Chapter Two hundred twenty-four (Patreon)

Lianhua stood next to a human female with long brown hair and a serene pool of deep blue and faint black ki in her abdomen.  Lianhua, the other female, and Chi Yincang were surrounded by a shimmering dome of ki. Jinn and Reina stood outside that bubble, expressions tight.

As Kaz and Kyla entered, everyone looked in their direction. Something about the shape of the stranger’s jaw and the way her level brows lifted when she saw him was familiar, and when Chi Yincang shifted beside her, Kaz realized why. This had to be Chi Yincang’s sister, Yingtao. Calculating green eyes assessed Kaz, then warmed as the strange female smiled. Her lips moved, but Kaz only heard a soft murmur.

Kaz looked at Lianhua, who seemed none the worse for whatever she’d experienced since they parted. Holding up his hand, he wiped his fingers across his palm, and Lianhua flushed slightly. The dome fell, and Lianhua smiled, moving forward.

“Kaz,” she said, reaching back for Yingtao. The other female slid her hands into her sleeves and bowed deeply, rather than accepting Lianhua’s hand. Lianhua’s eyes darkened, but she said, “This is my friend, Yingtao. We were just telling Chi Yincang what happened in the palace.”

Kaz looked at her expectantly, but Lianhua bit her lip, glancing sidelong at Jinn and Reina. Kaz frowned. Was there something suspicious about the two? What had he missed?

For a moment, the two small groups stared at each other suspiciously, and then Kyla stepped in between them. The pup’s ears were laid back defensively, and her hackles were raised slightly as she stared straight into Lianhua’s eyes.

“I trust them,” she said stoutly. “ They saved me and Mei when the tunnels flooded. It would have been easier to let us be swept away. We also fought against the lizards together, back to back, and they never even tried to run. When I return home, I’ll tell Ija that they are good humans.”

Deliberately turning her back on Lianhua, Kyla crossed to Jinn and handed the knife she’d been holding to her. Looking startled, the human female accepted it and slid it into the empty sheath at her waist. Kaz’s lips twitched. Had the puppy stolen the human’s knife, only to use returning it as a gesture of trust? Kyla turned to Lianhua again, leaving her undefended back toward a female she had just armed.

Lianhua’s eyes narrowed, but she sighed acceptance. “Then we’ll trust them, too, at least until we get out of here.” She gave Kaz a meaningful look, tilting her head toward the ki surging beneath them. “There’s something coming, and I don’t think we want to be here when it arrives.”

Looking around, she said, “Yingtao and I believe that the government of Holiander has been infiltrated. We’re not sure why or how, but at least some of the courtiers are… wrong.” Her lips pinched, and she shook her head. “For now, the details don’t matter. But we can’t trust anyone, even people we think we know. Anyone who has been here since before we left for Shensheng is suspect.”

Jinn and Reina were holding hands, and Reina’s face was almost white beneath the dirt. “Then it’s not just… an isolated thing?” Reina burst out. “We thought… someone just wanted me gone. But that didn’t make sense. Hardly anyone even notices I exist!”

 Lianhua blinked, reassessing the filthy, wretched females before her. Her eyes lingered on the warm brown of Jinn’s skin and the pink shade of Reina’s hair. Comprehension filled her expression, and she turned to look at Kaz. “Trust you to do in a few hours what an army failed to do in a month,” she muttered.

Kaz stepped back, pointing at Kyla. “It wasn’t me. Raff had a plan, but-”

As if suddenly realizing they were one male short, Lianhua looked around. “Where is Raff? Is he all right?”

Jinn seemed suddenly worried as well, so Kaz quickly reassured them. “He stayed in the city to look for Jinn. He should be fine.”

Relief softened the tension in the group, and Lianhua was noticeably less suspicious as she saw Jinn relax. Then the floor shook beneath them in a way no one could dismiss as their imagination. Immediately afterwards, a deep squealing began, as if a massive amount of metal was being forced to bend in an entirely unnatural way.

