Li was all but dancing in place.
Kaz shook his head, watching the way Intong was stretching out his wings, looking at them in surprise, almost as if he’d never seen them before. That rune might have prevented him from speaking, but it also seemed to play a role in limiting his intelligence. The dragon was already looking around, eyes brighter and more interested than before.
When he saw Snen still bowing, he thrust his head into the xiyi’s chest, nearly knocking the reptilian over. Snen barely managed to stay upright by grabbing into the horns thrusting from either side of Intong’s jaw, at which point the dragon licked the xiyi happily.
“Like a big dog, isn’t it?” Raff said, sounding both surprised and amused. “Why aren’t the others like that? What’s this curse Snen was going on about?”
Kaz himself didn’t know most of the story, so he said, “It would be best if Snen explains, but at some point, someone ‘cursed’ the dragons, reducing them to the beasts you know today. I believe I can remove the rest of the curse, but I’ll need Lianhua’s help.”
At this point both Eugene and Raff’s father stiffened. “You want to make dragons smarter?” Eugene asked, frowning. “The things do enough damage as is, and we’ve nearly managed to eradicate them. Just these almost double the number I was aware of, and while the idea of training them is…interesting, we definitely don’t need to make them harder to kill.”
Now it was Li’s turn to stiffen, and she hissed at Eugene, creating a hot cloud of steam that had to make the human’s metal shell uncomfortably warm. He didn’t react to the heat, however, so Kaz assumed he must have at least some level of body cultivation, which made sense with the amount of mana he held. It wasn’t nearly as much as Raff, or even Raff’s father, but it was quite a bit more than most non-mages.
Kaz laid his hand on Li’s head, looking straight at Eugene. “The dragons will be freed,” he told the human. “I promised Li.” Li purred beneath his hand, while Eugene’s expression shifted to one that almost looked frightened. He quickly wiped it away, but Kaz had been around humans long enough that he didn’t miss it.
Raff’s father coughed softly. “Well, ah, we’ll have to discuss that. I’m sure there’s a way to maximize our efficiency while determining the viability of such an action. Perhaps a committee can be appointed to-”
Raff groaned, running his hand over his short curls. “Da, Kaz said he’s going to do it. You should probably just work with him on this.”
At that moment, a loud burst of noise echoed through the stadium. That was probably for the best, because Kaz was about to explain that what the humans wanted didn’t actually matter, since their king wasn’t his chief, and this wasn’t his home. Certainly, he would do his best to make sure that no one was hurt during the process, but there was no way he’d break a promise to Li.
They all turned, finding that a new group of people was entering. They rode horses, and their armor was burnished to a high shine. Unlike the mercenaries, it all matched, making them look fairly impressive. Most kobolds had something that marked them as members of their tribe, but few tribes went so far as to make all of their members wear the same style of loincloth and equipment.
Around Kaz, humans began to bow, including Eve and Bella, though Harper was already sitting down with her back against a particularly large rock, apparently asleep. Several of the horses were drawn aside, and a carriage slowly rolled past them, taking up almost the entirety of the space within the large archway. It halted just inside the stadium, and one of the people sitting on the seat up front jumped down, hurrying back to open the door.
A hand reached out, and as the occupant began to emerge, one of the guards cleared his throat and shouted, “His Highness, Prince Lucas, heir to the throne of Holiander!”
There was a soft rustling as people adjusted the depth of their bows based on this information, and one of the humans whose damaged armor indicated he’d been there for at least part of the battle muttered, “Oh, of course. Now that the dangerous part is over.” The female next to him sent an elbow into his ribs, and they both bowed a little more deeply.
A person with long yellow hair bound low at the back of his neck stepped out, barely seeming to touch the blood-stained earth before he turned and reached back into the carriage again. The yelling guard called out, “Her Highness, Princess Reina of Holiander!”
Kaz had seen the princess’ familiar mana pattern inside the carriage, so he barely looked at her other than to see that she was now wearing a dress made from so much fabric that a kobold tribe could have made loincloths for two generations out of it. She was also clean for the first time since he’d met her, which was good. Hopefully someone had checked her wound and bandaged it again.
