Elvi smiled, plumed tail wagging gracefully. From the curve of her ears to the length of her snout, she was lovely, and the core in her abdomen spun with mingled gold and white power. She wasn’t as strong as her sister, Etle, but she wasn’t far off, either, and she had two colors of ki to Etle’s one. She was also determined to make Kaz her mate, and he was equally determined to escape such a fate.

Lianhua looked up, and the confusion in her eyes took a moment to clear. She had been so engrossed in her work that she barely noticed when the Redmane chief, Ehlan, arrived, along with her daughter. She was, however, very excited to hear that Kaz had been able to ‘cure’ Ehlan of fulan contamination, though that excitement faded significantly when he explained that he had had to mutilate the chief’s core in order to do it.

Finally, Lianhua tilted her head to the side and said, “Ehlan’s younger daughter, right?”

Elvi nodded, though her eyes narrowed slightly. She wasn’t used to being forgotten or dismissed. “My mother sends greetings, Lianhua of the Long tribe,” she said, giving a small bow. “She wondered if you would be free to speak with her today.”

In kobold society, females held all the positions of power except for lead warrior. Because males, other than Kaz, didn’t have cores, the females were more powerful, as well as necessary for many of the basic tasks required to live in a place as unforgiving as the mountain. A female selected her mate based on his physical strength, prowess in battle, and appearance, and apparently Elvi and her mother had decided that Kaz would make an appropriate mate for the young female.

After Kaz healed Ehlan by cutting away the contaminated core she had eaten, leaving her own core damaged but functional, Ehlan had decided that the benefits of his abilities outweighed his oddity, and sent her warriors to bring him back from the mosui city. Of course, it helped that Gaoda had threatened to kill her and everyone in the den if they didn’t show him how to get to the city, but she had chosen to send all of her remaining warriors at least in part because she wanted Kaz.

When Kaz refused to return, and Ehlan realized that he was able to enforce that decision, she ventured down herself, leaving her older daughter, Etle, in charge of the tribe. Ehlan did, however, bring Elvi, and promptly announced to Kaz that Elvi would be his mate. Kaz refused this as well, which confused both females, and he had spent the two days since then avoiding Elvi, who still somehow managed to turn up anywhere he went.

Lianhua smiled warmly at the young female, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she stood. “I’d love to see her,” she said graciously. “I only got to spend a few moments with her when she arrived, since she was so tired from the journey. I hope she’s feeling better now.”

Elvi’s fluffy ears flattened slightly, and she let out a soft whine. “She is… better. Not well yet, but her strength grows daily.”

Kaz sighed internally. Physically, there was no reason Ehlan shouldn’t recover fully, but he didn’t know if it was possible for cores to heal on their own. Certainly his hadn’t shown any sign of doing so after it broke, and it had only been six or seven days since he had sheared off a chunk of Ehlan’s. Kaz doubted if Ehlan was still powerful enough to remain as chief, and he had no idea if she could recognize and admit her own weakness before it was discovered by someone who would take advantage of it.

Li lifted a wing, preening the scales beneath it with great deliberation, but he could feel her satisfaction through the ki that linked their cycles. She didn’t like anyone but him, not really, but she particularly disliked the two female kobolds, because they refused to listen when Kaz told them no. There were things she and Kaz wanted to do but couldn’t because of the female constantly trailing him.

Lianhua took a step toward the door, then hesitated, looking back at the stacks of scrolls, books, and loose pages on the left side of the room. These were piled haphazardly, mostly by size and shape, contrasting sharply with the neatly organized stacks that Lianhua had already gone through.

“I should-”

“Get cleaned up and go talk to Ehlan,” Kaz said firmly, stepping between Lianhua and the papers. Chi Yincang had made the effort of repeating this phrase to him, twice, in order to make sure Kaz would get it right. Given that Chi Yincang generally spoke fewer than a dozen words a day, unless he was being controlled by Lianhua’s extremely powerful and protective grandfather, ‘get cleaned up’ must be very important.

Lianhua flushed, and her hand rose to her hair again. For the first time, Kaz realized that the bottom side of her hand was stained black with ink, and more ink trailed up her arm until the streak ended at the edge of her robe.

