved his effort. Confused, he ran his perception into the marble he carried. Suriel's marble was warm and comforting, even to his spiritual sense, and it also brought a sense of order, of rightness. Like the flame added something into the world, rather than taking it away.
When Lindon opened his eyes, Eithan dipped into his pocket and withdrew the void marble. He held it up so that Lindon could see: a perfectly clear orb the size of a man's thumbnail with a perfectly dark hole in the center. Lindon still felt nothing, as though the object had no power whatsoever.
“The legacy of my bloodline works slightly differently,” Eithan explained. “An Arelius sees things as though with our physical senses, seeing and hearing and smelling rather than picking up on spiritual perception. As such, I saw the marble in your pocket like a ball of glass...but I could see nothing inside.”