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Chapter Three hundred fifty-two

  Ever since Kaz realized just how unusual his sense of direction was, he’d wondered how it came to be. Was it part of his ability to see ki? He had a Goldbde grandfather, so perhaps he’d inherited the ability? It seemed like something that would come along with strong Earth ki. He’d honestly believed he would never know, and so he’d put it from his mind.

  But when his ki and Nucai’s merged, even for so brief a time, he learned things, many of which he would probably spend the rest of his long life trying to forget. But some of those things also helped him understand not only what had happened in the past, but what he needed to do to fix them in the present.

  Nucai had long since come to the end of what he could do with cores alone. There were only so many ways he could combine them, especially since fun was unpredictable at best. But here in the heart of his hidden domain y crystals that weren’t quite cores, and yet held many of the same qualities. If he used a whole chunk of it, it would take over an exposed core just like it had the Rabbit’s, but when small pieces were removed, ground down, and added to fun, they would bind to any core with the same kind of ki. This made the core stronger, with no negative effects that Nucai cared about.

  Kaz’s core was only one among many that had received this treatment, but Kaz had quite a lot of Wood to start with, all of which bonded to the crystal, and, through it, to the Rabbit. Still, he doubted he ever would have developed anything beyond that odd directional sense if he hadn’t gone through everything he had. Each time his Wood aspect grew stronger, so too did his link to the Rabbit. That bond wasn’t like the one he had with Li - he didn’t share a cycle with the Rabbit - but it would allow him to take her pce, if he was willing to do so.

  Kaz closed his eyes as the crystal he’d swallowed seemed to dissolve before it even reached his stomach. As when Li ate ki-crystals, he could feel its influence sweep out through him, entering his channels and speeding along them to his core. Unlike a ki-crystal, however, this was no simple repository for power, but something more like the tiny biting insects that occasionally infested a kobold den and its inhabitants. No one knew where those came from, either, but when they appeared, chiefs had the den and the tribe thoroughly smoked with jejing until not a single bug remained.

  Rather than withdrawing from the crystal and trying to destroy it, however, Kaz guided it into pce at the center of his core, where the seed had in dormant. The new Tree itself had no Wood ki for the crystal to bond to, which made it the perfect repository for this new seed. Kaz’s core contained the Sacred Plum, which would contain the seed crystal, and the Plum’s Earth ki should keep the crystal in check. At least, Kaz believed that was how it would work, and as one of the Twelve, his image mattered more than most.

  As he withdrew from his own core, warily watching the tiny tree that now stood in pce of the seed, Kaz realized that his ear hurt. Raising his hand, he rubbed at the small pain, blinking at Li. “What happened?” he asked her somewhat dazedly.

   Li snapped, gring.

  Kaz winced. He’d known she would be angry with him, but he’d been almost certain this would work, and if it didn’t, well, he’d been pretty sure he could remove or destroy the crystal before it settled in. That would have had…unfortunate consequences, however, so he was gd he hadn’t been forced to do that.

  “I’m sorry,” he told his dragon. “I won’t do anything like that again.”

  Li stared at him, eyes whirling, until she finally heaved a sigh and leaned forward, resting her head on his shoulder. She was back to her full size, which expined why his ear hurt so much, and also why her head was so heavy. she said.

  He chuffed a ugh. “All right. Maybe eventually I’ll be smart enough to listen to you.”

  A thick cloud of cold vapor that smelled faintly of fresh-turned earth engulfed his head as Li snorted.

  Something moved in Kaz’s p, and he looked down, causing Li’s chin to slip from his shoulder. She hissed briefly, but was quickly distracted as the Rabbit twitched again, then curled up around the wound in her belly.

  Hastily, Kaz began gathering his ki, pnning to see if he could heal her without entangling their ki any further. An orange and white paw with bck stripes interposed itself between them before he could do so, however. Kaz might have protested if the paw hadn’t been almost the size of his head, and if its owner hadn’t been as gentle with the Rabbit as he was rough with Kaz.

  The paw scooped up the Rabbit even as a tail as thick as Kaz’s forearm swept around, striking Kaz across the chest in what could have been an accident, but probably wasn’t. The Tiger thumped to the ground nearby, exposing the retively tiny wound in his own belly, and dragged a rough tongue across the Rabbit’s fur. That tongue was almost as rge as the Rabbit’s entire body, so she was lifted up and dropped back down onto the soft bck pads of the Tiger’s paw, which finally seemed to rouse her.