Lianhua, Gaoda, and Chi Yincang wore robes made of something called fuulong silk, which was practically impervious to damage and stains. The robes had saved Chi Yincang’s life when Raff accidentally attacked him during their battle with Zhangwo, and they protected Lianhua when Zhangwo had struck her as well, reducing fatal damage to broken bones instead. Now, the lustrous white and purple colors of Lianhua’s sleeve remained pure and unblemished by ink.

With an awkward chuckle, Lianhua nodded. “I should take a bath as well.”

Kaz’s tail began to sway. The fight with Zhangwo and the events leading up to it left him filthy as well. He was covered in black, stinking fluid from the storage level, as well as Thabil and Lianhua’s blood and his own cast-off fur. While Chi Yincang tended to Lianhua after the battle, Thabil’s son, Qiyi, took Kaz to bathe. To Kaz’s pleasure, he found that the husede had deep pools filled with warm water that they cleansed themselves in. Chi Yincang hadn’t yet learned this, so he had warmed water for Lianhua to wipe herself down with, and the human female hadn’t taken time to wash herself properly since.

Turning away, Kaz motioned to Lianhua. When Elvi started to follow, he stopped in mid step, gave her a small, respectful bow, and said, “Lianhua wishes to present herself to your chief with honor. She needs some time to prepare.”

On his shoulder, Li opened her mouth, yawning ostentatiously as her forked tongue curled out, protruding toward the female kobold. Elvi’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she took a step back, moving out of the doorway.

“Well enough,” she said, none of the irritation in her eyes seeping into her voice. “Any Redmane can lead you to Ehlan. Or I can wait?”

Lianhua looked from Elvi to Kaz and frowned slightly, then shook her head. “I’ll be a while, I think.” She plucked delicately at her hair. “We’ll find a member of your tribe when we’re ready.”

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Elvi nodded, turned, and stalked off, her ears twitching in frustration.

Kaz waited until she had gone around the corner, then stepped to the door, looking directly at the blur of black and white ki that was Chi Yincang. After a moment, the human stepped from a shadow that hadn’t been there a moment before, and stood, watching Kaz. If he was upset that Kaz had revealed his presence, he didn’t show it.

“I’m going to take Lianhua to wash, and we need to talk. I’ll make sure she’s safe,” Kaz said.

One corner of Chi Yincang’s lips turned up slightly, but he only nodded and vanished again. Turning back to Lianhua, Kaz tapped the rune he’d drawn, which hung in the air between them like chalk scratches on stone. As he poured ki into it, it lit up from within, pale luminescence changing to brilliant coruscation. He used more ki than he needed, but his dantians were full, and he wanted to be sure they weren’t overheard.

Lianhua stared at the spot Kaz was touching, then rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Muttering something under her breath, she blinked twice, then smiled awkwardly. “I guess it’s time to talk, isn’t it?”

Kaz nodded, but let his tail wag gently. He had been angry and frightened when he realized that Lianhua had taken Li down the hidden stairs in the Redmane den, especially because they had just talked about what a bad idea that was. Enough had happened since then that he no longer felt so betrayed, but he still wanted to hear her side of the story, and while he knew she was genuinely hunting for the evidence she sought, he also felt like she was avoiding him.

He led the human down the hall, which was quite familiar to him by now. Each of them had been assigned what Thabil called ‘suites’ on the husede level, which was one Kaz had managed to skip while searching for Li and Lianhua. These suites seemed to be a group of three rooms with only one occupant. Compared to everything else that had happened recently, this idea of multiple rooms inside a home was odd, but didn’t even make Kaz blink. He wasn’t sure how the city hadn’t run out of room if everyone had so much space, but among the many strangers surrounding him, Kaz was glad to have privacy.

Each suite, including Lianhua’s, had a small, capped opening in the wall of one room. When the cap was removed, cool, fresh water would pour forth, which could be drunk or used for cleaning, but there wasn’t a container large enough for the kind of bath Lianhua enjoyed. Every time they stopped in a kobold den, it seemed that the human was compelled to cleanse herself far more thoroughly than a kobold would.

