The wall twisted in place, but unlike the other hidden doors Kaz had found in the mountain, this one carried the floor with it as well. Stone ground against stone as what seemed like half the cavern dropped into a pit, making Li dig her claws into Kaz’s shoulder as she instinctively flapped her wings, trying to lift them both back up. Kaz glanced down, and the bright lights of formerly quiescent ki-crystals hidden in the stone made him realize what was happening.

“It’s a platform,” Kaz said, reaching up to grasp Li as she started to lift into the air. “This whole section of the cavern is just a huge platform.”

Which made him wonder if the same had been true of the wall containing the ki-crystal in the mage school. If Li hadn’t eaten it, might a platform have taken them down to Fengji’s prison, where they could have freed him without destroying the building? Possible, but Kaz thought it was more likely at least some of them would have burned up in the heat of the Rooster’s fury before they could do anything.

Li demanded, still holding her wings at the ready. She hadn’t released Kaz, either, and not for the first time, he was glad his skin could no longer be punctured by things like dragon claws.

As their heads dropped below what had been the level of the floor, red ki surrounded them, and Kaz looked up at the face of one of the hoyi who tended to the eggs. Its antennae were waving wildly, and he was certain that it was calling for help. And he hadn’t even taken any eggs yet.

The peculiar glow that was ki laid over darkness filled Kaz’s vision, but he let Li stare out into it while he turned his own attention inward. The feeling of ‘home’ that constantly guided him was growing stronger. Instead of merely feeling like he was directly above whatever it was that he centered on, now he was moving toward it at a rapid pace. His stomach lurched, and something plucked at the link between him and the mountain, making it hum.

Without seeing stairs and levels, Kaz didn’t know how far they dropped, but it was a long way. Five levels? More? Were they even still in the mid-levels, or had they entered the Deep in the most precipitous way imaginable?

When the platform came to a halt, it was as abruptly as it had begun to fall. Kaz and Li found themselves in a room that could have been lifted straight out of a mosui building, except that it was much larger than the small creatures seemed to prefer. The walls and ceiling were smooth and covered in chips of red ki-crystal, though a good portion of these were dark and cracked. Obviously, no one came here to replace crystals when they broke.

Li asked, staring around. She saw one of the empty holes that served as windows in the upper levels of mosui buildings, and flew toward it. To Kaz’s relief, she came to a rest on the edge of the opening, rather than flying out into the dim red glow beyond, and Kaz hurried over to join her.

They stood within the top level of one of three tall buildings, exactly like those found within the mid-level city. The buildings themselves stood in a wide cavern, rising from the floor to meet the ceiling some ninety or one hundred feet above. Every surface was covered in red ki-crystals, though many of them were burned out, just as they were inside. Even the ceiling was smooth and coated in crystals, making it seem as if the cavern and the buildings had been carved from stone in one whole piece.

They whirled as stone ground again behind them, seeing that the column of red ki had reformed once they stepped off the platform. The chunk of wall and floor rose straight back up, trapping Kaz and Li in the dead and silent cavern. Li flew up, staring at the apparently unbroken ceiling, then circled the wide, now-empty room. she said, with the faintest tinge of worry shadowing her voice.

Kaz had to admit he wasn’t particularly happy with this turn of events, either. If this had been a normal level, he would have been certain he could find some stairs or even a crevice somewhere that would allow them to continue traveling through the mountain. But this space looked entirely created, not natural at all, and it was possible that the only way in or out was by using the platform that had just left without them. Still, there was always a way, so he sent Li reassurance as he paced the room as well.

“There aren’t even stairs down through this building,” Kaz said when he returned to the opening in the wall. It was more than large enough for him or Li to climb out of, so it wasn’t like they were truly closed in, but it was very strange that there didn’t even seem to be another way out of this room.

He leaned out, peering at the other two buildings. Now that he looked at them more closely, he could tell that the far side of each of them merged into the wall. Turning, he looked at the wall opposite him, wondering if there was anything on the other side of it, or if that was simply more mountain.

Li told him, already standing in the opening again.

