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  Turning to my friends, I saw Angie and Lauren gawking at him, too. He was definitely an impressive specimen, even if he was a little full of himself.

  “Freya’s told you of her grand exodus, then?” Cambien asked, his tone no less resonant, even without the great big dragon lungs.

  Lauren nodded, finding her voice. “She has. We were initially enlisted to help with the ships, but we figured, why not try and reverse the corruption caused by the plague? It seems silly to travel all that way across space if you don’t have to,” she said, her cheeks reddening slightly as Cambien looked her over with his burning eyes.

  “I really enjoy the smart ones,” he purred, a cocky smile on his face. “I’d love to hear more about what Freya has been saying to you about all of this, but a frozen village hardly seems like the polite place to converse with such rare enchantments as yourselves,” he said, breezing forward to take Lauren’s hand, where he placed a tender kiss.

  Lauren, utterly shocked, stared at him in astonishment. Chuckling to himself, he kept hold of her hand as he led her through the petrified village of opaleine statues.

  “Follow me,” he called.

  In a panic, Lauren turned over her shoulder to look at us, mouthing the word: Help!

  “Cambien, could you please let go of my friend’s hand?” I asked, hurrying to catch up.

  He grinned. “Goodness me, I’d completely forgotten I was even holding it. It’s the softness of your palms, you see. They’re so smooth and delicate, I barely even noticed I had hold of you!” he murmured as Lauren gaped at him. “Could I interest you in a spot of… handholding? I promise I don’t bite,” he said, winking at me.

  “No, thank you,” I muttered, my defiance making him laugh. Casting a glance behind me, I was amused to find that Navan and Bashrik’s faces were twisted up in annoyance.

  “How about you, with the flaxen hair? I can chase your blues away, turn that bitter edge into a delicious sweetness,” he offered charmingly, though Angie was having none of it.

  She scowled. “Flaxen? Who the hell says ‘flaxen’? I’m not even sure I know what that means. It sounds like something you’d put in a smoothie,” she retorted, prompting Bashrik to grin. She definitely didn’t need him to fight in her corner.

  “Perhaps I’ll stick with the smart one. I like a female with a voluptuous vocabulary,” Cambien purred, turning back to Lauren. I had to give it to him, the man was persistent. Even so, none of us girls looked impressed, keeping our distance as we walked through the frozen village, coming to a mountain path on the other side. Below, on a plateau of rock that seemed to jut out of the volcano itself, was a second village, with houses built of stone instead of wood, and people milling around, a mix of colored scales flashing in the ferocious sunlight. The Pyros village.

  “How come you could transform, if the opaleine is corrupted?” I asked, trying to lure Cambien away from his charm offensive.

  He looked at me curiously. “You are certainly an interesting bunch of females,” he mused. “Indeed, I would love to see what’s going on in those minds of yours.”

  “I’m sure you would, Casanova. Answer the question,” Angie demanded sharply, making me suppress a laugh.

  “You’ll have to tell me the meaning of these exotic words you keep using. I do not understand all of them.” He feigned innocence, flashing Angie a wink. “Now, stop distracting me with your flirtatious behavior, you flaxen-haired minx. Your friend wants to know about the opaleine, and I intend to tell her all about it,” he remarked, turning to me before Angie could launch a dispute. “I’ve found a way to get single uses out of it, you see. Today was the first time I’ve taken my true form in years, and damn did it feel good!” He sighed, his scales shivering.

  “Do the Lunists know you’ve found a way to use the opaleine again?” I pressed.

  He snorted. “The Looneys like to pretend we don’t exist. Out of sight, out of mind,” he muttered. “All they care about are their ridiculous doctrines and their backward rituals, though I blame your gray-skinned sort for that. It all got worse after the Vysantheans came. It sent the Looneys’ religious beliefs into overdrive,” he explained, casting a stern glance at Navan and Bashrik, who were struggling down the mountain path, Bashrik’s legs stiffened almost to the point of immobility.

  “Weren’t you like them, once?” Lauren asked.

