And the edges glisten wet. Fresh. My stomach clenches.
“Wait,” I call, louder than I mean to. The canyon throws my voice back at me in a dozen echoes. “Something’s been here.”
No one listens. Of course they don’t. The men keep drinking, gulping like animals. One laughs, the sound cracked and desperate.
I grit my teeth—not with shame this time, but with urgency. They don’t see it: the way the earth is torn, the way the marks drag forward but don’t return. Whatever drank here isn’t gone.
A shadow falls over me.
I don’t need to look to know who it is. His presence settles heavy, steady, as the scarred Zmaj crouches beside me. The scarsacross his face catch the faint light, white ridges carved deep into crimson scales. His eyes study the mud, unreadable, his breath slow and rasping.
Then a single grunt, low as stone grinding: “Not safe.”
The words ripple through the clearing like a thrown rock. The men hesitate mid-drink, water dripping from their hands. The younger Zmaj jerks upright, wings snapping half-open, his eyes cutting to the sky.
I keep my gaze on the mud, my mind racing. The prints go in but not out. The weight pressed so deep the edges crumble.
Above, a cry rolls long and low. Not the sharp call of desert birds, not the chatter of scavenger flocks. This sound is deeper. Older. Hungry.
My head snaps back.
A shape drifts across the cliff top, huge wings stretched wide. Bronze scales catch what little light reaches this depth, flashing once before it tilts and vanishes into shadow.
Every hair on my arms lifts.
I rise slowly, brushing mud from my fingers. Around me, the men shift uneasily, their earlier bravado curdling in their throats. One mutters under his breath, but no one dares laugh now.
The scarred Zmaj straightens too, lochaber sliding across his back. He doesn’t speak again. He doesn’t need to. His silence carries more weight than their mutters ever could.
I look back at the tracks one last time. The water darkens, rippling where the stream strikes the pool. Not much, barely askinful—but enough to keep us alive. Enough to keep us here long enough for whatever left those marks to return.
My throat aches, dry as cracked stone, but I don’t kneel. I don’t drink. I can’t take my eyes off the ridges in the mud, the faint gleam of claws, the echo of wings above.
The others only see water.
But I see a deeper truth: Tajss doesn’t give without taking. And this gift comes with teeth.
3
KARA
No one wants to leave the basin.
The men linger, filling their skins again and again, drinking until their bellies bulge. One even mutters about making camp right here, as if thirst alone were our enemy.
“Too exposed,” the other argues, waving toward the cliff face. “Tracks all around. Something drinks here.”
“We’re stronger. Let it come.” The younger Zmaj bristles, wings twitching.
The scarred warrior says nothing. He doesn’t need to. His eyes flick to the gouges pressed deep into the mud, then up to the canyon rim. One look is enough to silence most of the grumbling.
I shift my water skin higher on my shoulder. My throat aches to gulp it dry, but I force myself to sip, just enough to wet my tongue.
“If we stay, we’re bait,” I say.
“No one asked you,” the man arguing the loudest to stay scoffs.
I bite back the sting. He’s wrong, and I know it. Tajss doesn’t give without taking. That much, at least, I know, and he has clearly not learned the lesson.
