The sound of Kyla’s hands slapping the table as she stood made them all turn to stare at the pink-furred female. She, in turn, was staring at Dongwu. “You let this happen,” she said, not asking. “You knew it was wrong, but you did it anyway, and then you went and hid.”
She stepped back, and it was obvious that she was furious. The fur along her spine stood up, and her tail looked like the top of a yumi reed, after it turned to fluff. “Why didn’t you take us away? Lead a rebellion of your own? Even step in and take control after someone else killed Qiangde for you? If you had just allowed Tegra to leave, or told us not to eat cores anymore, because we were just swallowing the poison of our ancestors, over, and over, and over-”
Kyla’s voice cracked, and she moved away from the table. “I’m leaving,” she said. “And I’m never coming back. Forget about the weapon and the earrings. I don’t want anything from you.” Pausing, she pulled her new knife from its sheath, releasing it to strike the floor, its chime muffled by the furs on which she’d been sitting.
“Kyla!” Dongwu stood, using the hand resting on her hammer to help her rise. “I’m sorry! I can’t…leave this mountain. None of us can. Not and survive. And kobolds don’t remain sapient for long after leaving, either. I’ve never been able to figure out why. I’ve done experiments, but-”
“Experiments!” Kyla barked, turning on her again. “That’s all you care about! We’re just things to you, even after all these years. Or pets, maybe. Certainly not people. Not your people. If we were, the Woodblades wouldn’t have been killed, because my mother…my mother…” She crossed her arms, shimmering in and out of visibility. “Let me leave.”
Dongwu’s eyes were glittering with tears, but she nodded and stood, following Kyla into the first room. There, she poured red and yellow ki into the door through which they’d entered. As soon as she pulled it open, Kyla ducked beneath her arm and ran out.
Everyone else had followed, with Li clinging to Kaz, and now Raff paused, looking back and forth between Lianhua and the open door. Lianhua bit her lip in indecision, but shook her head. “Let her be for a little while. She needs to think before she can talk. Besides, do you have any idea how to get back to the city from here?” She managed a small smile, though she didn’t look at Dongwu.
Raff opened his mouth, then sighed and said, “No. An’ you’re right. But maybe we should all go?”
To Kaz’s surprise, Lianhua actually looked like she was thinking about it. She had an actual Diushi right in front of her, as well as a wall full of books on the other side of this very comfortable room, but Dongwu was probably almost as great a disappointment to her as to Kyla. Lianhua had built her life around the study of the Diushi, and now here were all the answers, in one very unpleasant package.
“I’m sorry,” Dongwu said, the rasp of her voice raw. “That’s enough of my story. Ask your questions, and I’ll try to answer them as best I can.”
Once again, Kaz almost felt sorry for her. He understood the desire to explore and learn, and he knew Lianhua did, too. But would he have been willing to sacrifice lives for that? If he saw others being tortured, would he have gone along with it, even knowing that the perpetrators were stronger than he was? He wasn’t as certain as he would have preferred of the answer.
Li nipped his ear.
Not only because of that, but she was right. Kaz wasn’t like Dongwu, though he easily could have been, if he’d simply kept traveling with Lianhua or Li, leaving his mountain and his past behind. He didn’t want to take on the responsibility he saw looming before him, but if he didn’t, who would?
He looked at Dongwu. “You said you couldn’t leave the mountain. What do you mean? Does that apply to Nucai as well?”
The female nodded jerkily. “Qiangde was using us as much as we were using the kobolds,” she said. “He wanted to ascend, so first he tried to find out why humans could, but beasts couldn’t. Then he tried to become a human, but while he could look like one, his essence never changed. Finally he tried to figure out exactly how much humanity was needed for ascension. That’s how all of the kobolds came to be created. But none of you, with or without a core, could reach beyond the sky, no matter how many cores you ate or how much ki you cultivated. So he tried it from the other direction, combining us with our own creations, then trapping us here so he could watch us as we struggled to escape, knowing the only path out was ascension.”
She turned, pulling down the collar of her leather shirt, so they could see the patchy, scarred flesh on the back of her neck. “He even put one of my own control stones in me, and probably Zhangwo and Nucai as well.”
Turning around again, she gave one of her twisted smiles, though there was far less real humor in it now. “I was able to get it out, years ago, but I still couldn’t leave. The moment I tried to exit, no matter which path I took, my head felt like it was going to explode. I actually threw myself from the cave up top once, and by the time I dragged myself back, I was bleeding from every hole in my head. I laid in the cave for a week before I recovered enough to return home.”
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Kaz and Lianhua exchanged glances, and Kaz took a step toward Dongwu. Holding out his hand, he said, “May I touch you?” Her ki was so thick that he could barely see beneath her skin, much less make out any detail of her dantians, or what he believed was the beginnings of a core.
She pulled the hammer closer, but nodded, and as Kaz laid his hand on her cheek, he wondered how long it had been since she allowed anyone to touch her skin. She had no family, and her only friend seemed to be a mithril hammer. Not even Kaz was that lonely, before Li.