  Cambien shrugged. “I was never the kind of Draconian who liked rules and regulations,” he said with an oddly sad smile. “I like to speak, and sing, and read poetry to beautiful ladies. I do not like a moral code that forces a person to limit their words to such a maddening degree that nobody has any idea what anyone else is saying. I also do not appreciate a belief system that forces people to do terrible acts of self-sacrifice, all in the name of religion,” he murmured, his eyes taking on a faraway look.

  “No, I can’t imagine you as the selfless sort,” Navan remarked. “Self-serving, maybe, but definitely not self-sacrificing.”

  Cambien laughed softly. “You misunderstand me, my gray-skinned compadre,” he replied, the venom dripping from his voice. “I’m not talking about altruistic acts. I mean self-sacrifice in the worst possible way, dictated by ludicrous rituals. Even Freya was victim to it, and she had the sweetest soul I’d ever encountered,” he said with unexpected fondness.

  “Freya?” Angie prompted.

  Cambien nodded. “There was one particular ritual that I will never forget as long as I live. It decreed she had to burn her own face to become the high priestess of the Lunaris sect,” he said solemnly. “It is difficult for a Draconian to burn—you have to create something called Hell’s Breath, which is the only thing hot enough to sear Draconian skin. It is tortuous to endure, and I was there when she endured it. Those screams will haunt me to the end of time.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “She thought it would purify her of any remaining sin, because that’s what the ritual claimed it would do. I was against it, naturally. I told her not to.”

  “She didn’t listen?” Navan asked, his tone softening.

  “Women never do,” Cambien remarked, though he didn’t seem as cocky as he had before. He’d lost some of his swagger, and his manner was more vulnerable. I wondered if it was another flirtation tactic, designed to lure us in. However, a few minutes passed, and his mood didn’t change. Maybe there was something genuine in the emotion of his words, despite his arrogant demeanor.

  We walked the rest of the way to the Pyros village, while explaining what Freya planned to do with the biremes, and how she wanted to ship the population elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, Cambien was already aware of her plans, but seemed amused that she hadn’t extended the invite to the Pyros.

  “I doubt she wants us riffraff on board,” he mused as we approached the village.

  It looked almost identical to the one at the volcano’s crater, though the houses were sturdier, and the people were moving around freely. In fact, they looked happy, their multicolored faces smiling in the sunshine as they stopped to speak with one another, their laughter echoing toward us. A few glanced in our direction, but they didn’t seem fazed by the sight of newcomers. Their attitudes turned a little frostier when they noticed the two coldbloods, but after a moment they turned away, continuing with their day-to-day business. They were definitely different than the Lunists, dressed more like soldiers than worshippers, with black armor shining across their beautiful robes and tunics, and cuffs on their wrists and arms bearing the emblem of a flame caught inside a circle.

  Cambien stopped us at the edge of the settlement, where rocks had been laid out to create a curious sort of auditorium. I prayed he wasn’t about to put on a show for us.

  After exhaling a dramatic sigh, he glanced at each of us in turn. “So you’ve told me of Freya’s plans,” he said. “Now let me tell you of my plans… though I’m not sure you’re going to like them.” He smiled, his eyes gleaming.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Surely, you want the Draconians to stay on Zai just as much as the L
unists do?” I reasoned.

  Navan stepped forward. “This is your home planet. If saving your people the pain of abandoning it means you have to give Freya the cure, then that has to be worth it,” he said, leaning Bashrik up against one of the boulders.

  “Apparently, I’m not allowed to say my piece,” Cambien said sarcastically, silencing the pair of us. We shot each other a glance of irritation as he continued. “I do want all Draconians to remain on Zai—of course I do—but I want them to stay without having to reverse the effects of the opaleine.”

  “Why, though? What have you got against reversing it, if it means saving your planet?” Navan interjected, evidently unable to help himself.

  Cambien smirked. “Well, I would tell you, if you would let me finish,” he snapped.

  “Sorry. Go on,” Navan murmured.