Did he want to jump almost a hundred feet to solid stone? Not really, though he would probably be all right if he did. Eventually. He had no doubt he could climb simply by digging his claws into the wall, but somehow he was reluctant to break any more of the crystals covering the surface.

“Go look around,” Kaz agreed, with some reluctance. Not a single mote of dust had stirred since the platform vanished, but this was still a very strange and almost eerie space. It almost felt as if it had been built and abandoned on the same day, with no one ever having lived here at all.

Li immediately dropped down into the wide open area, and Kaz blinked as her movement revealed that what had looked like a flat floor was actually concave, with the walls and the buildings at the highest point, and the center of the cavern at the lowest. The shift in perspective made him feel slightly dizzy, and he stepped back from the opening as soon as he was certain nothing was going to immediately attack the dragon.

He paced the room again, more slowly this time. Pushing red ki from his eyes, he searched for ki of any other color. There was nothing, nor was there anything merely physical, like a button or a lever that would open a hidden door. He trailed his fingers over the walls, pushing any crystals that caught at his fingers, all while sniffing deeply, trying to locate the scent of anything other than stone.

Outside, Li flew circles over the open area, slowly descending from the outside edge toward the center. She was watching for the same things Kaz was, as well as any sign of movement. After a while, she even released a small roar, which hung in the air, both echoing and oddly muffled, as if it had nowhere to go, either. she told Kaz, and he nodded, having come to the same conclusion. They had never been anywhere that held so much absence.

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Kaz told her, and Li immediately turned back. As she flew, from one stroke of her wings to the next, she allowed herself to grow, and when she was done, her wings spanned more than ten feet, which was a noticeable increase from before they entered the mountain.

Li was almost too large for the opening beyond which Kaz stood. She turned before him, her serpentine neck curved so the red light glimmered from her golden scales, and turned her crown of crimson horns a deep, sanguine hue.

she announced, and Kaz couldn’t argue. Her body was still slim, no wider than his own narrow waist, but with her long neck and tail she was more than twice his height in length, and there was no doubt she could support him, if only for a while. She could not, however, land in the room, and Kaz wouldn’t simply leap out and jump on her, so he wasn’t certain how she meant for him to climb aboard.

Then Li’s claws reached out, and she grabbed hold of the wide opening, allowing her lower limbs to catch at the wall below. It was awkward, to be sure, and Kaz winced as a small shower of ki-crystals fell to the ground, but the dragon was watching him expectantly, and Kaz refused to disappoint her.

Carefully, Kaz climbed up onto the narrow ridge, then swung a leg over Li’s neck, which she stretched out in an attempt to make this easier. Several of the pointy spikes on her neck came into contact with Kaz’s flesh, but fortunately he was impervious to them, though they bumped beneath him as he slid into place at the base of her neck.

Once he was settled, grasping the lowest horns on the back of her head, Li let go, and for a moment it was like being on the platform again, falling without any sign that the descent was controlled. Then her wings snapped out, and they turned, gliding away from the building.

Kaz had ridden Yanshi twice now, but the male dragon was so much larger compared to Li, and Kaz had been focused on trying to avoid scraping or pressing on the injured area between his wings. With Li, he was momentarily worried she wouldn’t be able to support them both, but then she gave a powerful flap, and they were flying. Together.

It wasn’t like their dreams. There was no clear blue sky or brilliant sun, no puffy white clouds and warm breeze pulling at his fur. He could feel Li’s muscles shift beneath him, visceral in a way no dream could ever be, and Kaz lifted his head and howled. Li’s horns tilted back as she added her roar to their song, and they circled through a small city that might as well have been empty since the beginning of time.

Li’s body became tired long before their hearts did, and reluctantly she circled down to land on the curved gray stone. There they sat, their hearts and breaths perfectly in time, until Kaz swung his leg over the dragon’s neck, realizing that his paws were already on the ground as he stood. That ground felt almost slippery, polished smooth as if by many paws.

