Opportunity doesn’t always knock.

—Uru Farlight

“We are not to be separated,” the Ea’Ssyri said the moment the ship had pulled away from the dock.

“We’re not kids anymore,” I shot back.

Here, right now, we were just unwashed travelers without class, and no one even glanced twice in our direction.

“That is why I implied all of us,” she threw back. “We do not have the luxury of time, and I won’t debase you by assuming you don’t know exactly why I am stating the obvious.”

“Why state it then?”

I blinked, that wasn’t me—it was Kyrae. She looked across at the Ea’Ssyri with a tired, cold look, and she continued into the growing silence. “I won’t debase you by assuming you don’t know why you needn’t make such comments.”

Thanks, Sis.

Ea’Ssyri Thelia’s shoulders tensed, and her fists clenched, before she let out a long exhale. “Point taken. We’re all tired, no?”

“Exhausted,” Ssiina said with a yawn, slithering past us. “I’d bet there’s a cozy inn at the top of the mountain.”

I followed her gaze up to the elevated center of the city. The old stone and sharp-lined rooves of the buildings poked up between dense greenery; it reminded me a little of Phaeliisthia’s estate and the Emerald Palace’s gardens both.

“While I would like to indulge, we must continue forth.”

“Will we reach there before nightfall?” Kyrae asked. “If not, why not rest here?”

“Too many variables. I am more capable of keeping us safe at a mountain lodge than an inn in the city.”

“Lodge?” I asked.

“With so many travelers, the road from here to the Spring is well-appointed,” Ssiina answered. “Didn’t we all learn that?”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t remember every little fact.”

“We can talk on the way,” Ea’Ssyri Thelia interrupted, walking off down the dock without waiting.

With a glare, I slithered after her, Kyrae next to me. Behind us, Ssiina took a longing look at the peak in the center of the city before following.

We skirted the edge of the Qirjaa’iin, along a well-traveled road. Mountains loomed on all sides, capped with white even as they ascended through the scattered clouds. Before long, the green closed in, drawing the world back to just the road and us.

With that, facing a reddish-brown strip winding off up into the jungle, dotted with other travelers, we began our ascent.

And ascent was a very apt choice of words. Phaeliisthia wouldn’t have me make descriptions any other way, after all. Honestly, I quite liked having more words to describe things. More ways to think and speak and sort out concepts in my head.

It made thinking just a little more fun.

Again, just a little.

Not an hour into our trek, I was bored. Even the ever-present buzz of danger and the cooling comfort of the shadows under broad leaves and lifted roots wasn’t enough.

“Do you think we’ll find another spot?” I asked my sisters.

Ssiina smiled and held a hand over her upper heart. “The Spring has plenty of gardens—I’m sure we’ll find something!”

“It won’t be the same, though,” Kyrae said with a little bitterness in her voice.

Ssiina blinked. “Well, yes, of course. And it won’t be in the Hssyri, but there’ll certainly be tributaries or a lake—”

“That’s not what I mean,” our elven sister continued. “At Phaeliisthia’s estate, the grove was ours. Aside from Phaeliisthia and her servants, no one else had ever made the space theirs. And even then, we were the first to truly claim it, right?”

“Right,” I nodded. “So we’ll just have to find a spot like that!”

“Issa, there’s not going to be a spot like that at the Spring. Everyone’s been everywhere; some ssyri’ssen has made every spot their own surely.”

“Nah, I’d bet most people just pick the same spots. Maybe it’ll be a thorn bush or a hidden root hollow full of mushrooms, but we’ll find a place!” I jabbed a thumb into my sternum.

“I agree with Issa,” Ssiina said, sliding between both of us. “Issa can probably find any caves or root hollows or anything anyway, right?”

“I…” Kyrae hung her head. “You know what, yeah. We’ll find a spot.” She raised her head, a genuine smile breaking through stony features. “Thanks—I think I needed that optimism.”

Ssiina nodded. “We all do.”

