Mere hours ago, in Kassia’s vast western desert, Tanin and a party of young Fell had sprinted through sand, over pebbles and sharp granite, their unshod feet sliding easily over jagged rocks poking up from the earth. Their soles were tough as leather, immune to every warning the desert used to dissuade them from reckless abandon. The desert should have known better after so many hundreds of years: reckless abandon was the very nature of the Fell.

Tanin bounded along with his friends, a dozen other Fell his own age. He stole many glances at Memine beside him. At nineteen years old, Tanin’s blood ran as hot as Kassia’s yellow sun, and it burned for Memine unlike any heat he’d ever known.

Memine returned his glance, adding a coy grin. That simple gesture, one perfected in her eighteen years, made Tanin’s body flood with joy and desire. Memine vaulted a boulder in a breathtaking display of grace, the type of acrobatics Tanin could only dream of. She seemed to float momentarily above the gray stone, riding currents of faint desert wind scented with the salty aroma of creosote.

When she landed, Tanin pointed ahead to a pyramid of solid rock several body-lengths high. “Race!”

Memine laughingly accepted the challenge. They sprinted ahead of the others and launched themselves up the formation, their narrow fingers finding miniature crevices as handholds. Memine’s superior athleticism put her on top of the rock moments before Tanin. Upon reaching the summit, Memine flung herself to the ground, her knees bending expertly to absorb the landing.

Tanin, breathing hard, reached the summit and shouted, “You’re amazing!”

Memine flashed her brown eyes and waved for him to join her. Memine’s long, thick eyelashes, designed perfectly against the annual dust storms that plagued their desert home, blazed blue-black beneath the sun. Tanin paused at the top of the rock, staring openly at her tall ears, evolved like all Fell to release heat from the body. He loved her ears; he loved everything about Memine, from her sun-tanned skin to her stubborn insistence to win all dares and races, but the proud height of her ears always delighted him.

Tanin joined her—climbing down, not jumping. “Do you still choose me?”

“Now and for every season to come.” Memine winked, eyelashes fluttering. “Even if you can’t climb!”

They laughed together and walked side-by-side to catch their breaths. The rest of the party walked now, too, chattering and giggling amongst themselves.

“I worry that I’m bringing nothing to our marriage,” Tanin said, mostly teasing, but the humor had some truth to it. “I pick fruit, I make pod flour . . . I’m not very exciting.”

Memine took his hand. In the winter, when she turned nineteen, she would accept him as her husband. Fell females chose their companion for life, leaving the males to only hope for a mutual match. Disappointment, thankfully, was rare.

Winter seemed a very long way away.

“You make the best flour,” Memine said. “You pick the best fruits. You’ll feed us well. What more could I ask for?”

“A Guardian?”

She waved it off. “Boring! Anyone can fight a sandcat. I want to eat!”

They squeezed one another’s hands. If she’d wanted a Guardian, Memine would have chosen someone like their friend Chenoa, leader of today’s party, who was already in training to become the Fell’s closest approximation of a warrior.

“Do you really want to know why I chose you?” Memine asked.

The suddenness of the question surprised him. Memine was not given to bouts of seriousness. She waited until he met her gaze unswervingly, even as they walked.

“It’s because you never said no to me. Every race, every dare, every challenge. You’re the only one who came along each time.”

Tanin considered this and realized she was right. It hadn’t been a ploy on his part; he’d just always wanted to be as close to her as possible.

“When we were six and I wanted to follow the river to its end, you were the only one who came along. We must have made it twenty jaunts before dark.”

“Yes, and my parents were furious we’d wandered so far from town. They didn’t allow me to attend a feast that night!” Fell feasted every few days, so the punishment was not particularly harsh. No punishments were.

“Because you took the blame for the idea,” Memine said. “I’ve known since that day you would be the one I chose. I knew wherever I went, I could count on you to be there.”

She’d never said that before.

“Never forget that,” Memine said softly.

Tanin’s heart pumped gleefully in his chest. “I won’t.”

Chenoa had reached the head of the party. He waved a muscular arm to the group. “The river is near! Who can outrace me?”

