Kaz saw Lianhua’s eyes widen, and he offered her a small smile, hoping to reassure her. He didn’t want to directly contradict Idla when she seemed to be softening slightly, so he just turned toward the descending set of stairs.

“How much farther is it?” he asked noncommittally.

Idla huffed softly, almost a sigh, and said, “Three more levels, then we switch to the final staircase. There are other ways to get there, but that’s the most direct.”

Kaz nodded, and looked for Li. The last time he’d seen her, she was flying around nearby, enjoying having a large enough space to stretch her wings properly. He’d warned her against flying into the center area, if only because someone on one of the other levels might mistake her for a beast and attack her.

He followed the glittering bond between them to find her circling over a little group of gatherers, the puppies gaping upwards in admiration as they let out little yips of delight. One pale gray pup kept jumping up, trying to touch the dragon’s tail or the edge of a wing, and Li would twist out of the way at the last moment. She was clearly quite pleased by the attention, and entertained by the puppy’s attempts to catch her, but she quickly returned to Kaz when he called.

The pups stared after her with eyes full of longing, but the female with them hurried the group toward the stairs when she saw where the dragon went. Her eyes lingered on Kaz and the humans, but at least some news about their arrival must have already reached the tribes here, because she only looked interested, not truly worried or frightened.

Three more levels passed, each landing cavern offering a slightly closer view of the city. Details appeared, and Lianhua began to mutter about the shifting of vertical to horizontal focus, and modifications warping bilateral symmetry as she scribbled in her book. Raff had to take hold of her elbow in order to guide her when she seemed to be unable to look up long enough to watch where she was going.

Instead of taking the next descending set of stairs, which lay immediately across the cavern from the ascending, Idla guided them to the right, where a wide arch led to a red-lit hallway. No stairs were visible at first, but red crystals glowed from hidden alcoves, and intricate carvings curled up, around, and over the arch.

Three sets of three kobolds stood guard outside the entrance, two males and a female in each, representing each of the three remaining great tribes. Only when Idla, Tisdi, and Avli were all present did they step aside, bowing deeply, and they didn’t straighten until the chiefs had passed.

The stairs at the end of the short hall were long, almost as long as the ones Kaz had taken when leaving the mine in the mid-levels, and there was nowhere to rest along the way. Still, it was easier going down than up, and eventually Kaz saw a strangely familiar bluish-yellow light coming from somewhere ahead, overwhelming the soft red glow that illuminated the stairs.

Once again, Kaz was aware of a feeling he had last experienced in Zhangwo’s tower. The stairs curved gently, and as they did, he found himself drawing closer and closer to the thing that his sense of direction insisted was the ‘center’. The center of what, Kaz couldn’t be sure, but for years, this feeling had been his reference, allowing him to figure out where he was based on whether this was to his left, right, ahead, or behind.

When he finally passed through the archway at the bottom, it was almost anticlimactic to find that what he sensed as the middle of the mountain was actually the Tree. It was an enormous thing, growing from a gnarled brown column so large that he thought it would take a dozen kobolds to encircle it, if they stood hand to hand around its base.

This rough brown stalk soared up at least three hundred feet, as best Kaz could judge. There, it split, sending out random offshoots which split again in turn, becoming smaller and smaller until they merged into what looked like a brown cobweb. Here and there, a few greenish-brown things drooped from the mass, and as Kaz watched, one came free and drifted toward the ground, spinning slowly.

Li launched herself from his shoulder, swooping up into the open air, whistling happily. She flew around the falling thing once, twice, then caught it in her claws and flew back toward Kaz, dropping it on his head with a click of laughter.

Lianhua plucked it off, turning it over in her hands. It was a huge pointed oval with serrated edges, and now that it was next to him, Kaz could see that it wasn’t simply one color, but many. Golden veins traced through it, merging into a single piece at one end, and the areas close to these veins were green. The closer to the edges it got, the browner it became, and a piece cracked softly, flaking away as Lianhua looked at it.

She shook her head. “Everyone kept saying tree, but I thought it had to be something else. A lichen with tree-like branches, or maybe a giant mushroom? But the one thing I didn’t expect was… a tree. A tree under a mountain, surrounded by ki-crystals to simulate sunlight.”

Raff, too, seemed shocked. “I saw the bamboo- Cattails- Or, whatsit, yumi, right? But that was back in the mole-man city. They had all kinds of crazy things there. I never expected to see something like it here, much less a tree you could build a whole village out of.”

Idla looked proud. “No human has ever seen this before. There were certain secrets that the necklaces forced us to keep, and this was one of them.”

Lianhua’s head whipped around to stare at the Goldblade chief. “One?” she asked. “There are others? What are they?”

Idla chuffed a laugh, but didn’t answer, and Lianhua finally let out a sigh. Knowing her, Kaz very much doubted that she would just forget about it, but apparently she was willing to accept Idla’s silence for now.

Kaz turned his attention back to the Tree. He was sure this was where his father had brought him when he was injured, but he definitely remembered a canopy of green overhead. Now, he could see that the - what had Lianhua called them? - ‘branches’ grew up until they pressed against the stone ceiling, where concentric rings of yellow and blue ki-crystals expanded out from each point of contact.

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“How can you tell it’s dying?” he asked, but he already knew, at least in part. Two colors of ki flowed through the central column; gold traveling up, and blue running down, but the blue was little more than a trickle.

Tisdi pointed upwards. “When the Woodblades were alive, there were more green leaves on the branches than you could count. Not the few brown ones there are now, but tens of thousands, each a brilliant emerald. Slowly, they began to turn brown and fall off, and now, these are all that’s left.”

