The looks of incomprehension following this outburst must have convinced the female that they had no idea what she was talking about, because she closed her mouth with a click, stepping back. Rubbing one hand over her face, she sighed.
“Get ahold of yourself, Adara,” she muttered. Looking up, she said, “Does anyone have a clue what’s going on? Because I’m supposed to be the premier information broker in the largest city in Holiander, and I’m completely lost. I feel like someone just flipped my world upside down. There’s a city under my city!”
For the first time, Kaz felt a hint of empathy for her. He understood all too well what it felt like to discover that something you’d spent your entire life believing wasn’t actually true.
Jinn shook her head. “What are the odds that there are two completely separate insane things happening in Holiander right now?”
Adara snorted. “Higher than you’d think. Some of the things I’ve found out about over the years would straighten that pretty curly hair, sweetness.”
Lianhua gave her a quelling look, then pulled back away from the wide crack in the wall. Reluctantly, the others followed her, with Kyla lingering the longest.
“So, there are two possibilities,” Lianhua said softly. “First, whatever has gone wrong with the Holiander nobility has nothing to do with that strange settlement, or it has everything to do with it. There are probably some in-between possibilities, where one started and the other split off from it, or the two started out independently, but became mixed up together, but at this point, it probably doesn’t matter.”
Reina held up a hand. “I agree with that analysis, but first,” she lifted a trembling finger to point at Kaz, “where is Kaz, and where did a second kobold come from? Why are none of you worried about this?”
Lianhua, who looked like she’d been about to slip into her scholar mode, stopped and bit her lip. She looked unsure how to respond, so Kyla did it for her.
“That is Kaz,” the young kobold said matter-of-factly. “I told you he was my cousin.”
Jinn and Reina exchanged glances, and a flush rose in Reina’s pale cheeks. “We thought you’d been found as a, um, puppy? When you were really little. And maybe Kaz’s family raised you, and so you called him cousin. Because obviously a human can’t-” Reina’s face was pinker than her hair by the time she stumbled to a halt.
Kyla’s ears lowered in confusion. “Kaz is my mother’s sister’s pup. Is that not a cousin?”
Jinn’s voice was choked. “And he’s a…kobold? With a spell cast on him so he looked human?”
“Or a human with a spell to look like a kobold?” Reina sounded oddly hopeful.
Kaz shook his head. “I’m a kobold,” he said, and there was a certain pride to it. He’d seen enough of both humans and kobolds by now that he knew neither was innately better than the other. Still, he preferred his own people to humans, for the most part. At least he usually understood why they did the things they did.
Reina’s face fell. She started to say something, then glanced at Jinn, who shook her head, very slightly. The princess drew in a long breath, pasted a patently false smile on her face, and said, “That’s- You- Go ahead, Lady Lianhua.”
Lianhua, for her part, looked like she’d been completely thrown off by the change in subject, so Kaz prompted, “What should we do about the…town?”
The human blinked twice, then seemed to come back to herself. “Yes, so, if the two things aren’t connected, then we should leave and make our way back to the surface. Once Reina and Jinn are back with their families, and we’ve figured out what’s happening with the nobility, then Reina and her family can deal with this.”
Lianhua gestured back toward the gap revealing the cavern below. “On the other hand, if this town is linked to the rest of it, then we’re finally getting somewhere in figuring things out. We have a whole new series of questions to ask, and as Dai Chun famously said in her classic work, Three Blossom Wind, knowing what to ask is the beginning of the answer.” She looked almost surprised as she finished speaking without anyone interrupting, and looked around at the others, waiting for their responses.
Kaz pointed to Doran, who was staring blankly at a brick directly in front of his face. “He said the people who sent him after me were ‘scalies’. Some of the people down there are certainly scaly.” He withheld his own opinion that they were xiyi, not some other group of unknown reptilians. “He also said they had dragons.”
Lianhua hummed thoughtfully. “And you said you took small stone spheres from his neck and that of his companion, but shortly after they were removed, they dissolved.”
Kaz nodded.
Adara’s eyes narrowed. “Like the one your guard took out of my arm?”
This was news to Kaz, but Lianhua grimaced. “Kaz didn’t see that one, and we didn’t see the ones Kaz described, so I can’t say for certain. I find it vanishingly unlikely that two groups developed or found the same kind of magical devices, however.”
“Unless a third party found an ancient stash of those devices, and has been selling them to different people,” Yingtao murmured.
Reina shook her head, her eyes carefully avoiding Kaz as she did so. “Adara, you said the people who attacked you wore hoods, appeared from nowhere, and shot you with an arrow, correct?”
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“I also noticed the similarity to the people you described as chasing you,” Adara agreed. One hand rose to touch a delicate line of black thread that marched across her bare upper arm. The skin around it was red, but not puffy, so someone had taken good care of the injury.
“None of it is definitive,” Lianhua said, chewing on her lip. “Adara has been asking questions about the nobles, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the people who’re after Jinn and Reina came after her as well. The timing is suspicious, coming so soon after we captured Doran, but isn’t conclusive. That’s also true of these stone orbs. They’re the same, but as Yingtao pointed out, there’s no proof it’s not two groups buying and using the same devices.”
