Chapter 23.5 The Trove
Just when it feels like I might vomit, we bank around a high peak and a new sight and a new riotous noise reach my ears.
Before us are two mountains, one slightly larger than the other, their bases pressed close so they seem to have grown into each other where they meet in the center.
And dotted all over those mountains, like the burrowed holes of a beehive, are round, dug-out caves, branching deep into the mountain in what I assume are winding tunnels.
It is remarkably similar to the painting Marton and I saw at the Academy—in concept more than in detail.
And now, instead of the mouths of the caves and the air around the mountains being full of dragons and wyverns in flight, all of the activity that I can see is concentrated in a singular location.
In a wide, deep bowl the size of a lake, a hollow has been carved out of the cradle where the two mountains meet one another.
Along the rim and insides of the hollow are gradated rows of seating, on which sit and perch countless dragons and wyverns, in both human and protectorkin forms, cheering and roaring with their attention fixed on the center of the bowl.
The arena.
And down far, far below, when I narrow my eyes into raptor vision, I can just make out the shape of a seemingly tiny, golden-reddish form, whirling and ducking amid larger blue and green shapes in the middle of the arena.
Vakhrin. Down there, fighting for his life.
My heart cries out to go there right now.
To hurl myself out of Raku's grip, shift into dragon form, and fly straight down there to help him.
Do it, Tarah.
I must tense, or maybe Raku just guesses my thoughts, because his claws tighten around me.
I could still escape if I wanted to, of course, if I shifted.
But his renewed grip is more of a reminder than anything.
We have a plan. We have a mission.
Do this the right way, and everyone gets free.
Everyone makes it out alive.
I blow out a tremulous breath, and Raku beats his wings harder, diving low and banking around the far side of the mountain, like he is eager to get inside the Trove before I do something stupid.
We swoop in for a landing inside one of the gaping cave mouths midway up the mountain.
Raku releases me at once, and we both skitter deeper inside the cave as Jeksu and Marton come in for their landing behind us.
The brothers shift into human form, grabbing up clothing that has been left here intentionally for them.
As they dress, I look deeper into the cave and see a faint light glowing at the back of the tunnel.
Far enough in that it wouldn't be detectable to human eyes at a distance.
This entire area, we've been told, is surrounded by an impassible array of cliffs, which no humans ever venture to climb.
The woods and the mountains here are all places where Dragomira can roam freely, without too much concern about being seen.
The kin of the Trove take no chances about their safe haven being discovered.
"This way," says Jeksu, indicating a dark, narrow tunnel branching off from the larger, main one.
We follow him down it in darkness, and I take Marton's hand to guide him because I guess from his slow steps that he can't see.
I can't see perfectly, but enough to make out to curve of the walls and the line of the floor.
There isn't much else to see until we turn a corner into a hallway lined with sealed barrels and open crates full of herbs.
One door at the end of the hall has a rim of light emitting from around it, and Jeksu leads us there.
He scrapes a fingernail against the rough wood grains of the door, which I see is actually just an assortment of boards nailed together, propped up in the doorway with no knob or hinges.
Footsteps sound on the other side, and instead of being opened, the door is lifted up and set to the side by a deep green dragon woman with straight black hair down to her waist. She smiles grimly at us as we file in, and she replaces the door behind us.
Inside the room is a cauldron of something bubbling and smelling strongly of green plants and resin.
"I guess I don't have to guess which one of you is the human," the woman smiles wryly, her eyes upon Marton.
"And you are?" I ask as I step between her and her view of Marton.
The woman opens her mouth, but Jeksu answer coolly, hovering near her shoulder, "This is Perilya.
She's one of ours."
Possessive terms like mine and ours, I'm learning, mean a lot to Dragomira.
That's why the brothers responded so quickly when I said Cherry was mine on the day we first ran into them, and why they accepted so quickly my proprietary claim on Marton, without me explicitly stating it.
They don't have family groups and friendships in the same exact way that humans do.
They have people who are theirs and people who are not.
It makes an easy, instant sort of sense to me.
Like a missing piece fit into a jigsaw puzzle.
Something I had always felt, and had just been waiting to know about myself.
I give the dragons a nod, stepping aside.
Perilya offers Marton a smile, which he nervously returns.
"This won't hurt too much," she tells him, "though it will itch, and you must not scratch at your skin.
And you'll have to strip." She gestures to his clothes.
Marton flushes pink, and Raku and Jeksu suddenly find the walls and floors and their own fingernails to be of riveting interest.
Perilya, all business, strides over to her cauldron and ladles out something thick and green into a small bowl.
It steams, and she sets it aside to cool.
She moves over to a table, picking up a mortar and pestle there.
