I thought I looked cool. With my face bandaged up, I was like some fierce war-mistress of the sky! It almost put a skip in my step, but my legs still ached. Hinte had wrapped my sides and face, but there hadn’t been enough bandages to cover my legs, so she lathered them with more Heylpflanze, then used a makeshift bandage from tattered strips of my sifting suit. When I’d asked why not use the rest of the miracle mixture, she’d said, “Wundervernarbung should never be applied to any wound that will not be immediately dressed with sterile cloth. Any danger of contamination or infection is unacceptable.” I hoped it hadn’t sounded like I questioned her judgment. I was just curious. Before we’d set off, we needed to clean the blood from the damaged corpses. Without beating hearts, they didn’t bleed much — but it had been enough to bother Hinte. So we cleaned and half-wrapped the wounds of the corpses. Just enough not to drip onto us. Hinte’d grabbed her glowing lantern, and dusted the liquid with something powdery that left the glow blazing and yellow-tinged, so even with two thirds spilled away, the visibility didn’t suffer. Like that, we trudged on. As we must — we had a mission! And we nearly died carrying these bodies back to town, there was no way under the stars I would give up now. Hinte still hadn’t told me how she had fought all of these apes at once. Even two had given us so much trouble. She said they were sleeping or something, right? But that couldn’t be the whole story if she had all of those injuries —⁠ which she did. But I released my breath, and let my thoughts fray apart. Hinte didn’t like me bugging her, or repeating herself. I’d respect that. Maybe she’d stop calling me ‘stone-frills’ if I did. By this point I had emptied my ghost canteen and refilled it with ghost water. Would ghost water be that easy to find? Maybe I could just fill it with the vengeful spirit of all the water that must have died to make this lake so dry. By now the vog was giving way to the blackened cliff walls orbiting the lakes. It was hard to distinguish these from the spot where we had lunch or the path to the plateau, but Hinte seemed to. She turned left here, gazing at the cliff wall, maybe reading patterns on it. We traveled along the base of the cliff for a while, and eventually came up on the massive opening to the cave system, the usual way in and out of the Berwem. We hadn’t entered here — so whyever leave this way? I glanced almost smirking at Hinte, and saw that her tail was lifted, and both her frills and wings stood on edge, flared. She looked irritated, either from the pain, exertion, or my antics. I liked teasing her, but I wouldn’t want to actually upset her. So I didn’t ask. Signs of civilization greeted us as the crags of the lake shore gave way to a worn (though not paved) road. Along the edges of the road were black bamboo posts driven into the ground. Some were the occasional signpost, and the rest were lampposts, bright crimson, lighting the darkness of the cave. They stood a few heads taller than me, hanging off their rods, glowing sharply, with a diamond shape. The sight put me at ease. I hummed bright and tunefully. It was still a long walk from here to Gwymr/Frina, but I could imagine myself taking it from here. This cave road branched more than too many times, but only a few of those branches were equal. Mostly the main road would slough off gravelly claw-dug passages; and it was clear which lead into town. Only four of the forks we passed even offered a paved alternative. Long into our walk, the cave ceiling above us broke in places, letting fresh air and light in. Or it would have⁠ ⁠—⁠ because the breaks confirmed night had fallen in full. Only waxing Ceiwad and the endless stars shone above us. Violiet Laswaith flew dead and darkened in this part of the dance, to hatch again in the coming cycles. And with it, the white season. It confirmed what I had known earlier. Hinte had said both moons were out tonight, but they weren’t. I fell behind Hinte a little as I stared at the filaments. The red and yellow of the galaxy stretched across the sky, and I took more than a measure of solace in it. No matter where I drifted or wandered, this starry sky would always be there for me. Would always be mine. My gaze didn’t fall from the sky as I caught up to Hinte, though it shifted as the cave ceiling above us. As I watched, the ceiling split and became the cliffs this country was known for, a welcome