Chapter 3
LIA
The sand shifts again.
Not enough for Tomas or Travnyk to comment if they notice, but I feel it through the soles of my boots. A faint tremor. A warning. Something big continuing to pace us just out of sight.
Rakkh walks half a step ahead of me, angled so his body shields mine from whatever stalks us. His tail sways behind him with a slow, deliberate menace, each movement measured. He does not look back at me—not once—but somehow I know he is tracking every breath I take.
My mouth is dry. The dunes roll on around us, huge and silent. Moonlight slides along the rippling sands, turning everything silver and white. I know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Tajss is beautiful—and deadly. Tonight it leans toward the second.
A shiver crawls up my spine, but I take a deep breath, steadying myself.
I feel Rakkh’s attention shift as we approach the next ridge. The air around him goes tight, coiled, like a bowstring. He lifts his head, scenting the wind. I watch him, not the desert, because reading him is easier than reading the vast, unchanging dunes.
“Another plant is this way,” I say, my voice low, steady. Not as steady as I feel.
He does not answer, instead nodding once. A small, sharp dip of his chin, as if telling me:
Lead. I will guard.
My heart gives an unhelpful thump.
This dune’s slope is steeper than the last. Sand pours around my ankles as I slide down, catching myself with one hand.
Rakkh is instantly at my side, his clawed feet sinking into the slope and wings snapping open to anchor us both.
I do not need him, not really, but the heat that rolls through me when his forearm brushes mine almost distracts me.
Almost. A predator is sniffing around us, planning its dinner.
When we crest the next rise, the smell hits hard. Rot. Sharp and chemical. Off in a way that sits in the back of my throat like swallowed metal. I follow it to a patch of low, spiny bushes—native, hardy, supposed to survive anything. Except whatever this is.
I approach and crouch close to them. Rakkh lowers with me, his shadow folding over mine. Tomas stays several steps back, shifting uneasily. Travnyk sinks into a silent crouch beside us, tusks glinting as he inhales.
This plant is worse than the one from before. Its stems are black, the leaves shriveled and pitted as though dissolved from within. The tiny, misshapen fruit droops in a way that makes my stomach turn.
“This is spreading fast,” I whisper.
Rakkh does not look at the plant. He looks at me.
“I trust your judgment.” His voice is gravel and heat, low and sure enough to steal my breath.
Tomas snorts. “Maybe it’s just a fungus. Tajss has weird—”
“It is poison,” Rakkh says without turning his head.
No hesitation or doubt. Tomas shuts up so fast I hear his teeth click. Rakkh turns back to the plant.
“Show me,” he says.
I swallow and steady my hands.
“See here?” I touch the underside of a leaf. “These burns—Tajss plants do not react like this to heat or dehydration. This is chemical. Foreign.”
“Not Urr’ki. Not Zmaj. Something else,” Travnyk says, leaning in.
“It has to be something synthetic,” I murmur. “Infecting the ground.”
Rakkh’s shoulders flex at that word. He glances at me—sharp, protective—and a strange warmth curls low in my belly, tightening under my ribs. It is ridiculous, inappropriate, and impossible to ignore.
“We should move before the stalker returns,” Rakkh says. “Show the next path.”
I stand, brushing grit from my palms. The wind shifts, tugging my hair into my mouth. Something in the dunes groans underneath the sand—a long, slow drag that makes my knees go loose. Rakkh’s tail snaps once behind him, sharp as a warning.
“Stay close.”
I do. Not because he orders it. Not because I am afraid. Because with the dunes whispering danger and poison spreading through the land, his presence steadies me more than I want to admit.
And because Tajss is changing around us—rotting from within—and if I am going to track the sickness to its source… I want him there beside me. Even if I do not dare say why.
The deeper we move into the dunes, the more the air tastes wrong. Tajss always carries heat, dust, mineral grit, but tonight there is something sharp underneath it. A bitter chemical smell, like scorched metal mixed with spoiled fruit.
Rakkh feels it too. His wings occasionally twitch, a silent tell. Each time they shift, a faint rush of air brushes my arm or shoulder, and I try to pretend I do not like the way it feels.
We crest another dune. At first the ground beyond looks empty. More pale sand, ridged by wind. Then I see it. A lump near the base of the slope. Too still and too round. My stomach drops.
“Rakkh,” I whisper.
He has already seen it. He steps in front of me without thought, muscles tightening in the moonlight. Travnyk and Tomas spread out behind us, forming a loose triangle. We approach slowly.
The thing in the sand is a desert carok. A burrowing creature with six legs and a hide tough enough to stop a Zmaj blade. Usually fast and ill-tempered. This one, though, is not moving.
Its skin is mottled black. The same black as the vines. It lies sprawled sideways, mouth open in a silent, twisted gape. A low, wet wheeze rattles from its throat.
“Oh no,” I breathe, dropping to my knees beside it.
The carok jerks weakly, as though trying to burrow away but too weak to dig. Rakkh crouches beside me, one massive hand bracing the creature’s flank to keep it from hurting itself.
“Careful,” he warns softly, but I am already reaching.
“I need to see.”
