Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Pain was the first thing he knew—before consciousness, before memory, before anything else.
Pain radiated from his side in waves that crested and fell with each labored breath.
Pain throbbed in his left wing, a deep wrongness that spoke of bone and membrane damage.
Pain pulsed behind his eyes, sharp and insistent, demanding attention he couldn’t spare.
He kept his breathing slow and steady, giving no outward sign that awareness had returned.
Where am I?
The surface beneath him was soft—softer than stone, softer than ice crystals.
Some kind of fabric, perhaps. The air around him was warm, almost uncomfortably so, and it carried scents he couldn’t identify.
Chemical. Wrong. But underneath all that, something intriguingly sweet.
Sweet enough to tempt him to open his eyes. But not yet.
His ears tracked the sounds before his mind could process them. Breathing. Footsteps. The subtle shift of weight from one foot to another. Someone was watching him. A guard? An enemy? He flexed his arms and legs in small, subtle movements but found no indication that he’d been restrained.
He opened his eyes.
The light was strange, harsh and artificial, and it took his pupils a moment to adjust. When they did, he found himself staring at a curved ceiling made of some kind of smooth white material.
The watching presence was to his left. He could feel her attention like pressure against his scales.
Her.
He turned his head slowly, fighting the dizziness that accompanied the movement, and looked at the female who had taken him.
She was small—impossibly, absurdly small.
Barely taller than his chest would be if he were standing, with small curved limbs and soft skin and no scales whatsoever.
Her coloring was warm, some shade of gold that reminded him of nothing in the polar wastes, and her dark hair was pulled back from a face that watched him with wary, calculating eyes.
He was sure he’d never seen a female like her before, but he was equally sure she was not a threat. She couldn’t possibly be a threat. He could snap her spine with one hand, could tear through her fragile flesh without effort, could—
The thought brought a wave of revulsion that surprised him. He didn’t want to hurt her. The realization settled into his mind like an unwelcome guest, defying explanation.
“You’re awake.”
Her voice was low and careful, the words shaped strangely, but he almost understood them. The sounds were familiar, tickling at the edges of comprehension, but the meaning kept slipping away like water through cracked ice.
He said nothing, just studied his surroundings.
The space around him was small and unfamiliar—a single room cluttered with equipment and supplies.
One wall was dominated by a window that showed only swirling white chaos beyond.
Storm. The structure groaned and shifted around them, and he could feel vibrations through the floor that spoke of a foundation that wasn’t quite secure.
Shelter. She brought me to shelter.
The female took a step closer. Her scent intensified—metal and snow and exhaustion, yes, but also something underneath. Something his body recognized before his mind could name it. Something that made his scales prickle with unexpected awareness.
“Can you understand me?”
He knew it was a question, and he could guess the context, but he chose not to answer.
He tried to sit up instead. The pain in his side flared white-hot, and he couldn’t quite suppress a hiss.
His left wing screamed in protest as the movement jostled it, and for a moment his vision went dark at the edges.
“Don’t.”
Hands pressed against his chest. Small hands, cool against his scales, and firm despite their size. He looked down at them, then at her, and felt his pupils narrow to slits.
She didn’t flinch. Her eyes met his, amber and deep and surprisingly calm, and her hands remained steady against his chest.
“You’re badly injured. Moving around is going to make it worse.”
Once again he could guess what she was saying, although the actual words escaped him, and he knew she was right. The pain was bad enough when he was still; it was excruciating when he tried to move.
He lay back, surrendering to her logic, and watched as she withdrew her hands. The brief contact left his scales tingling in a way that had nothing to do with pain, and he wanted to demand that she replace them. Instead he studied her.
She returned to her watching posture, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. He could see the tension in her body and the way she held herself slightly off-balance, ready to move quickly if necessary. The way her fingers tapped against her upper arm, a nervous gesture she probably wasn’t even aware of.
He looked down at himself. Something about the shape of his body was wrong, unfamiliar, but he pushed the knowledge aside to consider later.
