There was always going to be an element of uncertainty. He knew it, and he knew Kade knew it, so he didn’t push on the matter for another day until Kade brought it up again.
“I understand there’s not really anything else we can do,” Kade sighed. “I’ve been thinking about it and... I don’t know. Let’s just try to have better contingency plans if we can. No more just going with your gut instinct and figuring it out on the fly.”
Florian laughed. Maybe hehadbeen a little rash. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”
Chapter Ten
Allinall,theyspent four days resting at Takeshi’s house. Miyuki came every day to bring them food and chat for a while, while Takeshi checked in on them in the mornings before he left and in the evenings when he returned. Daichi did not come to bother them again, nor anyone else working for him or the king—true to his word, Daichi must have kept their presence in the city a secret.
Florian would have been happy to leave by the end of the second day, really, but they spent the extra two days going over everything they knew about the next Arrow. It was further out than the first, and most likely on a mountain: the area Jerah had circled on the map encompassed the entire peak and some of the surrounding valley, so Florian was unsure where exactly it might be.
After looking over the map for a while, he realized the spot seemed analogous to where Mount Fuji would be back on Earth—when he said as much, though, it didn’t seem to mean anything to Koji.
“I’ve heard about Mount Fuji, but I don’t think I ever saw it,” he said, shrugging. “We’ve only crossed over to Earth once—to get Japanese documentation as children. I don’t think we did much sightseeing, but I would have only been... Maybe four or five.”
“You’ve really only been to Earth once?” Florian pressed. “Why would they get you a passport and stuff if you were never going to go to Earth again?”
“A last resort, if things get worse,” Koji replied. “Obviously my father wanted our family to remain in the dragon kingdom as long as we possibly could, but if the protections against the Blight ever failed, or... I don’t know, something worse, dragon-god forbid it. So that we could go safely to Earth and still live there, even if we could never go back.”
“Hmm,” Florian replied, unsettled. It made sense in a morbid sort of way.
They kept poring over the map, comparing it to the maps Koji had managed to sneak out or copy down, along with everything that he could come up with just from memory. A body of water would separate them from the mountain, though it would be smaller than the sea they’d had to cross to get to Okinawa. Florian had almost expected there to be no water at all, but Koji explained that while the water was inhospitably hot, the Blight didn’t seem to burn the ocean away. It made him wonder about the kraken shifters far, far to the north—they would head to that kingdom after their business in the dragon kingdom was done, though, so he supposed he would get answers to all his questions eventually.
Koji did not know of any shifter clans that had lived in the place that was circled, but said it had once been the land of lion-dogs: ferocious beasts that were not shifters, but had some manner of intelligence. They had been noble creatures revered and largely left alone by the surrounding shifter populations, but Koji was all but certain that none had survived when the Blight came.
“Or they’re Blight monsters now, and we’ll have to fight through them,” Kade said, and Florian sighed dejectedly. That was also a possibility. Koji frowned, unsettled by this.
“It was considered an affront to harm or kill lion-dogs,” he said.
“If they’re still there, then they aren’t really lion-dogs anymore,” Florian replied, his voice coming out flat. Kade gave him a knowing, concerned look, but Florian shook away his dark thoughts. “But we don’t even know if they’re still there. Hopefully, it’ll be just as empty as the sky island.”
Koji smiled weakly, though he still looked perturbed. “Hopefully.”
They set out the next morning, their things packed along with extra food Miyuki had brought them the night before. This trip into the Blight would be five days, maybe four if they were lucky, so the extra rations would help keep their spirits up.
Takeshi saw them off before he left for his apprenticeship, then they followed Koji through narrow alleyways until they reached the city wall. They walked along it until Koji brought them to a small opening in the wall; it looked like a narrow hiding place with an arrow-hole where an archer might shoot through, but when Koji pushed the stone, it swung open like a door. They hurried through to the other side and closed the hidden door behind them, standing in a grassy clearing about thirty feet away from the edge of the forest.
“Stay close to the wall,” Koji whispered, peering upward as he crept forward. “There isn’t usually anyone patrolling here, but sometimes...”
Florian nodded, remaining silent as Koji carefully scanned the wall. Kade looked upward, too, but they couldn’t get a very good view from this close. Whatever Koji could make out must have satisfied him, though, as he gestured for them to follow as he hurried through the open field and into the treeline. Florian tried to run quietly, but his heavy backpack made it difficult. Still, they made it without issue, and Koji led them further into the woods for a time until they reached the stone path again.
“We’ll head pretty much the same way for the first day or so,” Koji explained, looking at the map again as they walked, even though they had gone over it a hundred times already. “So tomorrow is when we should be splitting away and heading more northward.”
“Right,” Florian agreed, glancing over Koji’s shoulder at the map. “And you’re sure you’ll be okay flying us over the water?”
“Yes,” he replied steadily, grinning at Florian. “Promise.”
When they reached the curtain, they stopped so Florian could set the shroud before stepping into the Blight again. As they had planned, the day was uneventful as they retraced the path they had taken only a week ago. It was unpleasant to be back so soon, of course, but a small part of Florian was relieved to know they could get this done quickly and leave the dragon kingdom behind. Tetsuo would only continue to be a thorn in his side; and while the kraken kingdom wasn’t shaping up to be much better, Florian tried to hope that maybe things would be different there.
Florian was restless—he had slept well when they were in the dragon kingdom, but found himself waking up again and again that first night in the dim light of the shelter, tossing and turning for a while before falling into a light sleep. Eventually, he gave up and sat in his sleeping bag, looking over the map until Kade and Koji woke.
They left without ceremony a little while later, now veering in an eastward direction and breaking away from the path they had taken to reach the floating island. As expected, when Florian guessed it was about the end of the day, they could start making out something on the horizon that was darker than the rest with occasional glimmers of light—they would reach the sea before much longer.
Florian wasn’t sure what to expect of a body of water in the Blight, but it was just as unsettling as he might have imagined. The water moved like the sea, but sluggishly, as if the water were somehow thicker than the oceans of Earth. The water was dark, but the light from all directions glinted off of its small waves and ripples. It was difficult to look at for long, even with their sun-goggles, and its brightness only increased the closer they got.
“Fuck, I didn’t think anythingcouldget brighter than the sky in here,” Florian muttered, shielding his eyes as the earth underfoot became sandy and coarse. They were only about a hundred yards from the shoreline now, so all they could see beyond was the choppy light of the water.
“Agreed,” Kade replied tersely. “Koji, are you still good to fly?”
