The heat was terrible, but not painful. In fact, Kaz felt no pain at all, which was a great relief. But Ghazt had asked this strange being to heal Kaz, so if Kaz was all better, then why wasn’t he being sent back to his father?
He spent some interminable time in the covered bowl, feeling the temperature rise to something far beyond what he should be able to stand. He had stepped into the fire once, when he was very little, and it hurt more than he had thought possible. It was only thanks to his mother’s treatment that the scars on his left paw finally faded, allowing the fur to grow back normally.
That thought made him think of his mother, and he idly wondered why his father hadn’t taken him home, instead of to this bizarre place. Ghazt had taken them much further than usual that day, saying that he had something to show Kaz, so perhaps he hadn’t thought he could get Kaz back to their den in time? But Mother was the best healer in the tribe, though she rarely had time for it since Grandmother died. She would have made time for Kaz, though, just as she had when he burned his paw.
The heat grew again, and Kaz felt himself begin to spin, slowly rolling around in the bottom of the bowl. Then the lid lifted, and a powder poured down on him from above, followed by a little round thing that struck Kaz, bounced off, and then began to spin, chasing him around the bowl. It didn’t hurt when the thing hit him, but it was hard, and its nearness made him feel very uncomfortable.
Kaz and the little ball revolved around the bowl, rising up the sides as the temperature and the spin increased. They were both thoroughly coated in the powder by now, and their passing left trails through the dust. Strangely, there were no pawprints visible, just smooth divots, like those left behind by yanchong.
The lid lifted again, and one amethyst-colored eye peered inside as someone clicked their tongue. “A stubborn one, are you?” A voice muttered, and then another sphere was dropped on Kaz, this one almost twice as large as the first and a clear, brilliant gold. The lid closed again, and now there were two orbs chasing him.
An odd sense of pressure was building in Kaz. It still didn’t hurt, and at first it had been so minor that he hadn’t really noticed it. Now he did, and he thought it was coming from the second ball. It didn’t touch him, maintaining the same speed and position as it traveled around and around, but he felt like it was pushing on him nonetheless.
The heat grew even higher, and now Kaz thought he would melt, turning into a smear that the other two balls would travel through, mixing with the dust. The smaller of the other two spheres was the first to go, however, and when it did, it was beautiful. If he had thought about it, which he didn’t, because he really didn’t care about the things going on outside of himself, he would have said the little ball was black. It was, but more than that, it was dark as obsidian, and when it burst, glittering pitch dust exploded into the air, falling down to join the fine powder on the ground.
That left two, chasing each other eternally around the confined space within the bowl. Black grit dug into Kaz’s surface, and he felt it sink in, melding with him in a way nothing ever had before. The same thing was happening to the other ball, and he could see that it was noticeably larger, with the accumulation of powder and fine sand building up on it.
Pressure and heat, and now Kaz did feel pain. It was distant, almost not worth noticing, but it was there, and in the absence of anything else, it began to pound on him. The pressure pushed, and the heat softened, and the pain almost made him wish he, too, could explode, pouring his substance out to become part of the inexorable ball that pursued him.
But he didn’t. Instead, he clung to the things that remained, the things that made him Kaz. Kaz, who would be returned to his father when this was all over. He thought about his sister, Katri, giggling and nipping at his ears as they played. Father’s deep, growling laugh and broad shoulders. Mother’s sweet-smelling fur. Warm snuggles in their hut at night. He just had to last. Had to hold these things inside himself until the end, use them to push back against the weight that wanted to crush him.
The other sphere burst. Scintillating golden sand suffused the air, heavier than anything so small had a right to be. It struck him, and he felt as if it left gouges everywhere it scraped along his body. Those open wounds took in the black, and the gold, and the floating dust, and they became part of him, thrusting aside the memories of his family, his home, and who he was.
Kaz fell to the bottom of the bowl. Without the others to chase or flee from, he spun in place, every bit of the remaining debris joining with him, scouring him clean. He lost track of Katri, then Ghazt, and then…
“Ghazt, what have you done?” The voice was familiar, and Kaz felt warm arms gather him close, cradling his body tightly.
“I had no choice, Rega,” the second speaker sounded defeated, and Kaz tried to turn his head to look and see who it was that spoke in such a tone.
“There is always a choice!” The first barked back, but the fingers probing at Kaz’s arm were so gentle he barely felt their touch. The world shifted around him - them - as the person holding him settled back on her haunches with a sigh. “Why are you even here?”
Silence, long and fraught, before the deeper voice - Ghazt? - replied roughly. “I had to see for myself. How can they all be dead? Every single one? Even your sister can’t be that cruel.”
The vibrations of a bitter laugh shook Kaz. “Oh, yes, she can. Though I have no doubt this is just a small part of some twisted plan. We’ll find out when we go to the main den.”
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The other growled, long and furious. “We can run. Take Kaz and Katri and-”
“We can’t, and you know it. If we managed to find another tribe to take us in, as soon as the dye wore off your fur, they’d trade you back in a heartbeat,” the one called Rega said. “And there’s no way we can survive the mid-levels alone. The pups wouldn’t last a week.”
“We can take the whole tribe. You know they’d go in a heartbeat if you asked. And just because I need tree bark to make the dye I’ve been using, that doesn’t mean I can’t use a different one. It just won’t be as effective.”