  “To reverse the effects of the opaleine, I have to gain the stone’s forgiveness,” he began. “Now, that means releasing all the coldbloods who have fallen victim to the plague in the past, whose petrified bodies still remain on Zai.”

  Navan shook his head. “Let me guess, you can’t bring yourself to do that because of what my people did? Haven’t they paid enough penance?”

  “Let him finish,” Angie said to Navan, surprising me. A glimmer of understanding moved across her face. There was more to Cambien’s refusal than met the eye.

  “Thank you,” Cambien remarked. “No, coldblood, it’s not because I can’t bring myself to free them. In fact, it’s more about what they might do if I were to free them. Believe me, I have thought about it often enough. These coldbloods, undoubtedly sent mad after so long spent in their rocky incarceration, may escape and attack both the Pyros and the Lunists. For our sake, we will defend ourselves, but the Looneys will refuse to. A catastrophic loss of life would ensue, and I will not risk that,” he explained, his words irritatingly logical.

  “Why don’t you just kill them as you free them?” Bashrik croaked, his face contorted in pain.

  Cambien rolled his eyes. “You two coldbloods really haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said, have you? We don’t kill; we only punish,” he replied. “Even if I wanted to deal that kind of blow to your people, I wouldn’t be able to. If I kill the coldbloods myself, then the opaleine will be permanently corrupted, as decreed by our religious texts. There will be no way to reverse it after I cross that line. It is the only doctrine I believe in, after seeing the proof: if one Draconian takes a life with his own hand, the stone punishes us all. There are no exceptions.”

  As much as I liked a scientific explanation for things, the opaleine seemed to go above and beyond my comprehension. This planet was a little mystical, and their treasured stone was no exception.

  For several minutes, nobody said anything as Cambien’s words sank in. I’d convinced myself he was keeping the reversal secret for his own selfish reasons, but I had been wrong. Cambien was doing it for the sake of his people. After all, they’d suffered enough. They didn’t need mass murder to put the icing on the terrible cake of what they’d endured.

  I thought about the Vysantheans who had been here before, the ones who had been infected by the virus but had managed to get away from Zai. According to Navan, they’d been taken to a quarantine facility somewhere out in space—the same facility that Brisha wanted us to take Navan and Bashrik to, if they contracted the plague during our mission. Well, that definitely wasn’t happening! None of us wanted to drop Bashrik off at some clinical outpost he might never leave. Although, it got me thinking—was the fate of those escaped coldbloods any better than that of these poor souls, trapped in opaleine on foreign soil?

  It pained me to admit it, but Pandora had been right not to leave the ship. If we’d just insisted that we keep our hazmat suits on, we’d have avoided Bashrik falling ill. Then again, if we’d done that, we wouldn’t be standing here now. Honestly, what choice had we had?

  It was Navan who broke the silence. “If you cure Bashrik, I will kill every revived coldblood myself,” he whispered.

  I gaped at him, both amazed and chilled that he would offer to kill so many of his own kind. Then again, Bashrik’s life was at stake, and Navan had always despised his fellow Vysantheans, seeming to dissociate his mind from the act whenever killing was required. Still, that village was just a small sample. There had to be mining camps all over the place, filled with the same frozen statues—there were at least forty or so coldbloods in the crater alone, encased in opaleine prisons.

  Cambien seemed just as surprised. “You would do that?”

  Navan nodded. “I would, if you swear to cure Bashrik immediately.”

  “As glorious as that proposal might be, the truth is, I don’t actually know how to reverse the plague before it has fully taken hold,” he admitted. “If you wish for me to cure this Bashrik fellow, you’ll have to allow him to become a statue first. Only then can I attempt to reverse the process.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Navan growled.

  Cambien shrugged. “Afraid not. If you want me to heal him, you must trust me. I am Draconian, which your people find utterly distasteful, but you cannot doubt our honesty as a race,” he said defiantly.

  “And you can’t doubt the suspicious nature of ours,” Navan remarked bitterly.

  Cambien sighed. “As a sign of my unyielding benevolence, I will show you something no outsider gets to see,” he said cryptically. “Come, follow me.” He jumped from his rock and strode off through the village.

