Adwyn knew it was mistaken, but sense was sense.

The schizon-clad drake lighted down on the granite hall like the pupil of Gwymr/Frina. One glance was spared to the male assistant barring the door. Then the adviser scanned the four guards watching.

He smirked, and strode right up to the assistant. “I must speak with Mlaen.” The words came piercing like light, and his studied glare shone upon the assistant.

The other drake could have flinched. He swallowed and said, “She went out looking for you.” He didn’t mean Mlaen.

“A shame. Yet not my concern.” He took a step.

“She’s at the Berwem gate⁠ ⁠—⁠ thought you might fly that way.”

Adwyn glanced at a guard. “They have mirrors. Tell her to come back.” He took another step. “Or don’t. Wait until I leave.”

The assistant still stood in front of the door, albeit with a coiled tail and dew that could have been spicier.

He asked, “Where have you been?”

“Can I not fly out to talk to a friend?”

“You⁠ ⁠—” He stopped to collect himself. “You were summoned by an Inquirer, and you refused to let us accompany you!” The smaller orange drake glanced away. “Something is up.”

“Precisely why I must see Mlaen. Surely you aren’t holding that up?”

“She’d going to bite you when she gets back.” But he stepped aside.

Adwyn slinked his way down the twisting ramp, and paused frowning in the lobby.

He could have kept straight, gone down to the sleepless red wiver.

He went right, down the same corridor from earlier. Past the threshold of the Dyfnderi’s room, he was pulling down a pycnofiber curtain, and covering the doorway. It would stop no one; yet his assistants were not (to his surprise) foreign to politeness.

When Adwyn lay down, one lamp shone in this dim room, the one sitting on his desk. He stared into it, and reflected.

The scarlet drake had always been a chimerical hope. Adwyn’d always known he was somewhat older and foreign, and that was if he’d even been interested at all, at all. But they had complimented each other finely. And for Adwyn there had always been one more matter, on other thing to address, which kept him from seeing how bright it could shine. Kept him from ever asking.

Would it have been better to lose hope earlier, or later? Or never?

Adwyn sighed. There were clearer ways to deal with this⁠ ⁠—⁠ that old king had convinced him into at least some time in a monastery.

But to just accept it, to acknowledge what couldn’t be denied, to move past? Adwyn couldn’t tell you it wouldn’t work. Couldn’t tell you some half of him didn’t want it. Logic, rationality, philosophy, the disciplines of order and sundry, they all had come as easy to him as everything else.

And yet. Still there lingered some succulent complexity, some verity that dwelt in his feeling that he wouldn’t release so simply.

He liked the scarlet drake, fancied him. But Adwyn didn’t know what he would do about the feeling⁠ ⁠—⁠ but mere acceptance, stoic forgetfulness, seemed too abject.

And just as it had been with expressing his feelings beforex, right now there were still other tasks to be completed. Then, Adwyn could deal with matters of the fangs.

The high alchemist, his wife, and the high guard. None of them could be trusted. The wife and the high guard at least gleamed sympathetic about it, but the alchemist⁠ ⁠—

It was a threat. And an alchemist was the last dragon you wanted against you.

Adwyn could cede. Go to sleep now, and in the morning find something less… dangerous to occupy his attention.

What, truly, was at stake? Mlaen said it herself⁠ ⁠—⁠ concern for the law was rich, coming from him. Adwyn knew laws were just finely engraved stones. Treason, conspiracy, trespassing, theft of what truly wasn’t theirs⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was all pale, victimless and abstract.

Truly, Adwyn was guilty of worse.

But even if it weren’t about the law, Adwyn had to solve this mystery and he’d known it since the puzzling existence of the Dychwelfa revealed itself, even more with the baffling appearance of the humans, and most with the perplexing actions of the thieves. It was what the adviser had hoped to find (and disappointed not to find) in the sky-dweller exile; a sight for answers and a sight for knowledge. Adwyn had to know.

So perhaps morals didn’t shine, here. Adwyn decided he wouldn’t rest even if the thieves were actually heroes. It was a puzzle, to see their true face, to scry their true motive. The Return of Dwylla? The human demonhunters? The old pillars of Gwymr/Frina?