She crunches and stirs some unfamiliar hers, dumping them into another container, which she then stirs anew, and I see that the mixture looks black.
When I turn to share and uncertain glance with Marton, he's barefoot and shirtless and looking supremely uncomfortable, one hand holding the elbow of his other arm.
His golden hair tumbles around his broad, bare shoulders, and he looks good enough to eat.
When Perilya turns back around, holding the green mixture in her hands, she frowns at his non-nakedness.
"I'm not planning to take my pants of any time soon," Marton says quickly.
"So maybe we can leave them on for this?
"
Perilya purses her lips, glancing at Jeksu for direction.
Jeksu gives an assenting nod.
Perilya sighs.
"Fine, but if someone sees that your legs are human-flesh colored, it won't be my fault.
"
"Deal," breathes Marton.
"Roll you pants up at the ankles.
" Perilya gestures. "I'll at least do there.
You," she flicks a hand at me. "Get a brush. You can work on his chest."
Trying not to choke on my own lungs, I follow her direction to a set of smooth, wide paintbrushes laid out on the table.
I grab one, returning to Marton's side. Watching as Perilya dips her own brush in the green mixture and paints it up and down Marton's ankles and calves, I dip my brush in the bowl and face Marton.
He's standing there like a wall of shy muscle, flushed and rippling and too many appealing things at once. I meet his eyes, and I'm embarrassed, and he's embarrassed, and for a moment we both just stand there with embarrassment circuiting back and forth between us.
Then I put my free hand on his chest, raising the brush in my other hand, green liquid running down the bristles.
Marton sucks in a breath when my fingers touch his skin, and I forget how to move as I just stare and stare at his chest. Marveling at the softness, firmness, and warmth beneath my fingers.
I want to run my hands all over his body.
Green paint drips from my brush to the floor.
By the door, Raku pointedly clears his throat.
I bring the brush down reflexively, splattering Marton's chest with a messy green stain. Perilya chides me from her position near Marton's knee, but I don't even hear the words.
I pour all of my focus into deliberately and carefully brushing the thin green paint in an even layer over Marton's chest and stomach. Abs. Faintly outlined. Fascinating ridges of muscle leading in a V from his hipbones, down...
I lose my train of thought, and nearly jump out of my skin when Raku clears his throat again. It sounds like he's trying not to laugh.
A nervous glance up at Marton shows him looking as if he's trying to remember how to breathe, and that makes me feel better.
The rest of the painting goes by in a blur, and the Perilya has Marton pace around the room a few times as it dries.
It's very strange, seeing Marton look green.
Even stranger when the paint begins to try, blending in more with his skin tone, so that he looks a similar shade as Raku.
Very much like a dragon, although his golden hair ruins the picture.
When his body and face are dry, Perilya has Marton sit in a chair as she combs the black mixture through his hair. The result comes out more brown than anything, mixed as it is with the gold, but it's still a probable enough shade for a dragon.
And when his hair is dry, Marton puts his tunic and boots back on, and then there's a stranger standing before me. I frown.
Marton meets my eye. "Weird?" he asks faintly.
I shake my head. "Don't like it."
And I don't. Marton is supposed to be pink and gold and human.
That's who he is. I don't like to see him.
..looking like something else. It feels wrong.
"It's temporary," Perilya assures.
And then she warns, "Very temporary. The mixture will start to wear off in about ten hours.
You need to be long gone by then."
"We plan to be," I say.
"And try not to touch anything if you can avoid it," she tells Marton.
"The pigment can only take so much friction before it begins to wear and crumble.
"
"Yes ma'am," says Marton.
"We need to get going," says Jeksu.
"We only have about an hour more of clearance before the Trove starts to fill up again.
And then it's a while yet before everyone either gets good and drunk or goes to bed.
"
He holds the door open a crack as we all slip out, and then he eases it shut behind us, whispering parting words to Perilya.
I realize I forgot to thank her, and I feel selfish.
She's risking a lot for us, and I'll probably never see her again to express my gratitude.
But the door shuts, and then we're heading back up the tunnel towards the wide passage leading deeper into the Trove.
We come out in a cavernous central cave that contains an array of tunnels branching off in different directions.
It's well-lit here with torches lining the walls and mirrors and shiny bits of metal set up to catch and reflect the light.
And there are people here.
Outside one brightly lit cave, several blue and green shapes flit around in human form, and the sounds of fiddle music and laughter filter out.
Raku leads us past this area without a glance, but I take a peek inside to see what looks very like a tavern, with a bar against one wall and people drinking on stools or standing and talking throughout the space.
It seems very human, for a second, and then I spot the people dancing over beside the fiddle player, and that looks.
