Kaz stared after the dragons, barely aware of several dozen people nearby, doing the same thing. Then Jinn broke the paralysis by falling on her brother, crying loudly. The big male patted her on the back as she sobbed, but Kaz could see by the look on his face that he was in pain.

Quickly, Kaz crossed over to help, but found himself engulfed in an embrace as well, when Kyla leaped toward him and wrapped her arms around his waist. His first instinct was to pull away, but the little kobold’s grasp wasn’t as uncomfortable as he’d expected, and after a moment, he bent down, wrapping his arms around her. The burned stubs of her fur prickled, but beneath it, her small body trembled, a puppy in need of comfort.

“Kaz,” she whimpered, “you have to go back home. I know you don’t want to, but you can’t…you can’t be a Fallen One. You can be a Woodblade, and heal people, or make art, or whatever you want to do. I’ll become a chief and make sure of it!”

Kaz stilled. She wasn’t frightened for herself, she was worried for him. That was a strange feeling.

Li told him, but her tongue flickered out, gently touching the young kobold’s fur.

Kaz’s tail wagged, and he stroked his cousin’s head. “I won’t become a Fallen One,” he told her. “Or at least not any time soon. I think that happens to kobolds who don’t have cores.”

Kyla gulped in a breath. “The female in the dragon cave-”

“Has a core barely stronger than Chix’s,” he told her. Chix was one of the rare male kobolds born with a core, like Kaz, but the puppy’s core didn’t even produce enough ki to support his growing body. Without someone else to give him power, the pup would probably have been dead within a few months. Fortunately, his friend and adoptive brother, Gram, had more than enough for both of them, and Kaz had taught him how to share.

Kaz thought about everything he’d seen and learned about kobolds, and said, “I think something in the mountain,” that something possibly being the Tree, or whatever was inside of it, “allows kobolds to exist as we are. In order to leave the mountain, we have to be able to produce our own ki, and the more we can produce, the longer we can survive outside the mountain without becoming Fallen.”

a now-familiar voice said as Heishe slithered out from between some nearby rocks.

Kaz, Kyla, and Li turned to the little black serpent, who reared up so she could look at them. No one else seemed to notice her, but Mei, who had been ranging around, sniffing things and taking bites out of the nearby stones, circled wide around her and sat by Kyla’s paws, bright eyes locked on the snake.

Heishe said, An image came into Kaz’s mind, showing Harper, Eve, and Bella crouched behind a low wall, their faces twisted with some combination of anger and fear. That picture faded and another appeared, showing a tousle-haired child clinging to her mother’s hand. Nadia and her family were there as well. The image shifted, looking up, showing a vast, black-winged beast perched atop the old building, which was starting to crumble beneath his weight.

Kaz looked around. Was there a way he could get to the stadium? What would he even do if he did? “Lianhua!” he called, seeing the female helping one of the thin males drink something out of a bottle. It looked like the ‘potion’ Raff had used once, so it seemed Adara had truly come prepared to aid anyone who escaped from the xiyi.

Lianhua looked up, as did Yingtao, who was helping another of the damaged males into a carriage. Chi Yincang was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn’t unexpected. The two females stepped away from their patients, and Lianhua led the way over to Kaz.

“What’s going on, Kaz?”

“Heishe says Jianying is attacking the stadium,” he told her. Not quite true, but attacking was more likely to get a quick response than ‘staring menacingly’.

“Heishe?” Lianhua asked, eyes darting around. Was it possible that she really didn’t see the snake? Soon enough, however, her gaze settled on the area where Heishe coiled, and she let out a little, “Eep!” as the Divine Beast became somehow more present, her body filling with that deep well of ki Kaz had seen in her before.

Heishe hissed thoughtfully, then relayed her information again, causing Lianhua to frown in concern. “What are they planning?” Lianhua asked. She looked around at the crowd of frightened and injured humans, shaking her head. “These people aren’t ready to fight back, even if they had a chance against an ancient dragon. What are the mages and soldiers doing?”

Heishe’s tongue flickered out. she said.

“And the soldiers?” Yingtao asked.

Heishe said simply.

“We have to get there,” Lianhua said, but Chi Yincang stepped into sight beside her. He bowed deeply.

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“You may not,” he said.

Lianhua blinked rapidly. “What?”

The dark warrior actually sighed, very softly. “Elder Long approaches,” he told her. “I am to keep you out of danger until he arrives.”

