Now that Elder Long had joined them, there was no question of continuing on, much to Kyla and Li’s disappointment. Li sulked, refusing to come down from her tree, but Kyla had an oddly calculating look on her face when she looked at the old male, and Kaz wondered if she was trying to decide whether she should talk to him about trading with the Deep. Admittedly, it was unlikely Elder Long would be interested, given how long it took to reach the mountain from the Sheng Empire, but his cousin was taking her new role as liaison between kobolds and humans very seriously.

The overhang Raff had mentioned was only a short walk from where they’d stopped, and it was indeed deep enough to cover Lianhua’s large tent, as well as Raff’s much smaller one. Kaz was glad of it, since almost as soon as they were settled, large, heavy raindrops began to pour straight down from the sky, soaking everything. Li was caught in it, and flew in, settling beside the fire Raff had just started, steam soon rising from her scales.

she muttered as she leaned against Kaz’s leg. He’d taken over much of the cooking, and was busy stuffing the cavities of several rabbits full of the same sweet berries Kyla had been eating, as well as some plants Raff said were safe. He already had skewers of fungus roasting on the rocks around the fire, as well as a few roots he’d dug up, washed, and cut into smaller pieces. Honestly, it was amazing how quickly he’d learned to use the things he found in the wild, though he still checked with Raff when he wasn’t certain about something.

“I’m glad we’re not in the rain,” Kaz said. His words were noncommittal, but he sent her an image of herself, knocked from the sky by enormous raindrops, while he sat warm and dry, eating rabbit.

Li hissed softly, pretending to snap at him, only to twist her long neck at the last moment, tearing off one of the rabbit’s legs instead. She swallowed it whole, then burped a small ring of cold, damp water vapor that settled in his fur, making him shiver.

“You really are exactly as you seemed,” a voice said, and Kaz jerked, almost dropping the rabbit. How was it possible that someone with so much ki could move without him noticing? But Elder Long’s ki really was suppressed, rigidly confined within his skin. Not a single bit escaped as mana, instead cycling around and around, though quite a lot of it was gathered in his abdomen, right where a core would be if he had one. Kaz’s eyes narrowed, focusing on that spot. Or did this human have a core?

The aged male laughed softly, placing one hand over his belly. His ki tightened even further, withdrawing from his skin and into his channels, at least what wasn’t bound into his flesh itself. How high was his cultivation? What was Kaz seeing?

Elder Long sat near Kaz, ignoring the mud created by Li’s dripping, much as his granddaughter did when she became absorbed in a particularly fascinating rune or book. “I know people who would kill you for that look,” he said conversationally, “without ever knowing what you really were.”

Instantly, Li moved in between her kobold and this disturbing human, baring her teeth as flame flickered over her tongue. Elder Long didn’t even seem to notice, but Kaz tugged the other leg from the rabbit and put it in his dragon’s mouth. “I don’t think I’d be as easy to kill as you believe,” he said, and now Elder Long’s black eyes narrowed.

“Maybe you wouldn’t be at that,” he murmured. They sat together, Li between them, until Kaz skewered the last rabbit on a stick from a tree Raff said would grow fruit in the fall. Kaz hoped he would be able to see that someday. He liked flowers, now that he’d seen them, and it was both amazing and intriguing that food would grow from the sweet-smelling blossoms.

“I came here to make you an offer,” Elder Long said at last. “I can give you a good life. Provide you with anything you can imagine. Lianhua says you’re almost as hungry for knowledge as she is. I can grant you access to the largest collection of books in the world. Once word of your existence gets out, people will come hunting for you. And your dragon. I can keep you both safe.”

Kaz propped the end of the skewer between two rocks, then turned another skewer he’d placed a few minutes earlier. Li was glaring fiercely at Elder Long, but Kaz said, “Among kobolds, males are often traded between tribes for the benefit of their chiefs, and to keep the bloodlines strong. When I was young, I thought they had no choice, but now I know that in many tribes, the chiefs listen to what the males want. Often, we choose to do what’s best for our tribe, but a good chief wouldn’t force them if they said no.”

