I sit there until the moons fade and the sky softens into a dusty pink. When I finally crawl back into the bunkhouse, there’s frost on the railings and numb in my fingertips.
But when I open my door, something catches the light.
A fang.
Half of one.
Polished until it gleams like obsidian. Curved and jagged, just like the one I saw buried in that sting tail’s skull.
It’s sitting right on the threshold, like an offering.
I stare at it for a long time. Don’t touch it. Don’t breathe.
Then, carefully, I kneel and pick it up.
It’s warm. Still. Somehow.
I don’t know what it means.
But I tuck it into my pocket anyway.
CHAPTER 12
MAUG
The fang lies where I left it.
Half-buried in dust, the edges smoothed, polished. I’d spent too long doing that—rubbing it clean until it gleamed like obsidian glass, until it no longer smelled of blood but of ash and quiet memory.
I don’t know why I gave it to her.
No, that’s a lie.
I knowexactlywhy.
I just don’t want to face the answer.
In Odex tradition, a fang from a sting tail is a token. It meansyou survived. You fought. You bled. And you earned the right to keep breathing. We give them to each other after battle—to honor courage, to seal trust. Sometimes as apology. Sometimes as challenge.
But never… never to a human.
Never to someone like her.
I crouch beneath the outcrop of shale that overlooks the human camp, wrapped in the stench of scorched dust and static hum. The wind tastes like iron—sharp, dry. Below, her silhouette moves with slow deliberation. She steps outside the bunkhouse, arms wrapped around herself like armor that doesn’t quite fit.
And then she sees it.
Her breath catches. I can hear it from here—just a little shift in air, a ripple in stillness. She kneels, fingers trembling, and picks the fang up like it might vanish if she blinks too long.
She doesn’t drop it.
Doesn’t throw it away.
She holds it. Studies it. Then—gods help me—shesmiles, just a flicker of warmth at the corner of her mouth, before slipping it into her pocket like a secret meant only for her.
A strange feeling stirs in my chest. Not hunger. Not tension.
Something else.