He stood a head taller and two hands broader than Tanin or the others, which by Fell tradition put him in a position of authority during this outing. All Fell were slim and strong, but Tanin’s strength was more flexible compared to Chenoa’s bulk. With no natural enemies other than the sandcats who prowled the desert in search of fresh meat, life as a Fell was an easy life. Apart from the roaming sandcats and occasional droughts that withered their gathered and cultivated crops, the Fell town of Desita sat undisturbed, giving them a taste for the hedonistic—good food, free time, and cherished relationships. The party carried no weapons even now, for no sandcats would attack so large a group.

At Chenoa’s urging, the other young Fell cheered and raced after their leader, kicking up dust the color of their skin and startling small desert mammals into their burrows. Carrion birds flew overhead, attracted by the noise, then soared away again, cawing their disappointment that it was only a party of very healthy Fell instead of some dying creature they could feast upon.

Tanin and Memine ran. He pushed himself hard, challenging Memine. Over open terrain, they were evenly matched, and had been since childhood. Her smile reflected as brightly as it had back then, and Tanin luxuriated in it.

Chenoa came to a stop at the top of a rise, winning the impromptu race by a length. The rest of the party caught up to him and stood panting happily. Several walked to tall, narrow-leaved bushes and held fronds in their hands, absorbing what little moisture the plants had managed to hold onto in the sharp desert air.

Chenoa pointed to the bottom of the ravine. Five lengths beyond, the river ran smooth and clear over dazzling pink stones washed from distant mountains. Along its banks, dense trees beckoned with ripe red citrus.

“The crop is in,” Chenoa said. “It’s beautiful!”

The Ashawe River, long a place of recreation and foraging, lay four jaunts from town. Many of the Fell’s favorite fruits could be found only here. This citrus, with colors the multiple crimson shades of a sunset, grew in two phases: older ripe fruit on the outside of the plant, and younger, more tender fruit hidden deep in the branches, closer to the trunk. The younger fruit was a Fell delicacy, and required a certain amount of careful mining to get deep enough into the tree to obtain the prize hidden within. Tanin was renowned for his ability to harvest the young fruit without getting stuck by the tree’s prickers.

Tanin raised a hand, fingers pressed together, to measure the sun’s height from the horizon. “We have plenty of time, Chenoa. A race to the water’s edge?”

His friends cheered and flung themselves down the embankment before Chenoa could agree. Chenoa chased after them, decrying Tanin for “cheating,” and laughing all the while.

Memine turned to join the crowd, but Tanin grabbed her hand. As the others rolled and tumbled into the river, Tanin pulled Memine close.

“I wanted to distract them.” Tanin rubbed the ends of Memine’s black hair, then let his fingers drop to her naked shoulder where he traced circles on her skin. Like the rest of the party, Memine wore a tight, flexible fibrous garment that ended in knee-length leggings. A woven belt encircled her waist, and an empty satchel hung across her body. Tanin longed for winter to come, when after their marriage ceremony he would at last be allowed to see her body without the clothing.

“Ah, clever boy.” She pulled him closer by his own wide belt.

Tanin went happily, tilting his head to one side as their lips met. They kissed ferociously. Tanin gave himself into the moment, savoring each bite of Memine’s lips.

“I can’t wait to be with you.” He leaned into her and inhaled the sweet fragrance of cactus flower extract in her hair.

Memine clutched his forearms. “Soon, my Tanin-rain.”

He felt a silly grin cross his face at the pet name; rain was the most precious of all desert gifts.

Something like a real rain fell upon them then. They screeched and giggled as their friends discovered why the two of them hadn’t leaped into the river, penalizing them with broad splashes of warm river water.

“Enough of that,” Chenoa shouted through a smile. “Get in here!”

Tanin and Memine sprinted down the slope together, hand in hand, and threw themselves into the water. Here, the river was waist-deep but slow-moving. The party splashed and played for an hour before Chenoa decreed they ought to perform their chores. The town would be expecting many satchels full of fruit before the sun set.

Chenoa assigned each Fell a tree to harvest. Most sprang to work right away, while some took their time, trading old riddles. Tanin floated lazily downstream on his back. He let his eyes close, his pores soaking up the clear water until his body was drunk with it. He could go weeks without so much as a sip now.

“Tanin!” Chenoa called.

“What?” Tanin shouted back at his old friend without opening his eyes.

Water splashed his face. Tanin blinked it away. Groaning, he put his feet beneath him and stood. Headed his way, Chenoa was trying hard to look severe, playing his responsibility as the largest of their party to the utmost.

