"Are you certain we're going the right way?" asked Rhenor after Kaz had changed the direction they were heading in once more. Kaz shot him an annoyed look in return, the likes of which Rhen didn't think he'd seen before, but it very quickly lost all intensity as tired frustration replaced it.

"Yes, I am certain," he replied, increasing his pace. "It's harder to orient myself because I flew there. At night. But it's this way."

Rhen exchanged a look with Elaya, but she didn't look like she thought they were lost. Or she was skillfully hiding it. Rhenor supposed he'd keep his comments to himself for now, given how it had annoyed Kaz. He didn't want to stress him out or make it seem as though he was being impatient, but if he couldn't find the place, they'd eventually have to think of something else.

At least Kaz's wing had finished healing when they woke up, just like Kaz had said, so Rhen didn't need to worry about him hurting himself there worse by exerting too much energy on this.

And so they kept following behind the dragon in somewhat awkward silence as Kaz's frustration became more and more apparent with every step. Just the fact that he was permanently wearing a scowl that got more and more intense was enough to give it away, as Kaz usually didn't glare much.

But as Rhenor was considering talking to him again, perhaps to try to convince him to take a break for a moment, Kaz let out a triumphant cry and pointed at something on the eastern horizon.

Rhen squinted through the sun's harsh rays, only for his eyes to immediately widen as he noticed a small cabin in front of a forest.

"I knew it was this way," Kaz muttered to himself. It didn't sound very confident, though—more as if Kaz was just trying to reassure himself, which was also why neither Rhenor nor Elaya pointed out that Kaz had adjusted the direction they had been heading in several times since they'd left Embertide.

"So this is it?" Elaya asked, a hand on her hip as she strolled forward to get a better look. The cabin was still fairly far away, though even from here, he could tell that no one was anywhere near it. That was good because it would let them search around the cabin at the very least without getting into a fight, but of course, they had no way of knowing if someone was inside from here.

"Yes, let's go," Kaz told them, about to make his way to the cabin, but Rhen stopped him by grabbing his shoulder.

"Let's approach using cover from the trees instead," Rhenor suggested, not taking his eyes off the cabin. There were windows in front. There was a chance that if someone was inside, they could have already spotted them, but Rhenor would assume that they hadn't. After all, they were far enough that they could come across as unassuming travelers, and not someone about to break in. Even Rhen having his bow on him shouldn't cause much suspicion, since he looked like a hunter.

Kaz didn't argue, only giving a nod and altering his path to approach the trees to the left. The woods formed an uneven crescent around the cabin, giving them a good opportunity to get cover quickly.

Rhenor kept his eyes on the cabin the entire time as they began to traverse the forest, only paying the barest minimum attention to avoid tripping over a fallen branch or log.

Once they were close enough, they stopped, going as close to the cabin as they could without leaving the protection of the trees. Rhenor narrowed his eyes, watching the cabin's dirty windows, trying to spot any hint of movement within. He wondered if the dirty windows were there on purpose as a way to disguise what was happening inside the shack because the rest of it seemed relatively well-kept.

There was also no smoke coming from the small chimney sticking out of the roof, but that was unfortunately not proof that no one was home. Days here were warm enough not to have to keep a fire going all the time.

"Let's just go," Elaya whispered, leaning onto the tree in front of her as she surveyed the cabin. "I can defend us if needed."

Rhenor didn't mean to underestimate her abilities, but from what he'd seen so far, while Elaya was clearly very powerful, her magic wasn't very reliable when it came to having to use it as quickly as possible. So far, it had usually taken her a while to strike, and if they were suddenly attacked, Rhen wasn't certain she'd manage to react in time to stop it.

Still, he had no better plan, so he couldn't argue.

Nodding, he went after her as Elaya rushed toward the structure, leaning against its wall with her back as she reached it. Rhenor did the same, standing right next to her as Kaz joined them. Taking a quick look over at the dragon, Rhen noticed the barely hidden nervousness in his eyes. Rhen gritted his teeth. He wouldn't let these people hurt Kaz again, that he swore.

Elaya gave both of them a look, raising her eyebrows in question, to which both Rhenor and Kaz nodded. Elaya nodded back, storming right for the door. Rhen almost cried out in surprise when he felt a slight tremor in the ground beneath his feet, but somehow he managed to stay silent when it became clear that it was Elaya doing it. Her glowing eyes were more than enough proof. But if Rhenor could feel the tremors, so could anyone inside of the cabin. Which meant that Elaya might have just alerted them.