It all piqued, and if nothing else, Adwyn would sate his curiosity.

Adwyn rose and advanced once more to the threshold. Still, one more choice prickled: should he tell Mlaen? The alchemist’s threat lingered. Do not inform the faer.

Would the black ascendant stand opposed to an ancient alchemist? As the scarlet drake would say, there’s confidence and that’s too much of it.

But⁠ ⁠—⁠ Ushra was old and withering. What had he done to hold onto that kind of respect?

Gwymr/Frina had been haunted by its past long enough. Adwyn would care about its future.

“You look brightly smug,” came some growl of a voice. “I’d tell you it’s not a good look, but you don’t care and I don’t think that mug of yours has a better look.”

Adwyn cleared his eyes, leaving the realm of thought to discover he remained at the threshold, standing to block a scowling orange wiver.

He said, “I’d tell you rudeness isn’t a good flavor for you, but I don’t mind.” Adwyn stepped aside and the wiver did not step into the room.

“What you should tell me,” she started, “is what possessed you to fly away against your assistants? Shall I report this?”

“Do what you will. I think capitol will care more that I stand at the cusp of uncovering the secrets at the heart of Gwymr/Frina.”

“And you’ll have all that honor to yourself, won’t you?” She looked sour.

Adwyn regarded the wiver. He smirked a certain schemely smirk. “Well, I wouldn’t say you two are uninvolved. Why, you could certainly stand to make my life easier, less complicated. That should not go unnoticed.”

The wiver was like a bug. But that entailed a certain simplicity, an a lack of loyalty. She wasn’t on his side, not yet and perhaps not ever. But he had a sway, for now.

The female assistant followed after him, as he walked off. He didn’t mind, but didn’t allow her to step into the room with him and Mlaen.

Adwyn would unravel the secrets of Gwymr/Frina. Adwyn would descend the pits.

(And if the town needed a hero… the black ascendant could redeem his name.)

----------------------------------------

Adwyn paused a moment to see the paintings. Cynfe’s work. They smelt oddly of ink, and had the glow of the finest oils. Forms seemed to struggle to life, shadows sinking away and highlights popping. One painting stared out over the red distance of the land of glass and secrets, as it was known from its highest peaks. A land crossed and riveled deep with serpent-like gullies and ravines and gorges, with blooms of green or black life scattered all around. The suns neared colorfully the horizon, and thunderous storm-clouds weighed high above.

That painting was largest, the centerpiece. Others hung meekly beside it. One of a cracked fire-clay mug and its twin shadows, rendered to exact extremes for inscrutable reasons. One of a land snail eating a tidbit chicken, ponderously. Adwyn saw fish, scenes of bamboo, and the night’s sky.

What shined out most though, was that there were no dragons. He had to sift the walls to find it, tucked away in a corner. The one painting, with a dragon, was of Mlaen. A portrait. It could have⁠ ⁠—⁠ should have⁠ ⁠—⁠ been one of the centerpieces, but Adwyn knew why it wasn’t. The Mlaen dwelling in this painting regarded kindly, softness in her cheeks, a smile. As Adwyn looked longer into her painting, he felt a voyeur’s shame ride up on him, the sense that in this painting was a moment, someone’s moment, and it wasn’t his.

Adwyn had never seen this Mlaen.

He frowned as the lights blent together in his head: the paintings had no dragon save one, because no dragon would model for her save that one.

“I never did expect pieces like these in the land of glass and secrets.”

It was the male assistant, sidling up to him. He let him with a nod and no response.

They waited for the female adviser to get ready.

Among them settled the silence of the town hall very late into the night, like the rich soil to nurture fruits of thought.

It would help, if Adwyn hadn’t already found enough resolution to sate that hungry thinking part of his brain. Everything was decided; he would solve the town’s mystery, he would descend the pits.