Elder Long blinked, and Kaz went on. “You pretended to listen to Lianhua when she said no, but you bound her in so many tests and agreements that you might as well have forced her.” He looked straight into the obsidian eyes. “If you would do that to someone you love, why would I trust you to do anything other than lock me up in a cage for your own use?”

Ki flared, pouring out of the human’s body, licking at Kaz like a searing flame, but Kaz neither flinched nor looked away. Finally, Elder Long pulled his ki back, anger gone as quickly as it had appeared, and then he began to laugh. It was a low, rough sound, as if his throat was entirely unfamiliar with it, and Lianhua poked her head out of her tent, making Kaz realize that none of the other humans were in sight. Even Kyla and Mei were with Lianhua and Yingtao. Had they intentionally distracted his cousin, or had Elder Long chosen this moment specifically because no one else was around?

“You’re right,” the old male said, though his power still simmered just beneath his skin. Periodically, it brushed against Kaz, but instead of being accidental, as it might be with any other human Kaz had met before, he was quite certain it was intentional. Li knew it, too, and the next time it happened, she snapped her sharp teeth on the tendril, making Elder Long’s eyes widen. He finally pulled in all of his ki.

“I depended on my wife to raise Lianhua, as she had our other children,” Elder Long said. “When she was no longer able to do so, I reacted…badly. I wanted my granddaughter where I could see her, know she was well taken care of, not wandering all over the world, constantly at risk.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He sighed, looking up at the rough stone that arched over them. The air was filled with the scent and sound of rain, and Kaz found that there was a strange feeling of closeness between them. He hadn’t decided yet if he liked this human, but for the moment at least, they understood each other.

“Your ability to see ki is invaluable,” Elder Long said bluntly. “No other clan would be able to keep secrets from the one you joined. Since you’ve learned to take human form, I would even be willing to find you a powerful wife, in hopes that your children might have your gift.”

“No,” Kaz said gently.

Again that quiet laugh, and the old male said, “What do you want?”

Kaz looked at Li, then turned his rabbits on their spits. The first ones were almost cooked through. “Nothing you or anyone else can give me,” he said.

Elder Long watched him for a long time, ki throbbing beneath his skin. Kaz was almost certain by now that he was cultivating, but he wasn’t taking in mana, just pressing and releasing what he already held in a steady rhythm that he didn’t even seem to be aware of. Oddly, though he held four colors of ki - only missing Kaz’s blue - they were all strictly regimented, each held in certain areas rather than flowing freely through his body.

Kaz’s hand stretched out to turn a rabbit, but somehow it reached toward Elder Long instead. He didn’t touch the old male, but his fingers stopped just above the dense layers of ki that almost hid something thick and gray. He leaned forward, staring into it, and as a section of white ki expanded briefly, he saw the beginnings of a core.

It wasn’t a core like his own, but looked instead like the thin shell he’d once accidentally formed when he’d believed his core was breaking. He had almost managed to believe it into doing exactly that, and when he tried to shove it all back together, he’d made…this. But this wasn’t anything he’d truly call a core. For one thing, while it was incredibly strong, it impeded the flow of the natural ki of this world, blocking it out, rather than adding to it.

“I’m at the late Core Formation stage of spirit cultivation,” Elder Long said, his voice strained. Kaz jerked back, suddenly realizing that what he was doing was intrusive at best. Lianhua had said that humans didn’t speak of their own cultivation levels and techniques, at least not in the Sheng Empire. Would Elder Long be angry?

But no, the old male’s eyes blazed with something that almost looked like hunger. He leaned toward Kaz. “What did you see?”

Kaz shook his head. “I don’t know exactly. But you lack blue - Wood ki. I thought Lianhua said you needed all five to ascend?”

