“Sister,” I greeted as we passed.

Kalia looked frazzled, as she always did this time of year.

“What are you two doing here?” she asked, mouth agape, as Neela looked on with delight. My sister glared at me. “I wanted to show Gemma the village. How could you go without me?” she whined.

Gemma couldn’t help but stare at Neela. She’d known that there were humans in the village. Maybe she just hadn’t believed it. There were many different alien species living on Krynn—not just in Laras but throughout the Kaalium.

“Good morning, Kylaira,” Neela greeted, blinking her green eyes at Gemma and smiling. Showing fangless, white teeth, just like my wife’s.

“Good morning,” Gemma said, processing the words quickly. She smiled back and acted like this was just another everyday occurrence. It always struck me how adaptable she was. How easily she could mold herself into a situation, however unexpected. She held out her hand. A human gesture of greeting, I knew from experience. “Gemma Hara. Pleased to meet you.”

“Neela Thorne,” she replied, taking Gemma’s hand and shaking it. “Pleased to meet you as well. I heard you come from New Everton.”

“Yes,” Gemma replied, her smile serene and soft. “From the Collis.”

“It’s beautiful there,” Neela said. “I visited once. Long ago.”

I couldn’t read the expression on Gemma’s face. It looked like longing, perhaps. Did she miss her home? How could she when it had only ever brought her grief?

“Yes, it is,” Gemma said softly.

Kalia cut in. “Where are you going now?”

“She wants to see the lore fields. I’m taking her up to the shrines to see them better.”

Kalia exchanged a look with me. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Neela and I are just finalizing the floral arrangements and the lore vendors for the ball.”

I inclined my head, guiding Gemma forward. “Make sure there will be lore from the harvest five years ago. It’s Kaldur’s favorite.”

Kalia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, at the rate he goes through it, he’ll have nothing left soon. He’d smoke his way through our entire vault in one night if he could.”

Gemma was quiet as we strode farther and farther away from the shops and closer to the temple, sitting at the highest peak of the village. It had been built by my ancestors. The same ones who had built our keep so the sweeping lines of stone and the arched roof were similar in style. Beneath the temple, underground, were the shrines. Thousands of them and ever expanding, should a citizen of Laras request one for their bloodline. The shrine of House Kaalium, however, was in a private vault at the back of the temple, at ground level.

“Will I meet your brothers?” Gemma finally asked. I’d flown us up the steps to the temple, telling Ludayn to wait for us below.

“Yes,” I answered her. “They’re coming for the harvest ball. You’ll meet them that night. But they rarely stay long.”

She swallowed and nodded. She didn’t even seem to register the view—the one of the lore fields that stretched to the south. Bright blue and twinkling in the sunlight, nearly ready to be picked and processed. Workers were in the fields, even this early, tending carefully to their precious crops.

“All…four of them, is it?”

Had I never told her how many I had? She must’ve learned it from Kalia.

“Yes,” I murmured. “Kythel and I are the eldest. Then there is Thaine. Kaldur. Lucen. Kalia is the youngest. The only daughter of House Kaalium.”

Her brows furrowed. She leaned against the gray stone of the banister. We were alone up here, not a soul in sight near the temple at this time of the morning.

“I thought you were the oldest son.”

“I am,” I answered. “But Kythel was born mere moments after me.”

“You have a twin?” she asked, gasping softly, her eyes rounded. “Another one of you?”

I grunted, fighting the quirk of my lips. “We look nothing alike, I assure you. And are nothing alike. But we are close. Very close.”

Gemma studied me. “So many sons,” she murmured. “Your mother must’ve had her hands full.”

“She did,” I answered. “The curse all Kylorr females must bear.”

“A curse? To have sons?”

“In case you didn’t notice in the village or at the keep, Kylorr females are rare,” I informed her, leaning back against the banister. Not facing the fields like she was but facing the temple. “Males outnumber them nearly four to one.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and I watched her brows furrowed. “I…I had wondered why there were so many male keepers. I didn’t realize.”

“There are many females in the village but not necessarily Kylorr females.”

“Like Neela,” she commented softly.

“You were surprised to see another human here,” I guessed. “There are over two hundred humans in Laras alone. Even more beyond our borders. In Kaldur’s territory, there’s even a food shop that sells human food, imported from the Earth colonies.”

Gemma’s eyes widened.

“I…I guess I’m just trying to make sense of it all. You must know the rumors and stories that circulate through the Quadrants about the Kylorr,” Gemma said, her tone soft. She didn’t want to offend me, I realized. “Is that done purposefully? Keeping those rumors alive and well? Making others fear you?”

A loaded question. But my wife was intelligent. She would want to know why.

“We like our way of life,” I told her, lifting my shoulder. “Fear is a good motivator—as good as any—to keep most away. We open up the borders when we have need for it. But residency contracts are rare and hard to come by in the Kaalium. I can’t speak for the rest of Krynn. They govern their nations independently.”

Gemma stared at me. She looked like she wanted to ask me something. That it was just on the tip of her tongue, but she was holding back. And that fascinated me. For someone whose expressions could be as closed off as mine, I could see the indecision and vulnerability on her face, and I wanted to know what was causing it.

“My sisters… Would you…would you consider—”

Before she could finish, I heard a ripple of screams from the south. Shouts of alarm, and suddenly the alarm bells were sounding from the fields, reverberating through Laras.

Gemma’s face paled, her eyes glued to something on the horizon. “What is that?”

I growled, a pulse of the rage swimming in my veins, readying to be let free, when I saw it.

“Kyzaire!” Ludayn shouted in alarm, already racing up the steps of the temple to reach Gemma.

To Ludayn, I ordered, “Get her back to the keep!”

Taking Gemma’s wrist in my hand, I pushed her toward the stairs to meet her keeper. “Go to her. Hurry.”

“Azur, what—”

“Now!” I snarled. I didn’t wait to see if Ludayn reached her. “Go back to the keep and stay there!”

With that, I launched myself off the high peak of the temple hill, using the banister to help propel me into the air, my wings flaring wide and pumping hard.

I veered south.

Toward the kyriv, whose deafening roar echoed in the morning skies as it flew straight toward Laras.

Chapter 31

Gemma

“Ludayn,” I gasped out, running back up the tree-lined pathway Azur and I had just walked down earlier that morning. “Ludayn, what was that?”

I shuddered just remembering. A terrible dragon-like beast, its wingspan formidable and its roar deafening. Its gray scales had reflected the morning sun, and I couldn’t believe that just mere moments ago, there had been peace through Laras.

And Azur went barreling straight for it, I couldn’t help but think.

Ludayn’s limp wing didn’t deter her speed as we raced back toward the keep. She had a firm grip on my arm.