“The sphere Kaz,” Reina stumbled over the name, “removed from my wound was different from the ones that melt. Is that because they were made by different people, or because they had different purposes?”
Lianhua started to respond, then hesitated with a rare show of uncertainty when it came to runes. “That one didn’t have any symbols on it that I would interpret as location or finding runes.”
“What did the runes mean, then?” Adara asked, unmollified.
“I don’t actually know,” Lianhua admitted. “They looked Diushi, but also not, and they’re very old. I’d say that rune-stone was probably carved after the Diushi fell, but I don’t know how long after. Not more than a few hundred years, I’d guess.”
“So how can you be certain those murderers aren’t headed toward us right now?” The yellow-haired female demanded.
“I…can’t,” Lianhua admitted.
At some point during the conversation, which just seemed like a way for the humans to convince themselves that they didn’t need to do anything about whatever was going on below, Kyla had wandered off. Now, she gave a short yip, and Kaz turned away from the rest of the group.
Not surprisingly, Kyla was back at the opening in the wall, staring down at the activity below. The kobolds had vanished again, along with a good number of the xiyi. The humans continued about their tasks, with just a few xiyi remaining to work beside them. Interestingly, these were all red-scaled, but since the majority of the lizard-people were red, perhaps it simply worked out that way.
Kaz gave an interrogative whine, and Kyla’s ears twitched, but she didn’t look around. Mei was perched on her shoulder, and both of them were watching something to their right. Li.
The dragon was climbing along the wall rather than flying, and she blended in with the mottled brown and tan bricks surprisingly well. Kaz looked at their bond, and was startled to realize that she was pulling red ki, using it in a kind of shimmering shield covering herself. It looked more like whatever Kyla did than the way Li usually convinced the power in the air to consider her power as part of its greater whole. It took about the same amount of ki, but it was all red, and Li now had a good deal of red ki to work with.
As if sensing Kaz’s concern, Li looked back at him, and as she did, one of her claws slipped. She was able to regain her footing, and Kaz was well aware that if she did fall, she could simply fly back up, but there was no way someone below wouldn’t notice something in the process.
Kaz looked further along the wall, seeing that Li was heading for one of the smaller dragons. It was golden, like Li, but its horns were short and thick, clustering in a spiky clump on top of its head, rather than extending gracefully behind it. It was also sleeping, or at least resting, because it had its chin on its front paws and its eyes closed.
Come back, Kaz thought. He sent a picture of the two of them, together, searching until they found one of the small tunnels the xiyi used to care for the dragons. From there, they could try speaking to one of the great reptiles, and Kaz might even be able to see if it had a rune like the one that had blocked Li’s dantian.
Li hesitated, but continued.
“Kaz!” Kyla whimpered, and Kaz and Li both turned to stare down below. The kobolds and missing xiyi were back, but now the xiyi were leading a group of humans, while the kobolds circled them, growling and baring their teeth. The humans huddled against each other, except for a few that held themselves away from the rest of the group. One of these drew Kaz’s gaze.
He stood half a head taller than the humans around him, and had brown skin and short black curls. His shoulders were slumped and his chin almost resting on his chest as he shuffled along, so Kaz still might have overlooked him if he weren’t wearing clothes exactly like those Raff changed into after he was hurt.
“Is that Raff?” Kyla asked softly.
Kaz pushed ki into his eyes, and the group seemed to grow closer. The male had Raff’s face, but the posture and expression were completely wrong. Moreover, he had only the faintest hint of mana in his chest, far from the thick, red-flecked cloud Kaz was used to. If it was Raff, he had used up almost all of his mana and he wasn’t cultivating in an attempt to replace it.
“I don’t know,” he said. His eyes returned to Li, who was almost halfway to the other dragon.
Please, come back, he thought, and this time his dragon turned around.
“They must have captured him,” Kaz said, just loud enough for both females to hear him.
“But why?” asked Kyla, unaware she was echoing Li.
“What’s going on?” Lianhua asked, leaning out to see past them. Kaz was a little embarrassed he hadn’t heard or sensed her approach, even focused as he was on Li and Raff. It was one thing for Chi Yincang to surprise him, but Lianhua? He should have smelled her long before she got so close. Had he forgotten how to use his nose during his time as a human?
Kyla pointed as one of the xiyi walked among the group of humans, separating them out into an uneven line. The reptilian was firm but not unkind about it, and by the time he was done, each of the new humans had been placed into a group with one of the ones who’d been here before.
The old humans began speaking to the new ones, many of whom reacted badly. Some began to cry, while others looked angry. Raff, or the man who looked just like Raff, was one of the few to maintain his composure. His head lifted and he looked around, taking in the sprawling mass of buildings, scattered piles of containers, prowling kobolds, and, high above, the dragons.
Kaz and the others ducked back into the tunnel, all except for Kyla, who stayed where she was, though a shimmering cloud of red ki and subtle heat surrounded her. Kaz was certain that she was now invisible to most eyes, and this was confirmed as Jinn, Reina, and Adara murmured and glanced around.
Li was almost back, so Kaz soon found himself creeping forward again, watching for her to come around the edge of the crack in the wall. She didn’t. Instead, she pulled harder on their combined ki, and the line of shimmering power that traveled between them began to drop precipitously. Li was going to investigate.