Kyla lay on her side, staring as Mei licked her first pup, cleaning away the fluids and other things that coated its skin. It was barely larger than Kyla’s thumb, with dark eyes visible beneath fragile eyelids, and its ears and tail were barely more than nubs. The little creature was also completely hairless, so Kyla couldn’t tell what kind of metals it had taken in during its time in Mei’s belly.
“Stay still, Kyla,” Yingtao said softly as Mei shifted, producing a second baby. Kyla desperately wanted to do something to help, even though Mei had shown very few signs of discomfort. Again, Mei cleaned the new pup, and a few minutes later bore a third. After twenty minutes, Yingtao said the birth was over, leaving Mei looking very satisfied with herself as five pups suckled along the curve of her belly.
“What do we do?” Kyla whispered, unable to tear her eyes from the newborns. Four of them were as pink as the first, but the fifth had completely black skin that made it difficult to see the eyes and ears, making Kyla worry that something might be wrong with it.
Yingtao chuckled. “Nothing except make sure Mei has plenty of food and water. Now that the pups are born, it may be less important to provide her with metal, though I don’t know that for certain. I’ve read many books and scrolls on the healing arts, including some that discussed rare beasts, but I must admit that I know little specifically about even common rodents. In the most general sense, however, most animal mothers instinctively know how to care for their young.” Her voice darkened for a moment. “The same cannot be said of human mothers, unfortunately, but most of the time they have help to fill in the gaps.”
This was unusual for Yingtao, who wasn’t emotionless like her brother, but covered those emotions with false smiles and a gentle demeanor. Kyla liked the other female, but it was hard to know what aspects of her were real, and what weren’t. Other than her feelings for Lianhua, which were obviously both deep and true.
“Among kobolds, some females are excellent mothers, while others are…not,” Kyla said, still not looking away from Mei, who was licking clean one of the pink pups while it squeaked in protest. “Males often care for the puppies as much or more than the females, at least once the pup is weaned. My mother had only a few pups, and left the raising of them to my father, Rudu. She only cared if the females were strong enough to lead, and otherwise we were forgotten.”
Yingtao sighed, and Kyla could almost feel her decide to continue speaking. “My father has many wives, of which my mother was one of the most junior. The power of the wives is determined by the rank of their sons, since daughters inherit nothing. My father visited Mother rarely, so she only bore a single child. When I was born female, they say Mother turned her face away and died of shame.”
Kyla wanted to growl at this. Other than the fact that kobolds usually took only one mate during their lifetimes, it could be similar among her own people. At least among the Magmablades and their subsidiaries, male pups were often left to the fathers, and sometimes were even passed on to den-mothers to be raised as if they had no living parents. While females whose parents had died could usually find a new family, males would grow up without close relations. Without official den-mothers, Magmablade pups could find themselves without any support at all. It was one of the things Kyla hated about her own tribe, and she hoped that Ija would change it.
“For the first few years, I was passed around between the other wives, but when I was three, Chi-ge’s mother took me in, and he decided I would remain there.” Yingtao paused, and Kyla glanced up to see a genuine smile on the human’s face. “He was twelve years old at the time, and a prodigy with the Dao of Shadow. He was only the fifth son, but Father treated him as if he was second or third, so his words bore weight. He raised me like I was his beloved child, not his half-sister, until I was twelve myself. He refused to marry and leave me behind, so when Elder Long called for a servant for his granddaughter, I was sent away in hopes that my brother would forget about me. Chi-ge immediately followed and gave himself into Elder Long’s service as well, even though Father threatened to remove him from the family if he did so.”
That sounded like their father had said he would exile Chi Yincang from the tribe, which would leave him as the lowest member of a new tribe, if he could find one, or forced to join a group of unaffiliated people like the Irondiggers. For a kobold, it would be just short of a death sentence. “Did he?” Kyla asked.
Yingtao snorted a little laugh. “Of course not. It was an empty threat. Chi Yincang brings our family great honor through his skills, and being part of Elder Long’s household only raises his status. Father simply wanted to keep his so-useful son beneath his thumb, and now Chi-ge listens to no one but Elder Long and the Emperor himself.”
Kyla watched the helpless fuergar pups now sleeping next to their mother, who continued giving each one a lick every few seconds, as if to reassure herself that they were all there and accounted for. “I hated my mother,” Kyla finally said, feeling that a revelation like the one Yingtao had made should be answered by an equal one. “I wanted to love her. I tried. But she only cared about me when she could use me.”
“She sounds like my father,” Yingtao said. “I’m sorry. Lianhua and I…she wants children, but I don’t know how to be a good parent. It frightens me to think I’ll fail as badly as my own.”