“Yes,” Elder Long agreed. “And soon I will have to choose. I may have already damaged my own cultivation beyond repair by waiting so long to gain Wood. I have a Divine level cultivation pill, one of only three I’ve ever even heard of, that would grant it to me, but-” His eyes went to Lianhua’s tent, where his granddaughter’s ki leaned toward the much weaker Wood and Water that indicated Yingtao.

“If you ascend, you’re afraid you’ll have to leave Lianhua behind,” Kaz said. For the first time, he was sure that this old, powerful male truly loved his granddaughter. If Kaz understood how human cultivation worked, he must have been working toward ascension for as much as three centuries, only to intentionally halt his progress at the very end because he didn’t want to abandon Lianhua.

Elder Long nodded. “If I fail to form my core, I will still be powerful, but my cultivation will be broken. I’ll die in a few decades, possibly less. I could protect her during that time, but my enemies fear what I may become as much as what I am, and they can afford to be patient.”

He looked at Kaz, and something like hope filled his eyes. “Do you know what happens when someone does form a core and breaks through to the Golden Core stage?”

“You don’t?” Kaz asked, then yelped softly as a smell of burning reached his nose. One of the rabbits had finally overcooked, and he pulled it from its skewer, moving quickly out of habit, even though the hot meat was no more than a pleasant warmth on his hands.

He gave the burned part to Li and put the rest on a piece of oiled cloth Raff had left for just this purpose before he ventured into the rain, claiming that he should gather as much wood as possible before it was all soaked. Now that Kaz actually thought about it though, that didn’t even make sense. Raff could just use his fire stone if they ran out of wood. It didn’t provide the same pleasant crackle and warmth, but it also didn’t smoke.

As Kaz took the next rabbit from its skewer and began to break it down into smaller portions, Elder Long said, “There are few records left by those who have reached the Golden Core stage. Clans guard their power and their secrets carefully, so most stories are passed down verbally, not written. The Long clan has particular difficulty breaking through, with only one scroll remaining from the time before the Diushi Empire.”

Oh. That was probably because Lianhua’s family was directly descended from Qiangde. In the first few generations, some of Qiangde’s children and grandchildren had been born with cores, but Kaz had no idea if any had developed those cores through cultivation. It seemed unlikely, though. Somehow, he was sure that ‘beasts’, including dragons, were tied more tightly to the cycle of ki and mana than humans. But what exactly did that mean about humans? There was something there, something he needed to understand, but Elder Long was still speaking, and he lost his tunnel of thought.

“That single ancient scroll says that our ancestor felt as if he was being called, or pulled, to someplace other. He fought it, but it was like a compulsion, and over time his words devolved into a single rune, repeated over and over: ascend.” The old male shook his head. “There the record stops, and we have no other scrolls from that time, telling us what happened to him. But I believe he was forced to go somewhere else, whether he wanted to or not.”

“This wasn’t his home any longer,” Kaz said, then stopped, not sure why he’d said that. It felt right, though, so he pointed to the gray mass in the human’s abdomen. “That doesn’t belong here. You’ve refined it from the power of this world, separated it out, and it wants to go back where it came from. If you gather enough, it will leave you no choice.”

The old male’s hand moved, as if he would grab Kaz’s, but a hiss from Li made him pause. He was still stronger than the dragon, at least for now, but he didn’t really want to hurt her. Instead, he set his hand on the ground beside him, rising so smoothly that Kaz thought even Chi Yincang might be envious. Elder Long might look ancient, with his white hair and seamed face, but he was as spry as a kobold Kaz’s age.

Once he was on his feet, Elder Long bowed, far more deeply than he had when they met. “I thank you for your wisdom,” he said. “This old man dares ask for one more favor, but he will wait for morning.” He bent so far that his white hair brushed the ground, just as Chi Yincang’s had earlier, when he bowed to Elder Long. Then he turned and walked back to Lianhua’s tent as Kaz began to gather the cooling meat.