Chapter Eighty-two (Patreon)

Kaz said, “I am not a-” at the same moment Lianhua shook her head, denying her own words as a crease formed between her brows.

“But you can’t be. No matter what Gaoda says, kobolds are demihumans, not animals. The fact that you have cores muddies the classification a bit, but even when Tan Fong first described you in his ‘Scrolls of the Far Mountains’, he called you demihumans because you meet all the other criteria: opposable thumbs, intelligent from birth, and upright posture. Admittedly, when kobolds are born outside Shensheng, they seem to revert to some more animalistic behaviors, which makes it difficult to study-”

“Lianhua,” Kaz said.

Lianhua blinked, and her face grew red as she rubbed her hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry. When I get flustered or excited, I tend to fall back on- You know what? It doesn’t matter. But Kaz, only Divine Beasts and true cultivation masters like my grandfather are able to manipulate other people’s ki. Spiritual Beasts have three or four types of ki, while Divine Beasts have all five, and a human has to somehow gain all five in order to ascend, but no one will actually explain how that’s done. I’m fairly certain Grandfather only has four, but he told me once that he was only born with two, so that’s already- And I’m doing it again.”

She groaned, closing her eyes, before opening them and giving Kaz an apologetic smile. “Kaz, that’s amazing. Can you tell me more?”

So he did. He told her everything, starting with the first time he realized that the strange energy inside him was something like what the females had. He hadn’t understood why he had begun feeling strange until Rega told him and the other pups a story about a young female who had accidentally used her own power as it grew, and he realized that the same kinds of things were happening to him.

He explained about seeing his core, both before and after it shattered, though somehow when he opened his mouth to tell her about the old man who had crushed it back into shape, he found that the words wouldn’t come. He told her about the links between himself and Li, but she stopped him when he mentioned the seed.

“Would you show it to me?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly.

Kaz wasn’t sure what she thought she’d see this time that she hadn’t before, but he unbuckled his pack and swung it around. His fingers brushed the bag containing his father’s knife and the broken hilt, but he was strangely reluctant to share that particular story. He wanted to figure out a little more about it himself, first, and he was sure it was a kobold secret, anyway, not one related to ki. At least not directly, in spite of the spark that jumped between the blade and the carved stone covering the tip each time it was removed.

Removing the seed, he held it out toward her. Physical contact didn’t seem to make the connection between it and his core grow any stronger, though he knew distance would cause it to weaken. Lianhua reached for it, and Kaz had to fight not to clench it in his fist protectively.

Her frown deepened as she turned it over, humming thoughtfully. Finally, she shook her head. “I think I get a very faint sense of something from it. It certainly doesn’t feel like a core, much less like it’s part of your core in some way. It doesn’t… feel like you, I suppose. You said I told you it was a seed, though honestly, I barely remember glancing at it before. I’d say it’s probably a plum or apricot pit. It’s too small for a mango, peach, or nectarine, and too large for cherry or olive. The surface isn’t smooth enough for lychee, and, well, I don’t think I’ve actually seen any others, not even in botany books.”

Just like Kaz had, she scratched at the surface and sniffed it, though she stopped short of licking it. He wondered if that was because humans didn’t lick, or if she was just worried about putting something that had been in his bag in her mouth. To be fair, he probably would have hesitated as well, knowing what he did about where the seed had been.

“What are these marks?” she asked, pointing at the tiny grooves left by Li’s teeth, and when he explained, Lianhua laughed before her eyes widened.

“Wait,” she said, leaning forward again. “This was inside the fruit when you found it? And Li ate it?”

Kaz nodded, then shrugged. “I don’t know what a ‘fruit’ is, but the seed was inside a squishy yellow-gold thing about this big when I found it.” He held his thumb and forefinger a little more than two inches apart. “It smelled really good, but I didn’t know if it would be safe to eat, so I put it in my pack, which is where it was when Li hatched.”