Rhen rushed to her, about to warn her, but before he could reach her, she was already opening the wooden door, a loud creak following. Rhenor stood there, frozen, his bow already in one hand, arrow in the other, as he waited for someone to come rushing at them to attack them. But nothing happened.

"There's no one here," Elaya informed them, almost sounding irritated. Rhenor sighed, putting his bow and arrow away. He felt shaky and a little jumpy, his body still ready to fight despite there being no danger, but that minor annoyance was much better than actually risking his life facing the dragons' thugs.

"Oh, good," Kaz said, letting out a relieved breath as he walked up to the door and walked inside even before Elaya did. He almost immediately poked his head outside again, though, looking disappointed. "There is no one in here. But neither is anything else."

Rhenor wasn't sure what to imagine based on that description, but whatever his mind had conjured up, it was less dramatic than the reality. There truly was nothing. Aside from a table and two chairs, the entire room was not only bare but also spotless, not a speck of dust in sight. The only other thing in the room was an unlit fireplace in the back, with a broom propped up next to it.

"Well, they either moved everything, or their actual hideout is somewhere else," Elaya commented as she strolled around the room, her eyes scanning the entirety of it.

"They moved," Kaz said, his voice flat and emotionless. He looked disappointed with himself. He didn't need to spell out what he was thinking for Rhen to put together he was blaming himself, and seeing him like this was somehow even more concerning than him looking guilty.

"Dammit, Kaz." Elaya sighed. "If it weren't for you, we wouldn't even know that something is going on. Let's just look for any clues they might have left."

Kaz didn't look happy, but he didn't protest further and went over to the table to rummage around in its many drawers. Rhenor went over to help him, seeing as the table was about the only place they could find something, but then he stopped as something caught his eyes.

There was a small, white piece of something sticking out from the ashes in the fireplace. Even before reaching it, Rhen's suspicion that it was a piece of parchment was confirmed. There were more of them, but this one was much larger than the rest of them, and there was something written on it.

Rhenor reached into the fireplace and picked the parchment up, holding it up to the light so he could study it. Kaz and Elaya were already asking him what it said before Rhenor could even decipher the rather messy handwriting.

It was just a few words, one of which was burned off too much to guess its original meaning, but the word at the end was enough to make Rhen's mind conjure up a hundred questions.

"Catacombs."

Kaz walked up to him, looking down at the piece of paper curiously as Elaya joined them as well. "Do you think they could be hiding there?"

"This feels...suspicious," Elaya commented before Rhenor could answer, folding her arms as she frowned at the paper. Rhen looked down at it as well. She was right. What were the chances of these people trying to hide evidence by burning it, and as important a detail as a location being the only thing that survived on accident? But they had no choice. There was nothing else to go off of.

"You think this is a trap?" Kaz asked Elaya, sounding very disappointed but also not surprised. Rhenor knew Kaz, while not always being best when it came to personal safety, was very smart, and he'd no doubt thought of this being suspicious even before Elaya said it. It made Rhen wonder if Kaz would have been willing to ignore it if neither of them had brought it up. Rhen certainly hoped that wouldn't have been the case.

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"It might be," Rhenor finally said, sighing as he pocketed the piece of paper. He wasn't even certain why he hadn't simply thrown it away as it would do very little in terms of evidence, but it seemed unwise to get rid of it for some reason. "But we have no other clues."

After a quick search through the remaining drawers of the table, it became clear that they truly did have nothing else to point the way, and so with a sense of uneasiness, they set off toward the catacombs.

Rhenor hoped getting inside wouldn't be too much trouble, aside from the fact that he was sure they weren't supposed to go inside, of course. No one had told them anything except for the woman tending to the flowers in front of the entrance, and even she had said nothing about it not being allowed, but Rhenor had gotten that feeling. If he couldn't hunt close to the catacombs, then it would make no sense to think anyone could just stroll inside.

They walked long enough for the sun to rise high in the sky when the statues around the catacombs became visible in the distance. To Rhenor's relief, there didn't seem to be anyone near it. Hopefully, that meant that they could get inside without being seen.

Rhenor kept an eye on their surroundings even as they reached the entrance to the catacombs, often looking behind him. He just couldn't shake the feeling that they were walking into a trap, though what kind of trap this could be was still not clear. But no one was anywhere to be seen. It was just them here.