His side had been bandaged with some kind of white material, stained now with his blood.
The metal fragment that had injured him was gone.
His scales had been cleaned of blood, and the wound had been dressed.
His wing had been splinted and bound to his back, limiting movement but providing support.
She had tended to his injuries. Why? He was clearly not of her kind. She had no reason to help him and every reason to fear him.
He was about to ask the question when another wave of pain hit him, forcing another hiss from his lips. The world tilted, and he closed his eyes against the nausea that followed.
When he opened them again, the female had moved closer. She was holding a small device with a glowing screen and she was frowning at it.
“Your temperature is rising. The wound might be infected.”
He didn’t understand all the words, but he understood enough. The pain, the heat spreading through his body, the way his muscles were beginning to ache beyond what could be explained by his injuries alone. He was sick. Sick in a way he couldn’t remember ever being before.
The female made a frustrated sound and put the device aside. She looked at him, her expression unreadable, then seemed to make a decision.
“I’m going to give you something for the pain and the infection. I think it will work on you, but I can’t be sure. If you have any kind of adverse reaction, try to let me know.”
She moved to a cabinet and came back with a small vial of clear liquid and a device that looked like it was meant to pierce scales. He watched, intrigued despite the pain, as she filled the device with the liquid and approached him again.
“This will help. Please don’t fight me.”
She held up the device for him to see and he realized she was asking for his permission. He knew that just because something was small didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous, but he believed she was actually trying to help him. He dipped his head to indicate his consent.
She gave him a relieved smile, then placed her hand firmly on his arm and positioned the device against the thinner scales on the inside of his arm. The slight pinch was followed almost immediately by a soothing warmth and his body relaxed slightly. She nodded, a satisfied look on her face.
“It looks like it’s helping.” She tilted her head, studying him again. “I’m Jaz. Do you have a name?”
When he didn’t respond, she patted her chest as if he might be too stupid to understand the concept of names and repeated the word. “Jaz.”
Then she tapped his chest and gave him an inquisitive look. He was well aware that she was asking for his name, but it hovered just out of reach.
Who am I?
The question brought a cascade of others, and with them came the memories—fractured, painful, refusing to coalesce into anything coherent.
Ice. Darkness. Seeds to be scattered beneath the surface. The Elders speaking of a future that might never come.
The atmosphere is failing. The water is gone. We cannot sustain ourselves above the ice.
Then we go below. We sleep. We wait.
For what?
For whatever comes next.
The memories fractured further, becoming images rather than narrative. Cold that went beyond cold, sinking into his bones, into his blood, into the very core of his being. Darkness. Silence. Time stretching into eternity.
And then pressure. Pain. Being thrown upward through ice that had been solid for—
How long? How many centuries? How many millennia?
He didn’t know.
“What’s your name?” she asked, tapping his chest again.
The question deserved an answer. He knew that.
Courtesy dictated that he identify himself, offer his name and lineage, and acknowledge the shelter she had provided.
But he didn’t know the answer and he didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know.
Revealing too much to the wrong creature could be fatal.
She saved me.
He remembered fragments of it now. Seeing something large and threatening and attacking on instinct. An explosion. Pain. And then… small hands, dragging him through the ice.
She had saved him. This tiny, fragile, scaleless creature had pulled him from the storm and brought him here.
Why?
He studied her more carefully. Her small body was covered by some type of ugly fabric, necessary perhaps for someone without scales.
But beneath that covering, her form was all gentle curves and yielding flesh.
Vulnerable in ways that made something in his chest tighten uncomfortably.
Her face was tired, and there was a tension in the lines of her body that suggested she hadn’t relaxed in some time.
She was afraid of him. He could smell it now, beneath the other scents, but she was controlling it, masking it behind that steady gaze and those careful movements.
Brave. Foolish, perhaps, but brave.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” She said each word slowly, as if speaking to a child. “But I need to know if you understand me. Can you speak?”