Idla actually laughed. “Later is good enough for you, pup.”

  It looked like she would turn away, so Kaz said, “Is it good enough for you?”

  She froze. “What do you mean?”

  Kaz pointed. “Your core is still damaged. Didn’t you trade yourself and your tribe for it to be healed? Or did Nucai tell you he’d do it ‘later’?” He could hardly believe the words were coming from his mouth. What had happened to the puppy who would barely look a female in the eye, much less speak back to a chief?

  Idla’s thin gray paws flattened over her belly. “Do you really think that’s it?” she growled. “That I gave all of my people and my power over so that I could remain chief?” That was exactly what Kaz thought, so he remained silent.

  “No!” she barked, seeing what he didn’t say. “When all the rest of the kobolds Fall, the Goldblades will go on! Nucai knows how to allow us to retain our intelligence and strength. And isn’t it better if they have a chief who knows what she’s doing, rather than one who’s little more than a pup herself?”

  She stared around at the kobolds scattered over the ground, clearly trying to pick out her own tribe members from the piled bodies. It was impossible to tell them apart without the golden beads on their necklaces or their yellow fur.

  Kaz waved to them. “And is this what you imagined your bargain would yield, Idla? Nucai promised the Goldblades wouldn’t Fall when the Tree dies, but did he tell you how many Goldblades there would be by then? A hundred? Ten? Or perhaps just one?”

  Now Idla flinched, but she shook her head. “Most of the females were taken into the Tree.”

  It was Kaz’s turn to laugh. “And what do you think happened to them? Have you seen them since?”

  Silence, and then Idla flung a brilliant ki-bolt at Kaz. He raised his shield, and the power scattered harmlessly into the air. Idla stared at him, and though she tried valiantly to hide her weakness, he could see that she’d used almost all of her ki in that one attack.

  “Go away, puppy,” she growled finally, sounding almost tired. “Go and die with the rest of them. It will be better than allowing yourself to be taken.” She stepped back, deeper into the space within the Tree, and faint blue ki surrounded the wound in the wood. The Tree groaned as the opening began to close, and out of the corner of his eye, Kaz saw Lianhua and the other humans tense as they readied themselves to move.

  Kaz had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but he raised his hand, his pouch dangling from it. Staring into Idla’s eyes, he said, “Nucai, you know what this is. I can open it, but only if you trade for Elder Long. Give him back now, and you can have whatever is inside.”

  A burst of ki lit up the back of Idla’s neck, and she hunched forward, one hand going to the hidden qiu. Her eyes went blank, then wide, and in a voice with a strangely sibilant lisp, she said, “Fine. Remain where you are, and he will be brought to you.”

  Baihe’s hands went to her mouth, and Lianhua stepped to her grandmother’s side, wrapping an arm around the older female’s shoulders. Yingtao stepped between the others and the Tree, but Kaz had no idea where Chi Yincang had gone. Even the smear of black and white ki that usually showed his location was missing.

  Reluctantly, the Tree closed around Idla, making Kaz flinch involuntarily. He remembered the same thing happening to him, and it had been far from pleasant. Idla had gone through it at least three times now, in addition to seeing so many of her tribe members die, and still being almost powerless. If her actions hadn’t given Nucai so many more powerful kobolds to attack with, Kaz might almost have pitied her.

   Li said, glaring at the Tree. She had promised not to show herself during these negotiations, and she was keeping that promise, but he could feel her tail wind around his paws, ready to include him in her camouflage at the first sign that it was necessary.

  Kaz sighed.

  This chimed against something in his memory like a claw against a rock formation. What was it Heishe had told them? Some knowledge is a denial of choice, and choice is the only gift I can give you. Kaz had a feeling he was beginning to understand what she meant.

  They all jumped as the very rock beneath their paws began to shift. Back at the beginning of all of this, the ground had moved several times, but Kaz had almost forgotten about it with everything that had happened since. Now stone ground against stone, and every other kobold in the area ducked and ran, well aware of what such sounds could mean. No one wanted to be caught in a rockfall.

  The humans looked surprised, but they were all focused on the Tree, and Kaz doubted if they were aware of just how bad it could be when a cavern began to cave in. Fortunately, rather than the ceiling cracking and falling, the rock between two of the Tree’s largest roots split with a loud report. A crevice opened up, and from the darkness below emerged two gray-furred kobolds, carrying the limp body of Elder Long between them.

  The three females rushed forward, lifting the body of the relatively small male with an ease that shouldn’t have surprised Kaz. After all, they all had some level of body cultivation. Lianhua had once carried Kaz himself for hours, and lifting her grandfather for a few minutes had to be far easier.

  The two males who had borne out Elder Long turned to Kaz. The larger one held out his hand, and with a start, Kaz recognized Idla’s oldest son, Dat. He was the mate of one of the Goldcoat chief’s daughters, and so had been lost twice over when Idla gave her tribe and its subsidiaries to Nucai. It was actually surprising that he wasn’t among those sent to attack the great tribes. Had Idla negotiated to save her pups as well? And what about Kaz’s maybe-friend, Dett?

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Come on,” Dat growled, staring straight at Kaz. “He’s been poisoned, but there’s an an-ti-dote.” He stumbled over the unfamiliar word, but the females crouched around Elder Long looked up sharply when they heard it. Yingtao moved toward Dat, her knives suddenly appearing in her hands, but he held up a hand. “I don’t have it. It will be given to you after Kaz is inside the den.”

  Li’s tail twitched around Kaz’s leg, but she said nothing as Dat and the other male stepped aside. The dragon had remained large, in case size was needed, but now she shrank down and hurried forward as Kaz began to move.