Properly, the pits were just another sifting hazard (it was as if the lake collected them.) Plummeting chasms of dustone and glass out in the lake’s center, they were like stabwounds in its battle against the sky. The librarian had wondered if they were accidents of the flow of the glass, or sites of doomed meteors, or something odder still. They reached down to the caves that were like the arteries of the cliffs, and natives called those caves the pits too, in defiance of sense.

Dragons said they didn’t want to talk about the pits, but you couldn’t shut them up if you attempted to. The superstitious prattle was entertaining to hear, in the least, but Adwyn knew they were deeply hyperbolic: supposedly, the pits had humans, spiders, fungal oddities, slightly animated cadavers, things too monstrous and strange for the lake above, things which tried to be dead and failed, and things no dragons had dared yet to name.

If you believed their talk, one would think the unholy pits the place of some god’s lingering curse⁠ ⁠—⁠ if what the natives called unholy had, in their godless spirituality, some meaning greater than ‘it gives me the creeps.’

Adwyn breathed in and out, in and out. The posture of meditation came easily to him, and he found patience in the peace of the moment. The drake beside him didn’t make that harder; when he didn’t whine with his simpering voice, he was a fair sight. Adwyn breathed in and out, and waited for the female assistant against his better judgment. As he breathed, he felt the anxious notes of his heartbeats augmenting to steady rhythms⁠ ⁠—

And he felt them diminuting instantly upon his hearing the furtive step.

Someone was padding up behind him. Rounding, he saw a cringing figure in black and gold scurrying into the room.

“Hi–hi, Adwyn-sofran.”

Mouth closed, he popped his tongue. Opening it, he said, “What is it?”

The figure⁠ ⁠—⁠ who would stand his taller if she didn’t slouch⁠ ⁠—⁠ cast her eyes down, brilles clouding as a wing slipped into her bag.

Adwyn waited.

The figure pulled out⁠ ⁠—⁠ a thick white net rolled onto a stick of bamboo.

He tilted his head.

“Mistress⁠ ⁠—⁠ err, Cynfe-sofran has heard of your, um, glassheaded plan to stir trouble in the pits, and she wants you to take this so she doesn’t dew when you ground yourself.”

The adviser stared at the net-spooled bamboo. Gingerly, he grasped and moved it to his bag with care appropriate for a bomb or bible.

Concern molted from his face just as the magical implement left sight. He looked at the low secretary, regarded her, examined her.

Levelly he said, “I spoke my plans to Mlaen alone.”

The figure cringed back three steps. She wore such a embarrassed frown one would think her cheeks would twist off.

Adwyn smirked at the little eavesdropper, fangs unfolded.

This proved to be too much and the wiver squeaked. Adwyn wondered if her tail would fall twitching off like some little lizard. He’d seen it happen.

“Calm yourself,” he said. “I’d be a hypocrite if I faulted you for a touch of targeted listening in service to some scheme.”

Were he a persuader, were he interested in ingratiating, he’d’ve done it differently; but Adwyn knew what he cared about, and it wasn’t this wiver.

He took a stride toward the cringing figure. Still slouched in a low-stand, she saw the shorter drake look down on her.

He asked, “You report only to Cynfe, correct?”

“Bariaeth pays very much. But–but my mistress said she would make me strong and confident and not like sp–spineless whelps like him. I–I haven’t talked to him in a⁠ ⁠—⁠ while.”

With a neutral line, Adwyn said, “Strong and confident? You should start now.” He motioned her up.

“But⁠ ⁠—⁠ you are a Sofrani. I shouldn’t!”

“I don’t play the respect games, Gyfari.” He glanced aside. “And irregardless you have Cynfe on your side⁠ ⁠—⁠ or perhaps the other way around. There are precious few things she worries about.”

Adwyn saw the wiver still gawked at him, so he added, slowly, “She’ll protect you from whatever offense you might cause. Act as you wish.”

“Mistress says you have no idea what you talk about.”

He clouded his brilles for a moment. When he glimpsed a rebuttal, he cleared his eyescales, and saw an orange wiver was watching them. She sauntered over at his glance.

“Look at you, trying to be helpful. One wonders what strangeness has shined into you⁠ ⁠—⁠ if one wonder about you at all.”