Everyone clapped their hands over their ears, and Kyla actually crouched down as if something was assaulting her. Kaz and Li pushed a little of the ki out of their ears, but they were so saturated by now that it didn’t make nearly enough of a difference.

“That’s it,” Lianhua shouted, raising her voice to be heard over the cacophony. “Time to go. There aren’t many people on this level, which is why we settled here, but they’re everywhere as we go up. Can we leave the way you came in?”

Kaz pointed down. His feet were dark blotches against the glaring red ki, and he was almost certain the floor was heating up. “We came from there,” he barked back, “so no.”

Chi Yincang lifted his weapon, drawing a circle toward the ceiling with the tip. “Then we go up.”

For the barest instant, Lianhua looked uncertain, and then Yingtao shifted, her arm barely brushing Lianhua’s sleeve. Lianhua’s pale lips firmed, and she nodded sharply. “Do it.”

A moment later, the screech of Chi Yincang’s blade cutting through metal joined the unceasing clamor. The ground shook as an almost perfect circle landed by his feet, but the shaking didn’t stop as the disc shivered to a halt. Red ki rose up around them, suffusing the walls, and the air grew noticeably warmer.

Chi Yincang was first through the opening, but Lianhua and Yingtao were close behind him. Jinn picked up Reina even as Kaz lifted Kyla and Mei, but Reina allowed it while Kyla growled her disapproval. She yipped something inaudible over the rising screaming of metal, but Kaz didn’t waste time asking for clarification, just threw her upwards. If the pup was too proud to allow him to carry her, then she would have to get up another way.

He jumped, and Li lifted from his arms, shreds of loose skin flying from her wings as she flapped them. Her core glowed hotly, as if the ki inside her was answering that which approached from below. As Kaz landed in a crouch on the level above, he glanced down at his own core, and realized that it, too, was producing more fire ki than usual, though not as much as Li’s. Whatever was down there, it was calling to their own power, and Kaz didn’t know what would happen if they were still here when it passed. Not that he wanted to risk burning to a crisp, either, so they needed to keep moving.

It seemed that if anyone had still been searching for Lianhua and Yingtao, they, too, had taken the tunnel of wisdom and retreated. There were a few pieces of furniture scattered around, but no people. Li darted up to a small alcove, plucking a clear white ki crystal from its resting place. To Kaz’s surprise, she dropped it into his hands rather than eating it.

<Not hungry,> she said. <Save it for later.>

Obediently, he tucked it into the pouch tied to his belt, then looked around. Chi Yincang was already cutting his way through the ceiling, but this time when he finished, no chunk of metal came crashing down. Instead, a clear line of separation marked the circle, but even when he struck it hard with the butt of his weapon, it didn’t budge.

Lianhua tapped Chi Yincang on the shoulder and pointed toward the open door beside her. Then she pulled open her pouch and removed several small lumps. She pressed two into her ears, passing two more to each of the others. Chi Yincang was the only one to refuse them, and when Kaz pushed the soft things into his ears, he realized why. He could still hear the incessant screaming of metal, but nothing else. With these in, there was no chance he would hear anything or anyone else approaching.

In a world eerily empty of all sound except distant shrieking, they moved through the halls and rooms of the hastily abandoned structure. Overturned furniture and even a dropped plate of food spoke to the abrupt departure of whoever had occupied this space. Kyla snatched up the food and ate it, while the humans cast her looks of surprise and mild disgust. Kaz supposed that must be another difference between humans and kobolds, because when a kobold was truly hungry, they would eat anything that wouldn’t make them sick.

Chi Yincang tried again to open a passage upward, with the same results. A third time, however, caused a disc of metal to drop silently to the floor, causing everyone except Chi Yincang to jump backwards. Kaz felt like the heat and ki propelled him upwards, and this time Kyla didn’t protest when he picked her up and carried her with him, Li flying just ahead.

<There’s someone here,> Li said, her voice dropping into the quiet within his mind. Kaz wrapped himself around his little cousin and her fuergar, rolling as he hit the ground. When he scrambled to his feet, pushing Kyla behind him, the humans looked at him as if he’d gone insane.