sign of our progress toward town. On the cliff walls catwalks stretched along and across, but mostly along. They sat on two levels, the lower being two or three wing-beats above the ground, the higher almost ten or twenty. Dotted in-between the catwalks, the amber lamps lined the cliff faces, sparsely, all the way up to the very top and stretched into the distance. Around them stirred black wisps of moths or beetles, compelled to turn to buzzing ornamentation for the red light. The lamps peered like a myriad eyes staring us down as we dared to enter the town, all suspicious and wary. A dull white figure stepped from further up the road, spat out by the shadows. The scent of black salve and shed skin followed them. And something metallic and lightninglike. Between the white sifting suit and the red mask around their neck, I placed them as the sifter in the lake so long ago, Wrang. The absence of his mask revealed a greeny-brown-scaled, plain-dweller face, framed handsomely in horns. “Aha! I taste you two have finally reunited. Glad I could be of assistance.” I looked at the wiver just as she looked the same at me. “You know him?” I whispered. “I came across him when I was scenting after you.” Hinte’s lips twitched. “They said you smelled lost and groping for trouble.” I tossed my head, and turned back to the sifter. “So, did you ever reunite with your friend?” The sifter looked up. “Ah yeah. Not long after your partner found me.” He whisked his wing behind him. “We hopped back to town, but I sent her on through the gate. Reasoned I could wait on the road, be sure you all flew aright.” I smiled. “Thanks, we appreciate that.” “All in a day, stranger. All in a day.” Hinte glanced at me. But she snapped her tongue and looked back to the sifter. “What happened to the argument you two had? Mawla said you ditched her.” “Ah, that. Yes, we had something of a falling out. She was being reckless, and I was concerned for her safety. But she’s determined to be alone. I’ll let her.” Hinte looked at me. Her brows narrowed, but I couldn’t see her eyes under her goggles. I looked up at the stars. The sifter cleared his throat. “So youse can make it back to town aright, or shall I accompany you two?” “Well, that would be —” “No.” Wrang shrunk his frills at Hinte’s refusal. “Pity, pity. But I shan’t intrude.” He turned, tail waving. “Dwylla guide you,” he said. I waved my wing. Then, “Oh! Wait up, wait up.” My waving turned more intense. The sifter stopped, turned back to me, tongue flicking. My tail wrapped around the pink cryst, the last crabstone, and tossed it to my forefeet. I presented the glowing pink stone to the sifter. “Hey, that’s another one of those rocks. What’d you say they’re called? Crysts?” “They are.” I held it out. “You can have it!” “Truly? Thank you, thank you.” As I passed it to them, I said, “Funny story about that one you gave me. You said they warded off evil spirits? I used it to lure away a bunch of glasscrabs.” He grinned. “Glad I could serve you well.” He glanced up at the moons. “I suppose I’ll be leaving now, if that’s all?” “Bye!” And at that, the sifter turned and started off. As he left, I spotted a thin rod poking out of his bag, and flicked. A sheathed sword? Hadn’t his bag been empty the first time I saw him? And that meant he had to have gotten the sword in the lake⁠ ⁠—⁠ oh! He must have been the shadow in the cliff that’d scared me ten beats away and disappeared. He had been with Mawla, so it fledged sense. That was a mystery solved, I guess. I was nodding my head as I fell into step beside the bright-white figure. Would the sifter keep the sword, or sell it? It would drag if something like that turned out to be worth a lot. I could’ve used the electrum. As the sifter ran forward and leapt away, flying up the road, and as Hinte and I continued our march to town, I still turned over the new answer in my mind, spurred by a niggling doubt. I had a new answer, but somewhere, I was missing something. My tongue started, and searched. The metallic lightning scent? What had that been about? It’d just faded out, and I’d ignored it at the time. But somehow, these humans had alchemy, and that weird scent might be significant, even if it was just the sword. Did the sifter have its source, now? I had tasted something similar. And with that, it was back to questions I couldn’t answer, and I shook my head and spun my focus to my surroundings. A small silence had fallen between Hinte and