Finally turning his full attention to the heavy, stone door to the catacombs, Rhenor frowned. It seemed like it would be difficult to open, though if this truly was where the people of Embertide buried all of their dead, he knew it couldn't be that hard.

At least there didn't seem to be any kind of lock on it.

They all grabbed at the large knob in the shape of a skull—which to Rhenor's relief was only stone shaped that way and not an actual skull—and pulled at once. Rhenor had expected the door to move, but not nearly as easily as it did. He still grimaced at the loud noise of stone grinding against stone as they pulled the door open the entire way.

Immediately, his nose was hit with the smell of mold and decay. Hardly a surprise given where they were going, but Rhenor certainly didn't care for it.

With a somewhat uncertain look given to Rhen and Kaz, Elaya was the first to walk inside, quickly disappearing as she walked down the steps leading below ground, her footsteps echoing in the dark, enclosed space. Rhenor followed her, his eyes narrowed as he tried to look around in the dark, making sure not to trip on the ancient-looking stone steps.

There wasn't much to see. There was simply a staircase leading down, the walls surrounding it made of the same pale gray stone as the steps and the entrance outside. Though he couldn't help but notice how perfectly made the walls seemed to be as if they'd not been made with any normal tools. Probably magic, then. In a society that didn't ban it, Rhenor truly shouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

"Should we close the door?" Kaz whispered, leaning in so Rhenor could hear him. Rhen wanted to say no. If they closed the door, they'd make a potential escape harder for themselves, but if they didn't, anyone even passing by the catacombs would immediately know something was going on.

Sighing, he agreed, turning around to help Kaz, but the dragon was already pulling the door closed himself, grunting a bit as the door met the wall with a thud, sending them into near-perfect darkness.

"You're very strong," Rhen couldn't help but comment when Kaz caught up to him. Kaz just grinned back at him. Had that always been the case and Kaz had just pretended otherwise not to give away that he wasn't human, or did Kaz do something to make himself stronger through his shapeshifting abilities more recently? Either way, it was impressive.

"This place is...." Kaz trailed off, frowning as he looked around. Then he shook his head, reaching for the torch hanging from a metal hook on the wall and grabbing it, quickly lighting it with nothing more than a look.

Rhenor had seen Kaz use magic like this before, but it was still stunning to see. While with Elaya, it was always clear that using magic took considerable effort on her part, Kaz seemed to do control and summon fire without a thought, as if it was second nature to him. Maybe it was.

"What's wrong?"

Kaz shrugged. "Something here doesn't feel right. I am not sure what."

Rhenor wanted to point out that this was an underground graveyard, which wasn't usually a place that felt right, but he knew that whatever Kaz was feeling, that wasn't what he was talking about.

They started heading down the stone steps without another word, catching up with Elaya as they went. The air became stuffier and stuffier the farther they went, and the smell of death only turned more intense, but there seemed to be no ending to the staircase.

When they'd entered, Rhen had expected there to be twenty, thirty steps at most, but they were now well past that, and still no end in sight. Kaz's torch wasn't very helpful either, as its light could only reach so far down, and all it revealed was more stairs. How far below the surface were they now?

By Rhenor's estimate, they must have gone down over a hundred steps when their feet finally reached the bottom, made of the same gray stone as the steps. The putrid smell was now more intense than ever before, but there were still no bodies in sight. Not that Rhenor was hoping to see any, but they were in catacombs. They were bound to find some sooner or later.

If this truly was where the people who had attacked Kaz were hiding, then he wasn't sure if they were insane or very clever. Staying here was almost as unpleasant as that sewer in Sigallah, but that would mean no one would come here looking.

Since there was nowhere else to go, they kept heading forward until they reached another corridor connecting to theirs. And even in the dark, Rhen could see another corridor just up ahead.

"We will get lost, won't we?" he heard Elaya mutter with a sigh. He couldn't disagree with her. This place didn't look simple to navigate, especially since there didn't seem to be an easy way to differentiate from the corridors branching off of what he assumed was the main one.

"Wait, I think there's something written here," Kaz suddenly said, his voice echoing. Rhenor squinted through the dark as Kaz held his torch up to the wall, right next to the new corridor. For a moment, Rhen's brain couldn't make sense of the symbol etched into it until it clicked and he wanted to smack his forehead.