  “Do you need a hand with him?” Angie asked as Navan pulled Bashrik’s arm across his shoulder and hauled him after Cambien.

  “No, I’ve got him. But thanks,” Navan said, smiling.

  We took off after Cambien, who was weaving through the village, his shimmering red scales the only thing that helped pick him out of the crowd. Five minutes later, he came to a halt in the shadow of the volcano, gesturing for us to stop beside him. A wall of pure opaleine towered above us, marbling the side of Mount Kusuburi. It seemed to be a natural pocket of the stuff. Maybe that was why the Pyros had built their village here.

  Instead of the surface being flat, hexagonal, bee-like hives protruded from the rockface at sporadic intervals. From within, a low buzzing sound bristled through the air, sending shivers up my spine.

  “Don’t get too close to the hives,” Cambien warned, holding out his arm to block us from advancing. “The insects were created here—the ones that spread the coldblood plague.”

  “Created?” Lauren asked, her eyes wide.

  “They aren’t real insects, like the ones you might find in the jungles that cover most of our planet,” Cambien said, his gaze fixed on Lauren. “These insects are forged using nanotechnology of my own innovation.”

  “Nanotechnology?” Navan said coldly. “That sort of technology, at this level of intricacy, should be beyond your species.”

  Cambien flashed him a sour look. “And who told you that? Your precious Vysanthean drivel? All those libraries, and barely a single one containing anything that wasn’t written by one of your people. It doesn’t exactly make for unbiased reading, does it?”

  “Actually, I’ve read several books written by native species, and I’ve never heard of Draconians using nanotechnology,” Lauren agreed. “Not that there was much information to go on, anyway.”

  “Precisely. Why would we let our scientific studies get into the hands of our enemies? We locked our science books away where the coldbloods couldn’t get their frosty mitts on them.” Cambien chuckled. “We might be behind in some areas, but a few of us like to keep up to date. I happen to be one of them.”

  Bashrik looked up, his eyes foggy. “One of those bugs bit me!” he mumbled, his words coming out strange, as though he were trying to speak with a mouthful of cotton balls. My stomach dropped. The plague was spreading. Soon enough, Bashrik would be one of those frozen statues. We just had to trust that Cambien could heal him when that happened.

  Cambien grimaced. “There have been one or two glit
ches,” he admitted. “Sometimes, the insects go offline and can’t find their way back to the hive. After that, they tend to go a bit rogue. It hasn’t been a problem, with no coldbloods on the planet, but when you arrived—well, you’d have been magnetic to them,” he said with a hint of apology in his voice.

  “Like bees around nectar,” I mused, much to Cambien’s confusion. Knowing there were wayward nano-creatures out there, I realized just how lucky Navan was to have avoided being bitten at the same time as Bashrik. Maybe the hot springs had kept him safe, masking his coldblood magnetism with the scent and heat of the milky water.

  “Is it even a virus, then?” Lauren pressed, going into interrogation mode.

  Cambien looked at her thoughtfully. “It is a virus of sorts, in that it enters the bloodstream of the victim and infects their cells. However, it is unique in that it only affects the cells of the epidermis and the muscles, creating a stone casing where skin used to be and immobilizing joints,” he explained, the pride in his voice irking me. “As for your other coldblood friend, he needs to be bitten in order to be infected.”

  “It can’t pass from person to person?” Navan asked.

  “No, it cannot,” Cambien replied. “An individual must be bitten by one of my insects, although I can program them to target specific people, if the mood takes me.” A hint of a warning laced his words, which Navan was wise enough to notice, his lips pressing into a thin line.

  Angie sighed. “So much for pacifism, eh?”

  “The Looneys might be passive, but we Pyros are not,” he replied with a cold chuckle. “If you think about tricking us, or endangering us further, I will not hesitate to unleash more of my insects upon you, coldblood. Moreover, I will not hesitate to design a special strain to infect you three.” He leveled his gaze at me, Angie, and Lauren. Dread snaked through my veins.