  She opened hazy brown eyes, flicked an ear, and grumbled,

  The Tiger rumbled in much the same way Li did when she was happy, though his purr was so deep it caused the smallest shards of crystal to shiver on the ground. He licked the Rabbit again, ignoring her words, and she tried to swat him away with a paw that barely managed to lift away from her body before falling again.

  Giving in, she turned her head to look at Kaz, and he felt a deep gratitude and a sense of compassion so great that it made him want to curl up and lick the little creature himself. The Rabbit had seen everything, and though there were certainly times when Kaz could have shortened or reduced her suffering, she knew why he hadn’t, and she understood.

   she said gently, then gave the Tiger a sidelong gnce as he leaned down to lick her again. As if in confirmation, cws like curved bdes slid out of the Tiger’s paws, rising up around the Rabbit protectively. She sighed.

   the Rabbit went on.

  Hu huffed a clear denial, and Heishe slithered forward to join them. the Snake said.

  Kaz shook his head. “You were all victims. Qiangde and Nucai were evil. I’m sorry I-”

  Li bit him again. She gnced at Heishe.

  Heishe gave a hissing sigh, but bowed her head before Li’s judgement. It was true. Heishe was the oldest and most powerful of the Twelve, and if she had taken action more quickly, the worst might have been averted. She had believed what was easiest, rather than what y before her, even when those she should have trusted tried to warn her. She would bear the burden of that for the rest of her life, even though she had corrected her error as soon as she could.

  The Tiger huffed again, but Kaz couldn’t tell if he was agreeing with Li or reassuring Heishe. Like the Dog, he seemed unable to speak. Though Kaz rather suspected that he might simply not be interested in doing so. The Rabbit, Tu, looked up at him, then patted the paw that y beneath her like a bed. Her ears drooped, and she turned to Heishe.

  Heishe’s coils shifted, and she revealed the cores of the Ox, the Dragon, and the unknown third, all resting atop her tail. They should have rolled off, but somehow they didn’t, and Kaz noticed that Li had stiffened beside him, her eyes locked on the Dragon’s core.

   she said.

  Tu shook her head. Her shaggy fur was beginning to dry, and she looked like a pup freshly licked clean by her parents, but her sorrow kept her from being a ridiculous sight.

  Heishe’s silence was answer enough, and then she said, she turned to look at the still-open door,

  Kaz was leaning against Li, listening to the remainder of the Twelve speak, while he watched the small Tree growing in his core. The kobolds above no longer howled, but they didn’t need to. The seedling had its own cycle now, and it was surrounded by Earth ki in the form of a mountain. Most importantly, however, the runes that controlled the cities, the stairs, the ptforms, and even the crystal formations in pces like the yumi fields, all of them had transferred to Kaz along with the heart of the crystal on which they were carved. Frankly, he was entirely too pleased with himself.

  Now, however, he reluctantly climbed to his paws, holding onto Li as he did so, though not for physical support. He had enjoyed having a few minutes to simply sit there quietly and bask in the knowledge that the worst was over. Sadly, that didn’t mean everything was over.

  “What do we need to do?” he asked, and wondered if he sounded as tired as he felt.

  Heishe hissed in amusement.

  That sounded very interesting, and suddenly Kaz found that he not only had enough energy to move, but that he was actually interested in doing so. He took a step, then stopped again, looking at one of the many things he still needed to deal with.

  Shom y on the floor, chest slowly rising and falling. She was covered in pieces of crystal and chunks of rock to the point that she almost blended in with the rest of the ground, but he couldn’t just leave her there. He had seen Nucai’s memories of her, and though she was far from innocent, she had started out as yet another victim. That didn’t cancel out the choices she’d made after she realized what was going on, but in the end she’d tried to do the right thing, and her interference had made a difference. Today, she didn’t deserve to be abandoned.

  “Can you carry her?” he asked Li, who hissed unhappily.

   she asked, but moved closer to Shom, crouching so Kaz could shift the other female onto Li’s back. It was awkward, but not difficult, and Shom didn’t react at all during the process. Her ki seemed stable, but her body needed time to recover, if it ever would.

  While Kaz was distracted, the Rabbit had somehow found her way up onto the Tiger’s back, and now she sat curled up in the thick, bck-striped orange fur. The Tiger’s fluffy white cheeks twitched as he huffed a warning at Kaz, then stalked through the door, tail twitching behind him.

   Li muttered as she followed.

   Heishe said as she slithered over to them.

  Kaz nodded. That was certainly true.

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