It was all moving too fast. If I could just grab on to something, anything, maybe I’d be able to make sense of it all. Stop the river just long enough to snatch a single thought or word or sound.

There! There was a sound!

The sound of scrabbling through rock and dust.

I cracked my eye open, and for the first time since I did not know when, could see. Truly see. Forms and shapes and shadows and light. Light concentrated in the shape of a not-dark thing that ran from me. Feet flying. Arms pumping. Hair long and flowing like silver that comes from the sky at night.

I could not ever remember uttering a word out loud before now. Perhaps I never had.

But I did so then.

“Little star.”

It was a desperate rasp. A plea. An echo from the river. I could not tell if I recognized the voice or not. But I felt it come from my throat, so what else could that mean but that it was mine?

I panted and grunted on my knees, still clutching both sides of my head, and watched the bright creature as it ran. Everything hurt. Bone and blood vessel and sinew. Every part ached like my entire body had been stretched too thin for too long. Like each cell had been swollen, bursting, raging, brutal, berserk.

A word from the river, shooting out like an arrow took hold of me.

Berserker.

The further the creature got from me in this valley, the more my head hurt. And the blacker the edges of my vision became. The river receded, taking everything with it, until the crash of water was replaced by fever and fury and darkness so viscous, so vicious, that I nearly forgot how to breathe.

I did not know what that little star was.

But I needed it. It had taught me something, brought me back to something, and I could not bear to lose it or be lost again. It had brought me back to language and thought and myself, whoever in the cursed skies that was.

I tried to call it back. Little star. Little star. But the words never made it to my mouth. Something between my brain and my teeth had stoppered it all up. Already, things were disappearing. I was disappearing. And maybe I never even knew the words I’d wanted to say at all. I tried to remember, tried to slice through shadows until I reached the pure chaos of the river’s churn. Little... Little...

Little not-dark. Do not run from me.

Limbs stretched and swelled. Scales rippled. Claws lengthened.

Power surged. Power that felt like anger, like hunger, like poison, like pain.

Drag body through the valley.

Darkness everywhere.

CHAPTER FOUR

Suvi

Iran blindly, not letting myself stop or look back. If I looked back, I’d see it. That formidable, terrible creature that had shattered the sky. The creature who could have been hunting me even now.

I hoped to hell I had enough of a head start. Something seemed to have hurt it, or at least shocked it. It had been practically on top of me, looming over me on all fours and snapping its feral jaws. When my hand had smacked against its chest in my attempt to get away, it had rocked back on its knees, grasping its head, whole body straining.

Rocks and dust sprayed from my boots as I sprinted. Fear made me fast, but it also made me clumsy, and soon my running was more like panicked stumbling.

I can’t keep this up for long.

I choked back a terrified sob at the thought of what might happen when I stopped.

And the worst part of it all was that, while I couldn’t afford to stop running, I was running the wrong fucking way. I was fleeing from the hulking alien monster, but I was also getting further and further from the ship. A snap of my head upward told me the ship hadn’t lifted off yet. If I could only get to it...

Get to it, and lead the monster right to my friends?

I yanked my chin back down a split second too late, colliding with an outcropping of stone so hard it made my teeth rattle and knocked me flat onto my ass. I bit back a yelp as pain lanced up my tailbone. The pressure let up almost instantly, but there was no relief in that. Because I was being lifted.

It has me.

It has me, and I am going to die.

There was no fighting a strength like that. The power at my back was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Like a living, breathing, pulsing wall of iron. Even so, I tried—I fucking tried—kicking and wriggling and screaming and spitting. One massive hand clamped onto my abdomen, the other sliding up until the scaly palm settled into place at the front of my throat. Its hand was so huge that its fingers reached easily around my neck, meeting its thumb at the base of my skull.

It was an odd thought to have, in the final moment before my death. The thought of how nearly human its hand was, despite the monstrous size.

I scrunched my eyes shut, waiting for pressure. Waiting for the end.

At least I’d get to see her again sooner than I’d thought.

Elvi. Are you waiting for me, big sister?

But the end never came. Instead, the creature sank to its knees once more, dragging me along with it. It held my back against its chest with one hand while the other released my throat. It didn’t stop touching me, though. That hand dragged upward to my jaw, passing over my face before sinking huge fingers into my hair. Tingles exploded along my scalp, and I shivered violently.

What the fuck is happening right now?

It wasn’t hurting me, or trying to eat me.

It was...

Petting me?

It was making a sound, and I realized with a start that it was speaking. I had no idea what it was saying, but the sound repeated over and over in a pattern that could only be words, at least to my human ears.

“Aerra bai. Aerra bai.”

“Let me go!”

It was probably stupid trying to speak to it in English. Even if it could speak, that didn’t mean it would understand. But even so, I did it again, and again, and then said the same thing in Finnish. Let me go. Let me go. Let me go. Maybe if I said it enough, forcing the words out of my terror-constricted throat, it really would let go.

It did not let go. But it did stop saying aerra bai, quieting, as if listening. It grew more still, too. I didn’t realize how much that thing had been shaking until it stopped.

I still shook. My whole body trembled in its grip. The muscles along my back tensed and tightened against the solid strength of its massive chest and abdomen. I spasmed violently when the monster’s snout moved down and brushed my cheek. Its breath grazed my neck, a heated fan that made goosebumps rise and pucker. The sweat from my sprint grew cold, and my clammy body shivered even harder.

My entire spine turned to ice when I heard the ship lift off.

“Let me go!” I screamed, my urge to fight renewed. I could not be left here. Not alone, not like this.

Whether it was a response to my sudden spasming, or a response to the new sound of the ship in the air, I couldn’t be sure. Either way, the monster tensed, standing and hauling me right up along with it. It was so huge that, simply by holding me one-armed against its chest, my feet dangled and kicked a metre off the ground. I gripped its forearm, both marvelling and cringing at the metal-hard strength beneath those scales. Golden light glowed beneath and between the scales, spilling over my skin as I scratched and squeezed. That light was beautiful. And it was warm. Warm on my fingers when the night-drenched air was turning cold all around me.

The only warning I had for what came next was a leathery snapping sound behind me. But I didn’t know until we were in the air that it was the sound of wings unfurling.