Two sols have passed. I stand at the mapping stone, the surface cold under my claws.
My warriors surround the stone table. The cavern air is still, but the mindspace is deafening. It vibrates with hunting reports and the sharp memory of blood-scent.
“They moved closer to the eastern ridge,” Tharn projects. He stabs a thick claw at a jagged carved circle in the rock. “Ten. Perhaps twelve males. They are mapping the high cliff.”
“They search for the vents,” Rok adds, his frequency exceptionally flat. “And they search for the lower tunnels.”
I drag my claws slowly over the carved route in the dark stone. Lucek’s clan is starving and desperate. They are searching for a way in. They are searching for the soft females.
They are searching forher.
Mydra-kirthrashes against my ribs. A harsh urge to sink my fangs directly into Lucek’s throat floods my mouth with thick saliva. I lock my jaw tight.
Zan leans over the table. Pure aggression pours off his scent. “We hunt further,” Zan projects. “We take our fastest spears into the deep dust this dark. We drain their lifeblood before they ever reach our rock.”
I stare at the deep grooves in the stone.
Zan’s instinct is blood. But if I send our strongest fighters out into the dust, the cavern is left bare. If Lucek’s clan manages to slip past our hunting party in the dark, the fragile females will die in these tunnels. They are impossibly small. They possess no thick hides.
And I will not risk her.
My warriors look at the rock and see where to sink spears. But the attack must be perfectly matched against the limits of the females. I need to know how quickly her people will fail if the water supply is severed.
“Bring Eh-ree-kah,” I project into the center of the mindspace.
The silence that follows is dense enough to crack the floor.
Zan’s fury spikes, the lethal edge of his hostility cutting through the mindspace.
“One of the females?” Zan projects. “To the council table?”
I do not look at him. My claws trace the canyon lines. “To war council.”
Rok slowly inclines his head in silent acceptance. He turns his back and walks toward the water channels to fetch her.
Zan’s glow flares dangerously bright. His control is fracturing. The idea of a soft thing standing among our spears insults his fierce sense of order.
I do not care. I will shatter the ancient structure of the clan to keep her safe.
Eh-ree-kah arrivesin the dark behind Rok’s shadow, with Jus-teen walking quietly beside her.
Her thin earth-garments are stained, her dark mane knotted back. She is exhausted, her pale skin translucent in the dim cavern light. She looks so small, so fragile, yet the exact moment she steps into the center of the council circle, her delicate spine snaps straight.
She studies the ring of silent warriors before stepping forward to the edge of the stone table. Her eyes are so dark. Like wet sand. They drop to the map.
At first, her soft face is blank. She does not know the stone. But then she tracks the deep grooves I clawed for the canyons. She looks at the jagged circles Tharn scraped for the high rock.
I watch the sharp focus snap directly into her dark eyes as she pieces the terrain together.
She recognizes the deep claw marks. She understands the shape of the rock. She has seen the bone of the dust carved before.
Mydra-kirslams hard. A single, brutal thud that nearly drops me to my knees. Her soft world has endless water. They have everything. Why would a tiny fragile creature with impossible abundance ever need to carve rock for war? Do they fight over nothing?
My chest swells. The glow along my forearms burns hot. She is brilliant. She is lethal. I have pressed my face into the soft curve of her neck before just to breathe her in, but this time, the urge to open my jaw and actually taste her sweet skin is blinding.
She looks straight up at me with those dark eyes, then at Jus-teen.
“What is he tracking?”