Then he looked up, and the three hollow buildings seemed to lean in toward him, while the ground felt like it would fall out from beneath his paws. He started to slip, and sat abruptly on his rear, while Li curled around him protectively, hissing as she looked for whatever had caused her kobold to feel a sudden spike of deep dread in the pit of his stomach.

“This is the place,” Kaz whispered, staring up. He drew a line across the ground with a suddenly shaking finger, but when he lifted it to his eyes, he saw no sign of the red powder from that terrible memory.

Li asked, heated vapor and gray smoke mingling as they rose from her mouth and nose. Kaz was frightened, and Li was angry, and she didn’t know what had caused either of those feelings.

“The place I was made,” Kaz said. “Where Nucai turned my core into a shiyan, at least for a little while. I thought it was…imaginary? Much smaller, certainly.” He laid his hand over his core. “I was nothing but a core then, and Nucai set me rolling in here like a child’s toy. But there was a red dust. Fulan, I think. And Nucai added two more cores and sent us spinning around in here until I was the only one left, and the others were a part of me.”

Li scratched at the ground, which, rather surprisingly, didn’t give way beneath her talons. She gave a somewhat exaggerated sniff. Fulan smelled of rot and the sweetness that came with decay, and Li was right. There was no trace of that stench now, if it had ever been here.

Kaz closed his eyes, blocking out the curve of the cavern floor and the disorienting familiarity, then drew in a deep breath of his own. He had smelled nothing in the room where they entered, and this was no different. Had it been long enough that the scent had faded completely? Would it even be possible to eradicate every spore from a space so large? Or was this really an entirely different place that simply reminded him of Nucai’s bowl?

Kaz slapped his hand against the too-smooth stone, then stood. “You’re right,” he told Li. “There would be some trace of the smell. Especially since there’s no reason to believe I was the last kobold on whom Nucai experimented.” And that was a terrible thought. Were there others like him, living among the tribes at this very moment?

Li slid her head beneath Kaz’s arm, steadying him as he began to walk carefully down the curve of the floor. The bizarre perspective of this place was still throwing him off, but now that he was so close, he was almost certain the bowl in which they stood wasn’t quite as empty as he’d first believed. More, he could feel pressure building around him with every step, filling the air with so much rich, pure mana that it was almost ki.

Li asked as they finally reached the bottom. They’d begun walking in circles as they descended, rather than trying to go straight down the slippery slope, and there was something about that thickness in the air that told them both that trying to fly might be unwise.

Kaz shook his head. It was a bulge, something pushing the utterly smooth stone up in a mound no more than three feet in diameter, and half that in height. Black and white ki-stones covered this lump, but almost all of them were cracked and gray, matching the natural color of the stone. Whatever was generating the rich mana that surrounded them lay beneath this crust of dead crystals.

“Black and white ki in the presence of red will freeze, but I don’t think that’s what this was meant to do,” Kaz said thoughtfully. “But maybe…as these crystals broke, the red ki poured out and met that of the hoyi, creating the mines? Or were the mines here first? Maybe that’s why this thing was placed here, and the hoyi just moved in when the xiyi or mosui stopped maintaining all of this?”

Almost against his will, he reached out to touch the topmost crystal; a particularly large black one that still faintly glittered with ki. Two hisses stopped him, and Li froze with her mouth open, ready to nip the offending hand.

Heishe dropped down from Kaz’s waist, uncurling and expanding as she landed on the floor. she said with unusual sharpness, and glided forward, coiling around the mound. Her black ki poured forth, visible in its turbulence, and surrounded the red. Her power surged, again and again, until Kaz and Li could barely breathe, caught as they were between both. Li’s core shuddered beneath the pressure, but Kaz’s ki was strong enough to push back, so he expanded his power to surround them both, giving the dragon some space to recover.

Heishe said, then brought her tail down in a hard strike that cracked the dome of broken ki-crystals in half. Each portion slid to the side, then simply crumbled, the crystals falling to the ground in a cascade that surrounded Kaz and Li’s paws.

With the concealing ki-crystals out of the way, the large red core resting within a sort of stone nest became clearly visible. Heishe murmured, an infinite sadness in the single word.