Lianhua’s mouth dropped open. “Grandfather is coming? Here? When?” Her face lit up with sudden hope.

Chi Yincang shook his head. “He has just entered the mountains. Even for him, it will take a few days to cross. He reminds you, however, that this is not your land, nor your people.”

“Great ancestors,” Lianhua murmured, turning her eyes up to the sky. She bit her lip, thinking, then said, “Yingtao, get Adara. I’m going to go speak to Queen Natalia. We need to let them know what’s happening.”

Both females ran off, and Chi Yincang paused only briefly to nod to Kaz and Kyla. As he disappeared into the shadows again, something fell from his hand, and Mei ran to pick it up, quickly shoving it into her cheek.

“Now what?” Kyla murmured, watching as the humans began to scatter. Where before they had been moving at a measured pace, wary but trying to make sure the injured were stable enough to take to Adara’s ‘safe place’, they also seemed to be uncertain exactly where their priorities should lie. No one had stepped up to take control, in spite of the fact that both the king and queen were among those rescued, and it showed.

Now, however, Raff’s father stood beside Queen Natalia, issuing orders through her. People scurried around, gathering up those who hadn’t yet been treated, and ushering them into carts, while a few of the healthier people mounted horses and rode away. One of these was Raff’s mother.

Heishe mused, and Kaz turned back to her. Somehow, he had almost managed to forget she was there, but now she glided across the burned and rocky soil toward him, her coils seeming to grow as she did. By the time she reached him, she was nearly eight feet long, rather than a mere eighteen inches.

Kaz shook his head, thinking of the huge dragon who had flown overhead so recently. He felt helpless, and rightfully so. There was nothing he could do.

Li said, struggling up until she was perched atop his shoulder. Her skin was pale and stretched, but her wing was almost healed, and she flapped it experimentally.

Kaz caught at her, but she dropped away from his hands, wings catching a breeze and lifting her to the top of a nearby wall. His heart almost froze in his chest as he looked at her. She was so much larger than she had been, and yet so much smaller than Jianying.

he begged, but Li shook her head.

she said almost sadly.

Unspoken between them was the awareness that if she did, Kaz would likely die as well. That didn’t even bother him, since he wasn’t sure he wanted to live without her anyway. He had been satisfied with his life before he met her, or at least he’d thought he was, but now he realized he’d only been existing. His life had changed irrevocably since then, but she was all the best parts of that change.

he said, staring up at her.

She turned and looked after the black dragon, and he could feel something pulling at her. It wasn’t like their bond, but something like fate. Without Kaz’s interference, Li would have died when her family fled. In the moment before Kaz picked up her egg, her life split, two possibilities equally probable. Kaz or Jianying. One of those connections had to end before she could reach her true potential. Kaz shook his head, almost dizzy with the strength of that belief, that instinct. he asked her.

Li tilted her head.

Beside Kaz, Heishe had grown still, her obsidian eyes on Li. When she spoke again, her voice sounded a little sad.

Kaz and Li hesitated, then agreed.

With a hissing sigh, Heishe said,

She turned, then turned again, and with each turn, her coils grew longer and wider. Soon, she was larger than a horse, and still the humans didn’t react, didn’t even seem to see her.

she told them, speaking as if repeating a howl memorized long ago.

She rose up, her hood spreading like ink spilled across the sky.

another voice squawked, and a bird with brilliant plumage of red, yellow, and orange strutted into view. He was smaller than Li in this form, but fire ki burned so brightly in him that Kaz’s eyes ached and spots danced as if he’d stared too long into the sun.

Fengji scratched at the dirt with his sharp talon, then whirled, slashing long spurs through the air.

Heishe sighed, but Kaz heard as much amusement as exasperation in the sound. She slid forward, lowering her head until it rested on the ground in front of Kaz. she hissed.

Looking up at Li, who flew impatient circles overhead, Kaz lifted his arms. “I can feel that your wing still hurts,” he told his dragon. “Come with me.”

Now that she knew they would both be going, the golden-scaled dragon was willing enough to rest the wing that still sent twinges through her with every movement. She flew down to Kaz, who accepted her weight into his arms with enormous relief. He felt something far different from relief, however, when Kyla jumped up next to him, followed somewhat less eagerly by Mei.

Kaz stared at his cousin. “It’s not safe,” he told her.

Her tail wagged gently, eyes bright as she said, “Oh, I know.”