After one more turn, Kaz saw the symbol he was looking for. This rune was very similar to the one for ‘water’, which his sister Katri had taught him. In the mosui city, he had learned another one, which represented the wide, shallow pools of water where yumi reeds grew. Now he knew this third one, distinctly similar to the first two, but with a swoop the first lacked, and a dot he would have thought was simply misplaced if he didn’t know that every part of the mark held meaning.

Lianhua stopped, looking at the door, which was made of pressed layers of woven yumi reeds. Her face lit up in recognition.

“Baths!” she exclaimed.

Kaz’s ear twitched in amusement. Of course Lianhua would know what the rune meant without him telling her. “Yes,” he agreed. “Raff says they’re ‘communal’, which means everyone uses them. There are even husede here who will help you wash, and take care of your clothes.”

The human female looked absolutely thrilled, and pushed through the door, releasing a cloud of warm steam scented with sweet fluid pressed from the ubiquitous yumi plants. Kaz followed behind, seeing that two gray-skinned husede females were already helping Lianhua with her robe. When they saw Kaz, they paused, then bowed deeply, something he still wasn’t accustomed to.

Hesitantly, he dipped his chin in acknowledgement, and a male husede stepped out of the hanging mists. Kaz had seen him there, his presence revealed by the smoky mass of gray mana inside his body, but it was still slightly disturbing. He spent a few frightening days passing through levels filled with fulan spores, and though the red dust that hung heavy there was nothing like this sweet-smelling steam, the dark, foggy room still made him slightly uncomfortable.

The male husede held out his hand, indicating Kaz’s loincloth. In his other hand, he held a wide piece of the cloth woven from niu fur that nearly all the husede wore, and most of the kobolds had adopted as well. Kaz hesitated, not because he was worried about removing his clothing, which was made of fuulong silk that Lianhua had given him, but because he didn’t want to give up his belt and pack.

Quickly, Kaz unwound his loincloth, and replaced it with the niu-fur cloth, which wasn’t quite long enough to wrap around him properly. He held onto the rest of his items, however, in spite of the look the husede gave him. He had come here with Raff once, and the male had explained that people were supposed to leave their items with the attendants, not only so they could be cleaned and repaired, but also so they wouldn’t contaminate the water.

Kaz’s status as the kobold who freed their race was enough to keep the husede from protesting, however, and they were all soon distracted by Lianhua, who handed over her own pouch with the ease of someone who had done this many times before. The towel she was given was larger, and she went behind a yumi-reed screen in order to change, but soon enough the two of them were ushered into another room, containing a pool at least ten feet in diameter.

There, two more husede waited, and Kaz and Lianhua sat on low stools as basins of water were poured over their heads, rinsing off the surface dirt and a great deal more of Kaz’s old, bleached gray fur. Each time he bathed, more came off, and if he hadn’t seen the short blue fuzz coming in beneath it, he would have worried that he would soon be as furless as the humans.

As Kaz and Lianhua had their fur and skin brushed and scrubbed, Li jumped off of Kaz’s shoulder. She barely bothered with the fiction that she was a rodent-like fuergar anymore, though he supposed that the short glide to the pool could have been interpreted as a particularly long jump. She fell in with a plunk, and dived to the bottom before coming back up, gleefully splashing water into the air. She was quite adept at swimming by now, so Kaz didn’t bother watching her as the husede finished with him. He still wasn’t comfortable being touched, especially by strangers, but it was somehow better that the person touching him wasn’t a kobold, so he didn’t struggle.

When Kaz and Lianhua had both been washed, brushed, and oiled, the two husede bowed deeply and exited the room. Lianhua’s eyes had begun to droop about halfway through the process, but now she stood and walked over to the pool, where Li was still paddling around, using her wings to flick glittering sprays of water into the air.

Lianhua sat down, lifting her hair away from her neck, and Kaz saw the wide, raised stripes of scars running from her hairline almost down to her shoulder. She was only alive because the collar she’d been wearing when Zhangwo struck her kept the blow from tearing out her jugular, and Kaz reminded himself that whatever mistakes she had made, all was well now, and she had already more than paid for them.