There were a surprising number of rooms in the first two towers, so it took a while to explore. In the process, Kaz realized that someone had indeed lived here, or at least planned to do so. Most of the towers were filled with small rooms containing carved stone beds that were more like those humans used than the piles of furs kobolds slept in when they got the chance, though he suspected fur or cloth would have been placed on them before sleeping. There were also ‘tables’ carved out of the stone walls, and flat-topped rocks that would make good chairs. None of the rooms looked like anyone had been using them at the time this place was abandoned, but Li found a single scale that might have belonged to a xiyi or a dragon.

Li asked as she picked up the scale in her increasingly dextrous front paws.

Kaz nodded. “So either this place was where they lived, or some of them lived here while they guarded the eggs.”

Li said, looking around. They were back outside the tower, and it was very obvious that there was no place for eggs. Unless, of course, they were meant to be piled up in the bowl in the center. That made no sense, though, since the eggs would pile up on each other and break, even if they could be kept warm and turned as he’d seen Li’s parents do with their eggs.

“We haven’t looked in the bottom part of the tower we arrived in,” he offered. “There could be several nests in there.”

Li asked with clear disdain.

Kaz laughed, rubbing the top of her head. “We’re in the middle of a mountain. They must have some way of getting the little ones out, but this cavern is large enough for them to learn to fly. And they could get in and out of the windows. Maybe that’s why there are no stairs inside the towers. If the xiyi rode dragons-”

Li was dubious, and once Kaz thought about what he’d said, he couldn’t blame her. Kaz had only seen Li’s siblings for a little while, but even though they were all much larger than she was when she hatched, there was no way a full-grown xiyi could ride one. Once the hatchling grew large enough to be ridden, they would also be too big to fit through the windows, and it could be very difficult to get them out of the mountain at all.

“So, we’re back to this being a place for the xiyi to live. Which means the eggs were kept somewhere else. But where?” He looked around. “And how did the xiyi reach any but the bottom level of the towers? Surely they didn’t climb the walls or up chains every time they wanted to sleep.”

There was no sign of wear on the faces of the towers where chains or claws might have been used, and though the stone was very strong, surely it would be damaged by such abuse. Of course, it could simply be that chains were never hung and claws were never used because no one actually lived here, but when Kaz peered up at the ceiling where the top of the towers merged with the stone, there was nothing he could identify as an attachment point for a way to lift people or aid them in climbing.

Li sighed and rose from the ground, flying back toward the tower where they’d arrived. They’d left it for last, partially because they’d checked the top room so thoroughly, and partially out of sheer curiosity. They knew what lay in that tower, or at least the top part of it, but the others were complete mysteries. It turned out that they held nothing more exciting than several dozen copies of the exact same room, which left both of the brave explorers feeling that they’d wasted their time.

Li said as she landed on the edge of the opening beneath the one they’d flown out of. The pattern of windows was subtly different from that of the other buildings, with a slightly greater distance between them. That meant that while the other two towers each had ten windows, this one only had eight.

“Li, wait for-” But the dragon was gone. The window was about eighty feet up, but he could have used his claws to climb, or perhaps jumped. Jumping was risky, though. If he missed the window, Li would never let him forget.

Li said. Kaz watched through her eyes as she moved from room to room. As in the other towers, there was a round central space, with empty doorways leading away from it. Rather than ten doorways, there were only eight, and when Li looked into each room, they could see that they were slightly larger in every dimension than the ones they’d looked at before. Even the bed was bigger, looking like two xiyi could fit in it, if they were willing to snuggle together. There were two flat stone ‘chairs’ at the table, too.

Kaz asked silently, since Li was too far inside to easily hear him.

Li said, sounding disgruntled that she hadn’t found something more interesting.

Quickly, Li checked the next several levels while Kaz waited by the entrance to the bottom of the tower. He had a feeling that if they were going to find something besides sleeping rooms, it would be here, if only because there was nowhere left to look, other than going over every inch of the actual cavern. Which was the logical next step, no matter how much Kaz dreaded it. Anything could be hidden by the power of the ki-crystals that coated the walls.

Li landed beside him, staring at the empty opening. As on the other buildings, this one was larger than the ones above. Even Raff probably wouldn’t have to duck his head when he entered, or not much, and Kaz and Li would be able to walk in side by side. Kaz reached out and stroked Li’s neck, and she leaned into the touch, vibrating softly. “Shall we?” he asked, and she nodded.

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As soon as they got past the short hallway, they both stopped, staring around. They were in another of the circular chambers that filled the middle of the tower, but only four doorways led away from a much larger space than any of the ones above. More importantly, however, there was a gaping hole in the floor, leaving only a ledge of about five feet around the outside of the room.

