As Kaz started to put his paw through the crevice, he paused, glancing back around at a particularly dense patch of shadow. “Are you coming, Heishe?” he asked.

The serpent slithered into view with a slightly amused hiss. She was in her second smallest shape, about two feet long, with a pure black-scaled body and no hood.

He snorted softly. “How could I, with you lurking like that?”

Heishe hissed again, thoughtfully this time.

Something about that statement spoke to a loneliness so deep Kaz doubted Heishe was even aware of it any longer. Were all Divine Beasts so solitary, or was it this one in particular? Then he remembered Fengji, and the story of the twelve beasts who were meant to guard the balance of the world, whatever that was. The Rooster was a gregarious creature, and several of the beasts had been described as friends. Could they even have families? He suspected - hoped - that the answer was yes.

All of this went through his mind, but he didn’t dare ask. Perhaps he would have if she was Fengji, but probably not even then. “Are you coming?” he said instead.

Without replying, the snake came to him, winding her way up the arm he extended, then slipping down to rest atop the thick belt around his waist. She tucked her head under her tail, once again taking on the appearance of a simple black leather belt, and showing no interest in continuing to speak.

By now, Kaz was used to the serpent’s nature, so he simply nodded to himself and turned sideways, edging through the passage. Instantly, the dim illumination offered by the slanting sunlight faded to almost nothing, leaving Kaz to make his way through by memory. It wasn’t a short crevice, and several times his fingers found that a protrusion they remembered had been broken off, and now rolled under his paws. Had the humans done that when they made their way through? Poor Raff must have been scraped raw, since he had to remove almost everything he was wearing in order to fit. Though on second thought, perhaps not, but only because of his cultivation level.

Kaz emerged to find Li waiting impatiently for him, a pale ki-light hovering over her head. she demanded, looking up at hers.

He shrugged. “It didn’t seem right. I never used a light after I found the dragon nest. I couldn’t risk alerting the dragons that I was there.”

She sighed, but didn’t argue the point.

They stood in a small open area. Kaz and Katri had paused here, waiting for the humans to squeeze through. Raff took a terribly long time, and now Kaz knew that Chi Yincang probably could have cut away at least the narrowest parts, making it much easier for the larger male. Had he not offered because he was still pretending to be Gaoda’s loyal servant, or did it tickle his strange sense of humor to listen to Raff’s constant muttered complaints?

“Right,” Kaz said, after examining two dark tunnels. In the distance, he could hear the familiar chittering of fuergar and the soft screams of janjio. The creatures were braver up here, since no kobolds lived this high up in the mountain. Kaz now understood that the ki here was too thin to support their bodies as they were meant to be. Whatever it was that made his people become ‘Fallen’ had already begun by the time they came here. His tribe had been perilously close to the end, while believing they had further to go.

Li eyed the opening to their right suspiciously. It was noticeably smaller than the left, though larger than the passage they’d just come through. she asked plaintively. She was a fierce combatant in a close-up fight, but even better if she could use her wings to carry her out of reach in between attacks. Her instincts didn’t like entering a tight space when there was a larger one available.

Kaz shook his head. “Katri and I took the humans left, mainly because of Raff, but also because the path is easier. Right is shorter.”

Li muttered, but headed for the smaller tunnel. The ceiling was low, which was actually better for her than for Kaz, but the edges of her wings scraped the walls whenever it grew narrow, while Kaz could turn sideways and spare himself the worst of it.

Li maintained her ki-light, and Kaz stared at the area around him. Most of the time, he used a small firemoss torch to light his way and keep back the relatively small, weak creatures that lived here. As a result, everything around him had always flickered with orange and yellow shadows. There weren’t many plants this high up, but he looked at the ones there were, as well as the rock formations, with new eyes. Had baimo lichen always been such a pure, true white? Was the green of the rougu mushroom’s gills always such a virulent shade?

Reaching out, he plucked a mushroom from a small patch that clung to the wall above his head. A few drops of water turned the stone a crystalline gray, and the mushrooms were noticeably larger than ones that grew without visible water nearby. They also glowed softly with black ki.

Li asked, pausing to look at it.

