Page 3 of The Naga Inventor's Clever Mate

“Hey, Naomi,” I said as I plunked myself down on the fur-covered log beside her. The small woman was stirring madly in the huge leather 'cooking bag' dangling from a tripod next to the fire. If that were an actual cauldron, I would’ve made a joke about how she looked like a witch.

No, maybe not. It was obvious that she was worried about her mate. She kept cupping her free hand around her flat belly, glancing over her shoulder into the entrance of our cave village. Since we’d learned that the rescue party now needed rescuing, everyone was in a heightened state of worry. It mademefeel stressed, and I was usually very cool under fire.

We all felt like they could simply appear from inside the caverns rather than through the palisade gate. Most of the girls hadn’t been the same since learning that some creepy, deranged robot had tunnels beneath our homes. Itmighthave been defeated, and itmighthave blocked the tunnels, but it still felt like it could slither out and harm us in our sleep.

Cosima and Vera had their mates with them, as did our recent addition, Farah. But Naomi was alone because her mate was part of the rescue party that had gotten lost. If I had to guess, I’d say she was also expecting a baby. I might have let my curiosity reign and asked her if she was, but that just seemed wrong now.

Naomi wanted to share her news with Krashe first, but he was missing. Someone had to do something about it, but the warriors were still huddled near the meat-smoking shed. I glanced in their direction and glared, hoping they’d sense it and hurry up. Only Vera was with them, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face from all the way over here. Did her crossed arms mean she was upset or angry? Or was she trying to project confidence surrounded by all those big, brutish Naga males?

Zsekhet was leaning against the massive paw of his dragon in a relaxed pose. Despite having a dragon at his disposal, I knew Zathar would never send him for this rescue. A dragon didn’t fit underground, and we needed him here to scare off any Bitter Storm warriors in case they wanted to attack Haven. That didn’t leave many others…

“Hey, Min-Ji,” Naomi greeted me as she plunked down on the log. “I can’t get this to taste right. Everything tastes off. What do you think?” She held out a spoon to me, and I obediently leaned forward to take a bite. It was a flavorful stew, and in my humble opinion, there was nothing wrong with it, but Naomi didn’t seem to know what to do with that kind of answer.

She fussed with her pet miniature dragon, a jewel-green little fellow named Kiwi. I knew what was wrong with her: she missed her mate and was going through something life-altering. I reached out an arm to take the time to comfort her, but my eyes had just noted something pretty big.

There was one particular shade of blue Naga that I was always on the lookout for, and it was odd to see it absent during that important meeting. Zathar was in the lead, azure and imposing as he talked or listened to ideas from his warriors. Even the visiting Shaman, Artek, was present, his opalescent white scales gleaming in the midafternoon sun.

I counted the handful of other warriors that had remained behind and came up short again. Corin wasn’t there; his distinct silver-blue scales weren’t part of the group. My mind started racing with ideas about how that could be immediately. It was nothing like him. As Zathar’s closest friend and confidant, he wouldn’t miss out on an important meeting. He’d be there to back up his friend and leader in that stoic, quiet way of his.

There was only one thought that sprang to mind: he had left on some secret mission of his own, either with Zathar’s blessing or without. Others thought he was the quiet, intense type and that he kept himself distant, but I knew better. He had a bleeding heart, too big for his own good, and he felt responsible for everyone. If I had to guess, he was concocting a plan to save the missing warriors all by himself.

I was on my feet before I’d even considered what I planned to do, but once standing, an idea started to form. “What…?” Naomi muttered, staring at me when I ducked down and gave her a quick hug. Once I let go of her, I was already thinking hard, running lists through my head of the supplies I needed to gather.

“Take care, I gotta run,” I said over my shoulder as I ducked into Ahoshaga.

Chapter 2

Corin

The grate came off with a good amount of brute force; it clattered to the stone floor with a loud echo. I slid out of the wall through it and groaned—it had been a tight squeeze. Leaning forward, I stretched my back with a pop, relieved to finally unfurl myself again. That had been a tough crawl through a seemingly endless twisting path of pipes, cables, and humming machinery. I now had a new level of admiration for what our ancestors had been capable of building.

