Little Water remained quiet and pensive as the blue-scaled guard escorted her back to the brood’s warrens. It was not a long journey. Beyond the rocky shore, another member of the brood waited. Its smooth dark-blue skin marked it as one of the lesser members of the brood. Lesser even than the dull scales that usually accompanied her.

When she was in an uncharitable mood, she liked to call her poor siblings, ‘softies’. It was a derogatory term that targeted their lack of scales or horns, the characteristics of their great ancestors. It could also apply to their ‘soft brains’, as their low intellect meant they could at most grasp a few basic commands. Combined with their large size, they made a good work force for physically demanding tasks.

With her lesser sibling pulling a sled made of stone and ice, it still took them several hours to return to the base of the mountain where the estrazi made their home. Compared to the massive size of the Bleak Peaks, it could be mistaken as a hill. Unsurprising, as the mountain was artificial. Raising it to the natural splendor of the north’s mountain range would be a tall order even for the majesties, let alone the brood. What they had accomplished already took generations and countless resources. However, its creation was essential to the future of the brood and their mission.

At the base of the mountain stood the fake dwellings meant to deceive any who would find their way to the estrazi’s territory. A small city of ice and stone, a façade constructed from what the oldest members of the brood recalled of the other races’ homes. It was labyrinthine in its complexity, serving as a distraction and a good place to stage a defense.

Normally, the sky was the dominion of the majesties, but they had no interest in the freezing land. Worse, their presence aggravated the Defiler. While the exiled majesty was imprisoned, her wrath was still to be feared. After all, it had almost burned the whole world to ash.

In the absence of the true rulers, upstarts had taken their place. The Disgraced or, as the humans knew them, the Lords of the Peaks. It was grating to let them brazenly claim what should only belong to their great ancestors but they kept worse things out of the brood’s territory. Most things. The sky was wide and the things that traveled it many. It was impossible to patrol every corner of it at all times of the day. Something inevitably slipped through.

There was also the null affinity. Those who bent space to their will could not be kept out. A null user could appear in one moment and be gone the next. The only true defense was deception.

Hence, the false city of ice. All the exits from the warren were connected to the houses and the servants lived above ground. A casual scout would easily be deceived. A better one might have suspicions if they lingered but it would take a quite a while to find so much as a single tunnel. By then, the brood would have flooded the city and chased any invader off.

They moved through the fake city until they found a warehouse, one of the few buildings with doors large enough to accommodate the large softie. Little Water dismounted and patted her sibling’s head, smiling at the thoughtless affection it showed by nuzzling her palm.

They were closely related, the poor creatures being the children of one of untalented sisters, but she could only think of them as slightly intelligent pets. An outlook better than many of her sisters. They treated the servants, those with no potential to be mates, as expendable tools when they even bothered to acknowledge their existence.

“Then I will take my leave here,” the blue-scaled guard said after opening the doors for her.

“Before you return to the Great Eye, I need you to adjust a few sleds for me.” The best outcome of her meeting with her father would have been receiving his help to retrieve Khan. At the very least, she was hoping that he would reconsider making peace with the humans. If her mother relaxed her stance against the humans, Little Water could look for him on her own without worry.

“I cannot delay my duties.”

“You would ignore my orders?”

“My duty was given by the Great Mother.” The blue-scaled guard’s tail pointed up as he lowered his head. The body language of the estrazi was subtle and didn’t translate well to other cultures. The nearest equivalent to the gesture was a sneer. “Even if I did not have a duty, I should not be given the work of servants.”

Little Water’s tail twitched in agitation. She couldn’t help wondering if he would have been so dismissive of her sisters but it was a useless sentiment. “Dismissed.”

“Keep well.”

She didn’t spare him a glance as he ran off, guiding her lesser sibling into the warehouse. The first room was empty, a decoy. Its true purpose lay behind several walls, a large hole in the ground. Little Water was the first to go down, her tail touching the end of her sibling’s snout.

