At first, Keshry’s words didn’t quite register. Turns out, horny cotton candy isn’t all that great in the language-processing department, and that was pretty much all I had left between my ears.

I blinked.

“Uh, what?”

“His whole coven is dead,” reiterated Keshry. “For more than a year now.”

“Wh—really? How?”

She tilted her head, regarding me.

“Mmm, they say it was an accident.” She pressed a finger to her lip, gaze drifting for a moment before snapping back to meet mine. More or less. “But there are many who doubt that.”

“More details, please,” I urged, frowning at Thor’s door as intrusive thoughts of busting into it, smelling all his stuff and rolling around on his bed flooded my mind. “Distract me.”

Keshry squeezed my arm harder and then pinched it, nipping into the skin with her claw, taking me by surprise.

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry, Ashri-an. It helps.”

I scrunched my nose at her, but couldn’t exactly argue her point.

“Details?” I pressed.

“They traveled together to the hills of Clan Khural for the Storm Trine,” she acquiesced. “Where a cave-in killed his covenmates—but he survived. Some think he was not meant to.”

“Are you saying someone was trying to assassinate him? Why?”

“Many believe it is so because he is favored for successor to the sovereign, and there are many older and more powerful who would claim that honor...most especially the chieftain of Khural.”

I balked.

“Thors is some kind of prince?”

Keshry’s eyes refocused, her interest peaked.

“What is a prince?”

“The son of a ruler?”

“Ah,” said the Jade. “No, but he is the sovereign’s four-times great grandson.”

For a moment I was silent, again trying to keep my breathing shallow and my focus on the conversation.

“Well, what does that mean, then? Will he just be covenless forever?”

Poor Thors. Poor, sweet, beautiful Thors.

“Perhaps, and perhaps not. If there was made room in another coven of our generation, by death or expulsion…then he could join. But they would have to be deemed worthy, approved by the sovereign himself.

“Oh.”

The bright bubble of hope in my chest burst, and my sympathy for Thors deepened.

There was a loud knock at the main entrance.

“I will answer,” said Keshry, jumping up. I forced myself to follow her down the ladder, but kept my distance as she approached and opened the door. A trio of kobolds entered, all of them deepborn. Thankfully. The first carried a leather sack in one arm and a wooden chest under the other, and the second a large, black-lacquered trunk, banded in iron. The third kobold bore a sizable tray of food. Uncovering it in a sudden bloom of aroma, he set it down upon an upthrust of stone.

The other two let down their burdens on the ground beside it. Keshry thanked them, and abruptly they turned and showed themselves out.

“Eeeeereeeeek!” called the little Jade over her shoulder. “Our food and things are here!”

Faintly, I thought I heard a sort of grunt from the room in which the Sapphire had shut himself. But the door remained closed.

My curiosity drove me toward the trunks and bag as I wondered which was mine and what might await me inside. But my stomach took the wheel, and it was the food I found myself reaching first for.

To one side of the tray were three of the now-familiar edible bowls, shimmering in the multi-colored light. I snatched one up, filling it with a little bit of every dish on offer, each one more delicious-smelling and unrecognizable than the last. Keshry followed suit, though she took substantially less for herself than I did.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I inhaled the food as quickly as I had the raw meat earlier that day. But I’d saved the strangest and most enticing item for last, something that could have as easily been a sea creature as some kind of dumpling. An oblong, squishy thing with translucent skin and mysterious filling which, when I bit into it, burst with savory juices that squirted across my face and dribbled down my chest. This, of course, prompted a slew of lewd thoughts in the Mooned-out majority of my brain. The remaining bit of it was just annoyed.

Great. I’m even more gross now.

I need a god-damned bath.

Finishing off the bowl, I eyed the blue pool at the heart of the chamber.

“Is that safe to get in, do you think?” I wondered. “Or is it pure acid or something?”

“It is the bathing pool. It’s safe,” said Keshry. “Just the right amount of acid.”

“Er, ok then.” Hoping I was right about what awaited me in my mysterious cache of personal items, I wiped my hands off on my dress.

“Which one of these is yours?” I asked her, pointing at the chest, trunk and bag to the side of our rock-table.

“Oh, this one,” she answered, indicating the wooden chest with a claw.

“Hm,” I crouched down as I peered at the other two. “And which do you think is mine?”

“It will have your name on it,” she replied, a little absently.

Going with my instincts, I inspected the big, glossy trunk first. Dragging it around so that its front clasp faced me, I found my answer. There were gem-studded sigils all over it, warding it against incursion by any other than its owner. And there was one set of glyphs.

