Kaz had a very good idea exactly how those runes got mixed up, if that was the right term for it. He had two conflicting desires, however. He truly did long to tell Lianhua about the vision he got when he touched Qiangde’s core, but he also wanted to perfect his image of himself as a human, and he needed a human’s perspective on it.
He also needed sleep. Even if his body was only tired, his mind was exhausted from the lake of self-doubt he’d spent the day drowning in. If he started telling Lianhua about the connection between dragons and her beloved Diushi Empire, he’d get neither help nor rest.
Clearing his throat softly, he turned to yet another expanse of clear wall and held out his hand. Lianhua handed him the charcoal stick without even looking at him. Her fingers were already diving into the pouch at her waist, pulling out one of her little books as she began asking Kyla questions. What did the number seven mean? Why was it forbidden? What was the connection between dragons and ‘the Master’?
Kaz mostly ignored them, focusing instead on sketching the long oval of a human face. Once that was done, he did as Lianhua had instructed, and drew the outline of the rest of the body. The chest and arms were relatively easy, but the hands were hard, and he sketched them over and over, rubbing out and replacing the fingers, trying to avoid the elongated claws and final digit of the kobold hand in favor of the shorter, more rounded human versions.
He heard someone come up beside him as Kyla and Lianhua continued to speak. It sounded like Kyla was telling Lianhua one of the earliest howls Rega had taught to the Broken Knife puppies, except that instead of a lopo and a fuergar, her version was about a dragon and a fuergar.
“That’s gettin’ a mite hairy, Blue,” Raff said, pointing to one of the figure’s forearms.
Kaz sighed and brushed away the offending charcoal. The whole wall was starting to become streaked and dusty, and his clean blue fur was already covered in fine residue. He started on that section again, trying to keep the strokes of the blue stick light and easy.
“You have a lot of fur there,” he muttered, and Raff chuckled.
“True enough, an’ I don’t mind it, but some do. Best to tone it down if you don’t want people to notice. Look.” Raff reached down and tugged off his upper clothing, causing Lianhua’s cheeks to redden slightly before she turned away.
Kaz stared, seeing the ebb and flow of fur on the human’s arms and chest. He was right. With Li’s help, Kaz could conjure a perfect memory of the few times he’d seen Raff without his armor, but the only time he’d been both clean and naked was in the mosui bath, where steam and darkness made deeper shadows.
Now that he had a model in front of him, Kaz’s hand moved with more surety. When he finished with the chest and arms, he looked over at Raff. “Could you take off your,” he hesitated, but thought he had the right word, “pants?”
For a moment, Raff looked startled, then he grinned broadly, shrugged, and untied the simple knot that held up his pants. Kaz circled him, examining the way the muscles came together, the bend of the joints, the way the skin pulled taut in some places, but lay relaxed in others.
By the time Kaz was done, even Raff was starting to look a bit uncomfortable, tugging at the top of the tighter, shorter pair of pants he wore beneath the outer layer. Kaz considered asking him to remove those as well, but he didn’t think it was really necessary. No one would see that part of his false image anyway.
Sketch after sketch went up on the wall. A fist, a hand with fingers extended, a large foot with toes relaxed, then tensed. Kaz made Raff stand on his toes for so long that the big male finally grunted and dropped back down to the ground without waiting for Kaz to tell him he was done.
By now, Kyla had managed to convince Lianhua that she didn’t know anything else that might help, and the human was seated on the other side of the stream, writing furiously in her book. The young kobold had joined Kaz and Raff, however, and now she said, “When you draw them that way, a human’s legs don’t look so strange.”
Kaz nodded absently. “I think humans and kobolds actually have all the same bones in their legs, or close enough. It’s just the proportions and the way we walk that’s different. That causes changes in the muscles, which-” He adjusted a line, brushing rather ineffectually at the old one, since his hands were covered in charcoal.
“Can I get dressed, Blue?” Raff’s question was plaintive, and Kaz’s ears folded at the sound of it.
“Yes!” Kaz said, bending to pick up the discarded clothes so he could hand them to Raff. Something fell from them, and Li and Kyla both lunged for it. Fortunately, the dragon was lounging, half in and half out of the water as she waited for Kaz to finish, so Kyla got there first. Rather than handing the object back to Raff, however, Kyla stared at it.
“Is this a tiny drawing?” she asked, turning it over. It caught the light, glinting with a sheen of silver over copper, not unlike the color of Mei’s fur, though it lacked the pink. Li edged closer, extending her long neck, eyeing it thoughtfully.
Raff pulled his clothing on quickly, then plucked the metallic rectangle from Kyla’s hand. He actually looked a bit angry, but then his expression relaxed again and he sighed as he ruffled the fur between the pup’s ears. “Somethin’ like. That’s my sister, Jinn. They had her portrait made when she came of age, and she sent me a copy. They’re expensive, so I’m sure Da wouldn’t have appreciated the gesture, but I did.”
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Kaz and Kyla stared down into the smiling face of a young human. There was no color, only dark on silver, with that telltale hint of copper. Still, Kaz could see the resemblance, though all of Jinn’s features were finer than Raff’s except for her hair. She had tried to scrape her curls down into something like Lianhua’s smooth style, but they were already springing free, and they were noticeably longer than Raff’s had been even before he cut them. She also wasn’t nearly as muscular as her brother, though there was a solidity to her that made Lianhua look even more delicate in comparison.