The room I’d crawled into wasn’t big, but it was tall enough for me to fully unwind. The grate I’d slithered out of was just behind me, set into a wall with several more vents leading in other directions. A control unit was located in the center, with a dormant viewscreen above a desk lined with several rows of symbols and buttons.

That was the perfect place to start my search; a machine not directly associated with Ahoshaga’s living hub. If there was any sign of the Revenant that Zeidon and Farah had encountered, I should be able to find it. My gut churned at the thought: an ancient, self-thinking machine roaming the tunnels beneath my Haven.

Zathar might be responsible for our newly formed Clan, but I felt solely responsible for running our home. A home unlike any other on Serant, one that had made me incredibly happy—until I learned of the Revenant's threat. I might not have been able to become a Shaman, but running Ahoshaga had brought me as close to that dream as I could ever get.

To think that turning on the hydro plant that powered Ahoshaga had likely given this Revenant power again too… I felt doubly responsible for the warriors trapped because of its evil machinations. I had to fix this.

My tail lashed roughly in the air in frustration. No matter how determined I was to fulfill this quest, my mind kept straying back to a certain, always-smiling female. A female whose dark eyes hid things I knew were not nearly as cheerful as she made everyone think she was. What was Min-Ji doing right now?

I pictured her sitting next to Naomi at the campfire, flinging an arm around the Warlord’s mate to reassure her. That was what she always did: care for the others, cheer them up, be there for them. She was always welcome everywhere, always greeted by the others with a smile, but I still remembered that it hadn’t been that way at first.

They hadn’t trusted her, and I still didn’t know why. It was a mystery I wanted to uncover, threads I wanted to pull until it unraveled into neat, orderly information I could understand. But this wasn’t the information I should be focusing on right now, I had an important mission. People depended on me, including a small, pregnant human female who was without her mate.

The viewscreen flickered to life when I touched the first row of buttons with a claw. A crack ran diagonally from the upper left corner of the screen, warping the images it displayed, but I could still make out enough to understand what I was seeing: diagrams of the vents and airflow status. All systems were green except for three. The pipe I’d used to slither into this room showed a warning symbol, and two others in a remote section were red. The latter might indicate a collapse, but they didn’t appear to be critical parts of the system. I figured the first warning was likely from tripping or damaging a sensor on my way down.

A sound made my scales twitch and rattle along my spine, and my hand flew to the long knife strapped to the small of my back. I spun, my hunter training kicking in, instincts and skills that endless repetitionhadhoned. My eyes locked on the grate I’d left open, my entry point into the Revenant’s domain.

The soft noise came again, followed by a slightly louder whir and a muffled, high-pitched tone. My scales flattened, and my shoulders lowered. With an annoyed grunt, I slid the knife back into its sheath and returned my attention to the screens.

A small cleaning bot dropped out of the hatch behind me with a metallic thud and another high tone, one that came remarkably close to an indignant squeak. “I left you behind, you silly bot,” I said. “You don’t need to cleanthisplace.” My words fell on deaf ears, because this particular bot was as faulty as they came, and clearly it hadn’t been turned off like I thought. It did clean like it was designed, but it only ever cleaned things it had decided needed cleaning. Far too often that was the tip ofmytail, not the floors it should have been polishing.

It beeped a few more times, then whirred as its polishing discs spun on the underside of its small, round body. Of course, it was going to polish the floor ofthisroom. As if I wasn’t already frustrated enough, as if I didn’t already have enough to deal with, now I had to keep the bot from harming itself while I was down here. I should deactivate it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

When it bumped into my tail, and I felt the gentle brush of a cleaning disc slide against my scales, I sighed. There we go. This bot always persisted in polishing every part of my coiled tail it could reach, humming merrily as it did so. Why it did that was beyond me, and though I’d asked Artek, the Shaman had been equally baffled.

“Fine, you can stay,” I said, my eyes narrowing as I found the first clue that not all was as it should be down here. “But you’ve got to stick close. No wandering off on your own, and no cleaning any strange machines.” I swear the little bot hummed, as though it was pleased. It settled down against the nearest loop of my body and didn’t move again. I could almost believe it had understood what I said, but that was crazy.

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