The dragons we saw, above and below, changed from random straglers and loners to the more usual crowds of Gwymr/Frina, but thinned this late in the night. We began to see real houses, either below the catwalks or built onto the ravine walls, and we had entered the town proper.
Digrif. What rotten winds we’d run into him when I looked like this.
cute. I wished we had a chance to talk more, but he never really noticed me. He never even remembered my name!
I never invited?”
Hinte before.
almost makes sense. But it’s still unreasonable. How can this be so asecret if she can just join you at random?”
I can’t come for once!” He upset the box again but caught it before it slid any.
Silly Digrif.
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A violent thrum of strings echoed from farther up the ravine. The intervals came harsh and dissonant, like a composition from House Locrian. A nostalgic trickle dewed on my fangs, and I fanned my frills.
Interesting.”
catch them? I have heard humans are dreadfully difficult to catch.” For his tone and mien, you expected a growl???—??but his voice sounded precise and pitched in a way that didn’t clash with the music.
Why do they have to be stinking clever?” The musician had looked at me when I spoke, and it took only a beat for their frills to wrinkle into a sneer, and fangs to tinge venomous. What was that about?
treasures? Legend says that humans carry magical gemstone.” The rod fell back into their foot. “Or something.”
persuasivity.”
eat you if you looked at them the wrong way as well?”
everyone sleeps. Stories are stories.” The tremolo rose, rose, rose to a peak and lingered there for a bit. There was some odd nostalgia to it, even within all the darkness, but it was something I felt, rather than being there in the music. The melody was trembling at its peak; I expected it to crash again, and ruin the buildup. Instead it glided down, as if the chords carried the song back to its beginning. Emptily, because it denied it the implied climax once again, but still pleasant.
slum does a wonder for your health.”
you two, an exiled sky-rat and a traitorous alchemist? It’s a waste of time.” Neither their voice nor their playing had faltered. Mawla had stood up and stepped back toward the shadows of cliff face.
retain that pleasure.” A single note now lingered, filling the ravine. Then it became a progression, crescendoing to another climax.
proceeds her, just as your name proceeds you, Specter.”
Kinri, not Specter. My family is irrelevant.”
regret this, mudling.” Bauume spread their wide wings. “This is a waste of my evening.” The musician dropped from his spot on the edge of the catwalk, gliding off into the night.
problem?” I said.
that cat-tongued wraith of a drake.” I flinched. Hinte jerked her head.
wrong.”
did.
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It hadn’t felt like not a long walk from there to the city center. This time we traveled without fuss. I had questions about the twirler perched on my lips, but the calm silence between Hinte and me along the way didn’t bear breaking. It felt like I’d made up for my thoughtlessness.
fewer rays outpouring than the purple eye.
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The town hall towered before us. Polished granite frame the building in regality. Shaped like a hexagon, it stood about a wing-beat or three high, and had two stories ringed with windows. The main entrance sat on the roof, and two ramps rolled down to the streets on either side
quicker.
* * *