The dark space was hot, and Kaz rolled. He spun around the smooth curve, chased by a golden ball, then a black one. Their paths crossed, and the spheres merged with him, tugging at his very essence before separating again, spinning, spinning through the red dust that coated everything.
The bowl tilted, and Kaz poured down through a spout, the surface shifting from smooth to rough, tearing at his fur, even though he knew he didn’t have fur. He had nothing, not in this place. No flesh concealed his inner self, leaving him exposed. Exposed to the heat, the darkness, and the laughter. Who was laughing at him? Had someone else been there, when this happened? What was this? A memory? A dream?
Where was Li?
He turned a head he didn’t have, looking for the chain that bound him to his dragon. Rather than one chain, however, he saw three. Three? Li, the mountain, and…what? But it didn’t matter. The link was there, therefore Li was there. He reached out, trying to grasp the glittering links, but they slipped away. Slipped away from hands he didn’t have.
There was no answer. Kaz looked around frantically. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was using his ki to…what? He’d definitely done something, and he could vaguely remember Li saying he shouldn’t. Then he was… He was back in the bowl in Nucai’s den. He’d been spinning, chased by two cores. Two cores which merged with his.
After that… He wanted to whimper. Why couldn’t he remember? He’d been poured out of Nucai’s bowl, and then…
The world shivered around him, a shrill chime slicing through his mind as a crack formed, pale light filtering through to reach him. He looked toward it. Was it a way out? But no, rather than offering a path to escape, he thought the jagged tear in this space was a very bad thing.
The serpent’s tongue flickered out, pink against the black scales and curving white fangs.
Kaz shook his head, though he only knew he did it because the world moved back and forth. he told her.
Crack! This time the sound was loud, insistent, and a gold light, like sunlight but entirely different, fell across them. Heishe’s eyes glowed with it, and for a moment Kaz thought he was looking into Li’s golden gaze.
Red, white, and gold were pouring in, filling up the space around them with chaotic swirls. In some places, they remained bright and clear, but where they came together, the barest hint of gray began to form.
Silence.
Kaz stepped back, but when he touched Heishe’s cool scales, it wasn’t with his flesh. Instead, his surface slipped along hers, smooth and solid.
The ground shuddered, black swelling up like water rising from an underground river. The other colors were held back, beyond Heishe’s long body, but he could feel the black rising up around him. Kaz felt a sudden, chilling fear. Time was almost up.
he whimpered, staring at the chain that bound him to his dragon. Always before, even when it was nothing but a thread, it had shone with light. Now the end attached to him was turning as gray as everything else.
He looked around. Spun. A core, spinning in place, trying to escape its fate as someone far above him played with his life as if he were a puppy’s toy.
Now that he knew - no, now that he’d faced what he’d already known - he realized what was happening. His ki was leaking out, escaping into the world, merging and becoming one with the mana that was everywhere, all the time.
Heishe hissed in amusement.
Kaz hesitated. That…wasn’t how it worked at all. Was it? The way Lianhua described it, that did seem to be how humans created their cores. Compression, cultivation, meditation, all together until they could force enough power into a small enough space that it became solid.
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But Kaz wasn’t a human. He wasn’t human, and he’d been born with a core. Even if human cores worked that way, his didn’t. Why had Nucai been able to do it, then?
Around him, Heishe’s coils twisted, then melted, becoming something entirely different. A humanoid female stood before him, her long white hair trailing down, tangling over her black robes, which were embroidered with golden serpents. In her hand she held a swirling orb. A core.
Kaz slid toward it, a sudden terrible hunger overtaking him. That core would solve everything. If he had it, he could fix his core, could find Li, could wake up. But Heishe held it away from him, and Kaz had no hands. He was just a core. Just…like…that one.
The human Heishe turned the sphere in her hands, showing him the long cracks running down its sides. It wasn’t shattered, not like the first time, but the damage went deep. Too deep to be patched, even if he knew how he’d once formed that nacreous coating that held his core together the first time he broke it. Held it together long enough for Nucai to find him and fix it properly.
Except that Nucai hadn’t. Not properly. In repairing Kaz’s core, he’d left a mark on it. An entirely unnecessary handprint, ensuring that every time Kaz looked at it, he would be reminded of the enormous debt he owed the venerable being.
If not power, then what? Mana? Energy? Earth, fire, water, metal, and wood?
She released a pleased sigh.
She held up Kaz’s core, and he thought he could feel himself lift into the air as she did.
She nodded and stroked a finger over its surface. Kaz felt a shudder run through him as she did so.
Kaz tried to think, but the cracks were widening, bit by bit. Was he inside his core, or outside of it? He felt his power, his life, ebbing, but it was around him, not leaking away.
Kaz’s mind fragmented. Pieces spun away, each one bearing a memory. Some were sharp and terrible, others drenched in sorrow. A few, mostly recent, shone with joy and laughter.
…
He opened his pack, staring down into the furiously whirling eyes of a baby dragon. There was a baby dragon in his pack. It snapped at his nose, then licked away the drop of blood that fell onto its snout. A drop that he could now see was suffused with ki. That ki spread through the tiny creature, giving it strength. Life.
…
Rega. Her eyes were dull and empty. She had spoken her last words, drawn her last breath. She was the only one who had truly cared for him. How could he go on? But how could he not? He pushed the emotions away.
…
Rega again, but this time her hand stroked his fur as she howled quietly, late into the night. Katri had already fallen asleep on their aunt’s other side. But his sister hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen. She didn’t know, and he only wished he could forget.
…
He remembered crouching beside his father’s body. His hands shook as he dug through the fallen kobold’s pack, pulling out the firestriker, the only thing small enough to hide. To keep. To remember. His father’s last words. “Listen to your mother.” Blood. Blood and pointless death.
…
Always moving. Monstrous creatures surrounded them, and some were other kobolds. No one wanted them, so they just went on. Everyone was always so tired, so angry.
…
Rega lifting him into her arms, chastising Ghazt for taking him to the Tree. She took the necklace that was meant for him and placed it around her own neck. Now he could see the chains that bound the stones to her organs. Limiting her. Around Ghazt’s neck, within his body, identical chains hung, but these were old, thick and strong. Binding him, making him less.
…
He spun. The bowl was hot, and a golden sphere chased him while he chased one made of obsidian. They created furrows in the dust…
Before that? Nothing. He remembered holding onto memories of his family until they were burned away, but that was all they were; memories of memories. He’d been told Rega was his mother, but he didn’t remember sleeping in her arms, sharing a hut with her and Ghazt. Where had that Kaz gone?
And then he knew. That Kaz, the one who had experienced a family without Oda, before the Broken Knives, that Kaz had died. He knew a core retained the memories of its last life, and even some of the ones before that, at least if it was eaten by one of his people. Nucai had harvested that Kaz’s core, combined it with others, and then somehow, somehow, managed to give his creation a body again.
An enormous crevice opened above them, releasing blue into the world. It gaped wider than all of the others together, and Kaz spasmed, power pouring out of him as if the sky had sprung a leak.
Heishe leaned closer, cradling the core against her chest. It was impossibly large, too big to fit in Kaz’s chest, much less his abdomen, and he could see it shifting further and further toward gray as he watched.
His mind stuttered, but he managed to finish the sentence, somehow finally, finally understanding what she was trying to tell him. he whispered, and his core imploded in her hands.