He offered it to her. “Rougu. Don’t you remember? It was the only mushroom you would eat when we were lost in the between levels. I thought it was because it tastes like meat, but it has a little ki in it, too.”

Li bit the cap of the mushroom off, leaving Kaz with a slender stalk. She licked her lips daintily. She eyed him expectantly.

Kaz took the hint, his tail wagging as he pulled a black ki-crystal from his pouch. He didn’t have many left, but he hoped he could refill his bag when they reached the former mosui city. He was trying to avoid having anyone notice the theft, so he hadn’t taken many, but he wasn’t as worried about that now. Though he could probably just go to the mines and gather his own at this point.

Li ate the crystal, and they continued on, past waterfalls of stone, stalagmites as wide as Kaz was tall, cascades of quartz that glittered in Li’s light, and a thick vein of gold that showed obvious signs of being eaten by fuergar. Li sent Kaz an image of Raff, armed with a pickaxe, attempting to mine the gold while swarms of rodents assaulted him for taking away their favorite food, and Kaz laughed, the rough, barking sound echoing down tunnels that were far from empty.

At last, they came to what Kaz had been heading for. It was a huge pit in the floor, one of many that some long-forgotten person or group had attached chains to. The links of the chain were as thick as Kaz’s arm, and it was bolted to the ground near the opening, dropping away to vanish into the depths below. The scent of rust hung heavy in the air, but he’d come this way whenever he was in a hurry, and he was sure it would hold. Plus, the pit was large enough that Li could simply fly down, and he knew that would make her happy.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

As indeed it did. His dragon launched herself into the air with the excitement of a pup given free rein to run around in the den. Her light went with her, but she quickly realized she’d left him in what passed for the dark when Kaz could see all the life around him. She flew back up, and Kaz grinned at her, tongue lolling, before turning so he could grasp the chain and lower himself down.

As the humans had once done, Kaz pushed a little extra ki into his hands and paws, digging the sharp claws into the stone as he simply slid downward, the chain thudding through his hands. It was a little awkward, simply because the links were so large, but Kaz was sure that if he managed to slip, Li would catch him, at least long enough for him to catch hold again.

They reached the bottom almost too soon, and Kaz wiped his rust-covered palms against the fuulong silk of the loincloth Lianhua had given him. He was glad to be wearing it again, not least because he knew he could do things like coat it in rust without actually damaging it. He’d gotten used to having clean, sweet-smelling fur, and though he had a good amount of water and some of Lianhua’s unguents in his pouch, he couldn’t stop and wash every time he touched something distasteful. It was amusing to find that he was now as focused on his cleanliness as Lianhua. Well, perhaps not that much.

Li hissed at him softly as a patter of rust fragments fell on her tail. she told him, and he laughed again. It was so good to be home. Home, but not, because everything was different now. Better, because he was with Li.

“This way,” he told her, stepping around a particularly large chunk of smoky quartz. It caught the light, his movement reflecting in the four sides he could see, so he didn’t realize that the thick, barbed tongue was spearing toward him until it was too late.

Li rammed into Kaz, pushing him out of the way, so the lopo’s tongue smashed against the quartz, breaking off several pieces of gray crystal. Before he could think better of it, Kaz reached out, grabbing the tongue just above its poison-tipped barbs and pulling, hard. There was a loud crack, and something fell from overhead. Kaz had pulled the lopo from its place.

The monster lay sprawled on the ground, oozing a thick fluid from its base. Its ‘mouth’ was splayed open, revealing row upon row of curving teeth. For the first time ever, Kaz could see that there were two tiny black pits in the narrow end, and they caught the light as they rolled wildly. Were those eyes? What kind of vision did a lopo have?

Kaz held onto the tongue with his left hand as he pulled his mage-blade from its sheath with his right, pushing a little ki into it as he did so. The hard outer shell of a lopo was all but impervious to ki, at least at the strength most upper-level female kobolds could wield. Kaz didn’t bother trying, just turned, stretching and wrapping the tongue around the quartz to keep it out of the way, then stabbing his blade deep into the creature’s mouth. It released a shriek like cracking stone, and more of the viscous fluid poured out as he yanked his blade free.