me. When I turned to her, my dark-green-scaled companion was watching me. I said, “He was nice.” She tossed her head. “No. Ingratiating, anodyne. It smelled fake.” “It’s still nice. It isn’t like they wanted anything.” “Yet they got something all the same,” she said. Looked back at me, she added, “Their story doesn’t mix, even with itself. Mawla had said that she ditched him, but I mangled it on purpose. He didn’t catch it.” “So? Maybe they misheard you or thought it would be rude to correct you.” She grunted and turned, facing up the ravine again but she waited for me to turn and step forward before setting off. The worn road became cobblestone beneath my claws, lined with tephra and murky glass. The texture felt so right after the dusty, crackling ground in the Berwem. I slid my claws over the stones as I walked, and relished the feel. The cobble in the road became denser, the lamps lighting the path more common, and we walked on. Toward town, our meeting with the faer, and the long-awaited end to our adventure. Anticipation and dread wound in my glands. It wouldn’t be that simple, would it? Towering above us stood the mighty Berwem gate, a mostly-stone wall blocking the ravine all the way to the very top of their faces. It bristled with images, and the lamps to make them legible even at night. Dimly on one side lay crossed the pickax burning sieve of Gwymr/Frina, and on the other spread the flowing glass veins of the Berwem. Painted or stained in the center, almost (but not yet) in procession, marched the symbols of the faers: near to the center was the interleaved quill and bullion, guarding a minimal portrait of the current faer, the ruddy-red-scaled Mlaen; and beside it was the closed eye and single star at the shoulders likeness of the former faer, the heavenly-white-scaled Dwylla. Painted or stained. That was ever the question in the cliffs. Maybe I would’ve gawked at the intense skill at molding glass that the Gwymri flaunted⁠ ⁠—⁠ if I had more than dimly understood what glass even was before leaving the sky. Ahead, Six dragons guarded the gate, two at the bottom, four at the top, each wielding crimson lights. Three of the guards were naked, and two were close, but all wore the everywhere-present red and yellow sash of the Frinan guard. Both guards at the gate’s base had red cliff-dweller scales: the left a near-black red and the right a muddy dark-red half-hidden by an ashcloak. One had a weapon strapped to their forelegs, but you couldn’t make out more than a sheath at this distance. As we approached, the one on the right lifted a wing in salute or acknowledgment. When they spoke, it was with an alert energy that had me wondering if they had woken up less than a long ring ago for their job. My fangs tinged peppery. To be able to work at night, under the stars? “Oi!” they said. “Long day in the lake, eh?” the muddy-red guard spoke. Their near-naked partner shifted, bringing a wing over their face. I glanced at the dark-green wiver, but she didn’t speak up. My tail hung by my hindleg. I said, “You–you don’t know the half of it.” “Ha, sounds like this was your first time. Enjoy the heat?” “Not at all. But the smoke is worse.” “I hear that, I hear that. ’tis what made me quit the sift myself, damn fumes were harshin my lungs.” The muddy-red guard made a motion like pained coughing, pressing one wing to their throat and one to their back. Their partner was rolling their head, snickering. The dark-red dragon glanced my way again. In the dim light of the lamps a head tilted. “Hey,” they said, “what happened with your face? Those bandages look fresh.” “Oh um… it was a rockwraith attack.” “What⁠ ⁠—⁠ how many were there?” They lift their lamp, and shine more light on me. Their brows furrow with what they see. Why? “F–four.” Their partner whistled, but the dark-red guard said, “Four at once? Did you drop all your luck in the lake or something?” “No,” the muddy-red guard said, “you smelling it wrong. Four at once, and they lived. You two ought to hit up a card game or lottery before you turn in, with that kind of luck.” “I don’t know — four at once in this season? That takes a special kind of unlucky.” “Maybe they got a bunch of luck and unluck — it balances out.” I looked between the guards and the conversation which I seemed to have been bantered out of. Hinte had started forward again, muttering something about ‘ashwits.’ Did she mean me, or the guards? I stepped forward with her, and the muddy-red guard looked at me, and did a second take, and then a third take. “Hey, what’s up with those corpses?” The muddy-red guard looked from their friend to Hinte. “Corpses? Those are apes! Never seen one in person⁠ ⁠—⁠ you two have got to have a story to tell —” “No,” Hinte said. “Our report is for the faer’s tongue only. This is important.” “Sheesh. You’d think the world was ending or something.” “Bet the faer’ll laugh in their face and just cook up the monkeys.” The dark-red guard prodded their partner. “Little hatchling probably won’t even make it to the faer.” “Yeah.” A shadow moved in the corner of our sight, and we all turned to look, where a drake walked down the cliff wall. When the guards relaxed, so did I. The new dragon also wore the red and yellow sash, but also had a finely-woven halfrobe covering his barrel. It was gray-black, with a rock striking a pickax sown on the shoulder. A plain-dweller, his scales looked chocolate-brown, and his face lined with wrinkles and scars. The newcomer hopped to the ground and ambled over in a lazy low-walk. As he approached he eyed the corpses on our backs, and waved their tongue. He gave us a smile. He said, “Listen, I’ll take those apes off youse’s backs. Cart ’em over to our prefect, she’ll have ’em on Rhyfel’s back in no time at all.” “That sounds —” “No.” I turned to Hinte, flicking my tongue. “Why not?” “These ashwits would sooner eat the bodies. Or drop them from a cliff. I don’t trust them.” The new guard said, “Now listen here you skink, we take our jobs seriously.” “Yeah!” “I’m old enough to be your grandfather. You’d better show some respect.” Hinte snorted, then murmured so only I could hear her. “My Opa is older than this town.” The guard. “What’s so funny?” “You are. If you deserved respect, you wouldn’t be night watch.” Hinte regard the new guard, and you saw she was taller than him, bigger than him. “I’m night watch to keep youse and your get safe at night. If I wasn’t here some Dyfnderi baddie could slip right in, slit your throat. Show some screaming respect.” The new guard had his tart-smelling fangs out, frills all awrithe. Hinte laughed again. It was a throaty, high laugh; I’d never heard her laugh like that before. “Calm down, you aren’t stopping any baddies. They just don’t want to hurt an old dragon.” The angry guard stepped forward, but the dark-red guard pressed a wing to them. “Ground yourself, Ffrom. Sofrani wouldn’t want any of us getting into trouble.” “Your friend has the idea. You couldn’t handle us.” The guards reacted as if struck. The angry guard pushed the blocking wing away, and the friend let them. When the angry guard lunged, Hinte murmured, “Cover your eyes.” The last blinding orb appeared in her forefeet. Then, I react. My frills fold over my face. The orb smashed, and the guard yelped. A chorus of shouts rose, from the around us and from the guards above us. A tail wrapped around my foreleg! I uncovered my eyes. The dark-green tail tugged my foreleg before releasing me. The sickly sweetness of chagrin rolled down my fangs. “Hey!” Hinte smacked my leg with her tail. I was now stepping after her. The dark-green wiver stood a few paces from the Berwem gate. I took a spot beside her as the guards recovered. At that instant the trio of guards from above fell around us. One landed in front and two at our sides. A mix of reds and browns, one wearing an odd hat, another a tattered halfrobe. Some wielded weapons, but the ones with weapons had only cheap clubs. The angry guard, though, pulled out a sword, a dull copper blade with blue flakes near the hilt. Hinte had her head high. “We are alchemists. Let us pass.” I smelled the curdled stench of fear on their fangs. But the angry dragon waved his sword. And instead of contracting in fear, their frills writhed in anger. Yet his stance was loose, as if wanted to flee instead of fight. I didn’t want any more fights. His claws dug into the gravelly ground. He’s about to lunge again, I heard, a mental whisper from somewhere distant and old. Maybe it was a bloom of the same protectiveness of Hinte that had stood me against the humans, against the rockwraiths⁠ ⁠—⁠ or maybe somewhere deep, I’d finally tired of feeling so helpless. But whatever⁠ ⁠—⁠ because as if summoned, old instincts were whispering in my head, reading people like messy scrawled pages. They’re all unbalanced, the instincts noted. Even the angry one. Self-disgust curled in my gut, but a plan spread its wings in my