Sai led his raptor into the egg chamber, no doubt following the smell of sizzling meat. The building, long ago abandoned by its draconic inhabitants, was still in good repair. Its yellowish limestone blocks, their colorful paint long ago faded, remained smooth and clean. The same could not be said for the surrounding ruins outside. "Good morning!" he called to Coatl-ome.

  The bipedal golden lizard did not look up from the stone stove where she was working. "There's no sun here, Wulfgar," she told the orc.

  "Are you cooking breakfast?" Sai asked. "It smells delicious."

  Coatl-ome thrashed her heavy tail across the floor. "Yes," she answered. "For me."

  Sai took a seat on one of the wooden stools around the central table. His raptor, which he'd named Cuatete, stood at the place beside him, her scaly, fanged maw barely clearing the top of the low table. "What are we having?" he asked.

  Coatl-ome glared at them over her shoulder. She flicked her tongue at the orc. He looked more or less like what she remembered from outside the Vale. His green skin tended towards gray far more than orcs found attractive, and he wore his black hair longer and scragglier than the Horde ever found acceptable. Not that it had ever accepted the golden scales and draconic talon that had replaced the skin and hand of his left arm. At least he was shaving again. She hated it when he insisted on growing out his ridiculous excuse for facial hair. She returned to her work. "I," she emphasized, "am having braised nagi, marinated in whipped muck."

  "That," Sai said, "doesn't sound nearly as appetizing as it smells."

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  "Well it's not for you," Coatl-ome reminded him. "And there are very limited options for food here." She began plating the meal. She had long ago stopped questioning why there were orc-sized dishes in a draconic ruin.

  "Where is here, anyway?" Sai asked. "This looks like a draconic hatchery, but why would Syn put one here?"

  Coatl-ome set one of the plates in front of Sai and another before Cuatete before taking her own seat. The brown-and-tan raptor had gobbled up her entire steak before Coatl-ome sat down. "I believe it predates the Shadowed Vale," she said. She tore bits of meat off her marinated nagi steak and swallowed them whole. "From what I've seen, it used to span the entire northern half of this place, but it was destroyed when the mountains rose and the canyon opened."

  "Did it have a name?" Sai asked around a mouthful of nagi. Cuatete stared intently at his plate.

  "Not that I've been able to find in the surviving records," Coatl-ome said. And Nightmare knew she'd had plenty of time to search. "I've taken to calling it Chokiskuikatl."

  "What's that?" Sai asked. "'Somber Tune?'"

  Coatl-ome blinked at him. "That's a horrible translation," she said. "'Place of Mournful Melodies' is much closer."

  Sai shrugged. "I like Somber Tune," he said. He tossed a bit of nagi to Cuatete, who snapped it out of the air.

  "Of course you do," Coatl-ome sighed.

  "But why call it that?" Sai asked. "Do you do much singing?"

  Coatl-ome looked at the door. "When the wind blows from the north, music wafts down from the mountains above us," she said. "It always sounds sad."

  "What's up there?" Sai asked.

  "Nothing that I've ever seen," said Coatl-ome, shaking her head. "But the music always comes back."

  "Interesting," Sai said. He pushed back from the table. "Well, I'm off. Thanks for breakfast."

  Coatl-ome watched Sai and the raptor leave. "Thanked by a food thief," she muttered once they were gone. Then she speared the last of the meat with a talon and tossed it into her mouth. "I hate this place."