I thought of Sire Tyaniis and felt a pang in my chest. We’ll need to arrange a visit soon.

Regardless, the mood had been lifted, and my sisters and I chatted until the sky started to turn orange and we stopped before a well-built inn with a high-peaked log roof surrounded by a beautifully-tended garden. A small stream ran behind it, setting the sound of water over rocks as a backdrop against the evening hum of insects.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The place wasn’t particularly crowded, but it was far from empty. When I reached for the shadows, however, they recoiled at the inn’s edges. I didn’t like it, but it’d be safer than anywhere else, probably.

The moment I slithered over the threshold, onto the fitted stone path toward the doors, I felt like I’d been lit on fire. Barely muffling a scream, I was halfway to the ground when Kyrae caught me with a grunt. I could feel eyes on us.

“Geez, sis,” Kyrae said loudly. “I know you’re tired from the trip up here, but you can wait until we’re inside.”

Jaw shuddering, I forced the rest of the air out of my lungs into my best attempt at a yawn. The burning faded from excruciating to intensely uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sure it’d do more than that. My scales felt like shedding, and it was like the whole place was rejecting me.

“Eyes,” Kyrae whispered.

Shit. I closed them. “Mmmtired,” I hissed.

“Then let’s get you inside,” Ssiina said. Her delivery was a lot less convincing than Kyrae’s, but the two of them helped me toward the doors. I felt Kyrae’s magic work on Phaeliisthia’s array over my eyes, and when I cracked one open, she gave a nod and a smile.

By now the burning was more of an itching, crawling sensation. Hopefully, I could get at least a little sleep. Once inside, Ea’Ssyri Thelia seemed to relax, and at least someone with the inn’s staff seemed to recognize her as we were herded to rooms quickly.

They were nice, with padded coiling and silken sheets, but after living in the Emerald Palace the past few months, I couldn’t help but compare them unfavorably. That and the fact I still felt like a colony of ants were angrily exploring my body.

I really was tired though, and I had my first moment of time alone when the others went down to bathe. Given that I hadn’t been the primary target, Ea’Ssyri Thelia had gone with them. Though she did insist I at least try to bathe later when the baths had cleared of people.

You know, in case the water burned me.

So I coiled up next to the clean bed in a nice cool spot of floor and prepared to go to sleep.

“At long last!” a tiny, vaguely familiar voice whispered into my ear. “I thought she’d never leave!”

I startled awake, jerking scales across wood.

“Quiet, Issa!” the same voice hissed. “I do not have long—the wards here are only a little more porous than the Ea’Ssyri’s.”

“What—who are you?” I hissed right back. “Was that you on the boat when the assassins—”

“Yes, and I’m surprised you don’t recognize me!” the voice huffed.

I watched a stream of tiny sigils flow out from my eyes to form into a figure standing on one of my coils. She was as tall as my hand, but I’d recognize her horns and elven figure anywhere.

“Phaeliisthia?” I hissed.

She bowed. “Did you really think I would let someone as danger-prone, reckless, and oblivious as you be without a proper guardian?”

“How…”

“No time, and you wouldn’t understand anyway. Just know that so long as the array hiding your eyes isn’t sundered, I may contact you like this. And that in doing so, my array no longer hides your eyes. Understood?”

I nodded rapidly. “How are you, are—”

“I’m fine.” Her words were clipped. “But… thank you for asking. I won’t be able to reach you inside the Spring, but if you are in dire need, head to Sanasiilath and ask for Rauni Swiftcurrent, or head to Pross’k and mention my name to anyone in power.”

“Hsss,” I tried to commit the names to memory. “I’ll try.”

Tiny magic Phaeliisthia nodded. “Good. Any longer and I’ll be noticed—good luck in the Spring and be careful.”

“I will, Phaeliisthia.”

She smiled bright enough that I could see it even on the tiny golden spell version of her elfoid form. “I’m proud of you, Issa.”

