limbs. Though he had physically released me, I felt even more like I had been caught between huge claws. The dragon grunted slightly, his mouth widened into a smirk that showed off his sharp, white teeth.
“You get points for guts, little one, but I would suggest you run home and never speak of what you have seen here.” His voice was more matter-of-fact than threatening. He turned away from me, and instantly the pressure that I felt under gaze was lifted. It made me feel much braver.
“Naitlya,” I grunted resentfully. “My name is Naitlya Taimi. Not ‘little one’ or ‘faun’ or anything else you’d like to call me, and if you think I’d turn tail and run after what you just- Hey!”
The dragon strode past me, into the structure and toward the chamber that contained the strange light. It seemed he decided to ignore me while I was in mid-sentence, which was thoroughly vexing. I half galloped to catch up to him. My fellow immortals could be so annoying.
The dark tunnel did not seem so long once I had walked through it. The kin did not even pause as we entered a round chamber. A narrow tiled walkway was the only path, shallow pools of clear water stretched to the walls on either side. The dim light of the moon entered the room through a small glass dome in the ceiling, but that was not what created the strange glow I had seen from outside.
Everywhere in this room were little floating sprites. I gasped quietly upon seeing them, mostly because I had read about these creatures also. Wisps, I recalled as I stared at them, were manifestations of lost souls. They were white and not quite solid, with tiny pale faces among the smoke of their bodies. The glowing I had seen from outside was emanating from the wisps themselves.
It seemed I was the only person in the room who noticed the sprites, though. I was broken from my trance by the sound of the dragon-kin breaking down a small stone door that lay across the room. Making noises that protested this foul treatment of old architecture, I ran at him, but by the time I had run over to stop him the door had been reduced to a pile of rubble.
“Why did you do that?” I asked, flabbergasted. The kin continued to ignore me and went through the now empty archway. Looking back at the wisps one last time, I followed him. It was no good to leave yet. The dragon-kin would probably end up breaking something really valuable, I rationalized, and this time I would stop him. I