Li was worried. Ever since Kaz spoke to the Nadi female, he’d been all but silent. She’d tried sending him images of himself as various creatures, including a blue fuergar and a particularly amusing image of a hairy lopo, but got back only a half-hearted picture of herself as a tiny dragon being grabbed by the Kaz-lopo’s tongue.

she asked. She knew they were, because he’d told her when they stopped to eat, but she needed something to say. Dragons didn’t like being bored. She was actually concerned more than bored, but she was discovering that dragons didn’t like being concerned, either.

Kaz made another of those soft, almost sad little noises, and she bit him. Not hard. Just enough to make him actually look at her, rather than whatever was going on in his head that was making him think so hard that he couldn’t even talk to her about it. It was bad enough that he’d been hiding some of his thoughts and feelings from her recently, but she wasn’t going to put up with him not even talking.

He yipped, and Li flapped backward, flying up and around him. They were currently in a fairly large cavern, so there was enough room to fly, and it felt good to stretch. she told him. She’d been patient long enough. She’d been patient through a night and three meals and one attack by a flying thing with slimy black flesh, bulbous eyes, and a dim light dangling from its forehead. She was tired of being patient.

Her kobold looked up at her, blinking, then shook his head as if he’d just realized that he wasn’t alone. “What did you say?”

Li puffed out the largest cloud of vapor she could manage in a single breath. It engulfed Kaz’s head, and for a moment she considered becoming larger just so she could do better the next time. That really was a lot of effort though, so she just said,

Kaz glanced around, and she could practically see the moment when he actually thought about what they were doing and where they were. “Yes. We’re almost to Copperstriker territory.”

Li narrowed her eyes, letting out another puff of cool vapor that settled on Kaz’s fur like tiny gems. She would never admit it to him, but she liked the look and feel of his soft, warm fur. Scales were the best, of course, providing both protection and a beautiful shine, but fur was nice, too, especially when it came to snuggling. she asked.

Kaz looked conflicted. “If the Copperstrikers are still holding the stairs, we should tell them that the fulan is almost gone. I don’t know if the husede and kobolds have reached the first mid-level or not, but if they haven’t they will soon. Without Zhangwo and the mosui spreading the spores, the fulan will die out on its own as it runs out of food.”

Li thought about the Copperstriker chief, with her long, shiny fur, and brown, adoring eyes, and hissed softly. That female was very, very annoying, for reasons Li hadn’t yet identified, and she didn’t want to see her ever again. Specifically, she didn’t want Kaz to see her ever again.

They were nearing the end of the cavern now, and Li reluctantly flew down, eyeing Kaz’s shoulder longingly as she landed on the cold stone. Dragons did like to be warm, and nothing about the mountain was warm except for Kaz. Li hadn’t even realized just how much the stone sapped the warmth from her body until she spent most of her time walking, but now she wondered if her paws would ever be warm again. Still, she didn’t want to be a burden to Kaz, and this way they were both ready to fight, so she would bear it until she could feel the sunlight on her scales again.

she said, and Kaz gave a quiet affirmative yip. He had drifted away again, and she resisted the urge to nip at his paws. They had always talked to each other about everything, or at least sent images through their connection, so why was this different?

Ahead, she saw a tall, shadowy object that slowly resolved into a gray-colored skull with glittering eyes. As they drew closer, she realized the sockets were filled with small teeth that looked uncomfortably like Mei’s. How many fuergar would you have to kill to get that many teeth, and how many of these totems did the Copperstrikers have?

So far, she and Kaz had avoided killing any of the scurrying rodents. She knew they were just animals, unlike Mei, but there was something about eating a creature that looked like your fr…companion that made her uncomfortable. No eating people, and apparently not things that looked like someone you knew as people.

As they passed the bone-mounted skull, Kaz almost bumped into it, and Li realized that he was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even seen it. They both knew that nothing in the heights could hurt him, and so he had let his guard down. Well, they were about to enter the mid-levels, and he needed to pay attention.

Glancing from side to side, Li saw that the passage was low but broad, the way kobolds seemed to prefer them, and launched herself into the air. Her horns scraped the ceiling, and one wing tip brushed the wall, but she ignored it, flying around to land in front of Kaz. Standing on her back legs with her wings spread wide, she said,

Kaz stopped, and this time his focus snapped back to her much more quickly. She saw a flicker of something in his mind before he tucked it away, and she leaned forward, saying, She didn’t like the plaintive note in her own voice, but she was worried, and she was frustrated, and she’d already delayed freeing the dragons and finding her family in order to allow Kaz to confront Nucai, which probably wasn’t even a good idea, and she wanted him to talk to her!

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He let out that growling sigh that she liked so much that she sometimes made him sigh just so she could hear it. “Nothing. I’m just thinking about what we need to do next.”

she told him.

