A moment later, a purple-eyed man and woman emerged. They looked to be in their mid-forties, but their faces were weathered and haggard as though they hadn’t slept in days.
Mercy’s throat tightened.
“Akura Earnest and Kiya,” Uncle Fury said. “Grace’s parents. They’re coming with me tonight, but they wanted to meet you first.”
Akura Grace had been the pride of her immediate family, skilled as she was among her generation. She was supposed to raise her parents up to further prestige within the clan.
Now she was gone.
Mercy hadn’t seen Earnest or Kiya since their daughter’s death. She’d been with Pride, and there had been too much going on.
Lindon looked like he wanted to bolt. He bowed as deeply to them as he had to Aunt Charity earlier. “This one cannot express his regret. Please accept my deepest apologies.”
Grace’s mother laid a hand on Lindon’s arm. “For what?”
He straightened cautiously.
“You avenged our daughter,” Earnest said. He bowed at the waist. “She was a warrior, and an Underlady, and prepared to die. Still…please accept our thanks.”
He pressed a purse into Lindon’s hands.
The pouch of scripted purple cloth wasn’t nearly as high-quality of an item as a void key, but it was still made by Charity to compress Forged madra. Indeed, Mercy could sense the power of at least a dozen types of scales coming from within.
They were leaving this world behind, and they had no other children, so Mercy wouldn’t be surprised if they had left their entire fortune in that purse. They would have wracked their brains for a gift worthy of Lindon. It wouldn’t be unheard-of, to leave such a reward to someone who had avenged a loved one.
Mercy knew Lindon well enough to see that he was struggling with himself. He looked as though he wanted to turn this down, because he thought he didn’t deserve it.
But his hands moved without him, and he tucked the pouch into his pocket before they could change their minds and take it back.
“Gratitude,” Lindon said, dipping his head over a salute. “I don’t know how to properly express my condolences, other than to wish you well as you journey onward.”
Fury clapped Earnest on the shoulder. “Take it easy if you need to. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Grace’s parents saluted Lindon in return, bowed to Fury, and then drifted away.
Once they had left, Uncle Fury watched their backs and spoke with unusual gentleness. “Time doesn’t heal everything, but it does help. Never gets easy, though.”
Yerin looked up at him. “Is it good for them, going with you? Could be like losing everybody at the same time.”
Fury shrugged. “I think it’ll help. They’ll have a new purpose, and a lot of their closer relatives are coming too. But they wanted to come, and I’m not telling them no.” He turned back to Lindon and Yerin. “It’s too bad you’re not coming up yet. Never did get a chance to fight you.”
“Apologies, but I don’t think we would make worthy opponents.”
“Well, yeah. Otherwise I’d be fighting you right now. But hey, I can wait a few years.” He gave them a cheery wave and started to walk backwards into the crowd. “See you on the other side, you two! Mercy, you want to give me a hand?”
Uncle Fury didn’t need her help. He just wanted to talk.
“Just a second,” she said to Lindon and Yerin, and then she hurried after her uncle. Well, her half-brother.
He spun around, walking forward with both hands laced behind his neck. People to either side had to duck his outstretched elbows, but most of the attendees here were advanced sacred artists. They managed.
“Thought we ought to talk about you before I’m out of here. The three stars of the clan are down to two, now. I suspect we’ll end up stronger than ever in the long run, now that the snake isn’t around anymore, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have a weak point for a couple years.”
Mercy straightened as she walked. “I’m ready to accept my responsibility.”
“…yeah, I thought so. The family will expect a lot from you when I’m gone. They want you to fulfill your duty to the family, and they all have their own ideas for what that looks like.”
This was strange. Uncle Fury was known for shirking any duty he could if it didn’t involve advancement or combat.
“It’s all a trap,” he continued. “Don’t get caught in it.”
That sounded a lot more like Fury.
“At some point, you have to start leading.” He grinned down on her and ruffled her hair. “Good luck.”
She had thought of many things to say, but in the end, only one mattered: “Good-bye, Uncle Fury.”
He threw his long arms around her in a hug, and she buried herself in his chest.
For a moment. Then he swept back into the party, leaving her to collect herself.
It was another hour before Fury was ready to depart. Mercy stuck with Lindon and Yerin as much as she could, helping to fend off those who wanted a moment alone with the stars of the Uncrowned King tournament.
Finally, after a long exchange with Charity that no one else could hear, Uncle Fury raised his voice.
“Looks like it’s time to go!”
The words boomed through the enclosed basement. One of the less-advanced servants fell to his knees.
“I think I’m supposed to talk about how I’m sad to be leaving you all behind, but I really can’t wait to go,” he continued. “If you’ve got what it takes, catch up.” He looked to someone at the front of the crowd and winked.
Mercy couldn’t see, but she was certain he was looking at his daughter, the Sage.
“Anyway, that’s enough from me. Later, everybody!”
And that was the end of a fairly typical Akura Fury speech.
As soon as the last word was out of his mouth, the room began to…stretch. It wasn’t anything Mercy could put a name to precisely, but it looked as though the room was being pulled like taffy until it stretched into a long hallway.
The end of the basement, where Fury and those accompanying him stood in a large group, was now much longer than it had been before. It looked like a mirage, a trick of the eye, but she felt no madra gathered there.
Only something else.
An absence of madra, maybe. Fury was at the center of it, pushing—or perhaps pulling—on something deeper than vital aura. Something she didn’t have the senses or the experience to name.
A blue light sparked in front of his outstretched hands.
It swelled as he concentrated, expanding to a ball that hovered in front of him. Unlike madra, this blue substance didn’t look like it was made of light, but rather like a patchwork of every shade of blue that existed. It looked almost material, but it couldn’t have been physical, and her eye couldn’t exactly trace its edges or layers.
The blue ball expanded into a circle big enough to fill the basement from floor to ceiling…and then it was no longer a ball, but a circular doorway, the blue stretching on infinitely in the distance.
Mercy thought that whatever technique Uncle Fury was using had been completed, but he braced his hands as though getting a grip on empty air.
Then he pushed.
The blue power snapped into a wide ring. A ring that led into another world.