With that, and before I could recover from shock at the earnestness of her compliment, she dissolved, flowing back up into my eyes to settle as a familiar, weighty warmth.

I blinked, and tears joined her magic. It wasn’t Sire’s fault, or my sister’s, but… knowing that Phaeliisthia was proud and that she thought to keep an eye on me and comfort me…

The discomfort of the inn suddenly seemed so much less. I leaned into the warmth and drifted off to sleep.

***

In the morning, the water didn’t burn me. And I didn’t even complain about sleeping on the wooden floor instead of the first nice bed I’d seen in over a week. After all, there’d be another nice one when we reached Hesuzhaa’Jiissiisseniir. Right?

And today would be the day we’d reach there. In the morning, we boarded a cart pulled by a pair of well-kept siilaks and started up the road. Soon, I was glad we weren’t slithering—or walking—ourselves. The winding track switchbacked up the side of a lush mountain. By afternoon, we were surrounded by either mist or a cloud.

Like when Phaeliisthia had taken us to the glacier, my breath came shorter, and it took some time to adjust. But when we finally arrived, all the breath I’d regained was stolen away.

Cliched or not, it was true.

Hesuzhaa’Jiissiisseniir did not rise toweringly into the sky, but it did gleam. White stone and jade cut through with verdant greenery and splashes of flowering color: it was a jewel set deeply into the heart of a stunning valley, perched on an impossible-looking plateau. The mountains around us rose to towering snowcaps, some of their sides so sheer and sharp they looked almost unnatural, and in the evening light the stone glowed almost purple.

From one ridge to the Spring of All Life’s plateau, a massive stone bridge, lined on both sides with carvings of Hse’Aazh and other depictions I barely knew, spanned the steep, cloud-obscured valley. We really might find a spot of our own here.

I would have looked in the valley for the Hssyri, were it not for the waterfall.

Plunging off the side of the Spring’s plateau, the most holy river’s water turned to mist and merged with the clouds like a deific allegory I wasn’t quite posh enough to make, even in my own head. I couldn’t see the spring itself amongst the buildings and greenery, but it had to be up on the plateau. The whole effect, however, really was breathtaking. A gleaming temple complex set amongst vast gardens on a plateau within a valley high in the Sekalln.

And, of course, I was looking at all of this through the polished bronze bars of an immense gate, blocking the bridge. To the sides, a wall of that same gleaming white stone, capped tauntingly with the same semi-translucent jade shingles, stood between us and the magical world beyond. Us, and the immense gathered crowd, replete with vendors selling food and overpriced trinkets and a pair of cozy-looking inns set a little way back. From their aggressive signage, they really had a rivalry going.

Perhaps that was what made me think of this place as less than Phaeliisthia’s estate—but it was close. If it weren’t for the watchful eyes of the ssyri’taaniir and the Ea’Ssyri herself, I would have tried to ask Phaeliisthia of her own thoughts on the complex.

Were the similarities intentional?

The crowd parted before the Ea’Ssyri, dressed still in traveling clothes but carrying a regal bearing, and the gates were opened for us and us alone. Though, no one rushed to try to get through, and the guards seemed at least a little bored opening its well-greased mechanism. Enough people had to come and go that this was a common occurrence, right?

Well, a susurrus of conversation made me think twice, and the moment we passed through the gate, I had to bite my tongue to hold in a scream. My eyes burned, but I kept them and my upper body steady, slithering through with all the noble grace of someone who’d paid some attention to her lessons.

Sure enough the feeling of clashing magic faded, although my connection to the few lingering shadows did as well. Not completely, but this was far from the domain of whatever had cursed me, and that I had become inexorably linked to.

This was Jaezotl’s domain, and I probably hadn’t angered him.

Ea’Ssyri Thelia relaxed as soon as we were through the gate and it began to close; she beckoned us across the long bridge. Arm in arm with my sisters, and thinking about what we may soon face, I started across the bridge with my tail tip nervously twitching.

END OF VOLUME 2