1
LIA
The vine shouldn’t be this color.
Tajss plants come in greens, golds, rust-reds, even pale blues when the suns hit them right, but never this. The underside of the leaves is mottled black, like something had eaten it from the inside—the damage spreading outward, consuming veins and cells long before I ever touched it.
I crouch lower, brushing sand from my knee as the heat soaks into me. Two red suns beat down overhead—one high, the other drifting lower—and the air smells dry and mineral-dense, a scent I’ve loved since I was old enough to walk the dunes.
But this smell… is wrong. This isn’t Tajss at all.
I lower my face toward the fruit. It’s swollen, but too heavy, sagging on the vine as if it’s filled with sludge instead of juice. Its skin gives under my fingers, soft as bruised flesh.
“Don’t tell me you’re dying,” I whisper, brushing my thumb over its surface.
Food is the second-most scarce resource we have, after water. Hunters have returned empty-handed four days in a row. The Urr’ki are restless, the Cavern Zmaj tense, and the Surface Zmaj pretend everything is fine because pretending is easier than panicking.
We survived the caverns collapsing—lava pouring like rivers through what used to be home. We survived fleeing to the far side of the mountain range, into unknown terrain. The Zmaj survived the Devastation years ago, and the radiation that killed the Zmaj females slowly and painfully. We humans even survived the crash of our generation ship onto the planet. Compared to all that, a dying plant shouldn’t shake me.
But it does.
This is what I came to find. The mission Calista and Jolie gave me after Kara and that scarred Zmaj brought in the spoiled fruit. The scarred Zmaj was… terrifying. Grim, damaged, but the gentle way he was with Kara belied his appearance. It was heartwarming. And, if I’m being honest, there is a hint of jealousy.
All that as it may be, I was tasked with getting more samples. And this is exactly what I was looking for. I’ll harvest this fruit, add it to my pack with the soil and leaf samples I’ve already gathered, and then head home.
I fit my pruning knife under the stem, finding the perfect spot to cut. Close enough to give Calista and Jolie the best sample, far enough to avoid harming the vine’s growth.
Those two women are geniuses—my mentors, my role models, my everything.
Calista taught me to look at the world like it was a puzzle asking to be solved. Jolie taught me to trust my instincts—that the plants will speak, if you know to listen—and I hear this one screaming.
I take a slow breath, steady my hand, and?—
“What are you doing?”
I jump so hard my knife nearly slices through the pod.
“Damn it!” I spin around. “Brook, seriously?”
The suns are behind her, turning her into a blinding silhouette, but I don’t need to see her face to know that smug little shrug.
“Sorry,” she says, tone absolutely not sorry.
I exhale through my teeth. “I was about to harvest before you scared the shit out of me.”
“Oh.”
She steps closer and crouches at my side. Her naturally pale-blonde hair has gone nearly white under the twin suns, and her freckles light up like constellations across her nose and cheeks. She leans forward, sniffing once before recoiling fast.
“Ugh. That smells awful.”
“Exactly.” I angle the fruit toward her. “It’s rotten. From the inside. Not from heat exposure. Look—see the fibers?”
I gently turn the fruit and show the blackened threads. She shudders.
“That’s not normal.”
“Not remotely.”