“You’re supposed to be gathering fruit with the others.” Chenoa strode through the water and splashed Tanin again.

Tanin shook his hair out behind him and tucked its length behind ears stretching a full hand-span above his head. “I’m on my way.”

Chenoa nodded upstream, where the others were drying themselves in the sun or finishing picking fruit for their woven satchels. Tanin was surprised at how far he’d drifted away from them; from here, the other Fell were no taller than the nail of his outstretched thumb.

“So Memine accepted you,” Chenoa said, folding his arms like a proud brother.

Tanin’s face broke into a silly smile. “Yes. Yesterday. Winter feels like a lifetime from now.”

“You looked married up on the rise.”

Tanin shoved him. Chenoa laughed.

“I’m just jealous. Memine is strong and courageous and beautiful.”

“So is Hewa.” Tanin nodded toward Chenoa’s likely wife. If Memine sometimes played coy, then Hewa was an outright tease, and Chenoa knew it. Tanin thought he actually enjoyed the suspense; savored it. She and Memine were stretched out together on top of a boulder, sunning, and just so happened to look up at the same time. When their eyes lit upon to the two boys, they traded unheard words and laughed. Their exchange was secretive indeed for the sharp ears of the male Fell to miss it.

“Think they’re talking about us?” Chenoa asked as if he didn’t know.

“I hope so!”

Chenoa chuckled. “Come on. Time to work. You said you’d take this grove here?”

They climbed the sloping bank to a stand of citrus trees. At the top of the rise, Tanin squinted toward the horizon. “What’s that?”

In the south, dozens of columns of black smoke had appeared, reminding Tanin of the upturned legs of a dead spider.

“I don’t know,” Chenoa said. “Maybe there’s a surprise feast tonight and they are cooking meat!”

Tanin tried to smile at the joke. The Fell had rare access to meat; they were largely vegetarian, resorting to cultivation and gathering. He didn’t find the humor in Chenoa’s good cheer. Far too thick and black for cooking fires, Tanin felt the smoke columns were . . . sinister.

Something sharp unwound in his stomach, like when he heard the distant roar of a sandcat at night. “Maybe we should return, Chenoa.”

“Don’t worry about it. Sandcats can’t light fires.”

Tanin glanced upriver. Memine and Hewa were climbing off their rock and approaching two trees. The others in that area had already been picked clean. Quite suddenly he wanted to join Memine, help her pick the fruit and get back to town.

He cast another doubtful glance to the south. “That smoke makes me nervous.”

“We’ll return early. But let’s not go empty-handed. Fill your satchel as we’ve promised, and then we’ll go. I’ll tell the others.”

Chenoa followed the river upstream to the party. He was greeted flirtatiously by Hewa while Memine waved to Tanin.

He waved back, and approached a tree. Chenoa must be right to dismiss the smoke; no one else seemed bothered by it. Besides, if something was truly wrong, the town wouldn’t be helped by the addition of a handful of teenagers who were yet four full jaunts away. There were plenty of experienced Guardians in town, men and women accustomed to fighting giant cats. If necessary, they would protect the town from—

Exactly, Tanin thought. From what?

He picked ripe citrus and stuffed them into his satchel. These were an exceptional crop; firm fruits with thick rinds that would make excellent juices. He considered peeling one right here and now, a delectable dessert to follow his kisses from Memine, but decided such an act would be unfair. He’d get his share when they returned to Desita.

He looked southward again. The smoke had dispersed somewhat, blending together to form one low-hanging cloud. Perhaps that meant whatever happened was now taken care of.

Having taken the ripest fruit from the outer branches, Tanin wove his way into the tree, gently pushing aside smaller branches and snaking over larger ones to pluck the immature but tender fruit inside. By the time he reached the trunk, he was all but trapped in the thick foliage. The shade from the endless desert sun soothed his nerves. He snuck a small fruit into his mouth, and licked juice from his fingers.

Tanin twisted to his left, stretching for a fruit just out of reach. In doing so, something caught his eye. He frowned, squinting through the branches.

Movement. Something like a dust storm, but lower to the ground. A rolling flood of brown desert dirt.

Tanin craned his neck as if the extra length would clarify what he was seeing.

No. Not a dust storm. Creatures.

# # #

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