Caltyr spent the better of the time walking in slow motion thinking of what the humans had been chatting about.

The term ‘fleshworker’ kept bouncing through his skull cavity. It sounded a lot like it could be describing his own abilities, and it was the closest he’d ever come to hearing about somebody else who could command flesh.

He couldn’t keep himself from being quiet about it for long, but to his surprise, it was Malika who said something about it first.

“It sounded quite like they were speaking about your power. Fleshworking… is that what they’re calling it here?” she asked in a muted voice, but she sounded genuinely curious nonetheless, if not a bit stressed. Which was understandable, considering the scars that ran parallel across her body.

“Do we have a name for it at all? All I’ve ever called it has been ‘fleshomagic’, and that’s when I was, like, sixty-nine years-old.” Caltyr’s expression turned sour momentarily. His use of the power had been squashed so quickly he didn’t even know how to refer to it, besides the childish name he’d picked out for it—and that it was forbidden.

“I’ve heard Kraven refer to it as ‘Caltyr’s flesh crap’ before, but—oh dear. Perhaps I… should not have said that. You’re right, Caltyr. I suppose we don’t have much of a name for it. But they seemed to be speaking of it as if it was a… boon, for them.” She touched some of the faded ribbon-shaped lines that moved across her scales ethereally. “Which perhaps it could have been for us too, had it been introduced differently.”

It had struck him, too, that the humans had been speaking as if they were relieved that a ‘fleshworker’ was on her way. And that she was a busy person now that there were all these demons around.

It gave him a glimmer of hope that his flesh powers might not be so evil after all. But whenever he thought that, something deep inside of him tugged him downward, like a weight pulling him under the water. He didn’t know if it had been born from Kraven’s words, and how he treated Caltyr’s fleshomagic, or if the feeling had been there all along.

The feeling was hard to describe; a lingering unease that turned to dread if he sat with it for long enough. It reminded him of when he had watched the aftermath of his core’s explosion from outside of himself, watched his friends’ and classmates’ bodies and the viscera that rolled around them as they were spiralized by his unleashed mana.

Caltyr knew that every time he had unleashed that part of himself, it had ended in important people dying. It wasn’t just something he could put behind him in an afternoon.

But still, hearing someone—multiple someones, even—referring to it as not the worst thing ever put some spring in his step.

Caltyr noticed it had been a while since he had said something, and that the last thing Malika had uttered had been about his powers.

It crept uncomfortably close to talking about what he had already told her he didn’t want to talk about right then.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that you did something wrong by using it in the way you did. I don’t want to blame you. We all did things when we were little that we didn’t think all the way through. I, um, one day tried to show Miss Tavren that I had come a long way with my invisibility, and I tried to make myself invisible. But I was mistaking power for finesse.

“Invisibility was a powerful technique, so I thought that when I showed it to her, I should cast as powerfully as I could. I almost burned her eyes out of her head. She had to wear two eyepatches for weeks and go to the council regularly for healing. Just retelling the story makes me feel ill.” True to her word, she briefly clutched her stomach.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Is that why she wore those?” Caltyr asked, his jaw slack with surprise.

“It is. I asked her to keep it a secret for me, because I would just die if anybody knew. It seems she did that for me, since you were unaware.”

As they walked, a distant sound of commotion was growing stronger. Malika stopped her slow trot. “We may have chosen a bad night to do this,” she warned him sadly. “There may be some kind of festival happening, if I had to guess. Do you still want to go on?”

“Yes,” Caltyr responded without stopping. “We’re here now. Let’s get in, grab the flowers, and get out. It may even be to our advantage that the humans are all gathered in one spot, because it means that they aren’t here to see us.”

“I suppose it would be a waste to leave without what we came for, after coming all the way out here,” the alabaster dragon reasoned and caught up with him. “Then let’s go. The flowers aren’t far now. Just follow me, please.”

It took only minutes more of their ultra-lagged pace to finally make it to the flowerbed.

True to Malika’s word, two nets were stretched across the sky. One looked to be to keep birds away, and the other had a much wider mesh. From where he was standing, he could hear the dull hum of electricity running through it, thrumming with draconic power.

It would be unlikely to trick any actual dragons, but he liked that the humans were ignorant enough to think it would. It was a small point in his people’s favor, in a city decorated with their tarnished souls.

The flowers were a deep blue, just the way Malika said they’d be. They had long, trumpet-like flowers that fluffed out at the ends, and sat on the ends of vine-like stems. Pulling them up from the root looked like it would be mercifully simple, assuming they weren’t tangled.

“Remember, we need to pick them from all over, not just one spot,” Malika reminded him, and then lowered herself further toward the cobbled stone walkway.

She pushed herself up onto the balls of her draconic feet, or the closest thing they had, and tiptoed over to the circular flower bed. Caltyr did the same.

He opened up his bags and put a small handful of dirt into each. Then, they got to work grabbing the tiny flowers at the root end and tugging them out of the dirt. Their roots went deep, much deeper than he had thought they would.

“Thank you, dragon core,” Malika whispered softly downward, as if the earth dragon core could hear her. “I’m sorry I don’t know your name, but you made some lovely flowers.”

“They are lovely, aren’t they?” came a voice, but it wasn’t a response from Caltyr’s mouth, startling both of them. “Almost as lovely as this light dragon is going to look next to the one we already have,” a second voice added, from further away.

Caltyr’s throat ran dry.

Footsteps thundered in his ear tunnels as many pairs of human feet drew closer. They had been alone just moments ago, but somehow, while their backs were turned, at least ten scaleless bastards had filled the walkways.

“How did you see us?” Malika squeaked and dropped her illusory invisibility.

The shimmering outlines flickered away into nothingness, and they stood there in their plainness, right down to their muddied feet.

“The nets—” one started, but was cut short when a hand clapped onto their mouth, sealing it up aggressively. The human who had been speaking screamed in a muffled way.

“Let’s not just give the dragon enemy our secrets, alright? They’re secrets for a reason. Now, I’d ask you what you were doing here, but that seems obvious to me now. You were stealing from us. Luckily, you seem to have brought a fresh delivery of scales when we’re running a little low, so thank you for coming. Really.” The speaker spoke in an impeccably projected way that made it known they were a leader accustomed to speaking to a crowd.

This was somebody with power in this city.

Caltyr had been wanting for this to go well, obviously. He had been planning to sneak back in after Malika left to speak to one of the higher-ups about the viability of peace between them, a truce, and if they hadn’t given him good news… He was going to make sure none of them were around to hear good news, ever again.

It had been too long since they had given the humans something to fear.

But now, the humans had stumbled upon more than just him. Malika was here too, and that changed everything.