My fingers hover over its hide, tracing the strange discoloration. The pattern is… wrong. Tajss predators do not get sick like this. Their bodies fight almost everything—parasites, bacteria, venom. They are too evolved, too perfectly adapted. But this? This looks like…
“Chemical burns,” I whisper. “But not on the surface. Inside. Like something is rotting it from its core outward.”
Tomas makes a disgusted noise. “Maybe it ate something bad.”
“No,” I say sharply. “Look here.” I peel back one patch of cracked hide. Black streaks trace the veins beneath. “This is systemic. Internal. It did not eat the poison. It absorbed it.”
“From the ground,” Rakkh says, his voice deep and low.
“Like the plants,” Travnyk says, nodding grimly.
My pulse spikes as my thoughts leap from one assumption to the next.
“It means the contamination is spreading through the food chain.”
The carok suddenly spasms, legs flailing weakly. It lets out a soft, pitiful cry—a sound I have never heard from a creature like this. My throat tightens painfully.
“We cannot save it, can we?” I whisper.
Rakkh studies it for one long moment. Zmaj expressions are not easy to read to most humans, but just as I have learned to read plants, I am learning to read him. His jaw tightens.
“No.”
The carok twitches. A shudder runs through its body. Its breath rattles. Rakkh lowers one hand to its head. Quiet. Steady. Respectful. Then he presses down, and the creature goes still.
My breath catches—relief and sorrow mixed into something sharp enough to hurt. I swallow hard.
“Thank you,” I say before I can stop myself.
Rakkh looks at me sharply, as though the words surprised him.
“It was suffering,” he says softly.
“I know.” My voice comes out softer than I intend. “Still… thank you.”
Something flickers in his eyes. Not heat and not exactly tenderness. Recognition. As if he sees something in me he had not expected, and maybe something he did not want to.
“We need to move,” he says, his voice rough. “If one creature found this place, more may come.”
Tomas shifts nervously. “And the stalker—”
“Is still circling,” Rakkh finishes. “It will strike when it thinks we are weak.”
I stand, brushing sand off my palms. “Then we cannot give it the chance.”
Rakkh rises beside me in a single fluid movement—tall, imposing, wings half-spread as though ready to shield me again. This close, I can hear the steady double-thrum of his hearts, and heat rushes over my skin. He looks at me, and his voice drops lower.
“Stay near me.”
My breath tangles in my chest, embarrassingly warm. I nod. As we leave, something glints in the sand behind the carok—faint, metallic, catching the moonlight. I stop, stepping toward it.
“Lia,” Rakkh warns.
“I saw something,” I murmur, crouching again.
My fingers brush sand aside. A shard of metal gleams. It is smooth, curved, and definitely not native to Tajss. It is also not handmade. This fragment was machine engineered. A chill races down my spine.
“I think…” My voice shakes despite my best effort. “I think we are getting close.”
Rakkh steps beside me, his shadow falling over my hands. I shove the piece of metal into my pocket.
“We move,” he says. “And we move fast.”
The metal shard feels as if it is burning a hole in my pocket. I feel its weight with every step—even though it barely weighs anything at all. My suspicion of what it is is what is heavy.
Wrong metal. Wrong shape. Wrong world.
The dunes deepen, swallowing the last traces of twilight. The twin moons rise higher, painting the sand in a faint, eerie glow. Shadows stretch long as we travel. The wind dies completely, and even the insects are silent.
Tajss is watching.
The knowledge crawls up my spine with cold fingers.
Rakkh keeps us moving, fast but controlled. His body is always between me and the shifting sands. Always listening. Always scanning. His wings twitch at the smallest noise. Tomas stumbles for the third time. Rakkh turns, softly growling.
“Stop dragging your feet.”
“I’m—trying,” Tomas pants. “Sand. Hard. To—”
Rakkh’s gaze snaps to me, as if checking whether the human’s weakness endangers me. Something pulls tight in my chest when I realize he is not worried about Tomas—he is worried Tomas will slow me down.
“We need shelter to rest,” Travnyk murmurs, scanning the dunes. His tusks gleam in the moonlight as he points toward a cluster of jutting rock formations rising like ancient ribs from the sand. “There.”
“Move.” Rakkh nods once, decisive.
We cross the last stretch with quick steps, and the wind stirs again—warm, gritty, carrying the faintest echo of that predator scent. It is still following. My pulse jumps.
By the time we reach the rocks, the moonlight floods the narrow alcove with slanted silver light. There is only one real shelter—a hollow beneath an overhanging slab of stone. Wide enough for one person. My throat tightens. Tomas sees it and groans.
“That’s… all we have? We can take turns sleeping out here, I guess.”
“No,” Rakkh’s voice is iron.
He steps into the alcove first, testing the space, the shadows, the scent. Then he turns, wings half-spread, and his gaze locks onto me with a force that nearly knocks me backward.
“You,” he says, “will sleep inside.”
“What? No. Tomas should—” My breath stutters.
“Tomas is slow,” he says simply. “And noisy. And careless.”
Tomas sputters. Travnyk snorts a quiet laugh. Rakkh’s stare stays fixed on me.
“You are the smallest. The cold will hit you first.” Then, lower, rougher. “I will not allow that.”
Something hot flares in my cheeks. I cross my arms to steady myself.
“You do not get to ‘allow’ things with me—”
“Yes.” He steps closer. “I do.”