<In the next room,> Li said, voice filled with amusement as she settled onto a table. Another crystal was clutched in her paws, and she tossed it across the table toward him. He picked up the gleaming black crystal and tucked it away. It was interesting that the ki-crystals on each level seemed to be all the same color, and he wondered if they had some purpose beyond illumination.

There was no time to think, though, and Kaz was barely able to point toward the cloud of mana gathering behind the door leading out of the small room before that same door opened, and a tall human loomed in the gap. He had a long beard which hung down past his waist, and a wooden stick in one hand. As he lifted the stick, mana surged into it, turning it such a solid gray that it was almost black, though without the luminescence of water ki.

Chi Yincang thrust his weapon into the male’s belly, and the human’s mouth opened in a silent scream. Chi Yincang stepped forward, pushing his victim backward, and then tossed him away with contemptuous ease. To Kaz’s surprise, the next person through the door was not Lianhua, but Yingtao, who stepped in front of her friend protectively.

Yingtao’s hands vanished into her sleeves as she peered up and down the hallway, and Kaz suddenly realized that she was much more than just a servant. The sharp, bright ki cycling through her hands within her sleeves argued that while she might not be as deadly as her brother, she also wasn’t helpless.

Chi Yincang and Yingtao moved out together, using nothing more than glances and an occasional flick of their fingers to coordinate their movements. Only when they were certain the passage was clear did they allow Lianhua and the rest to emerge.

 The two strange females, who Kaz was beginning to realize were probably almost as young as Kyla, looked queasy as they passed the corpse of the male who had tried to attack them. Kaz was only sorry that another life had been lost to whatever was going on, but Kyla stiffened, her muzzle pointing up, then down.

Crouching, the kobold sniffed deeply, pointed to the dead male, then down the right-hand passage. Chi Yincang, Yingtao, and Lianhua exchanged glances. Lianhua nodded. Chi Yincang jumped straight upward, vanishing into a blur of ki that moved away down the hall.

Lianhua held up a hand, fingers splayed. One by one, she folded her fingers down. When she’d formed a fist, she gestured for them all to follow, and began walking in the same direction as Chi Yincang. Yingtao settled in two paces ahead of her, both females moving with easy, unhurried deliberation.

The passage was straight and dark, with doors opening into shadowy spaces on each side. No more enemies appeared, alive or dead, but Li found another black crystal orb, which she brought to Kaz for storage. As she did, the shaking of the ground escalated for the first time since they’d reached this level, making Reina stagger and brace herself against a wall steadily filling with red ki. The wall warped beneath the pressure, creating a shallow but perfect imprint when she lifted her hand away.

They all stared at the depression, and then Jinn lifted her hand to touch the wall as well. Nothing happened. She pressed harder, but there was no change. With a silent exchange of glances, they all tried. Kaz, Kyla, Lianhua, and Li could all shape the material of the wall, but Jinn, Mei, and Yingtao could not. Li’s little paws were the most effective by far, with Kaz not far behind.

Staring at the handprints marring the formerly perfect wall, Kaz realized that other than Reina, all of those who could distort the walls were dragons or the descendants of dragons. At that thought, Kaz turned a considering gaze on the pink-haired human. Was it possible that this really was the connection? No, there had to be something else. Lianhua herself had told him the Diushi Empire never extended its reach past the mountains.

Chi Yincang reappeared beside them, managing to startle everyone, judging by the looks on their faces. He gestured, and Yingtao pointed toward the wall. A crease flickered between Chi Yincang’s brows for a bare instant, and then his fingers flickered again, and Yingtao’s expression flattened, as if her own emotions had been wiped clean.

Turning to Lianhua, Yingtao grasped the other female’s sleeve. She tugged, and Lianhua nodded. This time when they followed Chi Yincang, they ran, and everyone else followed, the shrieking of a dying building reaching a crescendo in their heads.