The flight up the mountain was both cold and utterly glorious. Kaz used his ki to keep himself from freezing, as well as protecting his eyes from the whipping winds. Li flew just beyond the tip of Yanshi’s wing, and together they watched as grass and trees gave way to stone, with only an occasional determined shrub clinging to the steep mountainside.

There were a few lakes, as deeply blue as the sky, but so clear he could see through to the bottom. Li wanted to fly down and dive into them, but that water had to come from the snow at the top of the mountain, so Kaz sent her an image of a frozen dragon, bobbing to the surface of a tranquil lake, and Li reluctantly gave up on the idea, at least for now.

The mountain grew ever colder, narrower, and steeper, until it was nothing but pure white snow barely concealing the craggy stone beneath. The wind blew fiercely, just as Kaz remembered from being Qiangde, and Li had to pull on the fire at her core in order to stay warm. Kaz wondered if this was part of the reason all the dragons he’d seen had fire ki, and Qiangde had struggled so much without it. Without it, did they simply grow too cold and fall from the sky if they went too high?

By the time they reached the top of the mountain, which was far larger than Kaz had somehow expected, in spite of knowing that it couldn’t truly be as fine as a knife point, Kaz was hunkered down against Yanshi’s neck. He had enough red ki to keep himself warm, but that was only if he was willing to deny it to Li. His dragon - far smaller than Yanshi - was using every bit she produced to keep herself comfortable, but she was tiring quickly. Once they stopped, her ki would refill rapidly, but that didn’t help her while she was still moving.

When the cave opening came into view, Yanshi instantly turned toward it, as did Li. Kaz tried to think as loudly as he could when he said,

Li insisted immediately, turning to follow as Yanshi curved away from the side of the mountain.

Kaz sighed, but honestly, he wasn’t surprised. He’d been trying to save her from exhausting herself, but she would make her own choices, and that was as it should be.

He stopped abruptly as something that he would have called a bush appeared, stark against the brilliance of the snow. It was little more than a single, fragile branch, with a few small twigs springing from it. Six leaves flickered in the wind, showing green one second, then golden the next. Its roots were hidden by snow, but Kaz could see them, reaching deep into the mountain for whatever nourishment it managed to eke out.

Those roots, indeed every part of it, were filled with ki. Not just the normal amount of power hidden within every living thing, but a fierce, blazing glory of gold, shining so brightly that Kaz blinked against it, barely able to make out its physical form.

he said, pointing, but Li had seen it as well, and swooped down in an attempt to land beside it. As soon as her feet touched the snow, however, it began to slide away, and both dragons quickly withdrew as a cascade of snow began. Like a rockslide, it gathered more of itself as it went, until an enormous cloud of snowflakes engulfed a roar that was utterly different from any Kaz had heard before.

Only Kaz’s ki-sight told him that that tenacious life still clung there, and the two dragons flew in circles as the snow settled again. His connection to Li was filled with her embarrassment and weariness, but sheer stubbornness outweighed them both. Kaz could feel her growing weaker, however, and he nearly told them to head for the cave. If its entrance had been covered, Li would have a hard time staying in the air until he could dig or melt a way in.

Fortunately, the air cleared just before he gave up, and they could see the little plant again. Its roots were partially exposed now, and he could see that it had a few more branches, though they were just as thin as the others. There was no fruit, though he hadn’t really expected there to be, but the ki continued to flow within it, steady and solid as the rock to which it clung.

he said, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. He’d like to be able to approach the tree, but he wasn’t willing to risk dislodging more snow. What if he accidentally destroyed a plant that had probably been clinging to life for nearly a thousand years, or, possibly worse, the snow really did manage to block the cave opening so they had to try and make it back down the mountain again?

Li gratefully circled away from the twig, which bent in the chill wind, leaves flickering a green and gold farewell. This time Yanshi followed Li, and fortunately, though the dark hole in the mountain was noticeably smaller, it wasn’t covered. Li flew in easily enough, but Yanshi had to extend his claws, digging into the rock that was hidden beneath the fresh piles of snow. Kaz clung to the sharp spines ahead of him, his pillow falling away to tumble down the mountain, shivering as Yanshi burrowed inside, covering them both in snow.

The temperature grew noticeably warmer as soon as they were in out of the direct wind, but Kaz didn’t pay any attention to that. Instead, he stopped and lifted his nose, sniffing deeply at the air. This…felt right. He was finally where he was meant to be. Objectively, it hadn’t been that long since he left, but it seemed like a lifetime. So much had changed, though it was really only his understanding that made everything feel different. He supposed that was what Heishe meant when she told him that the world ‘is as it is’.

Yanshi said, making Kaz open his eyes. The green dragon was standing near the entrance to the cave, shifting from foot to foot uneasily. His eyes were locked on the scattered, broken remnants of stalactites and the traces of long-dried blood that streaked the floor and walls.

Kaz nodded. “Thank you.”

Yanshi bowed his head. he said.

Kaz chuffed a small laugh as the dragon turned, walking out onto the narrow ledge that extended beyond that cave’s mouth. He usually seemed so large, but Kaz thought he was smaller even than the smaller of Li’s parents. The other parent, the one who had probably been killed by Jianying, had filled the entire opening, and Jianying himself hadn’t even been able to get inside. But Yanshi was able to half-spread his wings before launching himself back down the mountain.

Li’s voice was small and sad. When Kaz turned toward her, he saw that she was staring at the largest pool of dried blood. Cautiously, she stretched out a talon, as if to touch the dark stain, then backed up, tail twitching as she hissed and clicked, vapor coiling from her mouth.

