Kyla stared at Ija, and for the first time in a long time, she didn’t know what to say. Usually, she was ready with a story or, better yet, a distraction, but there was no talking her way out of this. She had left the mountain without telling anyone where she was going or why, and though they knew her well enough to guess, guesses weren’t knowledge.
Before spending these last few weeks away, she might have believed that her disappearance wouldn’t really bother anyone except perhaps her father, but now? Now she recognized and was able to accept the concern and affection hidden behind her sister’s controlled facade. Kyla no longer felt like quite such a failure, nor a burden, and didn’t think her family saw her that way, either. Bowing her head, she said, “I’m sorry. I wanted to go on my spirit hunt, but I should have told someone where I was going, so at least you knew. Did you look for me?”
Ija blinked, her mouth already open, no doubt to begin the reprimand that Kyla deserved. Kyla’s acceptance of guilt had obviously taken her by surprise, and in the moment of silence while she gathered herself, Lianhua stepped up, resting her hand on Kyla’s shoulder, an act which drew attention to the burn scars there.
“Kyla came with us to the city of Cliffcross,” Lianhua said. “There, she rescued a princess from a flood, faced a horde of monsters, helped to free a creature of legend, aided in repelling an army of invaders, and formed alliances which will benefit your people for many years to come.”
Ija’s eyes narrowed, then she glanced around. Most of the Goldblades were swarming around Idla, who was now sitting up, though she looked distinctly unwell. The other kobolds, however, were looking from Idla to Kyla and the humans with varying amounts of concern and excitement. Dozens of ears were pricked in their direction as everyone from the new Mithrilblade chief to a few members of lesser tribes listened with fascination.
Clearing her throat, Ija crossed her arms over her chest. “Kyla of the Magmablades, did you complete your spirit hunt?” she asked clearly. Kyla’s heart began to pound in her chest. This wasn’t the way she’d imagined this happening, but Ija wouldn’t want to give anyone else an opportunity to find fault with Kyla’s actions, especially if Lianhua’s last claim was true.
Kyla had straightened, but now she bowed again. “Yes, my chief,” she said formally. “I have brought my trophies to be made into my necklace. Each contains a howl, which I will gladly share.” This was usually a formality for a female, since most of them were in no real danger during a spirit hunt in the Deep. They brought back pretty gems and howls of the connection they felt to the ancestors while holding them, but little more.
Ija’s eyes sparked with interest, but she held up a hand. “Hold your howl until we can celebrate your entry into adulthood as a tribe. For now, it’s good that you have returned to us safely.” She glanced around again as their listeners realized that she had no intention of allowing Kyla to speak further and began to lose interest.
Only when she was certain most of them had shifted to watching an angry and embarrassed Idla did she lean forward, almost touching her nose to Kyla’s ear. “That was true, but when Father and Aunt Sika learn you’re home, you may regret returning. Especially after they see your scars.” Quickly, she gave Kyla’s ear a short, sharp nip, then stood straight again, turning to Lianhua.
“Lianhua, Raff, Chi Yincang. Welcome back,” she said, turning to each one and bowing in turn. Gram - the little blue male pup who had somehow been accepted as the new Woodblade chief - watched closely, and Kyla could see him taking in everything from Ija’s manner of speaking to the depth and style of her bow. She felt a brief pang of jealousy that he was learning directly from the sister she so admired, but Kyla herself would be building her own tunnel, not using one others had created, so if anything, he should be jealous of her.
As Lianhua began to introduce her mate and grandparents, Kyla’s eyes drifted to the stone arch nearby. That arch had been silent and empty for as long as Kyla could remember, but now the entrance to a long, shining tunnel filled it. As Ija had said, not a single one of the Great Chiefs remained next to it, nor were any of the Blades inserted into the stones, but the passage remained, as solid and strong as if it, too, were carved from stone.
In her arms, Mei squeaked softly, sounding almost satisfied, and Kyla glanced down at her. The round fuergar, too, was looking at the impossible tunnel, and when she felt Kyla’s gaze, she looked up and preened her whiskers, just as she did immediately after a particularly hearty meal. Kyla’s eyes widened. No, whatever had happened, there was no way her small friend had anything to do with it.
