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Vigilantes liked to believe they did good while terrorizing an entire populace, leaving uncertainty and corpses in their wake. Miami had more than a few vigilantes, and they liked targeting suspected necromancers, yet another reason on the list of many I’d left the city behind.
“Right you are,” Phillip stated. “And between the lot of us, we should be safe enough from any foolish enough to try their hand at my son.”
“Your son should be safe enough,” my father replied, and he gestured at the sign. “As we are here, where should we begin?”
“Perhaps not the titanium shrine, and we would be wise enough to keep a distance from it.” Phillip eyed his son. “And no playing about, boy.”
“I have no desire to be murdered, Dad.”
“If you did, I’d have to have a talk with your mother and find you a doctor. Why don’t we let Kinsley decide?”
I made a show of looking over the map, eyeballing the various shrines and the short descriptions. As my father expected me to choose cyan, I read the information available and said, “Apparently, the cyan one is popular? It’s the top visited shrine.” Pointing at the ranking of popularity, I cast a glance in Phillip’s direction, hoping he translated my behavior to mean I had no idea what I was doing or why.
The titanium dragon snickered. “That’s as good a place to start as any. I can’t say I’ve visited the shrines in order of popularity before.”
“An unusual method of visitation,” my father murmured.
“I think it’s delightful, so let’s see what we see, shall we? I can’t say I’ve ever come here just to play tourist.” My mother strode to the path as though she owned the place, waving for us to follow. “Who wants to play tour guide first? Cedrick, how is your knowledge of the shrines?”
“It’s not great,” the titanium dragon-kin confessed, and he hurried to catch up to my mother. “But I do know where they got the stones for the pathways.”
I petted Garnet and followed the dragons and the dragon-kin, careful to keep from dislodging the carbunclo or the hummingbird. “Even the pathway stones have a story?”
“We’re dragons,” my mother informed me in a rather haughty tone. “We wouldn’t just use random stones on something as important as our shrines.”
“They’re rocks, and they’re not the kind of rocks I would give to Garnet,” I replied, and I did my best to match her tone. “If they’re magic rocks, then someone should put that on the sign.”
“If that was put on the sign, people would steal them,” my mother countered.
I stopped to consider the stones, which were a mix of slabs and cobbles. “Are they magic rocks?”
“Not quite,” Cedrick said, and he laughed while shaking his head. “They were flown in by all the clans, with each clan bringing the same number of stones. The heirs of each clan were responsible for laying the stones, and they began with their shrines. Every clan contributed at least one stone to each shrine as a representation of unity between the clans. We bicker, but we do so amicably. Some more amicably than others.”
The pointed look he shot my parents made me giggle, and as I wasn’t supposed to know anything about dragons or their clans, I asked, “What’s that all about?”
“I am a navy dragon,” my father announced.
My mother lifted her chin, gave a dainty sniff, and said, “I am a red dragon with orange tendencies.”
If I let them, they’d go on and on and on about why their color of dragon was superior. In reality, my mother was as much orange as she was red, but claiming she was red made the other dragons feel better about themselves—or so she claimed.
I sighed. “Phillip? What are they going on about?”
“Navy and red dragons absolutely hate each other. Navy and orange dragons bicker as well. These two, however, decided to buck the trend and form a permanent pairing. It is a matter of conflicting abilities. That they haven’t killed each other yet is considered to be a miracle, frankly.”
Having met my mother and father and witnessed how much they loved each other, I questioned everything the titanium dragon told me. “I suppose they were fighting a little outside of the shop.”
“A little?” Cedrick rolled his eyes. “I’m amazed they didn’t transform and start duking it out on the street.”
Once again, my mother sniffed. “We were having a lively discussion.”
Their lively discussions ran a risk of me having a sibling, not that I’d tell the dragon or his son that. Instead, I stared at the stones we walked on. “What’s the significance of where the stones came from? Is there a significance?”
Cedrick nodded, and he pointed at one of the darker stones. “That’s shale from the east coast, and the black dragons flew it in. They like the color. There’s blue shale from a nearby site the navy dragons brought in, although most of those stones went to the shrines themselves due to their larger size. The smaller stones were broken up to be fillers between stones because shale can get slick when it rains. Every clan went and found stones, essentially going on a pilgrimage to build the ward.” Cedrick turned and pointed deeper into Pilgrimage Ward. “Every street intersection has cobbling made of stones the dragons brought in. This ward is supposed to represent the city’s unity for a cause.”
Interesting. “I thought that was the central ward.” I’d never been to the ward, which had the official name of the Diamond Ward. The most influential clans lived within the ward, and it served as the city’s seat of power.
“The Diamond Ward,” my mother corrected. “But not precisely. Dragons and dragon-kin are supposed to tread with respect and care in this ward. Those who move here are supposed to do so in peace—and to aid pilgrims should they make themselves known. The Diamond Ward may as well be called the Diamond War; the clans fight among themselves for power. Anything goes. Well, for the most part. There are some rules that the residents of Dragon Heights must abide by.”