head, unperturbed. Hinte growled, and I saw the soft weakness in the angry guard hardening as he built his confidence. He tried not to look it, but the orb had spooked him more than the others. I spoke a single word, high and ariose, “Bow.” They were unbalanced, and I could remind them who was in control. One guard, to my left, the closest, lowered themself into a bow. All it would take is one. I made as show of scanning the assembled guards. Two others bowed and even the other flinched. And the rest would fall in line. As the guards around them fell into their bow, the angry guard broke his gaze, looking all around, bemused. His frill twitched before his legs, too, sprawled. His frills did not stop writhing, and he stood a head taller than the other bowed guards. But it was a bow, and I couldn’t push any farther without stretching my assumed authority thin. My voice did not waver. “We must speak to the faer. Let us pass.” The guards hesitated. But then the first two guards rose, and the rest followed, moving to the split in the middle of the gate. With one on either side, each grabbed a clawhold at the bottom of the gate. The angry guard’s partner and one of the guards at our flanks followed them; the angry guard stood high. At once, the four dragons hefted and heaved the gate. It lifted with a fluidity that suggested Geunantic engineering. The guards pulled away from each other, and the gate opened, revealing the roads of Gwymr/Frina proper, lined with red lamps. The gate opened only wide enough for the two of us to walk through. Hinte gave no acknowledgment as she passed, but with the tension uncurling, I found myself coiling my tail and taking furtive glances at the guards as we pass. Was there anything I could do to ease the fear we’d caused and exploited? I gave the guards a simple, respectful salute, wings on either side of my head, frills pressed back. They stared, blank. …Did the surface have a different set of salutes than the sky? “Oh well,” I murmured, and mirrored Hinte’s impassiveness. We slinked through the gate, and it was sliding closed behind us. The muddy-red guard spoke up as we left, in nervous tones as they tried to ease the tension we created. “Can you even cook an ape —” The door shut. The door shut, and I turned to my companion. “What the heck, Hinte?” She growled. “Are you going to be weird about my tail again?” With the implicit message, ‘I don’t have time for this.’ I covered half of my face with a wing. “Yes, but that isn’t what’s important right now! Why did you provoke that guard? Why couldn’t we have just taken them up on their offer?” “I did not lie. I do not trust that guard.” “Why not?” She whisked a wing. “Remember what he said? He would take the bodies to his prefect. Then that prefect would tell the high guard. Then the high guard would tell the faer. We would trust each of those dragons to take it seriously, then decide to pass it up the skein. If word ever reached the faer, it wouldn’t be within the night.” That didn’t even answer my question. “Okay,” was what I said, though. “Still, why provoke him? It seemed like you were doing it on purpose.” “We did not have time for their circling nonsense.” “I thought it was funny.” She grunted, then prodded me with a wing. “This is important.” She watched me lower my head, my frills folding. “What about you? Why make them bow?” “I wanted to end it without fighting.” And it felt good. I hadn’t had anyone — bow to me in a long time. “It would have resolved itself. None of those guards would risk attacking an alchemist.” “The one with the sword was psyching himself up for another attack.” “And they would have regretted it.” I tilted my head. She elaborated, “My Dozentin gave me an explosive. I could not use it over the lake. The skin is too weak. But they would have worn the scars on their face for gyras.” “Then I’m glad I stepped in when I did.” Hinte just flicked her tongue. “How did you know it would work?” I looked away, licking my eyes and tracing the cliff wall. I felt the headband on the top of my head, the silky fibers. How to put this? “I dealt with dragons more cunning and more dangerous than him in the sky. So I know a few things about reading dragons and situations.” “Then how did you miss how drafty that was? He came down only to ask about the apes, after we mention the faer.” “How else would he have known about the bodies? It would be more suspicious if he came down before then.” Hinte growled. “Did you see his reaction to the bodies? He looked at the bodies before he looked at us.” “Um, so?” “He had some ulterior. It is too clipped.” “That’s kind of a big leap to make.” “Remember how he phrased his plan, ‘I will take it,’ not ‘We will take it.’ He is working on his own.” “Still, it’s a big leap, I think he thought he was doing us a favor, I think he is a good drake. And you almost hurt him!” “Not every smile means well, stone-frills. Hide your fangs.” I flinched. Hide your fangs? Where had I heard that before? My mind turned to the endless public events and decorum drills, the milieu that had infected my childhood as the great dances had piled on. Some frustration tensed in lines of my face⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I had already looked away. My eyes rolled over our new surroundings, still not quite the familiar Frinan streets. The Berwem gate had spat us out on the outskirts of town, in a massive clearing that would seem desolate in the light, but, between the crooning of anurognaths, the faintly tickling wind and pale-green moonlight, became haunted. The crimson lamps sat at odd intervals, marking out a cobbled path that we might have missed otherwise. As the cobbling grew thicker and the clearing narrowed, the red lamps had given way to amber, another welcome sign of progress. I glanced at my companion, smiling, but she still looked annoyed and almost angry. She shifted her load and strode forward without looking at me. As always, I turned and caught up. The truth was, what Hinte had said made sense to me, on the same level, in the same sense, that the guards’ dynamic had made sense. But the idea that everyone had an ulterior, some cunning plan to downdraft you? I’d had enough of it back home. If I looked at the world that way, I would find plots whether they existed or not. And surely real, normal dragons weren’t like the walking masks from the courts and parties of the sky? They could be good. They had to be. The outskirts of town this late felt empty. We passed only the occasional dragon, always someone dangerous-looking or some poor vagrant. Sometimes, shadows of fliers passed overhead; the ravine was wide enough for a single dragon to fly through. A few of the passersby noticed our load. Most didn’t bother with a second glace. The few that did, maybe wrote it off as some obscure creature we’d hunted. Only one startled in recognition. They stepped forward to ask about it, but Hinte hissed at them! Her visage turned aggressive — which just meant exaggerating what was already there. The curious dragon backed off, slinking away into the night. “Hinte, I think we should stop, take a small break.” She looked back at me and didn’t even feign disagreement. We walked like that until we found a good spot to lay, a dew pond in one of the dead-end branches of the ravine, where the ground became softer and little weeds sprouted up. We both lay down, tired. “Do not to fall asleep, Kinri,” she said. I only clicked my tongue as I settled down onto the ground. Unable to roll on to my back, I contented myself with upturning my head. I gazed again at the stars shining so bright in the sky above. We came far enough away from the cloudy lake to see the sky. I found Ceiwad again, somewhere in the east, a green-white circle speckled with dark spots. Scanning the rest of the sky, I hunted for the Master and his Serpent, two of my favorite constellations. I saw, halfway up the sky, white lines streaking the sky — meteors. It would shower soon, and one of those meteors had been getting bigger and brighter every night. My eyes drifted, my brilles clouding, and I remembered all the nights I spent under this same sky, tracing the stars with my mothers’ sister, Vaale. She had showed me the calculations that tracked the wandering stars with unerring precision, and regaled me with the fantastical tales from the stargazers. That each star was a dancing pair as luminous as our two suns, but so far away they seemed as only pinpricks. That the wanderers were thriving worlds as lush and large as our own. That one day, maybe, we could make those worlds our own. When I noticed my thoughts drifting, I stopped myself. I shouldn’t fall asleep. Standing up, I felt refreshed enough and ready to finish this. I looked to Hinte, lying in the dirt on her belly. Her frills fell over her head and she murmured to herself, lost in thought. “Hinte,” I called. “Hinte!” I repeated. Oh. She was never hearing the end of this. * * *