Radeon stood among the roots in the borrowed skin of Giovanni. Hundreds of cultists watched him. None dared rush.
Not with that red light in his hand and that grin that did not belong on a man who ought to be dying.
Then a man in a collared robe stepped out from the press. The collar alone marked him as someone worth fearing.
In the Hemal Tithe Cult, cloth was rank, and rank was permission.
His eyes were wizened with age, yet his face stayed smooth, almost soft, as if he were barely past adolescence.
Old gaze. Young skin. A lie made flesh. He stopped just beyond the reach of the talisman's glow and studied Giovanni.
A disciple he had long since presumed dead, and now he saw it was truly him.
His brows eased a fraction, quiet satisfaction in him at how tenacious the boy had proven to be.
"What is this uproar. All of you, lower your blades. This man is a brother of our cult, is he not?" The man's voice shook in everyone's mind.
Weapons hit the ground, not their sheaths. This man was no man at all.
He was lunacy incarnate, a being who would take offense at any command he disliked, even from the one who ran Ashlime Crag itself.
Radeon, now Giovanni, staggered forward, each step a drag.
His breath smoked in the cold air, but he did not flinch from the man in the collared robe.
A man Giovanni had known since birth, and the last face he remembered before he met his demise at Radeon's hand.
He raised the bamboo shaft at once. His hands shook hard enough that his knuckles popped.
The crackle carried to those nearest, the simple motion painting a body on the verge of breaking.
"Master Jekyll. This disciple had slaved away in the enemy camp." Tears streamed down Radeon's face as he continued. "I am but incompetent and foolish, and I only managed to acquire this information. Please accept it." Radeon said, and his last words broke into sobs.
Jekyll heard him out and did not quite believe a word of it.
Doubt lay plain in his eyes. Yet his clean hands still reached for the soiled bamboo.
He cracked the shaft open and unwound the thin papers hidden inside.
His gaze moved over crude array diagrams, supply numbers, ship records.
He checked the bamboo again and found more, pages covered in tighter script.
Seals from array masters whose names carried weight.
Jekyll folded the documents with care and slipped them into his breast.
Then he pushed the empty bamboo shaft back into Radeon's shaking hand.
"Sleep now, disciple. You have done your part," he said, his voice soft as a spell.
Radeon fought to keep his eyes open, but his mind was too worn to hold the line.
Darkness slipped in at the edges and then closed over him.
Jekyll moved the instant Radeon sagged. In a blink he was there, a hand catching him before his face could hit the leaf rot.
The forest floor dropped away. Light flared. Their bodies rose through the branches and shot into the night in a streak, back toward Ashlime Crag.
Wind tore at Radeon's borrowed face. The world blurred. The talisman's heat became distant, then gone.
Behind them, the cultists among the trees froze in place. Heads bobbed, one to the next, as if asking each other what they were meant to do now.
Radeon woke in the dark. The ceiling was low and close. Beneath his back, the mat felt stiff and tacky.
When he lifted a hand to see why, his fingers came away from old blood.
He turned his head slowly. Row after row of mats lined the room, each one stained the same way.
The sight tugged at something dull and familiar in him. This was not new. This was home, of a kind.
He examined himself and found his qi moving clean. He had broken through to the Cornerstone Stage.
What's more, his blood essence no longer scraped the bottom of the well. Vitality sat full and heavy in his limbs.
Radeon let the knowledge pass through him without celebration. For now he only asked what he could do with it.
'If they can get me this much vitality this easy, I'm in the right place.' he thought.
Seeing no one watching, Radeon did not stand. Not yet. He lay still and let his mind walk the space, not his feet.
He started tracing every exit, every bit of cover, and where watchers might sit on patrol.
Whenever Radeon's mind threatened to go idle, he used it as a whetstone.
He mapped Ashlime Crag through Giovanni's memories, pulling the stronghold apart piece by piece.
Every road the youth had walked. Every smell that clung to certain corridors. Every name spoken in passing. Habits too.
Where Giovanni's eyes had merely wandered, Radeon made it an investigation.
Radeon did not hurry. For now he chose patience.
He shut off his senses one by one until only his hearing remained. He needed to check it one last time. Timing.
Once the plan settled, he began to count. Steps that dragged and scraped. The medic. Footfalls even and measured. Cultists on patrol.
Begrudging yet light, like men walking because they were told. Quick shuffles in pairs, half whispered chatter. Young recruits and errand boys.
A couple of days slipped by in darkness and sound.
In that time, he pushed his cultivation steadily into the middle stages of Cornerstone, eyes still closed, breath slow and controlled.
Radeon rose from the blood-stiffened mat as if climbing out of a grave. Limbs light, steps steady.
The caretakers fussed at his side, hands hovering near his shoulders in case he toppled.
Radeon let his eyes shine with the wet gratitude Giovanni would have worn.
"My thanks for your care," Radeon said. He stood, then bowed with respect.
"Best you thank Master Jekyll, lad," an old man said, waving off the undue praise. "It was his own panacea you tasted, not my poor draughts."