  “Kaz,” Lianhua called just before Kaz passed between the two males. He glanced back at her. “Yingtao and Grandmother are excellent herbalists. They can find a cure, and in the meantime,” she hesitated, looking at the other kobolds, aware as Kaz was that Nucai could be watching through them, “we can do as he did for Grandmother. You don’t have to do this.”

  Kaz shook his head. “No one else can do it, so it will have to be me,” he told her, and entered the tunnel.

  Behind him, stone ground loudly, and chunks of rock fell to roll underneath their paws as they moved onward. Dat fell in ahead of Kaz, while the strange Irondigger trailed behind. Li grabbed onto Kaz’s legs as the two strangers bracketed them, and soon she was clinging to his back as her core replenished the ki she’d used in both changing size and moving so quickly while hidden. Kaz took comfort in her presence, even as he feared for her safety. Still, this was what she’d insisted upon when he explained his plan, and they were both committed now.

  The tunnel was short and wide, likely left over from when Nucai had been able to move to and from his den freely. Kaz desperately wished he’d thought to question the idea that the only way in and out was through the Tree. That was a singularly impressive but inefficient method, and would have been almost completely pointless before Qiangde died. If he’d known, Kaz could easily have cut his way down to this passage, without having to speak to Idla or Nucai at all.

  Dat and the other male stopped as a massive door loomed ahead of them. Like Dongwu’s table, this was made of wood, but unlike the table, it seemed to be crafted from a single, solid piece. It glowed with white ki, however, and Kaz suspected that anyone trying to break through it would discover that it was much stronger than normal wood.

  Dat lifted his hand to knock on the door, which was easily ten feet tall and four or perhaps five feet wide. Before his knuckles could touch it, it swung silently open, revealing the room Kaz had seen in his visions of Nucai. Shelves crafted from solid wood stretched out as far as Kaz could see, which admittedly wasn’t far, since there was no clear path through the scattered shelves. The surfaces of these shelves were completely covered in books, scrolls, sheets of rolled leather that bore faded marks, and even a few flat pieces of stone with runes carved into them.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Dat said as they entered. He shuddered. “He doesn’t like that.”

  Nucai was willing to pull the core from a living being for no better reason than to look at it. Kaz couldn’t even imagine what he would do if he was actually upset. “I won’t,” he said, and immediately wished he could take it back as they passed a book that looked remarkably similar to one of the ones he’d seen in the Magmablades’ collection. This one looked like it was even older, if that was possible, and he wondered what was in it. It was probably good he hadn’t found a way to sneak in with Lianhua and the others, or she would have been stuck here, like a fuergar in a trap.

  They wound their way through shelves upon shelves of books and other rune-covered objects. It seemed that given enough time, someone would write on almost anything, and Nucai had gathered all of those objects here. All of them except the Magmablades’ books, and the one Katri now owned. Did Nucai not know those existed, or did he simply not care about anything written by kobolds? If that was the case, then where had all of these things come from?

  Kaz’s musings were cut off as Dat came to a sudden halt at a particularly well-lit area between one shelf and the next. The other male pointed to the right. “You go that way.” For a moment, he seemed to struggle with himself, and then he said, “Just do as he tells you, and it will be over quickly.” With that, he turned and headed back the way they’d come, leaving Kaz and an invisible Li in silence.

   Kaz told the dragon, and her tail tightened around his ribs.

   she said.

  Kaz longed to stroke the scaly limbs that clung to his neck and shoulders, but contented himself with tilting his head until the fur of his cheek brushed the head that rested in the crook of his neck. he told her silently, and she heaved a deep sigh.

   she said, still not moving.

  Kaz shivered at the words. And if you can’t do that, save yourself, he thought, but didn’t speak the words, even silently. Li wouldn’t appreciate them.

  At last, Li released him, climbing to the floor rather than dropping down as she usually would have, so not even the tiniest click of claws on stone could give her presence away. She hurried toward a darker shelf, but Kaz couldn’t even follow her with his eyes. He knew Nucai had ways to see things he shouldn’t be able to, perhaps via devices like the ones the xiyi had used to watch over the egg caverns and Xundu’s lake. If Kaz was able to do something like that, he’d certainly set one to cover his own den.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Kaz continued forward, emerging into a space he had only seen a few times, but could never forget. The tall, thin being behind the desk looked up as he entered, though the hand holding the pen never stopped moving. Nucai clicked his tongue.

  “It took you long enough. I sent Master Long back to his family quite some time ago,” Nucai said, standing, so his white beard fell from his lap, the end just touching the floor by his feet. He finally released the pen, tapping the table sharply twice as it wobbled, then began to write on its own. Now that Kaz was actually in Nucai’s presence, Kaz could see that there was a bond between the ancient male and the tool, though it wasn’t like the one between Kaz and…well, anything. This bond went only one way, with Nucai controlling the pen, rather than sharing power with it.

  “Did you send the antidote?” Kaz asked.

  One of Nucai’s wispy white brows lifted, and he said, “I am a man of my word, young kobold. I will thank you not to question my integrity again.”

  Integrity was another new word to Kaz, but given the way Nucai had spoken, Kaz wasn’t certain the other male was using it correctly. If it had something to do with honesty and being worthy of trust, Kaz very much doubted it would apply to Nucai.

  Kaz felt his ears flatten at the non-answer, but he said, “I think I know what you’ve been doing.” It was unlikely Nucai had much interest in anything he could say, so he needed to capture the other male’s interest from the beginning. Preferably before Nucai ripped out Kaz’s core. Again.

  The second eyebrow joined the first. “I very much doubt that,” Nucai said, “unless someone has been speaking out of turn.”

  Looking behind him, he said, “Xion?” and Dongwu stepped out from behind one of the many shelves clustered around the desk.