Carefully, Kaz tested the floor, finding that it felt as solid as all the rest. Then he summoned a ki-light and guided it to the center of the open space ahead of them. It revealed nothing but impossibly smooth stone walls for as far as the light extended, which was at least a hundred feet below floor level.

Li said, spreading her wings, but Kaz held up a hand.

“We’ll go together,” he said firmly. “There could be anything down there, and it’s large enough for your greatest size.” It was, too, though she wouldn’t have much room to maneuver.

Li huffed.

But Kaz was looking around again, and what he saw made him want to explore just a bit more. Other than the ki-crystals in the cavern, there wasn’t a single item of decoration in the entire place, and he had a feeling that the crystals were there for light and, perhaps, to power whatever contained or controlled the Dragon’s core. But here he could see faint curls and patterns carved into the stone. They were too shallow to see properly, as if they were just the beginning of something much more elaborate, and Kaz wanted to examine them.

Sensing his interest, Li stretched out her neck, staring at the nearest carving. She moved her head up and down, back and forth, without shifting her feet at all, then leaned away again, staring at Kaz.

Kaz shook his head, fingers touching the same sharp corners and smooth, perfect curves. “They’re…a picture, I think. Something like the maps, but larger. Maybe even life-sized?”

And it clicked. While the strokes were too broad to make sense up close, and too shallow to see from further away, if they were carved deeper, and he stood in the center of the room on the non-existent floor, they would make…

“It is just like the maps,” he said, heedless as he walked around the room on an ancient ledge that he’d never tested. “Look, here’s a xiyi. And a mosui, but this one is taller than the ones we met. Or these xiyi are shorter than Snen and the others. And they-”

He traced his fingers over the image, feeling detail he couldn’t see. The mosui was almost Kaz’s height, and not nearly as round as the ones he’d seen in the city. It had distinct legs, and the hands were less like broad, clawed scoops, and more like human appendages with long claws. In fact, they were far more like Zhangwo than Kaz would have guessed. Is this what they were supposed to look like, and Zhangwo hadn’t been some kind of terrible half-thing?

As for the xiyi, at first Kaz thought this one had the same hunched back he’d noticed on the ones carved into the maps. Then he realized that there were further details carved into this scene. Those details were familiar, and he turned to look at Li as his fingers traced over the wall.

“These xiyi had wings,” he told Li, his eyes wide. “They were smaller, so their wings could lift them. That’s why there are no stairs in the towers. They just flew.”

Li looked around, her own interest sparked now. “Are there any dragons? Or kobolds?”

They walked around together, ignoring the open doorways, at least for now. The shallow lines vanished and reappeared when looked at from different angles, making it difficult to form a real mental picture of what the long-ago artist had intended. Kaz would have closed his eyes if he hadn’t been afraid he would just step off the path and fall into the pit, since his fingers were telling him more than his eyes.

“No kobolds or dragons,” he said finally, having come back around to the entrance. “But the xiyi in the middle is holding what I think may be an egg.”

Rather than clinging to the wall to go around, Li jumped and glided back over to the carved image Kaz indicated. Her back legs scrabbled a little as she landed, but she managed to pull her tail back up with a minimum of inelegant flailing, and ignored Kaz’s amusement as she traced the hands of the figure directly in front of her.

she exclaimed.

That thought had occurred to Kaz, too, but Li was right. The thing in the xiyi’s hand was definitely pointier on one end than the other, with a shape that was exactly like the dragon eggs from Kaz’s memory. Besides, even with the xiyi’s reduced size, it was too big to be an accurate representation of Loong’s core.

“I don’t know what these are, though,” Kaz said, coming up beside Li. He traced the tall rectangles that made up the background of the image. At first, he’d thought the boxes were just random decoration to fill up the space, but each of them was different, and he was almost certain he felt the shape of more eggs barely sketched into the centers of the rectangles.

Li shook her head. she admitted.

Kaz agreed. If only it had been a painting, rather than a carving. Even given how long it had been since this was made, most of the image would probably still remain, since nothing had happened to disturb it. Then his eyes widened, and he tapped his pouch. A long package ejected itself with far more force than necessary, and he almost fumbled it, allowing it to fall down into the pit. He managed to keep hold of it, though, and held up the set of paints and colored charcoal sticks Lianhua had given him.

“I’ll fill it in,” he said, crouching to unroll the bundle. There were only short pieces of the colored sticks left, and the paints were more empty than full. He wasn’t sure how long the paints and charcoal would last even if he only barely colored in the existing lines, but he could certainly color the section containing the egg-bearing xiyi and a few of the rectangles immediately behind it.

Li said, and carefully picked up a stick of dark green charcoal. She’d never shown any interest in drawing before, and Kaz felt a moment’s misgivings, but then he nodded. She wasn’t nearly as deft with her claws as he was with his hands, but all she had to do was draw the charcoal along the existing grooves, darkening them in.

“Let’s do it.”