The woman sniffs and wipes at her face. “I…I guess. It’s just so cold.”

“The men will be back soon and you’ll get a khui, and then you’ll feel much better. I promise.” Flor looks up and brightens at the sight of me. “Just like Vivian here! Look at her all blue-eyed and sassy now. Doesn’t she look warmer?”

I curl my toes against the chilly grasses again and manage a weak smile. Okay, now is probably not a good time to ask for shoes. Or another blanket. I give a shaky thumbs-up and Flor shoots me a look of encouragement.

She hops to her feet and races over to me, that same careful smile on her face. “You feeling okay? Everything in working order? Nothing vibrating?”

“V-vibrating?”

Flor pats my shoulder absently, looking down at the woman making a muck of starting a fire. “Just me making a resonance joke. Pay me no mind. Let’s get your name written on your shirt and then we’ll see about getting some hot tea started, okay?”

I glance around at the others near the fire and no one has warmer clothes. We’re all barefoot and wearing scraps under our blankets. I guess it’d be pointless for me to ask for more. I nod, because what else can I do?

She races away and comes back a moment later with a chunk of coal. Beaming at me, Flor gestures at my front. “There’s a lot of new people and no one’s good with names right now, so I’m labeling all of you guys so it’s one less thing to worry about. You okay with that?”

Swallowing hard, I watch as she points at the woman near the fire. DAWN is written across her front in big blocky charcoal letters. The women sharing the blanket have something written on their chests too, but I can’t make out more than a few lines because they’re huddling together.

I…I don’t want to be labeled. I know what it’ll say. I’ll have VIVIAN written across my chest because that’s the name Flor assigned to me. And it feels weird, because Vivian sounds glamorous and makes me think of Pretty Woman or Hollywood starlets of old and I could not be less like those women. I want to tell Flor that maybe I could just be Viv or Vivi, but all I manage is another nod, my throat tight.

“Great! Thanks, Vivian. Hold your tunic for me so I can write on it.”

A few moments later, I’m branded VIVIAN with the N half hiding under one arm and I feel like a fraud. Hunching under my blanket again, I take a seat by the fire and watch Dawn awkwardly smack the strikers together.

“How’s that coming?” Flor asks, leaning over her.

“Oh great,” Dawn says sarcastically. “Doesn’t it look like I know what I’m doing?”

“You—no! You can’t kill it before you bring it to camp, Valmir! It does no one any good that way! We have to have the animal alive to take the khui! All you brought was lunch if you killed it out in the field.” She races away, her expression a mixture of annoyance and patience. “We talked about this.”

“At least I brought something back,” the cat-like alien growls. “This one is useless! What has he brought for the prizes?”

“Hey?” the human guy—Jason—says. “What the fuck, buddy? I’m trying just like everyone else.”

“You are not trying hard,” the alien snarls at him, his voice thick with a strange accent. “Go sit with the females if you cannot hunt—”

“You need to bring it down a notch, Valmir,” Flor tells him, stepping between the two men. “Let’s not start a fight, okay?”

“I want to fight,” the scaly green one says in an eager voice. “Who is setting up the battles?”

“No battles!” yells I’rec, and things turn into chaos.

With a sigh, I huddle under my blanket and watch as Dawn gives the strikers another go. Instinctively, I know she’s holding them wrong. If she wants to start a fire from scratch, she needs to protect the spark and not just let the wind snuff it out. After watching her bang miserably on the strikers for a bit longer, I clear my throat. “Um…hey?”

Dawn turns and gives me a weary look. “I know I’m shit at it, okay? If you’ve got ideas, I’m all ears.”

I hold my hands out.

She hands me the implements with an expression of relief, and I can tell she’s just glad that it’s someone else’s problem now. I lean in closer to the fire pit, setting the fuel chips—that look a lot like cow patties, if I’m being honest—into a loose pyramid and adding a nest of dried grasses near the base so my spark has somewhere to go. I try shaving the rock in my hand like magnesium, and I’m not surprised to see little curls of it appearing on the nest. This must be the alien version of magnesium.

“What are you doing?” Dawn asks.

“Making it easier for the spark to ignite.” I strike again, and this time the spark lingers in the nest. Leaning forward, I blow gently on it to add oxygen to the ember. It sputters for a brief moment and then grows, catching on the tinder.

Dawn gasps, leaning in close to me. “How did you do that?”

“I-I have a memory of this,” I whisper. Well, not exactly of this. But I feel comfortable with this, and my head is full of half-baked images of cozy nights around campfires and family vacations in the wilderness.

“Thank god.” Dawn squeezes my shoulder. “If we needed fire to survive and it was down to me, we’d be fucking goners. You’re a lifesaver, Vivian.”

I don’t feel like a lifesaver. I’d give all of my fire memories for just one syllable of my name.

Chapter Five

SKARR

This day does not allow me to properly show off my talents. Frustrating.

We do not get to pleasure the women when they wake up. We are told we must wait for permission. Bah.

First, we’re told no one is to fight despite the females getting khuis. I want to go hunt with the others to demonstrate my prowess, but I’rec insists I help him around camp, and he watches me closely. Perhaps I have been pretending a little too hard at being feeble in the cold. I go with him to retrieve supplies from the main encampment, all so I can get a look at things.

It’s not that I don’t trust the male…well, actually I don’t.

He’s not exactly mesakkah, either. His coloring seemed off to me but I dismissed it as my head full of chemicals. But his horns are different and his chin and arms are hairy. He does not have the plating that the mesakkah do, either, and I’m pretty sure I see his color ripple when he is surprised.

So that is something I need to keep an eye on.

The village is as crude as I feared, with stone huts and leather roofs. The encampment is on a hostile-looking beach, the waters crusted with icebergs. Everywhere, it is cold. It is not just here in the mountains, but the shore, too. I have a khui now thanks to I’rec, but my limbs stiffen abominably when I ride atop the drakoni’s back and the wind bites into my scales.

No more dragon rides for me.

When we return, no one seems to pay attention to the fact that we have brought food and clothing. No gratitude is lauded upon us. We are not adored by the females for bringing things. They expect it. Hmph. And now I have wasted all day at I’rec’s side instead of picking out my prospective female. Already I see the praxiian is talking to a female with darker skin, and I narrow my eyes at him, my competitive streak prickling.

I have to pick out the best female before they are all taken, or before this “resonance” strikes. I need to remind it that I am the best, and therefore I need the best female. If I’rec says we can influence it, I need to be around my chosen female constantly, to lurk nearby so my chest can call to her.

Unfortunately I have to be near the fire first, to unthaw my limbs.

The other splice is there, seated near the warmth. His furry face is a mockery of the refined human features, and he is clearly the ugliest creature here. Even the moden looks normal, for a moden. He just looks…well, like a lot of random bits were thrown together and made into a gladiator. I’m always jarred by the sight of the splices. There’s always something vaguely wrong about them. Still, they are good warriors. I move opposite the fire and immediately the last remaining female by the flame gets up and leaves. I grunt with amusement.