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Chest growing tight, Kyla looked up. “Be better than them,” she said, meeting Yingtao’s green gaze with all the ferocity she could muster. “Love your children, teach them, and take care of them. Make sure they know you wish for them to be happy. That’s all puppies really want. I’m going to find the best mate ever, and we’ll have lots of puppies, and raise them together, no matter how weak or strong they are. And someday, when those puppies grow up, they’ll try to be even an even better parent than I was, and if each of us just keeps doing better, eventually there won’t be any pups who grow up sad.”
Yingtao stared back, then reached up and rubbed the heel of her hand against her eye. “Yes. I can be better. And Lianhua will be great.”
“Then your children are already lucky,” Kyla said, reluctantly climbing to her paws. She should go find some meat for Mei, and probably some more metal, too. Everyone knew that a new mother needed to eat well so her pups could grow strong. There was still water in a bowl nearby, but it could be freshened as well.
Yingtao stood too, though she had to back up to do so. The space where Mei had her nest was barely large enough for Kyla and the fuergar, so Yingtao had knelt in the low doorway, just in case she was needed.
Lianhua was waiting just outside, and threw her arms around Yingtao, giving an almost silent squeal of excitement before whispering, “Is it over? How many babies are there? Are they all right? Do fuergar give birth like other rodents? Are the babies’ eyes open? Is Mei all right?”
Yingtao laughed, and for a moment her face was transformed, shining with happiness as she looked down at her mate. “Everything is fine, and yes, as far as I could tell, this was a very typical birth. There are five pups, all with closed eyes, and Mei is taking excellent care of them.”
Lianhua’s eyes went from the door to Yingtao, and then to Kyla. “Do you think she’d mind if I looked? No one has ever documented fuergar breeding before, and I’d like to take notes and draw some sketches. Oh!” She looked back at Yingtao. “Ying-ai, can you draw some pictures while the memories are fresh?”
Bright red rose in Yingtao’s cheeks, and she very gently flicked Lianhua between the eyes. “Don’t call me that in front of other people.”
Lianhua rubbed the spot. “Grandfather has given his blessing, and Kyla knows we’re, um, mates,” she said, though her own cheeks turned pink at the last word.
Yingtao cleared her throat, looking up, though Kyla didn’t see anything on the ceiling when she followed the female’s gaze. “That’s true. I guess. Then, yes, Xing-an, I can draw sketches for you.”
Lianhua’s smile grew even brighter, and Kyla decided this would be a good time to go find fresh water and food for Mei. She could even use the little hole Mei had chewed in the wall to give them to the fuergar when she returned, because she didn’t think she wanted to go back into the hut for a while.
Turning away, Kyla caught a brief glimpse of a figure darting away down the wide path between huts. There was something strange about it, so she pulled her power around her and followed, dodging around the few kobolds passing through this part of the city.
For the most part, kobolds lived in their dens with the rest of their tribe, even though the city was large enough to house many people. A few members of each tribe stayed here to protect and maintain their parts of the city, and others came to meet in a relatively neutral space, but they all moved with steady assurance, not as if they were running from something. Was this a sign that someone was spying on the humans? If so, why and for whom?
Kyla soon found herself in the vast open space at the very center of the city. This was called the chaoxue, and by tradition it belonged to no one. The Woodblades had once taken care of it, so it was covered in carvings, statues, and paintings, but since their deaths it had remained mostly unused and unattended. Shortly before Kyla had left the mountain, Kaz and the others had fought a great battle against a colossal flying monster here, which resulted in many of the beautiful works of art being damaged and destroyed.
The smaller debris had been cleared away, but now it held only a sad shadow of its former beauty. Many of the lovely tiles that had once covered the ground had been broken, and whole buildings pulled down on top of the shattered remains. Once, the space had been clear, and Kyla could have seen from one side of it to the other, but now there were so many large chunks of stone and shattered buildings that Kyla had to climb up to the top of one of them before she could look around.
At first, she thought she’d lost the mysterious figure, but then movement flickered to her right, and she spun, stones falling out from under her paws and scattering to the ground. The noise must have caught the attention of the one she was following, because the figure stopped and looked back, and then Kyla knew exactly who it was. There was no mistaking those clothes, or the nearly complete lack of a tail that made the person look incomplete. It was Shom.
The smith’s eyes were narrowed as she stared around, and she lifted her nose as if sniffing the air. Kyla knew that her camouflage would cover most of her scent as well, so she just held still, watching until Shom gave a short shake of her head and turned away, climbing the stairs to the building behind her.
Kyla followed the other female with her eyes, but made no attempt to do so with her paws. That building was where the great chiefs met when they made decisions that would affect two or more of the great tribes. No one other than the chiefs and their declared successors were allowed inside. Even Vega hadn’t been able to enter, since Oda had been the official chief while the Magmablades were still a great tribe. No one knew what lay beyond the huge stone doors that Shom had just pushed open as if they weighed nothing. No one but the great chiefs, and, apparently, a single smith.