Kaz stopped, glancing back at the totem, which had nearly vanished into the darkness again. His ears were almost completely flat, and while his tail wasn’t tucked against his body, it wasn’t anywhere close to wagging, either. She knew he was trying to hint that just inside a tribe’s territory wasn’t the best place for a conversation, but Li didn’t care. If he was worried about that, then he should have talked to her when they were in unclaimed territory.

Li just waited, wings spread, blocking the path, until Kaz crouched, rubbing his fingers over his eyes, then down his muzzle, the way he did when he was tired or worried. If he was worried, then he should tell her why, so they could be worried together.

“Did you hear what I said to Nadi, there at the end?” Kaz asked. It was one of those questions with an obvious answer, that he only asked to make sure they were both talking about the same thing, so Li just nodded.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” he confessed. “I know it’s true, or at least that it will be true if I do what I need to do, but I don’t know how I know.”

She stared at him. She’d had the same experience, more than once. It was how she knew how to do dragon things even when there were no other dragons to teach her. It was also why she’d been able to tell Nucai to let them go, and he’d had to listen. And Kaz had felt some of that through her, so she knew he knew. He’d never really seemed to worry about it before, just like she didn’t. It was the way it was supposed to be, and sometimes that was enough. she asked.

He nodded, and that, at least, was firm and certain. “Of course.”

She felt her tail twitch. He was still hiding something from her, and that wasn’t all right. They were bonded, meant to be together. After all, she didn’t hide things from him. Well, except when she got hungry and used his ki to open his pouch and take out a ki-crystal. That didn’t even count, though.

The distant echo of kobold yips and the scratch of fuergar claws filled the silence that fell between them. At last, Kaz closed his eyes and muttered something. Li clicked at him, and he winced as if he’d heard her frustration, and met her eyes.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to go with you,” he said, and now Li flinched.

There it was. But she’d known. She’d known since he said he needed to come back here, rather than going with her to the place where at least some of her family was. They were so close, but he couldn’t go with her, and she’d known then.

she asked softly, and he nodded, even though he was obviously miserable. He nodded again, and Li leaned forward, careful not to poke him with her horns as she leaned against him.

she promised.

Raising her head, she looked up, through the stone and crystal and ore and bones that made the mountain, and saw the blue sky as clearly as if nothing lay between her and it. That was where she belonged, and she knew it as certainly as she knew that Kaz belonged…here. He was part of the stones and bones of this place, and she was made of clouds and sunlight. It was only through some strange twist of fate that they ever even met, and now they would never be apart.

She pressed closer, feeling his fur wrap around her horns, tangling and holding her close. It would hurt both of them when she pulled away, but that was all right, because the time to separate wasn’t here yet, and right now she was exactly where she belonged. The thing that sometimes filled her, that told her the right and true way for things to be, rose up in her, and Li said,

Kaz’s arms wrapped around her, gently folding in the wings she’d forgotten she’d spread. “Will you come back?” he asked, and she could hear the fear in his voice. “Or will you forget me, out there? Or, worse, will you hate me for breaking my promise?”

And that was it. That was the heart of it, the biggest part of what he’d been hiding from her. There was more, she could sense it, but that would work itself out, so long as this was spoken and fixed. she asked, and she could instantly feel his denial, deep down in the most basic part of himself. He was Kaz, and she was Li, and neither would ever turn on the other.

“Never,” he said, and truth was in the word.

she told him, and truth was there, too.

They clung to each other, there in the darkness, as Kaz turned his power inward and the gentle ki-light faded. The bond between them hummed with ki, but also with their hopes, as well as their fears, and there was only a very little that each kept to themselves.

Then rough kobold voices broke their silent communion, and Li jerked back, pulling out several large tufts of Kaz’s fur. Loose strands fell around her, tickling her nose until she sneezed sharply, once, then again. Soft yips came from the darkness, and Kaz scooped Li up, and she reached out to the world around them, whispering, We are you, and you are us, and the world listened.

Two short, muscular male kobolds came around the corner ahead of them. The flickering light of a firemoss oil torch illuminated the tunnel. A few tufts of blue fur lay on the ground, and the brown male in front edged forward, eyes darting around as the other male hung back, ready to react if something or someone leaped out at them.

The brown male squatted and poked at the fur carefully, the tip of his knife coming far too close to Kaz’s camouflaged paws. Not that such a weapon could hurt him any more, but it hadn’t been so long since it could, and Li could feel muscles jump in his arms as he leaned away.

Sniffing at the strands, the kobold grunted softly. “Kobold, but not someone I know. We should tell Pilla.” The second male nodded, and the two guards retreated carefully, yipping some message as soon as they were around the corner again.

Kaz chuffed a soft laugh as they reappeared, along with his ki-light. “We should hurry,” he said, then scratched at his ear awkwardly. “Pilla was nice, but…I don’t really want to see her again.”

Li told him, and they began to run. Together.