Once Reina was standing beside the male, who was probably her brother, since they were ‘prince’ and ‘princess’ of the same country, the male reached into the carriage once again. Kaz once again wished he had a tail to to wag as the next person’s ki began to move.
“Lady Lianhua Long of the Sheng Empire, declared a Friend of Holiander by King Maleim the Third!” the guard announced, and a ripple went through the people around Kaz. Something about the introduction seemed to have surprised them, but now Lianhua was coming into sight.
If the prince and princess had stepped, Lianhua floated. Her robes consisted of layers of fabric that might have been translucent if there weren’t so many of them. Sunlight caught each layer, almost making her seem to glow, an effect that was enhanced by the sheen of the pure white hair piled high on her head. Jeweled sticks held twists and braids in place, with delicate chains supporting more gems that twinkled and swayed as she moved.
At first, Kaz was a little intimidated by the sight. This was clearly the daughter of a chief, not the friend with whom he had fought behemoths, and who would willingly spend hours brushing his fur. But then as the prince tried to lead her away, clearly intent on leaving the final member of the group to make her own way out of the carriage, Lianhua yanked her hand away and gave him a little glare. She grasped her long sleeve, pulling it back to reveal a slender wrist as she offered her own hand up to the carriage instead.
Yingtao accepted it, and hopped down with a flutter of simple green robes. The guard who had been speaking opened and closed his mouth helplessly, clearly not having been informed who this last female was. Was it an omission, or was Yingtao simply not considered important enough to mention? Whichever it was, Reina’s expression said she was more than a little embarrassed about it as she watched the other two females continue holding hands as they stood side by side.
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Lianhua and Reina caught sight of Kaz at the same time, both of their expressions brightening with happiness. Lianhua fairly flowed over the ground between them, her fuulong silk robes remaining utterly perfect even in the churned mud. Reina, on the other hand, looked down, grimaced, and then began picking her way carefully toward him, which meant Lianhua and Yingtao reached Kaz first.
Lianhua opened her arms as if to hug Kaz, but stopped, biting her lip. So Kaz stepped over to her instead, giving her a very awkward hug. It was still strange to allow himself to be so vulnerable to someone else, to willingly allow their scent to mingle with his own, but he liked Lianhua, and truly believed she was a friend. Behind him, Li only hissed briefly before stepping up next to him, gently bumping Lianhua with a wing.
“Oh!” Lianhua gasped, releasing Kaz so she could fall to her knees beside Li. She threw her arms around the dragon’s neck as well, and Li didn’t even pretend to bite her. Behind Yingtao, who waited patiently nearby, Reina stopped midstep, watching all of this with a complex mixture of emotions, foremost of which seemed to be…regret?
When Lianhua stood, her robes still completely unblemished, Kaz said, “If I show you a rune, could you tell me what it is? There might still be more than one, stacked on top of each other.”
Lianhua blinked. “Like that one you showed me once before? Silence? Certainly. But, Kaz, what happened here?” She looked around, taking in the stinking, filthy battlefield, the stinking, filthy survivors, and Kaz, standing with Snen and Li in the middle of a small crowd of dragons.
“It was amazing!” Kyla yipped from her perch atop Raff’s shoulder. She climbed to her paws, setting one hand on top of his head as she pointed up to where they had exited the stairs.
With great enthusiasm, she ran through how they had realized the dragon wasn’t real, and she had bravely volunteered to guard Kaz’s back while he attempted to get rid of said false dragon, since it was really, really frightening the humans down below. When it came to the part where everyone thought Kaz was dead because the dragon had exploded and blown up the wall, all of Kaz’s friends turned to give him a rather accusatory look.
“I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t try anything new with ki unless we talked about it first?” Lianhua said, hands on her hips.
Kaz winced, thinking about just how many times he’d violated that agreement. Most of the time it was either an accident or an emergency, though, so he didn’t feel too bad about it. It had worked out fine. Mostly.
