* * *

The second time Amber opened her eyes, it was calmer, both inside the tent, where the wind still steadily shook the walls, and in her mind, where the storm had mostly ended. She rolled and kicked her way onto her side, then lay weakly panting, wondering where in the hell she was.

She could see. The air in the tent was an unhealthy, mottled yellow—the color of daylight filtered first by clouds and then by skins—but she could see, and by an exhausting process of elimination, she eventually realized that the only reason she could possibly see Meoraq’s leather tent on every side of her was if she was in it. Why was she in the lizard’s tent again? Why did everything hurt? And why was she so dry?

The dryness was worse than the hurt, actually. Her tongue felt swollen and sandpapery and stung when she tried to lick moisture out of her mouth. Her lips were unfeeling things, cracked and scaled—Meoraq’s mouth. Even her eyes felt dry. All of that, and yet she was soaked in wetness. The leather mat she lay on squished at her every feeble movement; she could feel beads of moisture tickling over her belly, her breasts, the hollow of her throat, her thighs. Her hair was plastered against her cheeks and neck, ugly to feel and probably pretty damn rank. Rain? Sweat? Did it matter?

Amber found a gripping place on the itchy blanket lying like lead over her body and fought it off. It was not a fight of just one battle. This was ridiculous. She had not been that damn sick. No one could be that damn sick!

She sat up. Her head swam and then hit something. The mat. She’d fallen over? Yes, she had. She sat up again.

Light. She warded it off with one raised hand, then promptly hit her head on the ground again because she apparently needed both hands to hold herself up. Two sudden dives to the mat in as many minutes was too much for her; she dragged her fists up under her chin and lay shivering, wishing the light would go away.

It did, but suddenly Meoraq’s huge black body was coming at her, and even though she knew it was him, knew it, panic still rolled its own thunder over her and she wheezed out a little scream. That was stupid. She frowned, gasping in the aftershocks of that pointless terror, as Meoraq’s scaly hands dipped impersonally beneath her armpits and hauled her up.

She couldn’t remember ever being carried before. Ever. Not even as a little girl. It was an odd feeling. Her legs dragged bonelessly across the mat until he got an arm under her and she flopped against the plates of his chest and then she was up. Carried.

“Too heavy,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “Don’t.”

He grunted in the space above her head and shouldered the tent-flap open. Out they went into the unbelievably cold air, air so fresh and clear it seemed to cut her brain when she breathed it in. The light was blinding. She slapped some of it off and then just rested with her hands over her face, rocking limply back and forth as Meoraq walked, wishing he’d put her down. She didn’t want anyone to see her being carried like this. She especially didn’t want anyone to see it when Meoraq dropped her fat ass on the ground.

But no one was saying anything. It was pretty windy, but she still ought to be able to hear them murmuring and snickering at each other. If nothing else, Crandall should be making a few comments. Especially since…oh for Christ’s sake, she was completely naked.

“Put me back!” Amber wailed, pressing her hands even harder against her face because now it made perfect sense that no one was talking and if she had to see them struck speechless by the sight of her naked body, she was going to die right on the spot. “Damn it, lizardman, put me down!”

He did. She felt herself swoop downwards, bump up against his bent knee, and then finish out the slow fall in a heap over the hard, frozen ground. She curled miserably around herself, knowing she couldn’t cover everything, and finally made herself face the horror head-on.

Only no one was there.

She kept stupidly staring, right on over nothing, nothing, and more nothing all the way to the horizon. She could see the blackened rings where the campfires had been. She could certainly see the wide path where all their tromping feet had flattened the prairie grass. But the places where the bivies and tents should be poking up out of the ground were empty.

Meoraq’s leather teepee was the only one left.

Anywhere.

Something nudged her arm. She blinked around at the mouth of a small, shiny flask, then followed it up Meoraq’s arm to his face.

“What happened?” she croaked. “Where is everyone?”

He took her wrist, put the flask in her hand, and made her take it to her mouth. She needed his help to hold it while she drank. The warm water cut her mouth all to hell. She choked and he let her choke, but after she was done, he made her drink again. She had maybe half a dozen swallows before her stomach cramped, and then had just enough instinct to shove the flask back and bend forward before puking it up.

It came out as smooth and tasteless as it had gone in. That made her want to throw up again, but a froggy belch was all she could manage. She groaned and started to cup protectively at her stomach, but Meoraq took her wrist and put the flask back in her hand.

“I can’t,” she said, trying to push it away.

His spines flattened.

So she drank and even though he made her take twice as much, it stayed miraculously down. Her mouth, wet, throbbed with hurt, but she could feel the rest of her sucking the moisture in, and at the end of his third silent urging, the flask was dry.

He took it back with a grunt of satisfaction, then got up and left her there. She looked after him as he went back inside his tent, and kept right on looking because it was still the only one around.

Meoraq came back with his blanket and draped it around her shoulders, tying the corners together so the wind couldn’t blow it off. It was warm, but so heavy. So ridiculously heavy.

“I’m not supposed to get sick,” she told him. “I got the Vaccine. We all got it. I can’t get sick anymore, they said so. They promised. What happened to me?”

“What do you remember?”

“Everything!”

“Tell me.” He hesitated, then gestured toward her stomach. “Had you…been having pains? Were you hurting…all that time?”

“Huh? No, I was fine. We were talking. We…” She thought about it, reaching up to rub at her thick head as if she could comb out a clearer memory with her fingers. It seemed to help, actually. “You told that horrible story about your father.”

He drew back a little. “Horrible?”

“And then…and then I was banking the fires and packing the food. I don’t…I don’t remember going to bed. I don’t…” Something tugged at her, just a flutter of sound, an impression more than a real thought: Snakebite. “I think something bit me.”

He seemed to relax, just a little. “There was a mark,” he said, and looked away.

He watched the clouds roll by. She watched the empty camp. There was no time.

“Where’s my stuff?” she asked.

“In my tent. Do not trouble yourself for any of it now.”

Amber nodded and pulled the blanket closer around her body. “Where are my clothes?”

“Washed and in your pack. For now, you do not require them.”

Which was a nice way of saying he wanted to wait until he was sure she wouldn’t piss in them. As was only sensible.

She nodded again, rubbed at her mouth, sat there.

A few seconds passed.

“Where is my sister?”

Meoraq did not answer. He didn’t even look at her, just turned his eyes up in his restless way and watched the clouds churn by.

“How long have they been gone?”

“Five days.”

“Five days?” She brought her hand up, but didn’t touch her eyes. After a while, she just dropped it again. “Where…I mean, did they go someplace…to wait for us?”