Li was still flying around above them, and when another leaf fell, she dove for it, catching it in her mouth this time. Immediately, she spat it out, and Kaz got the distinct impression of something that looked good, but tasted foul.

Kaz took the leaf from Lianhua, and when he touched it, he frowned. Li was right. There was something wrong with the leaf, something that wasn’t supposed to be there, though he didn’t know how he could tell.

He held it up. “Did anything change right before the leaves began to fall?”

“The Woodblades were murdered!” Idla growled.

Kaz shook his head. “No, something else. Something more recent?”

Idla just glared at him, but Tisdi spoke in her gentle voice. “There’s nothing I can think of. My tribe has been working together with the Goldblades to do what the Woodblades always did. Nothing has changed other than who makes the offering.”

His hand closed around the leaf, and the brown parts crumbled away, leaving a pale golden skeleton with scraps of faded green clinging to it. “Show me,” he said.

Tisdi nodded, then lifted her voice in a howl. A short while later, a group of twenty or so gold or black-furred female kobolds emerged from a tunnel opening to their right. Nervously, they walked over and Tsidi spoke to them briefly before they made their way to the Tree.

All awkwardness dropped away as they pressed their hands to the Tree, palms flat against the rough surface. Lifting their muzzles in unison, they began to howl, but this was like no howl Kaz had ever heard. Instead of each voice standing out individually, they melded together, high and low merging in a sort of eerie harmony. As they howled, they closed their eyes, leaning in until they were all but embracing the Tree.

Their ki and that of the Tree rose together. The gold mingled easily with that of the kobolds, growing ever brighter, but the blue touched the black ki being offered to it and pulled away as if wounded. It guttered, a fire nearly ready to go out, and Kaz shouted, “Stop!”

They were so caught up in their howl that he doubted they could even hear him, but Tisdi and Idla certainly did. Both moved forward, barking and gesturing to their tribe members, who pulled the howlers away from the Tree. The females staggered back, looking shocked, but Kaz just looked at the Tree.

If the flow of blue within it had been weak before, now it almost seemed to be under attack. Black ki hung within it, already dispersing into formless mana, but as it did, it smothered the blue, overwhelming it and preventing it from moving through the Tree’s cycle properly.

Kaz wanted nothing more than to do whatever he could to help, but he knew that this was his only chance to bargain for the lives of the Magmablades. Turning to the three chiefs, he said, “I know what’s wrong, and I’ll do whatever I can to save the Tree, but in exchange, you must allow whichever Magmablades the new Woodblade chief chooses to join the new Woodblade tribe. Any of them, not just the ones you would wish to see remain.”

Idla’s ears turned down at the ultimatum, but Tisdi hesitated. Avli’s eyes flickered toward Ija, and she said, “Yes.”

Idla growled softly, but otherwise remained silent until Tisdi quietly said, “Yes.”

“Fine,” Idla snapped, “But there will be no more chances. They must allow us to watch them, even in their dens, and if a single one of them betrays us, they doom them all.”

That wasn’t exactly what Kaz had been hoping for, but Ija spoke before he could. “Fine,” she echoed. “Every Magmablade, from youngest pup to oldest matriarch, will serve the Woodblades from this day forward. But only the Woodblades, not Goldblades, Waveblades, or even,” her eyes softened as they turned toward Avli, “Mithrilblades.”

“Done,” Avli said instantly.

“Done,” repeated Tisdi, and, finally, Idla as well.

Kaz allowed himself to take a deep breath. If they were all satisfied with this, then he wouldn’t argue. At least the Magmablades would live, and many of them would get to stay in the Deep. “Where are the rest of the Magmablades?” he asked. “Especially the ones from the hidden den.”

“Coming,” Idla said. “I left orders for them to be brought to us, but they have pups and elders among them. It will take time. Perhaps time enough for you to heal the Tree?”

She gave a challenging glare, and Kaz shook his head. “Woodblades cared for this Tree in the past, and they will again. I’ll wait.”

Far above them, Li let out a small roar, the sound dropping into the lull after his words. Together, they all turned to look at the dragon, and Kaz smiled, feeling how happy she was to simply be able to fly as far in any direction as she wanted. She was getting tired, though, her wings unused to carrying her so far for so long.

Stretching out her claws, Li reached for the nearest branch, causing it to sway beneath her as she scrambled to hold on. A few more leaves detached and fell slowly through the air, and Li looked back up the branch toward a large one that still clung stubbornly. As she did, something else caught her eye, and though Kaz was too far away to see the interrogative tilt of her head, he could feel her curiosity through their bond.

What is it? he sent, and Li made her way along the branch toward something pale that gleamed through the thick mesh of branches. Whatever it was lay at the very heart of the tree, where the thickest branches formed a sort of hollow as they splayed outward from the central column.

The dragon grew more confident as the branch on which she stood grew thicker, eventually ceasing to sway and becoming as firm beneath her claws as the stone on which Kaz’s paws rested. The white thing grew larger, more and more of it visible as she left the smaller branches behind, and Kaz watched through her eyes as she finally climbed around a single branch as wide as Kaz himself.

It was a bone. Not just any bone, but the single largest bone Kaz had ever seen, and it wasn’t alone. As Li climbed up another branch so she could get a better view, more and more of the skeleton came into view. Two arms, two legs, a long coiled tail, and a skull Kaz could walk inside of.

“Oh,” Kyla’s muffled voice came from beside Kaz, and he looked down to see that she had once again escaped her guards. The puppy was eating a chunk of rougu, and she took another bite of the large brown mushroom, chewing it slowly. Kaz stared at her and watched through Li’s eyes as the small dragon circled the enormous skeleton.

Finally, Kyla managed to swallow, and then pointed up toward the top of the Tree, saying, “I think she found the other dragon.”