Adwyn compacted his annoyance before it grew again. To the low secretary he only said, “Tell Cynfe this town has enough scheming without her throwing herself into the blend.”

The secretary nodded vigorously, and scurried away.

He turned to the tardy wiver.

“Shall we be off?”

----------------------------------------

Behind them the Berwem gate crashed close. It was a plunge⁠ ⁠—⁠ tangible progress toward the pits, a visceral separation from the civil into the wilds. The lamps had turned to red, and the catwalks thinned.

But perhaps Adwyn was letting his anticipation ferment his expectation. The mind-clearing breath came simply, but his tart worry regenerated as fast.

In his wings, Adwyn held that stick of bamboo; furling and unfurling little lengths of net. He ran toes over its smooth cords, catching no seam, and no stab of his claws could pierce them. A closer look found sections of net one could rip off, each with a bright red thread. Seamless as the cords were, every bit of red frayed outward.

The high secretary did not like him. He didn’t think that had changed. And yet, a gift seemed to clash violently with her character.

Of another dragon Adwyn might suspect some hidden fondness for him, but he didn’t glimpse her capable of such subtleties.

Right now the assistants trailed behind him, but in this moment of reflection, they’d come to his heels. He restrained a glare; without them, he might already be in the pits by now. These scrawny administration dragons could barely manage a flight to the gate. They implored him to stop, let them rest their wings for a spell. He should have left them then.

The male was speaking up. He asked, “So that thing’s magic, isn’t it?” Pointing at the net in the adviser’s wings.

Adwyn considered lying. “Worrisome magic. The secretary quite nearly roasted a human with these same nets.” He paused, tasted his fangs. “I cannot say my stomach agree with the thought of using this.”

The female assistant had a lamp that hung off a wing. Beside her head, as if to brandish her future scowls. She was not glaring at the furled nets, oddly enough.

Instead, curiosity⁠ ⁠—⁠ the Gwymr/Frina kind of curiosity⁠ ⁠—⁠ was limned in her face as she snapped up a look at him. She asked, “Where do you think the halfbreed got them?”

Adwyn thought she would scowl to taste just how much the locals were blending into her. Or, perhaps, she would scoff it off, take it in gaze.

He didn’t have an answer. “Mlaen leans far more into magics than one would glimpse. Cynfe is her little flower, bright and well-watered.”

“It looks⁠ ⁠—⁠ dim,” started the female, “to give implements like that to a secretary, and no guard.”

“Guards who wouldn’t take brightly to magic?”

“Guards who wouldn’t take brightly to orders?” She twisted her voice, made it horribly smarmy and sarcastic.

Adwyn said, “Turn down your lantern. Gwymr/Frina’s pits run deep.”

The female fell back off his heels like that, and they walked on, a dimmed lantern lighting their footing, and and red lanterns their ambiance. The female was positioned herself to deny the light to Adwyn.

And like this, they walked⁠ ⁠—⁠ not flew⁠ ⁠—⁠ to the prison at the center of the lake. Wydrllos was the safest route to descend the pits.

As Gwymr/Frina tended to a landmark behind them, nighttime fauna found their confidence.

Anurognaths crooned tunefully, and came down on sleepless tentacle snails. Big round bats glared from crevices and let the glider scorpion take a night of peace. One pair licked each other’s wings. A big six-legged jumping cat, she was not fully grown but bold, struck down from an evil-looking crevice-alley and came up close to them in near-deadly silence. Adwyn pulled out his baton and she went back to the dark, but the fear loomed that she wouldn’t be off so simple. Yet she was.

They walked on. Big ferns, cool-colored, poked out of the ravine wall and cast mean shapes. Moss grew thick on the gravel under foot, and smelt very dry. Sometimes it crunched. There was a murmur from a stream or rill that a cute dew pond sat somewhere around here.

The air was growing weary with chittering or stridulating of insects and insect-kin things. They were noisy tonight for no reason, but after quick reflection Adwyn decided perhaps they mated.

He misread a sign once, and it took them down a bad road where the dirt scorpions and wriggly wigs and mere spiders grew far too big, and they worried they might see a true spider.