Fortunately for Kaz, Kyla was so caught up in her howl that she ignored them, continuing, “And then Kaz and Li jumped down here, but the dragons came, and Jianying, and he was really, really big! He looked just like some of the pictures in the oldest chiefs’ books, though, so of course I knew exactly who he was.”
That, as far as Kaz knew, was an outright lie, but even lying was within the prerogative of the howler, so long as it didn’t change the essence of the howl.
“And the black xiyi burst a human inside his armor, and Kaz went to rescue Snen, and the black xiyi got mad about that, too. So Kaz killed all the bad xiyi - or at least I think he did, because he didn’t look surprised at all when they just fell over - and then Fengji came and grabbed Jianying just before he could eat Kaz and Li. Oh, and Snen.”
Kyla released Raff’s head, holding one hand out while the fingers of the other opened like a giant maw descending up on the first. “And Fengji just flew off with that old dragon like a janjio with a jiyun, and Mei and I helped Harper, Eve, and Bella get down the stairs even though they were broken, which was really hard. Mei’s good at figuring out which areas are safe and which aren’t, though.” She drew in a deep breath, puffing out her chest with pride. It was a good howl, especially for an inexperienced howler, so Kaz gave her a soft yip of approval, which made her tail wag.
Lianhua blinked. “Oh. That’s…a lot. But where is Mei?”
Kyla’s tail stopped, and her ears lowered slightly. “She got down when these humans tried to take Snen away, and I haven’t seen her since. She probably smelled something good to eat. That’s where she usually goes when she disappears.”
The patch of black and white ki that was Chi Yincang suddenly solidified, and this time Kaz could see the human well enough to tell that he actually jumped up slightly before he appeared so it seemed that he was dropping out of the air. Li snorted a little puff of vaporous laughter at the sight.
Bowing over his open hand, Chi Yincang said, “The small one is in the royal box, my lady.” Then he jumped up, disappearing again, though Kaz could see his ki moving toward the remains of one of the large boxes where Raff said the noble humans sat.
Glancing at Snen and Intong, Kaz saw that they still seemed to be communicating in some way. He couldn’t hear actual words, but something tickled at the edge of his mind, as if a conversation was occurring just out of earshot. In any case, the xiyi and his dragon appeared happy enough for the moment, and something told Kaz that he needed to follow Chi Yincang.
Li had the same idea, but she slid her head beneath Kaz, making him slide down her long neck to settle just above her wings. This was actually a somewhat uncomfortable experience for him, but Li was so pleased with herself that he didn’t mind, even when he had to lift his legs awkwardly so they didn’t drag in the mud.
Everyone else was quite surprised by his sudden departure, but after a moment most of them turned to follow. Only Raff, his father, and Eugene stayed behind, though Raff’s expression spoke loudly of his curiosity.
Kyla quickly moved ahead of everyone else, but Kaz’s attention was caught by something entirely unexpected as he drew near enough to see the fuergar’s ki. It was flashing, almost pulsing, and it tugged at him somehow, insistent. His own core sped up in response, pushing out more blue ki, the excess drifting away in something a little more cohesive than the usual diffuse mana. That cloud of not-quite-ki, not-quite-mana reached Mei’s core, where it flashed brilliantly, making him blink.
Feeling what was going on, Li slowed, but Kaz stroked her neck in thanks as he climbed off his dragon’s back, hurrying forward. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but it was…good? It wasn’t bad, certainly. It didn’t feel anything like those times his ki had been taken before. This time, it was more like his core understood something he didn’t, and had offered up what help it could.
When he saw Mei properly, he understood at least a bit of what had happened. Her core, which before had contained mostly Metal ki, with specks of Fire, Earth, and the recently gained Water, now also held Wood ki. As it spun, a trickle of blue began to flow out through her channels. Mei had acquired all five types of ki and was officially a Divine Beast.
She was also holding a piece of deep blue metal in her small paws, and her cheeks bulged as she chewed. It looked like she had already eaten more than half of it, but the thing had originally been a circle of elaborately decorated metal, complete with carved gems thickly inset around the outside.
Behind Kaz, someone let out a quiet gasp of horror. “Did she eat Father’s crown?” Reina asked.