Raff only let them look for a few heartbeats before pulling open his pouch and tucking the image inside. He patted it, then gave them all a lopsided smile. “I was looking at it earlier. Forgot I tucked it in my pocket.”
“You’re worried about her,” Kaz said.
“Of course I am!” Raff snapped. His jaw muscles flexed as he clenched his teeth, then blew a slow breath out of his nose. “Wouldn’t you be worried if your sister disappeared?”
Kaz hesitated. Would he? Knowing everything he did now, would he worry about Katri? If she had eaten Oda’s core, she must be far too powerful for the heights. If, as Kaz suspected, Nucai’s beads were able to control or limit ki use by those who wore them, Katri would be free of those constraints. Technically, she should be safe from almost anything, except possibly whatever had attacked the Broken Knives while she and Kaz were gone. The realization gave him some relief from one of his worries, at least, but before he could even try to answer, Raff continued.
“I just want to get to Cliffcross and start looking for her,” Raff said, running his hand over his shorn hair. “But those damned Royal Guards have made that impossible. Now that they know I’m in the area, they’ll be watching everything more carefully.”
“Why don’t you just tell them where you’ve been?” Kyla asked, tugging a piece of longer pink fur into her mouth so she could chew on it.
Raff snorted. “Right or wrong, they’ve got it into their heads that I’m involved. Enough so they’re even hasslin’ my family about it. They won’t let me go with just some questions. If I want to find Jinn, I need to sneak in, but just changing my hair and clothes won’t be enough if I attract attention.” He looked around. “You lot would definitely attract attention.”
“We can still help,” Lianhua said, looking up from her book. “I know you don’t think we can, but if, as you believe, I’m allowed to remain free and in the country, I can go places you can’t. A number of noble families here in Holiander extended invitations to me before Gaoda managed to anger them all. With him gone, I should be able to find out who last saw Jinn and the princess, and where. It’s only natural that I should be curious, after all, even though I had nothing to do with their disappearance. I might even be able to convince some people that you have an impeccable alibi.”
Raff looked intrigued, but Chi Yincang appeared behind Lianhua, his expression forbidding. “You have limited time, my lady,” he reminded her. “We should collect Yingying and go home. Your grandfather is eager for your arrival.”
“What if Yingtao still isn’t quite ready to travel?” Lianhua asked, looking up at the figure looming above her. Then she glanced at Kaz from the corner of her eye. “Or what if Kaz insists on staying? After all, Grandfather wishes to speak to him, so we can’t leave him behind, nor would it be appropriate to attempt to force him to go.”
Kaz took the hint and nodded. “I can’t leave until we’re certain Jinn is safe or we’ve howled her to the ancestors.” He saw Chi Yincang’s eyes narrow ever so slightly and said, “You may have agreed to trade Raff gold in exchange for his guidance and protection, but I did not. And yet Raff has helped protect me many times, and even given me his darklenses, which I’ve lost. I can’t leave until our debts are even.”
Raff offered Kaz a smile, but shrugged. “The darklenses were expensive, but I doubt I’ll ever need them again. Once was enough, so I swore never to go back to the Lonely Waste. Besides, someone would definitely notice if a kobold started wandering around in the big city.”
Kaz let his tongue loll in a kobold version of Raff’s grin. He pointed to the wall behind him. “They might notice me, but not him. And no one has any idea he’s connected to you or Lianhua.”
Everyone turned to look at the final version of Kaz’s drawing. It showed a human male, a shock of longer fur atop his head, but otherwise unremarkable when compared to the other humans Kaz had seen. His nose and ears were still big, but not ridiculously so, and if anything, his feet were now a bit small, especially compared to Raff’s huge ones. He was furry, but not as much as Raff, and his eyes and hair were the same color as Kaz’s.
“Can you actually make yourself look like that?” Kyla demanded, golden eyes gleaming. “Can you teach me?”
Kaz paused, then said, “Yes? And no.”
Thanks to Raff, he now understood where he’d gone wrong when he’d tried to turn into a human the first time. Combining his much deeper understanding of human anatomy together with the memory of Qiangde’s transformation, Kaz was ready to try again. And if image and belief truly mattered, then he needed to believe he could do it.
Kaz turned to Lianhua, who climbed to her feet and stepped a bit away from Chi Yincang. “Do you have any more advice?” he asked her.
She examined the drawing closely, then said, “If you start to feel like things are going wrong, shift your image back to your own body. Don’t try to force it, and definitely don’t mix the two images. Remember that who you are won’t change, just your appearance. So as long as you’re careful, you should be able to stop and try again another time.”
Kaz’s mind flashed to a time when he rolled around in a bowl, Nucai’s face staring down at him as black and gold balls chased him and were chased in turn. He had clung to his self then, refusing to become nothing more than an object for Nucai to play with. If he could survive that, simply changing his physical appearance should be nothing.
Li extended a paw and laid it on Kaz’s leg.
Kaz nodded. It was time. Ignoring the curious gazes resting on him, he sat, laying his hands palm up on his knees as Li pressed against him. He stared at the image of the human male on the wall, compressing his core as he sank into the picture, until its eyes turned to look at him, its hand peeled away from the brick, and Kaz lifted his arm as well. They touched, and became one.