elizabeth_oswald

Chapter One hundred ninety-seven

Kaz was only half right. He was in trouble, but Li was not.

He woke in a pool of unclean water. Someone had taken the tent down without waking him, and the water that was held outside the oilcloth lining sluiced in as it flattened, swirling around the sleeping dragon and kobold. The camp was taken down within a matter of minutes, every part of it vanishing into storage pouches, and then they were mounted and riding away.

The rain was slowing, and apparently that mean...

Chapter One hundred ninety-six

The story didn’t take long once he started, but soon Lianhua had her face buried in her hands. “Which princess?” she muttered. “If it was the youngest, she’s what, barely eighteen?” Her shoulders heaved as she sighed, and she looked up at Kaz. “We met her, I think. My grandfather sent a message to King Maleim, but Gaoda…”

She trailed off, closing her eyes as if remembering something painful. “He was terrible. He flirted with all the ladies, as if his charm was undeni...

Chapter One hundred ninety-five

The rain still hadn’t stopped by the time the humans decided to camp for the night. He couldn’t see the moon and stars, but Kaz could feel the sun set, as damp shadows deepened into darkness, and the brilliant flashes of lightning backlit the roiling clouds. Shortly after each flash came the terrible growling of a monstrous beast. Kaz and Kyla growled and barked back until Lianhua explained that the lightning caused the sound.

“But what is the thunder?” Kyla asked for the tenth ...

No chapter today

We have a whole series of appointments queued up today, so I'm not going to be able to sit down long enough to write a chapter. Sorry, everyone! I'll be back to work tomorrow 😊

Chapter One hundred ninety-four

Kaz hurried down a narrow street, the buildings that seemed to lean in toward him blocking much of the rain. Lianhua was right behind him, but of course Chi Yincang was nowhere to be seen. Not by his eyes, anyway, though there was a suspiciously blurry patch on a roof nearby, where the raindrops suddenly parted ways with each other.

Lianhua was holding a bizarre object over her head; a piece of oiled paper attached to sticks that she called an umbrella. It prevented water from reaching ...

Chapter One hundred ninety-three

Kaz was ‘shopping’ with Lianhua, Kyla was sleeping, and Li was bored. Li had never actually met another dragon, but her instincts told her that dragons didn’t like being bored. Li definitely didn’t like being bored, especially since she couldn’t pass the time by sleeping, as she usually did. But Li was hungry, and the edge of that hunger wouldn’t quite let her rest.

Kaz sent her an image of a stick with some kind of meat skewered on it. He and Lianhua had gotte...

Chapter One hundred ninety-two

Once Raff saw his charges settled into their rooms, he let Lianhua know that he would go find some horses. There were a few stables in town, and though there weren’t a lot of extra horses around, he could probably find someone who knew someone with an old nag or a retired carthorse. But first, he had a stop to make. 

The Jeweled Chalice was exactly the kind of place Raff preferred to avoid. Large and ostentatious, the gilt-lettered sign hanging above the door had actual jewels - ...

Chapter One hundred ninety-one

Raff kept a close eye on the people around them as his ragtag little group entered Wheldrake. The little pink puppy - Kyla - was holding the dragon beneath her cloak. And how was that for a kick in the arse? That Pellis-cursed Iron-fang rat Blue had been hauling around for weeks turned out to be a damned dragon. A tame, tiny dragon that any number of people he could think of would do almost anything to own. Fortunately, the puppy was doing that ‘don’t look at me’ thing, and she was in t...

Chapter One hundred ninety

Kaz woke after a long, dreamless sleep, finding that at some point during the night Kyla had curled up next to him, and Mei and Li were tangled together between Kaz and Kyla. It was the smell of meat cooking that woke them all, and the sight of Kyla’s perked ears and twitching nose made Kaz bitterly regret his own transformation. He could still smell the meat, but the scent was subtly wrong, flat and shallow, and not feeling the muscles that turned his ears was like missing his ears entirel...

Chapter One hundred eighty-nine

Kaz rolled to his side, reaching for the little dragon, but she was already climbing to her feet, her eyes blinking sleepily. She had worn herself out doing… something. But what?

<You weren’t doing it right,> she told him, eyes gleaming with their own light in the soft shadows.

Kaz finished rolling over, then maneuvered to a sitting position. Something felt terribly wrong, and it didn’t take long for him to realize what it was. He had no tail.

