They checked all seven arms of the cavern, finding dragon skeletons down three of them. There were broken eggshells in several of the egg alcoves, though always in the first hundred or so down a new cavern. They didn’t find any sign of dead hatchlings, so perhaps those shells were the debris of some long-ago hatchings that hadn’t been cleaned up?

All evidence supported Kaz’s guess that the dragons - or had it been the kobolds? - had built far more of the niches than they needed. Which seemed to ease Li’s sorrow, since she had been imagining hundreds or even thousands of dead and forgotten eggs.

Li asked, staring at the fifth adult-sized skeleton they’d found. It lay, tumbled and stretched out, with the bones in piles, not held together in dragon-shape even after the dragon’s death. Not like Qiangde. Interestingly, while there were no teeth-marks or other signs that the dragon’s body had been preyed upon, there was also nothing left but bare bones, not even cores.

“We can try to burn the bones,” Kaz said dubiously. “But you saw what happened in the Broken Knife den. It was all right to break the stones there, but this-” He looked at the perfect white tiles beneath their paws, then around at the glowing niches, still functional after all these centuries.

Li heaved a sigh.

Kaz eyed the skeleton. It wasn’t large, as dragons went, so he thought some of the smaller bones would fit through the opening of his pouch. From there, the pouch seemed to be able to pull in almost anything, as long as it had room remaining within it.

Unfortunately, Kaz had developed a habit of tucking away almost anything that he didn’t think anyone would miss, and he could just tell by the amount of ki and pressure that it took to put things in now that it was almost full. Soon, he would have to empty it and decide what he really needed to keep. He wasn’t a half-starved pup from a weak tribe any longer, and he didn’t need to hold onto everything that might be edible or repurposed into something else.

“Some of it, maybe,” he said, “but we would just end up taking it apart. That seems even worse, somehow.”

Li said. She glanced behind them in the direction of the pit.

Kaz was fairly certain that Lianhua would want to tell everyone, but he didn’t tell Li that. Instead he said, “I’ll make sure no one damages this place or takes the bones.” He knew they were both thinking about the way Gaoda had taken the bodies of her dead siblings, as well as every other trace of dragons he’d been able to gather. If other humans were the same, then there was a very real possibility that they would try to tear this place, and the rest of the ‘Diushi’ artifacts, apart. And unfortunately, kobolds simply weren’t strong enough to defend it, even if they wanted to. But Kaz was, or would be.

Li looked at him, and the promise hung between them. It would require Kaz to stay here, but he already planned to do that. It would also mean he continued to do something to help her, something that would mean he was thinking of her, trying to help her, even when they were apart. she said.

And then it was time to continue down the pit. They’d found no sign of any way out, even though Kaz was almost certain that the xiyi must have had a platform to carry them between levels, rather than flying up and down every time. After all, it was one thing to lift themselves, but what if they were carrying eggs or other items back and forth? No, they wouldn’t risk getting tired or dropping something, so there must be another way, but Kaz and Li hadn’t figured out what it was. Kaz suspected it might be as simple as the platform being stuck at the bottom of the pit, either by accident or design.

He started to climb aboard Li, who had been able to rest and recover most of her ki, but then hesitated and took out a large red ki-crystal. He wasn’t used to having enough to give her whenever she was even a little low on ki, but he was trying to remember to offer even if she didn’t ask.

Li’s eyes lit up, and she started to take it, then hesitated.

Kaz was startled, but pulled a good-sized Earth crystal from his pouch and gave it to her along with the Fire stone. “I thought you were cultivating Fire,” he said, trying to sound like it was an offhand comment.

The dragon took a moment as the crystals vanished down her throat. she said finally. She blew a thick cloud of cool vapor to show what she meant.

So that was why she’d been avoiding using her fire breath lately. Kaz was worried that she’d been frightened by the explosion he’d almost - all right, had - died in, but all this time she’d been thinking about what she wanted for her future instead.

He focused on her core. “You’re doing a good job,” he told her, seeing the flush of golden ki pouring into it from the yellow ki-crystal. “You’re right, that crystal and the improvement in your cultivation that it brought tipped you toward Fire, but Water is slowly pushing back.” He chuffed, watching as red ki swirled happily, taking in the fresh power from the red ki-crystal. “Fire wants to feed and grow, though, so it will take any chance it can get to regain lost ground.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Li took in a deep breath, then released a slow cloud of cool vapor that clung to them and everything around them in glittering droplets.

“What about Wood and Metal?” Kaz asked, ears twitching in amusement as he watched her core shift, the various elements swirling in bursts of color.

His dragon sighed.

Kaz laughed and stroked her neck. “You don’t have to like what I like. I have enough Wood for both of us. Being yourself is the best thing you could possibly be.”

She leaned against him, throat vibrating as she purred.