..less human.
Too graceful, too quick, and a lot more.
..sensual...than any human dancing I've ever seen.
We hurry past, into another tunnel, eventually taking a passage that hooks upwards steeply.
We ascend, twisting around and around the halls, occasionally passing stragglers who aren't attending the arena fight.
None of them pay us any mind.
Outside one hall, separated from our sight by a curtain, beyond which I can hear the sounds of many people talking and moving, Raku and Jeksu pause.
"This will be the trickiest part," Jeksu admits.
"This is sort of the...trading area of the Trove.
Where people meet throughout the day to talk and shop and exchange goods.
It's pretty much populated at all hours, but this is as empty as it gets.
Araine is inside, waiting to intervene if we get held up for any reason.
We just have to pass through quickly, into the next hall, and then it's only a few floors up to the cells.
"
We give tight nods, and Jeksu pushes through the curtain.
A hundred different sights and sounds and smells assault my senses all at once.
Jeksu is right, there aren't that many people here.
But there are so many...things.
All throughout the wide, long hall, as far as I can see, there are booths and shacks and stands set up, and each of them seems jam-packed with an assortment of bizarre and random items. Unlike a human town, where each shop sells certain things—clothing in one place, cookware in another, bakery goods in one place, fruits and vegetables in another, meat at the butcher's, nails and blade's and plows and horseshoes at the blacksmith's, buckets and barrels at the cooper's—this place is just..
.chaos. Each stall owner seems to have scavenged random items from the human realm and put them on display in their store.
We pass one stall selling sturdy boots and twine alongside rubber balls and satin dresses.
Another sells books next to bushels of acorns and apples.
And another is chock full of plates and cups, silver chalices and pearl necklaces.
There's a pile of precious gemstones sitting on a counter next to a pair of wool stockings.
It's absolutely baffling.
..and I think once more about what Inobar told me about value.
How it isn't really in one fixed thing, like money, as the human world would sometimes have you believe.
No, for dragons, who live outside the law of human economy, value is a concept in flux.
One day you might want a necklace of rubies the size of grapes, but maybe the next day you really need a good leather vambrace.
It's actually sort of charming, and freeing, this chaos of objects and changing tastes.
The few people we pass, working behind their counters or chatting with other patrons, give us only cursory glances before going back to their business.
These are the people, I think, who are not interested in watching an innocent manticore get beaten up for the nth time in as many weeks.
They have better things to do, or better hearts than to enjoy such a display.
I decide I like them all immensely.
The end of the trading hall comes into sight ahead of us.
Just a few more steps, and we're home free.
Or closer to it.
"Mom!
" A high-pitched child's voice sounds behind us, and then a small but considerable force comes barreling into the back of my legs, wrapping tiny, strong arms around my thighs.
I freeze, and the others come to a halt around me, eyes wide.
....what?
I turn around, extracting myself from the hold of the tiny .
. . person. The boy who blinks up at me is small and dark blue with a pouf of ebony hair and a ratty little sleeping tunic falling to his shins.
"You're not my mom." He sounds accusing, forehead pinching in dismay as he stares up at me.
"No..." I look helplessly to Raku, who opens his mouth to speak.
But my attention is drawn back to the child as he raises his nose and sniffs.
His brow crumples further in consternation, his big blue eyes staring reproachfully up at me.
"Who are—"
"Sartok!" The voice that comes from behind the child now is alarmed, female, and familiar.
I gape over the child's head to see Araine striding towards us, a stormy expression on her face.
"Mom!" the child cries, throwing himself into Araine's arms with an impressive leap.
Araine catches and cradles him to her chest, glaring past him at.
..me? Maybe Raku, or maybe Jeksu. But somebody is in trouble.
I realize who it is a moment later.
"Where is your father?" Araine asks, stroking the boy's hair.
"Why aren't you in bed?"
"Dad said he had.
..something to do." The child yawns with sleepy disinterest in the middle of his response.
He lays his head against Araine's shoulder.
"But he said I was to stay in bed, so it's not his fault I didn't listen.
"
Araine mutters under her breath at that, and I just..
.stare.
My mind works sluggishly, making sense of these details.
It is a picture my brain doesn't want to put together.
Mom, the boy said, throwing himself at me.
And the others have said I look like Araine.
From the back, when the boy couldn't see my face and my tunic covered most of my skin.
..
Mom, he said again, to Araine.
But he's blue.
Dad, he said. His father must be a wyvern. Or the boy was adopted. Either way.
Araine is his mother.
And my father was Araine's father, everyone says.
Which makes Araine my sister.
Which makes this boy my— my—
Nephew. I have a nephew.