Lianhua shook her head. “You said the adult dragon had meat filled with ki ready for the other hatchlings, right? But nothing else in your pack had any ki in it at all. If newborn dragons need an infusion of ki, I wonder if eating this saved her life, or if the ki she took from you would have been enough. But then, why wouldn’t the adult give the babies some of its own ki, rather than feeding it to them through the meat? Especially if giving them too much, too soon, caused them to die? Would the adult have risked that if it hadn’t been trying to help them grow strong enough to fly away? Maybe that’s the reason Li has been growing so slowly. If she needs more ki, or ki-infused food, in order to develop, then she may not get much larger until we can find some for her. Babies who don’t get enough food are sometimes stunted for life, though, so hopefully-”

Li, who had focused on their conversation the moment she heard her name, hissed angrily. An image popped into Kaz’s mind, showing the little dragon on his shoulder growing until it was so large he was left flailing helplessly beneath its bulk.

Kaz reached up and patted her gently. “Yes, I’m sure you’ll grow very, very large. You’ll probably be the biggest dragon ever, once we can find some more of this special food. In the meantime, though, it’s probably good that you aren’t growing much.”

Lianhua turned the seed over once more before handing it back, her gaze going from Li to Kaz. “Can you actually understand her?” she asked, “Through your, um, ki bond?”

He could tell from her tone that she still didn’t quite believe he could see what he claimed to see, but he did the nod-shrug again. “I don’t get words from her.” Though he had, once, maybe, but that one word wasn’t one he had any particular interest in sharing. “She sends me pictures, though. At first, it was just feelings, and then images, but they were fuzzy. Now, it’s like I’m seeing through her eyes, sometimes, and I can send her pictures, too.”

“Amazing,” Lianhua murmured. “I’ve heard of cultivators who bond with an animal like that, and there have even been a few who managed to raise those creatures up to be Spiritual Beasts, but I’ve never heard of anyone managing to link to a dragon. They’re too powerful, and too vicious. I read one story about a man who tamed a phoenix, but I thought it was a myth. I may have to reconsider, however.”

Kaz shook his head, stroking the edge of Li’s wing. “She’s not tame, and she’s not a pet. She’s my friend, and when she’s ready to live with her own kind, I’ll wave goodbye as she flies away.” The thought sent a fierce pain through his heart, and he could barely keep himself from clutching at his chest. Li bumped her head into his, sending him image after image of the two of them flying away together, rather than the blue kobold being left alone on the ground.

He smiled, leaning into the reassurances, but knew that she would probably change her mind when the time came. No matter what, he just wanted her to be happy, so he would accept her choice.

Lianhua shook her head, watching them. “And this bond was there from the moment you touched her egg?”

He thought back. “No. I think it started when I put her egg against my-” He laid his hand flat over his belly, and the core inside.

Nodding thoughtfully, Lianhua said, “So she needed to be close to your core, but not any more? Did you put the seed against your core, too?”

Kaz shook his head. “No to both. I don’t know how far away Li could be before the bond broke, but I feel like as long as we both try to maintain it, it could stretch a very long distance. I think the seed didn’t link to me until later. The bond was so small that I only saw it when I used it to find my way out of the pool where Li almost drowned.”

Lianhua gaped. “Wait, what? When did this happen?”

It took a moment to pull together his memories of the incident. Some parts were as sharp as if they’d happened the day before, while others were dim and foggy, lost to anxiety and haste. He stumbled through the story, seeing Lianhua’s expression grow more fascinated with each word. She managed to restrain herself until he stumbled to a halt before asking any questions, but then a half dozen overflowed.

“Did she actually die? You’re certain the ki in the water was black? And you both coughed up something black? Was it water with ki in it, or something else? And there was a rune blocking her upper dantian? Are you sure?”

Kaz couldn’t answer all of the questions at once, so he picked up the chalk again, tracing out the rune he had drawn for her once before, followed by the incomplete symbol, and the one Lianhua had said meant ‘silence’.