And that was the plan. Go down the pit until they reached whatever lay below, but do it even more cautiously than they had in reaching this level. Li would need to use as little ki as possible, so that if that monster really did lurk beneath them, they could sneak past it and hopefully find a way out of this area.

Honestly, if they couldn’t find stairs or a platform, they would have to go all the way back up and return to the hoyi nest, but Kaz suspected he’d have to destroy the platform they’d come down on in order to get through. They’d already spent several days exploring these levels, too, so even though he’d felt like he had plenty of time, now the month Li had given him seemed far too short. It was likely Kyla and the others were in the mountain, too, or would be soon, and he’d promised to meet them.

Together, they spiraled gently down the pit, trying to remain prepared to disappear at the first sign that the passage was coming to an end. Kaz gave Li more crystals each time the ki stored in her dantians sank too low, alternating between red, yellow, and black. Kaz didn’t use a ki-light this time, leaving them in a sort of pseudo-darkness filled with the light of their own ki flooding the area around them before drifting away into mana.

It reminded Kaz of the very first time he’d ever used a rune, when he was left behind in the passage above the lopo cavern, trapped in absolute blackness, just like when he’d spent hours crawling through a narrow crevice that might well have had no opening on the other end. Now, he could barely imagine that darkness, since his own power constantly surrounded him. It didn’t illuminate surfaces the way ‘real’ light did, but through it he could sense where the tunnel walls were, along with a hundred thousand tiny lives that filled the stone. He didn’t even know what those minute creatures were, but someday he hoped he would find out.

Li said, her voice tight. She still couldn’t see as clearly as he did, and her senses didn’t reach as far, but this kept her from being distracted by things that were smaller than could be seen with her eyes alone.

Kaz turned his focus downward, and realized that she was right. Only a short distance below, the tunnel walls vanished into open air, and he felt Li’s concealment surround them as they glided down into a cavern. She didn’t even flap her wings, simply curving up along the ceiling until they felt a new wall form from the blankness. They still had no idea what lay below them, but if this was the cavern that held the colossal lake and its enormous inhabitants, there should be solid stone around most or all of the walls. Neither of them had seen much more than that in their brief glimpse, but hopefully they would have a safe place to land.

The temperature dropped sharply as they flew downward, and their sensitive ears picked up the sound of water lapping against stone. There was no wind in the mountain, so moving water meant that either there was flowing water coming from somewhere, or something was in that water. Li’s paws touched down on stone, and they both breathed silent sighs of relief. If they’d found only water, Li would have had to fly back up and try again, and keeping them hidden while actively flying, not just gliding, was significantly more difficult for her.

Li said. Their original idea had been to each head in opposite directions along the wall until one of them found an opening, was cut off by water, or they met on the other side of the cavern. Staying together would mean spending twice the time searching for a way out, but Li was right. There was something about this place that spoke of danger beyond even what they’d been expecting.

Kaz said, and felt Li relax slightly.

Li shifted as she looked up at the distant ceiling.

Kaz wasn’t so sure that was true. The things they’d seen had very long necks, and while the ceiling was quite a ways up, he wasn’t certain they couldn’t reach. There was no point in saying so, however. It wasn’t like he could make the necks shorter or the ceiling higher.

Turning, Kaz used his claws to dig a deep scratch in the wall, right at the level where his hand naturally rested. Once he had a way to be sure when they returned to this spot, they set off, moving as quickly as possible without draining Li’s ki too much. They had plenty of ki-crystals, but Kaz had noticed that when she ate too many of the same color too soon, they had less and less effect. Their cycles were linked, of course, but if she took too much of Kaz’s ki, he wouldn’t be able to fight or heal if they needed him to do so.

The cavern must be truly huge, which in turn meant that the biggest monster had to be larger than any living creature Kaz had seen before. It might well dwarf Qiangde, whose skull had been large enough for even Raff to stand upright inside. Kaz and Li walked, side by side when they could, but more often with Li trailing Kaz when the narrow, sloping floor grew even more narrow. Many creatures who lived in water could sense when that water was disturbed, so Kaz was wary of dipping even a toe into the encroaching lake.

At last, they found that they could go no further. It was possible that the dry area on which they walked resumed only twenty feet or so further on, past this section of water, but Kaz didn’t know if the things that lived here could sense his ki if he pushed it out too much, so he kept it just far enough to give them some warning if something approached.

In the end, it didn’t matter. As they turned, Li’s tail tapped the surface of the water, sending out a ripple that faded within inches. That was enough, because even as they both froze, the surface of the water began to foam. Something that seemed to be made of utter blackness rose toward them, its ki-dense body almost hiding the huge core in its abdomen.

It was a single black core. As water sloshed, waves lapping against Kaz and Li’s paws, head after head broke the surface, and now Kaz could tell that they were all attached to a single gargantuan body. They twisted and writhed, searching for whatever had disturbed their lake, and then a voice spoke into their minds.