He reached around, ...

Chapter One hundred eighty-eight

It took another three hours of walking to reach the spot where Raff wanted to camp. Kaz knew because Raff explained that both the sun and moon actually moved across the sky during their designated time periods. When they were at their peak, it was the center of the day or night, and as they dropped toward the horizon, their time was ending. Kaz was left with far more questions than answers at the end of this conversation, not the least of which was, “Where do they go?” but Raff didn’t s...

Chapter One hundred eighty-seven

“We came a good bit further west than we should’ve,” Raff said, drawing an X next to the long, winding line he claimed was meant to represent the river. “We’re close to the Grimgar Wilds now, and we won’t want to be here when night falls.”

He kept casting glances toward the huge, dark cave into which the river vanished, and urging them to start back the way they’d come. Lianhua, of course, was fascinated by Kaz’s explanation of what had happened, and he could tell she ...

Chapter One hundred eighty-six

When Kaz opened his eyes to a scaly face and flickering tongue, he thought at first that Li had found him. Then his eyes focused, vision much clearer than it had been since they were damaged, and he realized that not only was this creature black, rather than gold with hints of other colors, but it was huge. Larger than huge.

In fact, as he struggled to scramble away from it, he discovered that it was so large that gleaming scaled coils were wrapped around him, holding him upright and al...

Chapter One hundred eighty-five

The last time Kaz looked at his core, he’d seen marked improvement, even over how it looked when Nucai first repaired it. Now, it was even better, and he could see that both his blue and his gold ki were stronger than before he interacted with the Tree, or rather the beings or spirits inside it. His Wood ki, especially, blazed with a brilliant sapphire light, and spun easily out of his core, flowing into his channels. While the red, white, and black ki hadn’t really strengthened, they, to...

Chapter One hundred eighty-four

There were few bushes and trees breaking up the grass for several yards ahead of them. After that, water roared and tumbled, more of it than Kaz had ever seen in one place except a few of the great, dark lakes. Those were incredibly dangerous, thanks to the immense creatures that could live in their depths, so most kobolds allowed them to remain undisturbed.

This water moved, however, making Kaz question whether the word ‘flow’ was even the proper one. It ran, it leapt, str...

Chapter One hundred eighty-three

Kaz slept well that night, curled up on the soft ground with Kyla pressed against his back and Li snuggled against his belly. The three humans each watched for a while, though nothing else approached them. It was the rising heat that woke Kaz, and he opened his eyes only to flinch away from the glaring white that seemed to surround him. He had thought his sight was recovering, but now all detail was lost in brilliance.

Beside him, Kyla curled up, her hands covering her eyes, whimpering....

Chapter One hundred eighty-two

Tentatively, Kaz reached out and touched the fuergar’s side, noting the faint thud of its heart still racing inside its chest. Ribs rose and fell beneath his hand in a single shallow breath, so it wasn’t dead, merely unconscious.

He frowned as Raff and Kyla rejoined them. Kyla immediately crouched down beside Kaz, reaching out to touch the fuergar as well, and Kaz had to fight not to push her hand away. The puppy had caught the rodent, therefore it was hers, b...

Chapter One hundred eighty-one

Kaz knew they had been followed before Raff and Lianhua could even set his paws on the ground. He took a moment to be astonished by the way it squished up between his toes, soft and warm, and not at all like the ground he had walked on for his entire life. In that moment, his opportunity to send their stalker home was lost.

“Kyla,” he croaked, looking toward the core that seemed to be floating in nothingness. It was mostly red, but had a strong swirl of gold and blue mingling among ...

Chapter One hundred eighty (begin book Four)

She remembered the time from before she knew she was different. Curled up beside her mother, warm and full of milk, she lived in safety and darkness, filled with the squeaks and gentle breathing of a dozen siblings. Then the Light came, and the Monster killed the large one, the father and protector of them all. Her mother and the other adults ran, leaving her and the other squalling pups in their nests, cold and abandoned.

She had no understanding of death, not then, though she knew the...

Chapter One hundred seventy-nine (END Book 3)

Kaz wished he could have seen the plaza properly before it was filled with the remains of the shiyan. In Li’s eyes, the patterns formed by the bricks were complex and beautiful, though the body and fluids smeared across them made it difficult to tell if they created an overall image. His own vision, however, showed ki crystals glowing beneath the stones, and there were more of the rare colors there than Kaz had seen anywhere else before, even in the yumi pools and the...