“When it finally broke free, I could see it clearly for a moment before it joined the rest of the black stuff that came loose. Most kobolds have excellent memories, and mine is better than most.” He was a little embarrassed to say this aloud, since he was more inclined to minimize his abilities, rather than brag about them, but it was true.

He tapped his finger against the first rune. “I’m certain this is what I saw, except that this part,” he touched three lines in the upper right, “was the last to come loose, so it may have stretched or twisted in the process.”

Lianhua shifted, coming around to sit beside him so she could see the runes from the same angle. Kaz edged away from her, uncomfortable at her sudden nearness, but she was too engrossed in studying the picture to notice. She traced a few lines, and then some others, brows pinched in concentration.

After more than a minute, she sat back, sighing. “I’m sure ‘silence’ is part of it.” She traced a point where four lines came together in the lower left. “Unless it’s a rune I’ve never even seen before, this particular combination of lines only happens in runes related to sound, and you’re missing part of the runes for ‘loud’ or ‘quiet’, and it’s not a verb, because it doesn’t have- Well, it doesn’t matter, but if I’m right, then you have this left over, and I don’t recognize it.”

She traced the parts left over once silence was removed, frown growing ever deeper. Picking up the chalk, she drew several more runes, all containing elements of the original, then huffed a frustrated breath and pulled out her little book, redrawing all the variations in it, instead.

“I’ll have to keep thinking about it. I definitely see ‘honey’, but it could also be something related to bees, or maybe sweet things, like sugar or molasses. And once we get into sweets, the transition to eating isn’t hard, so ‘slurp’ or ‘sip’ are possibilities, too.”

She tapped the pen against the page a few more times, then tucked both book and pen back into her pouch before looking at Kaz again. “The black stuff you both brought up could be ki-dense water, which is unlikely. I think I would have noticed if the water we drank in the Longtooth den was filled with ki. More likely, you managed to fill both of your bodies with so much ki that you began the process of body cultivation.

“In Initial Tin, the first thing you do is clear out the residue left by years of taking in unclean ki. We don’t really understand why, but over time, this black gunk fills our dantians and vessels, and we can’t progress until it’s at least partially removed. This is one of the reasons it’s difficult to start cultivating later in life. The older you are, the more of this filth builds up inside you, and the more dangerous it is to try to remove it. Even after cleaning out enough to reach Tin, each time you cross a new threshold, you’ll get more out.”

She hesitated, then went on, voice subdued. “That’s… probably what happened to my grandmother. She should never have tried to reach Rhodium. At her age, the amount of impurities in her body were too great. Some part of it probably couldn’t escape, and blocked or damaged her cycle.”

Suddenly, Lianhua gasped, then spun toward Kaz, reaching out to take his hands in a grasp that was almost painful. “You! You can see ki. See the flow of it, right? So if there was something wrong with it, could you tell?”

Kaz hadn’t gotten to the part of his tale where he used his ki to clean the lopo poison out of her wound, much less Ilto’s. She had seen him take and return her sound-muffling rune, but she didn’t know he could block or move ki while it was still inside someone else’s body. That seemed like a dangerous thing to admit, even though he’d already told her almost everything else, so he had been working up to it. Now, sensing where she was heading with this line of questions, he answered with great caution.

“I could probably see it, yes,” he told her.

Her grip tightened further, and he winced, making Li hiss and Lianhua realize what she was doing. She released him instantly, almost falling over backwards in her haste to pull away. She didn’t stop watching him with that same desperate gaze, however.

“Could you… Would you be willing to look at my grandmother? If you can see ki, maybe you can tell what went wrong. Grandfather has made or bought so many pills and potions, but none of them have worked. If you can tell us exactly where the problem is, we can find just the right remedy, and-”

Kaz held up a hand, and she stopped, though her eyes still burned like chips of amethyst set ablaze. “I’ll look,” he told her. “I promise.”

Tears overflowed once again, but this time Lianhua was smiling as she wiped them away. “Thank you. Thank you, Kaz! You’ll never know-”

That was when the howling began.