Adwyn made them high-walk out of there very fast, for he would not even tend close to smelling those things again.

Perhaps one of the assistants smirked but he let them because they were administration dragons, of course they would smirk.

Most of the good creatures they saw were small and cute. Retiring monitors or skinks who liked the cliff faces, turtles who may be trying to sleep, and wild or stray snakes who slithered slowly about.

The female assistant found some meat to throw near those pretty serpents, and the things were well behaved around dragons for just this reason. One wouldn’t guess, but the female assistant nursed an odd sweetness for snakes.

There was not much game down in the ravine, maybe a six-legged wild camel who got lost or a diller sleeping or snuffling stupidly. They only saw one, and it could have been a wild one or one somebody didn’t know what to do with. You could tell by the shell, but they did not care. They walked on.

Once, Adwyn heard a lich-owl scream.

This sound struck such a vein of fear in the party that it was the female assistant who began to chat.

“Have you two seen that meteor tending close?”

“Chwithach or Ushra was saying it’s supposed to crash tonight and nearby too.” The male was nodding deeply.

“Wonder if any louts are going to get burnt licking after it.”

Adwyn swallowed spice and chimed in: “The exile was wandering about tonight. A sky-dweller. It’s no guess she was seeking it.”

“That’s stupid. You never know what dinks around in the cliffs. Humans, spiders, worse; dragons have been rumoring monsters here since this was our land.”

“It’s like you care.” Adwyn hisslaughed a little.

“I just know idiocy when I see it. And something has to be said. This quiet’s getting on my nerves.”

“Why? I find it peaceful, natural.”

“You heard that. We all did. Don’t mess around.”

Adwyn kept quiet which only stirred her further. She said, “I should think you would care, from how much you bring her up.”

“I do. But that hinges on her handling what she gets herself into. I’ll simply observe how this turns out for her.”

“Speaking of humans,” the other orange drake started, “you think the greedy things will scamper after the meteor? Rumor’s got it that your skein fought some earlier.”

“I don’t gossip. If Mlaen shows interest in this meteor, then I will speculate. As it stands, I don’t much care.” Adwyn looked up, glimpsed a cloud occluding a star. “How about we speculate about what dwells in the pits?”

The male assistant scratched his chin. “I heard Chwithach saying humans dug the pits anyway. Maybe that’s where they live!”

“All the background I read for this assignment tells me the pits were here before we built the outpost or the Wydrllos.” The female adviser looked thoughtful for once. “Even the ruins left are too advanced a construction for humans now, let alone hundreds or thousands of years ago.”

“So who do you think it was?”

“…The background didn’t say. It’s too bleary to guess. The Empyrean doesn’t care to mine, and Pteryx⁠ ⁠—”

“It was Pteryx.” Adwyn thought of the demon seal. “Trust me. I have it on⁠ ⁠—⁠ authority.”

The female adviser. “Then why not ask this authority what’s going on deep in the pits?”

“I did. That’s why we’re going down there.”

The female stopped walking, halting the light with her. The adviser spun around.

She said, “If you know, then tell us instead of laughing at our speculation.”

Adwyn smirked. “If I told you, you’d opt not to follow.”

Under his breath, he sighed.

The assistants were still hindrances. Adwyn couldn’t trust them. Their alliance was first of all to capitol.

Just as his should be.

But it wasn’t. The capitol had spat on him⁠ ⁠—⁠ called him the black ascendant, cursed his ambitions, outcast him to the doldrums of Gwymr/Frina.

Where he had gained new motive, new allies. He owed it to Mlaen to make her and her country strong. Dyfnder/Geunant was strong, and there was strength in an alliance, but he was doing it for her, and not for capitol.

He glanced behind at the assistants. Shook his head. Thought of⁠ ⁠—⁠ the scarlet drake. Shook his head. Adwyn would have to do this alone. He knew this now; he could trust no one but Mlaen-sofran.

He turned and walked on. After a lurch the light started receding⁠ ⁠—⁠ then after a bit stopped, and it slowly inched after him.

Adwyn heard her breathing behind him as they walked on.

* * *