Unsouled (Cradle Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

warn my friends rather than die together with him. I do not know how he survived.”
    Silence fell on the Clan Hall, and still the First Elder did not turn. He stroked the fox statue’s head as he thought.
    “What are the words of the Wei clan?” he asked at last.
    “Honor by any means,” the boys recited at once. The Path of the Wei clan used madra of light and dreams to deceive their enemies…but according to the first Wei Patriarch, even deception could be used to serve honor. It was the contradiction around which the Wei clan was founded.
    “There is a time when running to preserve your own life is not cowardice,” the elder went on. “When the threat is so great that your death would mean nothing, then flight is no shame.”
    Teris let out a deep breath.
    “But this was not such a threat,” the First Elder said, turning around at last. His face was carved from stone harder than the statues around him. “If this Remnant failed to defeat an Unsouled at the Foundation stage, then surely a Copper sacred artist could have stood against it. Your stipend will be withheld this month, you will spend a night in isolated meditation, and at the end you will be whipped three times in front of the clan. Cowards have no place in the Valley.”
    Teris bowed so low that his forehead stuck to the floor, so Lindon couldn’t see his face, but his whispered voice was choked. “You are wise and…merciful, First Elder.”
    The First Elder snorted. “Report to your father, tell him what I have said, and that I allow him to add a punishment of his own if he wishes. But if I do not see you through the window of a locked room tonight, then I will make your sentence three times worse. Go now.”
    Teris bowed again and fled without a word.
    Lindon braced himself. Part of him felt a measure of shameful glee at Teris’ sentence, but he couldn’t enjoy it. He knew his clan, he knew his own standing within it, and if the elder had punished an otherwise honorable Copper in front of him, it meant that there was something worse coming.
    The First Elder stood over Lindon, silently judging. Weighing. Perhaps deciding which of several sentences to mete out.
    If Lindon struck first, he might be able to mitigate the damage.
    “This one is shamed to be here before you, Great Elder,” Lindon said into the floor. “This one had no intention of interfering with the Coppers, or their hunt.” Best to bring up the hunt as much as possible, to remind him that Teris and the others had been breaking Elder Whisper’s rules. “This one was in search of an ancestral fruit, on behalf of his mother.”
    With one sharp gesture of his hand, the First Elder motioned for Lindon to get up. He scrambled gratefully to his feet.
    “Did you find it?”
    “Yes, First Elder.”
    The aura around the elder darkened, almost imperceptibly. “Did you waste it on yourself, Unsouled? I know you were tempted.”
    Lindon’s stomach was still buzzing with trapped lightning. It was all he could do not to swallow, afraid the First Elder would take that as a sign of guilt. “It went to my older sister. I mean…this one’s older sister.”
    The intimidating aura dispersed like clouds before the sun, and the First Elder waved irritably. “Speak freely, Shi Lindon. I’ve seen you in here often enough.”
    Lindon fought back a smile. “Yes, First Elder, but I have little to add. Cousin Teris told the story accurately.”
    The First Elder had the longest eyebrows of anyone Lindon had ever seen, and they shot halfway up his forehead at this. “You know what you’ve done wrong, then?”
    That was a trap if Lindon had ever heard one. Sweat trickled down his back, and the lightning in his stomach boiled up. It would be worse luck than he deserved if the fruit made itself known now.
    “I…was…too far from clan territory, First Elder. I know it now. In the future, I will travel in the company of my sister. Thank you for instructing me.”
    The elder sighed, rubbing at his