Despite living underground, the brood had no advantage seeing in the dark. The tunnels were built to be confusing and hazardous. As hatchlings, they were taught to hold onto each other for safety. It went beyond rank. Even the Great Mother, in a strange world where she ever deigned to crawl through tunnels like those beneath her, would follow the rule, allowing a servant to touch her if they were beside her.

Exit tunnels were always simple. Especially the large ones. After a few minutes, the dark tunnel was brightened by a faint light. Soon after, the tunnel leveled out and they entered a wide cavern. Luminescent moss illuminated several softies lounging on flat rocks. With a pat on its side, Little Water sent her ride to rest before taking one of the several tunnels that branched off from the cavern.

The deeper into the warren she traveled, the narrower and brighter the path became. The inhabitants of the caverns also changed. Near the surface, the caverns were inhabited by the dull-scaled estrazi that acted as the brood’s main workforce. The rooms were also utilitarian, mainly storage and underground farms.

The females lived in the deepest caverns of the warren. Theirs were the only rooms that were decorated. Not with the usual stone and ice, the two most abundant resources in their new home, but with relics from their ancestral land, the land of the majesties. For most.

Those resources were very limited and precious. Little Water, being both young and in possession of a common affinity, did not get much consideration in that regard. Her elder sisters had plush rugs, paintings hanging from their walls, flowers that sat beneath magical lights, and trinkets to pass the time. For those of age to contribute to the growth of the brood, their birthing chambers had thermal baths, each with different medicinal benefits.

Little Water had a small, compared to her sisters’, room with a single painting on the back wall. One that depicted the Greatest Majesty, the one that raised the estrazi from simple creatures to beings of purpose. In part. To depict their benefactor in his entirety was sacrilege, as no mortal hands could do him justice. The brood had many representations in every style.

Her painting showed a tail moving across a field of grass. Only hints of the black scales could be seen beneath the thick greenery that covered the limb, trees and bushes covering it like the glowing moss that covered the rock of the warren.

Little Water raised a blue-scaled arm and grimaced. No matter how hard she worked, she would always be less valuable. Power couldn’t bridge the gap of bloodline. She was the spare for the spares. If nothing changed, she would take a few mates of pitiful potential and spend her life giving birth to the servants that served her elder siblings with no consideration for her thoughts or desires. A life no different from her lesser siblings.

The one thing that could change her fate was an achievement that proved she was more than her magical talents. The desire to prove herself had drawn her to the human, a rare opportunity in a land that abhorred change. Her motivations had changed considerably from the day she curiously poked her head into a room with a man chained to the floor but she still wanted to achieve something great.

Little Water took a seat on the edge of the flat stone that served as her bed, brooding. With the absence of her servants, who were dead if they hadn’t returned by now, her cavern was abnormally silent. She would have to petition her mother for new ones, something she dreaded. Her mother wouldn’t care for her explanation, only that she had failed and harmed the brood for no benefit. Then there would be punishment.

Another reason to consider her next reckless plan. By now, her human would have been taken past the walls the humans lived behind. She would have to penetrate their dwelling to find him. An operation too complicated to entrust to the mindless lessers. Even if she recruited some of the more talented servants, like her father’s guards, they wouldn’t understand or appreciate the importance of the mission.

No, if she wanted a chance at success, Little Water would have to go herself. And she would have to move quickly. Once night fell, her mother’s personal servants would sweep the warren and report on its state. They would tell her about the lack of servants in her cavern. Then Little Water would be summoned.

Before then, she needed to prepare supplies, gather a capable force, and get far enough away that it would be too much of a bother to go after her. Ambitious goals that she had no idea how to achieve without making her situation worse. She sat in her empty cavern for a long time, trying to think of a masterful plan.

Eventually, she had to admit such a plan didn’t exist or was beyond her means. Thinking was not her strong suit. Initiative was. What she lacked in ability, she would make up for in daring.

Having made up her mind, Little Water stood from her place and ran back the way she came.