Kaz and Rega tilted forward together, and Kaz blinked open his eyes in time to see red fur meet dark bluish-green. Rega leaned against Ghazt, Kaz held tightly between them. A soft, low whine came from her throat, and she said, “I don’t know what to do. I thought we were safe, at least until the pups grew up and were ready to take mates, but with the Woodblades gone-”
Ghazt’s arms went around Rega, crushing Kaz until he whimpered, and both adults sprang apart, looking down at him, worry and relief mingling in their expressions.
“Kaz?” Rega asked, gently stroking Kaz’s fur. “Are you all right?”
He stared up at her. He understood what she was saying, knew she spoke his name, but he didn’t know why they were looking at him like that. When he opened his mouth and tried to reply, nothing came out but more whimpering.
Rega’s fingers roved over him, combing through his fur, opening the soft leather vest he wore so she could examine his chest. She hesitated over a spot on his abdomen, and he flinched as a stab of pain went through him at the touch. Rega whined again, turning to glare toward the tall brown thing that towered behind them.
Something scraped across stone, and Ghazt held up a slender chain with five beads dangling from it. They were each a different color - black, white, yellow, red, and blue - and they caught Kaz’s attention as he felt emotion for the first time since he woke. Fear. Something about those round balls was terrible in a way that broke through the detachment that had been protecting him, and suddenly he was thrashing, whining, and scratching at Rega as he struggled to escape.
“No!” he howled. “I don’t want to go back!”
Ghazt’s fist clenched, but he began to reach toward Kaz with the necklace, until Rega pulled away protectively. “No!” she told her mate firmly. “He’s only a puppy.”
“But this is the way,” Ghazt said, helplessly. “It should have waited until he was older, but-”
“No!” Rega said, even more firmly. She shifted Kaz to one arm, and her hand darted out, taking the chain from Ghazt’s unresisting fingers. Without hesitation, she snapped the leather cord that hung around her own neck, allowing the beads and bones hanging there to clatter to the ground. A rough blue sapphire that matched one on Ghazt’s necklace rolled across the stone, coming to a rest against a rough brown thing that broke through the rocky floor.
Lifting the necklace, Rega slid it around her own neck before Ghazt could stop her. She stiffened, her eyes rolling back in her head, and a guttural whine escaped her. Ghazt reached out, catching both her and Kaz as Rega fell to the side.
“Rega! That was supposed to go to Kaz! What will happen if the Tree calls him?”
Rega blinked open her eyes, a fierce smile emerging from behind the pain. “It’ll have to find him first.”
The scene froze, locked in place as if time had ended. Kaz stared back and forth between his parents, seeing the deep garnet red of Rega’s fur, bright and rich, without a single strand of silver. Ghazt, too, looked hale and healthy. His fur was darker than Kaz remembered, blue-green with a hint of brown at the ends that he hadn’t been able to see earlier, and Kaz wondered how he had forgotten that Ghazt used to color his fur when Kaz was little.
He had forgotten so much, though. Everything before the events of this day was just… gone. Where was this place, and why had Ghazt brought him here? What was going to happen now?
A loud, hissing roar reached his ears, and Kaz turned his head, looking up. Up, through the broad green ceiling far above him, toward the glimmer of yellow-blue light that trickled between the ovoid shapes that merged into one verdant mass. The cry came again, and then the green separated, a shimmering strand of ki dividing it, followed by a slim, winged shape that dove toward Kaz.
Without thinking, he lifted his hands, and as Li flew toward him, he saw the shape of a necklace, tangled in his fingers. It wasn’t the one Rega now wore, its five beads stark against her red fur, but another, similar but different, the colored spheres mingling with other gems and teeth. It was wrapped firmly around his hand, the beads pressed against his flesh, and glowing inside his arm were five distinct threads that drove toward his chest with terrifying speed.
Li’s claws closed around the chain, yanking on it so it pulled painfully against Kaz’s hand. He yelped, but Li just twisted in midair, using her weight and momentum to continue pulling the necklace toward the ground. Kaz reached for her, intending to raise her up, but she hissed and snapped at him like a mad fuergar caught in a trap.
One of the beads lifted from Kaz’s skin, the thread breaking with an almost audible snap, and Kaz gasped, feeling an answering twinge in his chest. It was enough to bring him out of his numb fugue, however, and he sucked in a gasping breath, tearing at the chain with his free hand. Another bead came free, and then another, leaving only gold and black. Kaz’s fingers hesitated, and he stared at them.
Li’s mouth closed on the black bead, biting down, and it crunched into dust, small fragments trickling from the sides of her mouth, ground to nothing between her teeth. Kaz gasped again, this time in pain, but the little dragon wasn’t done. The chain dangled now, tangling around her legs and binding her wings to her body, but she didn’t stop, didn’t even look at the hard ground so far below. If she fell, she would fall hard, and she could be hurt.
Ignoring both the spike of agony that drove into him and Li’s angry roars, Kaz grasped both bead and dragon, pulling them apart. The bead tore from his skin, something like a wire drawing through and out of his flesh before it vanished, along with the bead, and then the necklace itself. The rest of the world dissolved around Kaz, even his parents disappearing into motes of shimmering light.
Only two things remained: Kaz and Li. Kaz cradled the dragon to his chest, feeling her shiver beneath his touch. His head pounded, but the pain was beginning to recede, letting him think clearly enough to speak.
“Thank you,” he murmured, and the dragon sighed, grumbling as she settled down against him and closed her eyes.