Chapter One hundred seventy-eight

Once he started, Kaz didn’t stop until he reached one of the massive rib bones buried within the beast’s torso. His knife slid through bone almost as easily as the spongy flesh, but he shifted his angle away from the ribs, knowing that the core was in the other direction.

Meanwhile, the monster continued to thrash, the strangely amorphous body surging around him as the hole he created became a tunnel, glistening with acidic slime and quivering globs of discarded meat. The remaining ...

Chapter One hundred seventy-seven

“If that thing comes down on the city, it’ll crush us all,” Lianhua called. “We need to either get it to land in the plaza, or chop it into small enough pieces that it can’t do as much damage.”

Kaz actually felt a hint of amusement break through the absolute terror he had been feeling ever since he realized what they were facing. He slid the Woodblade back into its sheath. “It wants me,” he told her. “Let it come and get me.”

She turned and looked at him, eyes ...

Chapter One hundred seventy-six

Their destination was indeed quite a bit closer to the center of the city, and while the road leading from the Mithrilblades entrance was to their right, a gleaming stream of clear black water marked the Waveblades’ road, visible between the buildings to their left. Kaz could also hear the sound of water trickling and splashing nearby, and the scent of cold, pure water cleansed the smell of blood from his nose.

Stopping in front of another building that was still taller than average, ...

Chapter One hundred seventy-five

“Oi,” Raff said. “These belong to you?” He shook the dangling kobolds, his voice as genial as ever, but his eyes were calculating as they watched Avli.

To Kaz’s surprise, Dett started to step between his future mate and the tall human, but Avli pressed her hand to his chest, holding him back. The Mithrilblade chief had looked as shocked as everyone else when Raff emerged with his captives, and now her eyes narrowed as she leaned in toward the males, taking a deep whiff of thei...

Chapter One hundred seventy-four

The city was huge, but sprawling in a way the mosui city hadn’t been. All of the buildings there were tall, to the point that all you could see while standing in the street was the walls to each side, a straight corridor ahead and behind, and the ever-present ki-stones above. Here, it looked like the tops of several buildings had been removed, then the square stones were used to create more of the low buildings that kobolds preferred, extending the outer edge of the city far b...

Quick rules (just two)

I don't have much in the way of rules here, but I've never really codified what there are. I'm still pondering making a Discord channel, and my husband asked what my rules were going to be, so I thought I'd drop them here, too. (Edit to add that I have made a Discord, which is https://discord.gg/FTMCfgGZe5 )

#1: BE CONSTRUCTIVE

This doesn't mean you always have to like what I write, but if you're going to l...

Chapter One hundred seventy-three

Kaz sat on a low stone, watching as Gram selected the members of his new tribe, with a great deal of input from Ija. It turned out that Gram’s father had been another of Vega’s pups, but he and his mate had died when the hidden den was attacked by one of the first abominations to break through from the mid-levels. Since then, Gram had lived with Chix and his mother, but Ija and Qhurg had been taking care of him as well.

Since the puppy had no parents, Idla immediately suggested that...

Late chapter today

I had some things I had to do this morning, and it threw my schedule all cattywampus. I will get a chapter done this evening, but it'll be a while yet. Sorry!

Chapter One hundred seventy-two

Kaz turned to see everyone staring at him, some of the kobolds looking cautiously hopeful, while others seemed quietly hostile. Strangely, these emotions seemed to be equally mixed among all the kobolds, not any one particular tribe, and two groups seemed to have formed, red and gold-furred kobolds mingling on both sides.

Li settled on Kaz’s shoulder, her wings buffeting his ears until she settled down. The dragon didn’t lower her head or her wings the way she usually did, however, ...

Chapter One hundred seventy-one

<-up!> The voice echoed through Kaz’s mind as something was pulled from his hands. It fell, landing hard on his toe before rolling away. It didn’t get far, since one side of the dull orb was nearly flat, so it settled quickly in place, looking entirely innocuous.

Kaz shook his head, staring down at the dragon clinging to his arm. Her back feet were planted against his chest so she could shove against the enormous broken core he had been holding, and now she was clinging to his...