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Kaz was at her side in an instant. Crouching, he embraced her, pulling her slender body against his, until she was on him as much as beside him. He stroked her head as if she was a frightened pup, and her trembling stilled.

she said.

Kaz nodded. “He took some, and he had Chi Yincang take the others. We’ll get them back. The broken shells and blood, too. Your parents had brought in various metals as well, but those are-” He looked around, finally seeing the scattered remains of the nest. The battle had destroyed any semblance of organization, but once he and Li began looking, they were able to gather some chunks of raw iron, copper, silver, and even nickel. Kaz remembered there being some gold, and what might have been adamantium, but they weren’t there now.

“Here’s a piece of shell,” he said triumphantly, carefully tugging it from a crevice in the floor. It was partially hidden by a chunk of rusty iron, which was probably why Gaoda hadn’t found it. The palm-sized fragment was mostly white, but there were bright blue speckles scattered across its surface, and a scrap of thin membrane clung to the inner curve.

Li had been piling the metal together, as if rebuilding a nest she couldn’t possibly remember, but now she hurried over. She sniffed at it, her tongue flicking out to taste the dry, brittle membrane.

Kaz shook his head. He didn’t know how many times he’d rewatched his memory of both the hatching and the attack, as well as the times before when he simply came to observe. When Li was newly hatched, and they could communicate only through images and emotion, he had shown her this place over and over again. It was like a bedtime howl a puppy demanded every day, no matter how many times their parents had repeated it.

“I didn’t dare get close to the eggs,” he told her, even though she already knew. “I didn’t want the parents - your parents - to smell me, so I stayed close to the jejing and jiao.” He turned and looked for the wide, deep patch of moss where he’d spent so much time, especially those last days. Both mosses had such strong smells that it would be difficult for any creature to sniff out anything that might be hiding there. At times, jiao was even used to cover a hunter’s scent, though it made some kobolds sneeze so often that the benefits were countered by the constant noise.

To his surprise, however, the moss was gone. Instead, there was a broad area of blackened stone, where only a few small pieces of burned, dead moss still clung. Was he looking in the wrong place? But no, there was the narrow crevice that would take them into the mountain. That certainly hadn’t moved, and neither had the entrance to the cave, which was directly across from it.

Touching the stone, Kaz frowned. Who had done this, and why? Fire didn’t just happen inside the mountain, not unless one of the rare pockets of deadly gas was released by a rockfall or beast, and a spark struck nearby. Ghazt had taught Kaz to recognize the smell of these, however, and he had never caught even the slightest whiff of danger here.

Li asked, and Kaz’s hand stilled, leaving a paler streak on the stone where he’d wiped away the ash. He hadn’t even thought of that. But surely the fulan had been contained to the mid-levels? Zhangwo had said the stairs were supposed to prevent it from passing, but he’d intentionally allowed it through to punish the mid-level tribes for some supposed transgression. Unless the husede and kobolds who now ran the city there had somehow allowed the power controlling the stairs to fail?

“I hope not,” he said. “Most of the tribes in the heights have only a few females who could burn out fulan. If it reached this high-” He couldn’t finish.

Li turned and looked back out over the cavern. It seemed so cold and empty without the two large dragons and their pile of eggs. The metal Li had gathered sat in the middle of the space, covering less than one fifth part of the original nest, while being significantly less deep. Perched at the top of the pile was the single piece of eggshell.

Li said. She walked toward the crevice, and Kaz saw immediately that it was going to be difficult for her to pass through. Even he had lost more than one clump of fur to the pieces of jagged stone, and while Li’s body was slender enough, her wings could only fold so much. Still, even Raff had made it, so Kaz was confident that Li could, too.

But to his astonishment, she stopped, and her ki pulled in abruptly. Her core started spinning much more quickly, but she held the ki it produced in a smaller and smaller space. As he stared, she began to shrink.

It lasted for only a moment, Li’s body momentarily losing definition as it drew in on itself. When it was over, her size was noticeably reduced, back to the size where she had been able to cling awkwardly to Kaz’s back with her front legs perching on his shoulder. She would still struggle to get through some of the smaller passages, but so would Kaz.

“How did you-?” he tried, barely able to contain his awe.

Li snorted, but her neck curved in the way it did when she was particularly proud of herself.

She looked away, muttering,

Kaz shook his head. “How long have you been practicing this?”

She sniffed softly, still refusing to look at him.

Kaz felt his heart ache as he thought of the amount of time, ki, and effort his dragon must have put in for him. She wasn’t a person who liked to work, so the fact that she was able to maintain her focus long enough to figure this out was a silent declaration of her love.

“Thank you,” he said softly, then, “Can you get bigger, too?”

She hissed in frustration, her tail lashing.

At the mention of Yanshi, Kaz felt his heart clench in his chest. Why did she care about the green dragon, anyway? They’d only just met, while Kaz had been with her since she hatched. Of course, Yanshi was a dragon, and Kaz wasn’t, which was the simple fact of the matter. Even if Kaz took a dragon’s form, he’d no more be an actual dragon than he was a human when he looked like one, and Li knew it.

With a soft sigh, Kaz stroked Li’s head, gently tracing the delicate oval shape of a smooth scale before gently scratching the itchy spot just behind her horns. “You’ll be big soon enough,” he said. “But now you can come and visit me, even when you’re as large as this mountain.”

Li stared up at Kaz, her golden eyes as inscrutable as Chi Yincang’s dark ones. Then she shook her head, releasing a small cloud of water vapor before turning away and entering the crevice. Her scales rasped against the stone, but she passed through easily, leaving Kaz to follow after her.