Only when it no longer moved did Kaz release the limp tongue and step away. His heart was pounding, but he realized that his teeth were bared, and he felt a fierce pleasure in the kill. This lopo hadn’t killed his mother, Rega, but one like it had. These powerful ambush predators were far and away the most dangerous creatures in the upper levels, and Kaz had killed one, all by himself.

Li puffed a cloud of water vapor at him, and he blinked. Looking down at the dripping blade in his hand, Kaz’s fierce pride drained away to slightly self-conscious pleasure. He didn’t regret the kill, but it was possible that he hadn’t needed to be quite so enthusiastic about it.

Li mused, walking over to sniff the body. This lopo wasn’t nearly as large as some of the ones the humans had fought when they tried to reach the ‘ruins’ in the cavern where Lianhua had nearly died, but its body was five feet long from base to tip, and its tongue had been almost three times that length.

Gagging, Li recoiled, skittering back as quickly as a small dragon could. she said, staring at Kaz accusingly, as if he had intentionally made the creature stink.

“Then don’t eat it,” Kaz told her. He strode forward, narrowing his eyes as he caught sight of a faint glimmer in the thickest part of the corpse. This lopo had had a core, though not a particularly large or strong one. It held mostly white Metal ki, but there was some red Fire there as well. Oddly, he felt no urge to dig it out and eat it, for which he was profoundly thankful.

Li asked, though she sounded more than a little dubious.

Kaz frowned. Li had never shown any particular interest in eating the cores they’d come across, so he hadn’t ever thought about it. Surely they wouldn’t actually hurt her, though. Dragons ate ki-filled meat, and as far as he knew, the best way to get that meat was to hunt a beast with a core. Parent dragons didn’t dig the cores out and discard them before feeding their young or themselves, did they? Unless they did, but Li’s parent hadn’t had time, and that was why some of Li’s siblings had become overwhelmed by the ki they’d taken in? Looking back, he wondered if their small cores had actually broken beneath the flood of power, and winced internally, tucking that thought away before Li caught it.

“I don’t think you should try,” he told her. “At best, you would probably get some of its memories along with its ki.” He thought of something else, though, and his fingers flexed on the hilt of his mage blade. What would happen if he cut out its skull and took it to Katri as a trophy from his spirit hunt? He’d seen a small lopo skull before, and it had been worn with pride by the warrior who’d killed it. This one would be far larger and more impressive.

Then his fingers rose to the subtle ring of golden fur around his throat. No, he didn’t need a warrior’s necklace, or Katri’s acknowledgement. He knew he was an adult, and a warrior, and that was all that mattered. He had made his own necklace, and what greater trophy could he have than proof of the ability to shape his own body into anything he imagined? Well, anything he imagined and understood, because it was probably still a bad idea to try shifting into a shape he wasn’t completely comfortable with.

Li asked, but he could feel the worry beneath her words. The lopo might or might not have been able to spear him, but that attack would certainly have hurt either way, as would burning the poison out of his system if he’d had to do so. Worse, what if the thing had gone for Li? She was strong, but not as strong as him. He needed to be careful, and stop getting lost in his own thoughts.

And speaking of being lost… Kaz turned, orienting himself. It had been a while, but Kaz never got lost. “At the other end of this cavern, we’ll find a tunnel that slopes down. It’s steep, and the ceiling is low, but it should be more than wide enough for your wings, at least most of the time. When we get to the bottom, we’ll be-”

He broke off. The mountain was ‘home’ in some very general sense. It was the place he belonged, where he felt most comfortable. It was what his strange sense of direction oriented him toward every minute of every day. But within it, he’d had a dozen ‘homes’. Far more than a dozen, if you counted the places where the Broken Knives hadn’t even stayed long enough to finish learning the territory.

“We’ll be in the last Broken Knife den,” he said. “The place where Rega died.” His tail tucked tight against his legs, but he straightened his shoulders. “I’m going to find her. Whatever is left of her. And I’m going to howl her to the ancestors.”

Li pressed against his legs, and he felt the soft vibration of her body as she said,

Jerkily, Kaz nodded, reaching down to lay his hand on her head. “It’s a good howl,” he told her. “Rega will be glad to hear your voice.”