Zia of Clan Ashri

Where a normal trunk would have had a lock, it had a sort of metal plate roughly the size of one of my hands, inscribed with a sigil of opening. I curled my nails under its bottom edge and tried to flip it up, but it didn’t budge. Then, on a hunch, I pressed my hand to it. At once the cold metal sank inward, and the top popped open.

For a moment, I forgot to keep my breathing shallow, gasping in a sudden lungful of air. As my head got all weird and floaty again, it became even harder to make sense of what all, exactly, I was looking at. The inside of the trunk’s lid was lined with little bottles, jars and implements, all held in place by straps and pockets. To one side of the main compartment below that were a number of bizarre and beautiful objects, crafted mostly of stone and gem chips, with more items wrapped in silks beneath them. On the other were packed rows of rolled-up leathers and fabric.

Resolving to stay focused on the necessities for now, I reached into the fabric side, pulling out something soft and gray and letting it unfurl in my hands. It was one of the fitted, tunic-type garments with lacing up the sides that the other kobolds so often wore, embroidered all over with silvery geometric designs.

It would do.

Setting it aside, I dug around in the trunk for anything resembling a towel and came up empty handed. Though I did discover, in the process, a small pile of books beneath all the finery.

Leaving them for later, I took my fresh change of clothes with me and made my way over to the pool, positioning myself to the other side of a large stone from Keshry and just out of her view, though I was almost disappointed in myself for doing it. It seemed unfair that I’d carried my self-consciousness with me into an entirely new—and much better—form. I tried at first to catch a glimpse of my reflection in the water’s surface, but all I saw was steam and blue and the pool’s rocky bottom.

Giving up, I slipped into the water, and a sigh of unexpected pleasure escaped me as the heat enveloped my body. It had a pleasantly clean, mineral scent to it that I’d barely noticed before, fixated on Thors as I’d been. Almost herbal, in a way. Tension drained out of my muscles and I eased back, closing my eyes for a moment as I let the water take up my weight.

If only I could get some alone time in here.

It occurred to me then that kobolds were almost definitely the types of creatures to bathe communally, so I hurried things up a bit before Keshry could decide to join me. I hadn’t had the focus or will to bother trying to figure out which, if any, of the little bottles in my trunk were soap. So instead I just kind of scrubbed myself with my hands in the water, which honestly felt cleansing enough on its own, thanks to the slight tingling sensation that shivered through my skin as I did it.

Sure enough, Keshry was trotting over as I finished, and I rushed to dart around the other side of the rock from her as I got out of the water, snatching up as I went my clean tunic in one hand and my dirtied dress in the other. Shaking myself dry like a dog, I got dressed as quickly as I could. Pulling out the little shells I’d stashed in its pocket and setting them aside, I held the tattered white thing out and away from me and peered around the rock at Keshry, now up to her neck in water.

“I don’t think I’ll ever wear this again,” I said. “What should I do with it?”

“Greenroom,” she said, staring up at the ceiling.

“Oh, alright.”

Maybe the trash is in there?

Unwilling to lose my composure before I got a chance to finish going through my stuff, I pulled out a sort of scarf-thing that was saturated with my own scent and tied it to drape over my snout before returning to the far end of the chamber where Thors’ scent was stronger. At the other side of the bottom level’s center-most door, I found the greenroom…but nothing resembling a trash can. So, shrugging to myself, I dropped the tattered scrap of a thing into the mushroom-lined toilet hole. Hope it’s biodegradable.

That handled, I rushed out and back over to the other side of the room and my giant trunk of stuff before the siren’s call of Thors’ room could get to me. Digging past all the clothes, I pulled out one of the leather-bound books and flipped it open in my lap.

The first thing that caught my eye were all the sigils, seemingly drawn in some kind of iridescent ink. But they had no gem chips, of course, and held no mana. I supposed that in this world, that made them more like plans for sigils than the actual thing. Mixed in among them were drawings, mostly of other kobolds—and they were pretty good ones at that. I recognized the style. It was almost identical to my own. I turned the page, and found more sigils…and a block of glyphs. Text.

Day 6, Jade Moon, 1236

I don’t think Erek will ever speak to me again. I’m going back home tomorrow anyway, but it still hurts. Of all people, I never thought I’d lose him. I don’t look forward to facing Seri now that I’m sure she knows I’m on to her. But I’m still excited to get back. I miss our hot springs more than anything, and adrasha dumplings. They try to make them here, but they just can’t compare. And to be honest, the springs here smell of sulfur. I won’t miss Odros. I wish I could say the same of Erek.

I hope to the stars and depths that next year is better. I don’t know how it can be, but I hope.