It was strong, like the river Kaz had once fallen into. That had carried him away, depositing him in Heishe’s coils, but Kaz couldn’t afford to lose himself to this. Fortunately, he had Li to onto, and he slid his internal sight through the blindingly bright ki until he found what he’d known would be there.
Dongwu’s upper dantian held the same kinds of dark lines and clinging foulness he’d found in the dragons. While this was simpler, it was set well and firmly, dragging at intangible walls as he attempted to move it. Distantly, he heard Dongwu cry out, and he shifted as she tried to pull away, but didn’t release her until he was certain he could recreate what he was seeing.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Li, her mouth wide, teeth viciously sharp and gleaming where they pressed against Dongwu’s fist. That fist was less than an inch from Kaz’s muzzle, and Dongwu looked terrified and furious as blood dripped from both her hand and her nose. Li’s body fairly hummed with the power of that blood, and the Fire ki in her core was nearly as white as the Metal.
“I’m sorry,” Kaz said, stepping back so Li was forced to release the fist. It felt strange to say that to this female, who had so much to answer for, but he did. “I didn’t know it would hurt you.”
Dongwu lowered her hand, but her lips were pulled back. “Explain,” she growled, and for the first time since she stopped trying to kill Li, he thought that growl sounded truly genuine.
“When the xiyi rebelled, they were afraid any dragons who survived would come after them, seeking vengeance,” Kaz said. “So they placed a curse on them - runes in their upper dantians that made them little more than murderous beasts. What they didn’t realize is that one of those runes would make the curse carry over to each succeeding generation, causing all dragons touched by it to remain weak and die far, far younger than dragons of the past.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Dongwu asked, though he could see a dawning horror in her eyes.
“You have runes in your dantian as well. They’re different from the ones the dragons bear, but there’s no doubt they’re there. Lianhua was able to translate the others, which allowed me to remove some of them, but yours have been there for a very long time. I have no idea if they can be cleared without killing you or damaging your dantian beyond repair,” Kaz said.
Dongwu’s fingers dug into the fur on her cheeks, her eyes wild. “Still? He still controls me? That bastard!” Her gaze locked on Kaz, and she reached for him. “Get them out! I don’t care what happens to me. I want him out of my head!”
Again, Li rose up, wings spread and mouth agape as she gave a hiss that threatened to become a roar.
Wincing, Dongwu stepped back again, her shoulders bumping into the wall beside the picture of her mother. “Dragons,” she muttered. “Always dragons. And scholars.” She looked toward Lianhua, and both Yingtao and Raff immediately stepped in her way, though if they had been able to see what Kaz could see, they would have known they were desperately outmatched. Somehow, Kaz doubted the knowledge would have made either of them hesitate.
“Yes, and a scholar is going to help you,” Lianhua said, almost sharply. She stood on her toes, peering over Yingtao’s shoulder. “Kaz will tell me what he saw in your dantian, and I’ll figure out what runes they are, just like I did for the dragons. But that’s only if you don’t try to kill us.”
Dongwu’s eyes closed, and her head tilted back until it, too, bumped against the wall. She drew her hammer toward her chest, and Kaz was surprised to realize that in spite of her pain and anger, she hadn’t tried to strike him with it this time. “Yes, I know,” she muttered. “But I thought I got rid of him. Of them. Can you blame me?”
Finally, she released a deep, shuddering sigh, and opened her eyes, wiping the blood from her nose. “All right,” she said. “Then let me tell you the rest. You need to know that Nucai is-”
The room shook, just a little, and one of the furs on the wall slipped to the side, no longer perfectly straight. Dongwu reached for it, but rather than moving it back into place, she tugged it aside, revealing another door. This one was made of bound yumi reeds, but as she flooded it with ki, crystals lit up inside it. Kaz was shocked that he hadn’t caught even a hint of power from it until now, but obviously Dongwu had learned a great deal during her time in the mountain.
Grasping the upper corner of this door, Dongwu pulled it open, revealing a narrow road with a stone wall on the far side. Kaz was close enough to look up, and saw the empty dimness of the Deep hanging above them, lit by luminescent plants and uncountable numbers of glow-worms.
“Nucai has to be aware that you’re all here,” Dongwu said grimly. “We all had ways to find creatures with cores in our territory. It allowed us to watch for new experimental subjects. There’s no way he’ll have missed the presence of a dragon and a kobold as strong as Kaz, even if his spies didn’t tell him about the humans. He plans for every contingency, but once he’s ready, he’ll do whatever it takes to capture you.”
“Grandmother,” Lianhua gasped.
“Mei an’ Kyla!” Raff said at the same time.
The humans darted out into the street, and Kaz followed, with Li immediately lifting from his back, growing larger as she looked for what was causing the rumbling. Behind them, the door clicked shut, then immediately jumped in its frame as another tremor shook the city. It swung open slightly, revealing nothing but the dark, empty interior of an unused building.