Kel Visal for a while. You can rest up, and once you’re feeling better, you can introduce me to every goat in town, I promise,” Tauran teased, searching Kalai’s face for a smile, but when it came, it was faint and tired. “It’ll be all right.” Tauran reached across and took Kalai’s hand off the reins.
Kalai’s grip was much too weak. “So long as it doesn’t take too long. We’re here for the dragons. Any moment, they could clash with the Sky Guard again.”
Tauran smiled a little. He should have known Kalai’s first priority would be the dragons and not himself. Tauran would just have to be the one to look out for him while Kalai looked out for them.
As they approached the mountains, the landscape shifted yet again from dry rock into something almost familiar in places. Rolling grass hills reminded Tauran of Kykaros, but their similarities ended at the sudden transition into terraced silkwheat fields built into the landscape like a work of art.
“The farmers get their water from the lake on the other side of the mountains,” Kalai explained. They have piping systems built all throughout the rocks.”
To avoid Arrow’s saddle drawing negative attention, they sent the dragons away. Slowly, houses began to dot the landscape. Quaint little farm houses perched on the edges of steep hills, chickens noisily darting out of the way of their horses’ hooves. Leaving the silkwheat fields behind, the land evened out, a proper town with paved roads and pointed roofs decorated with the heads of dragons nestling in the shadow of the looming mountain. It was a contrasting sight like no other - the architecture was old, exactly like the drawings Tauran had seen in Kalai’s three-hundred-year-old books. But everywhere, modern inventions broke the historic illusion. Gas lamps lined the main road, modern window sliding latches letting the occasional breeze into homes around them. The town of Kel Visal didn’t shy away from progress, but valued its history dearly. And dragon motifs were everywhere. Carved into door frames and painted on shop signs. Even the street lights donned decorative cast-iron dragon wings.
“Does your aunt live nearby?” Tauran asked as they rode down toward the town center. He’d like to meet her, but that wasn’t the only reason. If Kalai got suddenly worse, Tauran would know where to seek help.
“Not here.” Kalai ducked under a wooden sign hanging off a lamp post. “A little farther north. I figured we can go see her when we’ve spoken to the masters.”
Like everywhere else in Sharoani, the inhabitants of Kel Visal paused to stare when Tauran rode by. Their gazes weren’t hostile, just more overwhelming, since Kel Visal was the largest town they’d been to.
They turned a corner into the town square, and for a moment, the view robbed Tauran of breath. When Kalai had said the town lay at the base of the mountain, he’d meant it literally. The dark gray mountainside wasn’t a gradual incline. It was a sheer vertical wall, rising from the edge of the town and straight into the air for what looked like miles. Tauran craned his neck, but the top was shrouded in clouds. “Whoa,” he whispered, letting his eyes trail downward along the uneven stone surfaces to where man-made shapes stalled his gaze, easily two-thousand feet up. Countless windows and doorways led into a mysterious darkness inside the mountain. Columns supported a railing shielding stairs that zig-zagged their way to the base of the mountain, all of it carved out of the stone itself.
“I know.” Kalai’s voice drew Tauran’s attention from the mountain. His eyes were full of longing.
Tauran’s heart ached for him. He could only imagine the knowledge hidden inside that mountain, the secrets so well kept by the dragon masters. How much it lured Kalai, who treasured knowledge and learning like no one else Tauran had met.
“Will they want to see us?” Tauran asked.
Kalai blew out a breath. “I’m not sure. They rarely come down from the temples, and I’d… rather not go up. We might catch an assistant who can help us.”
Tauran hummed. “That makes two of us.” He glanced at Kalai as they rode. It hadn’t occurred to him before that there might be another reason Kalai had left this place: waking up to that sight every morning, wanting it more than anything, but knowing he could never have it.
Their ride to the base of the mountain was quiet in a way that made Tauran uneasy. The town of Kel Visal was far