On the other side of the portal, a shadow shifted. Kyla’s attention was caught as a very unusual figure stepped out around the stone arch, muzzle tilted up as she, too, examined the mysterious phenomenon.
Very few kobolds bothered to wear anything beyond a loincloth, belt, and pack on a regular basis. They didn’t really need to wear clothes at all, but the loincloths were decorative and protective, as well as symbolic. Kobolds were more than beasts, and they wore clothes.
This kobold was the only one Kyla knew who covered most of her body most of the time. She wrapped her hands and paws in leather, protecting them from the blistering heat of the forge where she worked. Similarly, she wore heavy leather pants and a shirt that reached from ankle to wrist, and even covered most of her chest. She’d told an inquisitive young Kyla that it was because sparks or droplets of magma sometimes made it through her shields, and she preferred to replace clothing rather than skin. There were patches of furless skin on her head and face, evidence that she’d been burned often before she learned to protect herself properly. She was much smaller than Raff, of course, but she had muscles like his, rippling and bulging beneath her leather protections.
“Shom!” Kyla yipped, and the old female looked around, almost looking pleased to see Kyla before her dark brown eyes shifted to the humans and the expression turned back into her habitual snarl.
“How many times have I told you not to be so familiar with me, puppy?” she growled, but Kyla ignored her. Shom was always grumpy, but unlike others, she wouldn’t chase Kyla away without reason. She would even answer questions about forging and being a smith if she was in a good enough mood. Which wasn’t often, honestly.
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“My friend Lianhua would like to talk to you,” Kyla went ahead. “I told her you’re the best smith in the mountain, and the only one who can work with adamantium and mithril.”
Shom’s lip peeled from her teeth, and she actually sounded like she meant the growl she directed at Kyla. “You did, did you? Well, you can tell her you were wrong, too.”
“But I’ve seen you do it,” Kyla said blankly. She had, too. It required lowering the metals into the depths of the magma that bubbled beneath the hottest forge in the Deep, then striking them with Shom’s special hammer that was made of some material she refused to name. Watching Shom work was one of the few things that truly distracted Kyla from thoughts of Vega and the uncertain future of her tribe, and she’d spent hours sitting and watching Shom at work the lesser forges, though at that time she hadn’t been able to bear the heat of the magma forge. She was stronger now.
“Forget it, then,” Shom barked, turning her back on Kyla. She’d lost most of her tail in some terrible accident long ago, and hid the stump beneath her clothes, so Kyla couldn’t use it to tell if she was really serious. Shom was usually serious, however, at least with most people. She’d always seemed to like Kyla, though, and her attempts to chase the ‘annoying pup’ away had been half-hearted at best. This was different.
A squeak came from Kyla’s arms as she watched Shom’s stiff, leather-clad back vanish among the crowd. She looked down at Mei, shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. Shom’s never really friendly, but she’s not usually rude. Not very rude, anyway.”
“That was the smith you spoke of?” a voice asked softly, and Kyla turned to see Lianhua’s grandmother also looking in the direction where Shom had vanished.
Kyla nodded. “I was going to introduce her to you. She usually makes whatever she wants, but sometimes if you ask at just the right time, she’ll agree to small projects that don’t take much effort. She makes things that take months or years of work, so she says it’s nice to do something different now and then. But her ‘simple projects’ are better than anything anyone else can even dream of making.”
“She sounds like a very talented craftswoman,” Baihe said, smiling. “I can’t help but notice she looks a bit different from everyone else. I imagine she must have quite a story.”
“She doesn’t like to talk about herself,” Kyla warned. Shom had spoken to Kyla herself more than she had to anyone else Kyla knew of. That might be because Kyla kept asking questions long after anyone else would have stopped, however.
“Kyla!”
Her heart stuttered, and Kyla spun. There he was. Rudu, her father, the one and only person who had never failed to show Kyla that he loved her. He stood beside Ija, and she wondered when his peridot fur had grown so gray. Was it because of her, or had she just failed to see it before? He’d always been shorter than Ija, at least in Kyla’s memory, but had he always looked so weary?