Although very ornate and decorated, it was the letter A. And when Rhenor looked on the opposite wall, he noticed a B. So there was a system to this place after all. Thank the gods.

"People here must be buried in alphabetical order." As Rhenor said this, he became aware of how intrigued Kaz seemed by this. Dragons probably honored their dead differently. Rhenor had never given this any thought before. "I'm not certain if that helps us find the people working for the dragons, but at least we can use this to find our way back."

They ended up choosing a corridor at random since they had nothing to clue them in on where the dragons' lackeys were hiding. The deeper inside the catacombs they went, the more on edge Rhenor felt. The place was too quiet, and something about it was making him uneasy, even beyond it being a place full of corpses. The fear of this being a trap was still weighing on his mind as well, though the farther they went, the more confused about that he became. If this truly was a trap, there was no reason to make them wait like this to spring it.

But what was even more confusing was that all around them, there were wide, stone slabs on the sides in rows above each other, no doubt meant for bodies, but all of them were vacant. Surely if the people of Embertide lay their dead to rest like this, they would go from the front to the back, and not the other way around.

"Look," Kaz suddenly said, pointing at the ceiling. Rhen frowned, looking up, only for his eyes to widen. There were glowing crystals sticking out of the stone ceiling, some twelve feet above, dimly glowing, much like in the cavern in Arlow. Rhenor wouldn't have noticed at all with the light from Kaz's torch, but now that he saw the crystals, he didn't doubt that they'd do a lot to light their way. No wonder there were so few torches around here.

"Magic, that's what I've been feeling the entire time," Kaz continued, nodding to himself as he stared at the crystals above.

"Hopefully, these won't fall on us," Rhenor couldn't help but grumble. He knew Kaz found these things interesting, but he didn't trust them. Especially not after their first encounter with them. There had been no earthquakes here, but surely there had to be a reason for their presence. In Arlow, they hadn't been naturally occurring at all.

"There's more up ahead," Kaz exclaimed, clearly not interested in Rhenor's pessimism.

He was already walking before Rhenor could say anything, followed by Elaya who, while more cautious, seemed fascinated by the crystals as well.

Rhenor sighed and started walking, sliding his bow off his shoulder and into his hand. Even though he'd been given no indication that danger was near, it was better to be prepared.

As Kaz had said, there were more crystals the farther they went, with the corridor seeming never-ending. There were dozens of the things sticking at odd angles out of both the ceiling and the high walls. And still, no bodies anywhere, despite the very present stench of rot in the air.

Rhenor was about to point the fact out, seeing as neither Kaz nor Elaya seemed to either notice or think anything of it, but before he could, he finally spotted a skeleton lying on one of the stone slabs ahead. It still seemed very odd that this was the first body they'd found so far, but at least it was there.

Rhenor wrinkled his nose. He didn't particularly like that the locals buried their people without coffins.

"They don't...look right," Kaz said, a thoughtful frown on his face.

Elaya took a few steps closer to him, still looking up at the crystals. There were so many of them here. "What do you mean?"

"They seem dimmer than all of the ones we've seen so far."

Rhenor looked at the crystals again. He supposed that was true. Their glow did seem somewhat weaker, though he had no idea what that could signify. He had very little knowledge about these things, after all. Rhenor couldn't recall the crystals in Arlow being pinkish either. Maybe this was simply a different kind of magical energy.

Rhenor frowned again, doing a double-take. He didn't remember them being anything but white when he'd seen them first. And as he watched, the color quickly turned darker and darker, going from a deep pink to a light red to crimson, casting a blood-red light all around the room. Rhenor took a step back as the light began to pulse. Whatever was happening, they should get out of here.

But before any of them could do anything, energy shot out from the crystals, looking like bright-red lightning, almost too fast to process. Rhenor only managed to flinch as it shot at them, frozen in place and unable to move.

But the energy simply shot past them, not harming them at all. Rhenor didn't think he'd even felt the energy hit him at all. He touched his chest where he'd been hit as if some part of him needed to check that he truly was alive, but there seemed to be no change to him.

He breathed out, looking at Elaya and Kaz, who seemed equally as unnerved but unharmed. "We need to leave. Whatever that was, it can't be good."

But even as he was saying it, his eyes drifted to something glowing with a dim, red light behind Kaz, with more lights farther down the corridor. And then he realized, just as he heard a horrible creaking sound.

The bodies. They were coming to life.