Then his arms opened, and Kyla ran toward him, passing Mei to Raff as she ran by. The human male, standing almost twice the height of some of the kobolds now surrounding him, stared down in bemusement at the round rodent as Kyla flung herself at her father. Without Vega there to growl in disapproval at how soft he was making their daughters, Rudu hugged her as fiercely as she hugged him, and she could hear his heart beating beneath her ear.
They stood there for a long minute, as the bustle of kobolds discussing the oddity of the lingering portal and muttering about Idla’s collapse and the arrival of more humans faded around them. Then Rudu’s powerful arms gave Kyla one last crushing squeeze, and he set her back from him. Their eyes met, and she realized that for the first time, they were almost on a level. Rudu was as squat and muscular as Vega had been tall and slim, and during her absence, Kyla had grown to match his height. Or perhaps she had only just allowed herself to realize that she was no longer his little pup.
“Father,” she said, her voice choked.
Rudu shook his head, and as his relief faded, she could see anger following it. “Kyla. How could you leave like that? We scoured the Deep and the mid-levels looking for you. When eight days came and went, I even convinced Idla and Tisdi to open the mountain early in case you were waiting just outside.”
Kyla’s eyes opened wide. How had her father gotten Idla to agree to that? What concessions could he possibly have made? Looking for one of Vega’s puppies certainly wouldn’t have been a good enough reason, even though that puppy was also her cousin’s daughter. It was true that Kyla had told Lianhua and the others that someone would come looking for her when her spirit hunt should have ended, but she hadn’t actually believed they’d open the mountain just for her.
“I would have been fine,” she told him, lifting her chin. “I’m stronger now, and I can control my k-” She broke off. Kaz had taught her that she used ki, not just ‘power’. Without him, would she have learned the word from Lianhua and the others, or could using it give away the fact that Kaz had survived? She was suddenly nervous in a way she hadn’t been before. Even Ija didn’t know her as well as her father did. Rudu would be able to tell the moment she told a single lie.
Holding his suddenly-suspicious gaze, she hurried on. “I can control my power much better than before. I walked through fire as hot as Shom’s furnace and survived!” That was true, though it was Li’s power that had held off the flames in the end. She touched the tender scar on her shoulder and Rudu’s eyes locked onto it.
“What is that?” he demanded, pulling her hand away. “Have you seen a healer?” He turned away and barked at a nearby male, telling him to get Sika. Kyla wanted to interrupt, but what would she say? Kaz had healed the wound with Wood ki, and it was a good thing he had, or she might have lost some or all use of the arm. The muscles had been damaged beyond what simple medicine and bandages would have been able to repair.
“The damage is mostly superficial,” Yingtao said softly, appearing beside Kyla and Rudu with a suddenness that was worthy of her brother. “The fur may never grow back completely, but I think it lends her a rakish air.” She gave one of her small smiles, her green eyes twinkling behind lowered lashes.
Rudu eyed her suspiciously, but he had been the mate of a chief for many years. He knew better than to react without more information, especially when speaking to a strange female. “Are you a healer?” he asked.
Yingtao tucked her hands into her sleeves and bowed slightly. “Of a sort,” she murmured. “Enough to be certain your daughter is in no danger.”
“Oh, she’s in danger, all right,” another voice joined the conversation, and Kyla flinched. Great Aunt Sika had arrived, bent with age and cheek bulging with zhitong, as usual, but no less ready to nip a puppy’s ear if she caught one disobeying. And Kyla was still technically a puppy until her chief placed her necklace around her throat.
Kyla had only one defense, and she took a step back, half-hiding behind Yingtao as she pulled at the strap tying a particularly heavy pouch to her belt. As she opened it, a pungent aroma filled the air, and kobolds for several feet in every direction turned toward her, noses quivering. Carefully, Kyla pulled out a crumbling, oilcloth-covered lump and began to unwrap it. As she did so, she held it out toward her aunt.
“Aunt Sika,” she asked, “have you ever tasted cheese?”