The cliffs hazed into sight as the ache in my chest, arms, and legs redoubled. It took a force of will to pass the snakes to someone and walk to the nearby hides without visibly shaking. I picked a spot on the ground and sat down harder than I intended to. Leaning my back against a rock, I closed my eyes and congratulated myself on being wise enough to not check an extra village.

I cracked an eyelid open, finding it odd that neither Grant nor any of the other porters were nearby. Sure, I was later than usual, but Grant rarely moved away from the main crystal until everyone had made it back safely. Perhaps it was for the best. It would give me a few minutes to regain my strength before he made an appearance.

I stretched my legs out, trying my best to look lazy, as if I was just humoring my adoptive father's instructions to rest and wasn't trying to ease the ache left by notable porting strain.

The ache had halfway faded by the time footsteps approached.

"You were gone longer than I expected," Grant said.

I opened my eyes as he took a seat on a nearby rock.

"I pushed myself a bit farther than I should have," I admitted. "And, no, I didn't pass out, so you can save your lecture for someone else."

He chuckled faintly, less concerned than I expected. I pulled the shard out of my shirt and passed it to him.

"I only found one, although it wasn't for my lack of trying. One crystal had a crack, so it'll probably shed it sometime in a month or so. What did you learn?"

The faint amusement on his face disappeared. "Mason was from Veredyl Village. He's actually the son of one of the porters. They've been reunited." He gave me a pointed look. "The boy is still too traumatized to say much, but he says the lizards found him hiding in his room."

"Does he remember how he got to the forest?" I asked, pulling myself into a sitting position.

"Sounds like the Saursunes wrapped him in a blanket and took him to a small forest circled by brown cliffs too smooth to climb. No crystal, and no obvious way out. The Saursunes came back in the morning, wrapped him in a blanket again, and left him by the crystal you found him at." Grant shrugged. "His father might get more out of him later."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Have the Saursunes ever done anything like this before?"

"Not that anyone remembers, but Mason wasn't the only one the Saursunes relocated."

I gaped at him, completely and utterly shocked. "There were others?"

"Two. One was a teenager they left near one of the savannah crystals. Most of our information came from her. She was found by a returning hunter group. She also said the Saursunes caught her in a net and put her in the small forest with Mason until today. The scanner located a tracker on her anklet."

"And the third one?"

"A man who blacked out when he fell and hit his head. He woke up near a field yesterday and was found by the group raiding the grain."

This one was too easy to guess. "He had a tracker?"

"Two, according to the scanner, and one pointed to his stomach. There's no marks or cuts, so it's not under his skin. All we can guess is that they stuck it in his mouth and he swallowed it before he woke up. He's currently in an abandoned village and hoping to pass the tracker in a couple of days."

Goosebumps crawled up my arms despite the desert heat. "That's...a rather chilling story."

"It gets weirder."

I gave him a strange look. "Is that even possible at this point?"

"The man wasn't a porter, but Mason and the teenager were the only porter children who hadn't been able to reach the crystal in time."

Okay, things officially just got weirder.

Scratching my head, I asked, "How many children were in that village?"

"At least twenty under the age of sixteen," he replied glumly. "And those were the only two porter children left behind. A porter risked a trip back, and none of the other children survived the attack."

I winced. Something else occurred to me, and I furrowed my eyebrows. "How could the Saursunes possibly know which children belonged to porters? Even we have no idea until they can feel the shimmering from the crystal."

"No idea," Grant said unhappily. "And if they could tell, why release them where they could be found? Why release them at all when they've killed thousands of humans over the last century alone?"

"So...they took the porter children to distant locations. And left the non-porter—who happened to be part of the previous raid—by a field where a different group was raiding the crops?"

"Exactly. Oh, and two porters and several hunters and foragers from other villages were caught by the Saursunes today while out foraging." He leaned closer; his gaze intense, not grieving. "But they were just pinned to the ground until the entire group gave up and stopped fighting. At that point, the Saursunes either lost interest or decided they'd been given enough of a scare. None of them had trackers."

I blinked slowly, stunned. "They just let them go?"

My earlier close calls had been rare enough, but to be pinned down, then released? Without trackers? This was almost beyond believable. The only other occasion I could think of where someone wasn't killed or chased off was when the trapped Saursune had let go of my ankle.

When Grant nodded, I shook my head in disbelief, muttering, "The Saursunes are sure acting strange lately..."

"All of the scanning locations are on high alert. A couple of trackers were taken to our Guard Station yet, but they might not have been there long enough for the Saursunes to get a lock on them. Be ready to bounce when you arrive. When the man was taken to the scanning station, airships arrived within the hour. Definitely gave a few returning porters a scare when they arrived, but they bounced before the Saursunes could react to their presence."

Porting may only take seconds and not give an attacker much time to strike, but I knew how fast Saursunes were. I'd seen them attack hunters in the past. They were as swift as a striking snake when they wanted to be. After how the Saursunes had simply watched me port away the last few days, I had my doubts on the porters escaping too quickly for the Saursunes to react.

I was fairly certain the Saursunes had simply let them go. But why?

Grant sighed, similar thoughts likely rolling through his head. "Are you recovered enough to join us at the porter's circle? No wobbling on the way there, or those old aunties might have my hide."

I stood up and stretched. My legs felt like lead and didn't want to move, but the shakiness had faded. My stomach rumbled to remind me how many hours it had been since I last ate. "Let's go. I'm starving. There aren't any plants in those old villages."

We stopped just long enough for me to collect my portion, then continued to the porter's circle to toss the day's discoveries around. Several of the others had stories as well. Some had seen a Saursune and ported before it got close. One group had been chased back to the crystal.

"It could have caught the hunters," Ariel said, wringing her hands. "They dropped their weapons and ran, and it just kind of herded them back." She shivered. "It stared at me the whole time."

"Did it charge when the hunters got closer?" someone else asked. "I could see them using that tactic to try and make a porter linger long enough for them to get close."

"No. When it was about two hundred paces away, it just sat and watched."

"The dark brown one by Orange Flower also sat and watched," I murmured.

"This one was green. Besides, we were in the mountains."

Definitely not the same Saursune then. After comparing a few more notes, which yielded no answers and only more confusion, we shifted our discussion to the poor foraging. Many of the edible plants close to the crystals had already been harvested, forcing gatherers to go farther afield.

A couple of porters had arrived to find groups already present and had been forced to go to less favorable locations. Most had seen groups show up at their spot later.

"I've never seen so much traffic before," Merryl murmured. "One of the porters that showed up had already ported five times and had reached his limit. They were forced to return to their village with nothing."

Grant flipped to the back of a book. "Over two-thirds of the crystals we know about are within an hour's walk of a farm. At least a dozen more are near towns or were deemed no-go spots like where that patch of quicksand appeared beside a crystal."

"Some of these people are ones I've never seen before," Merryl said. "And a porter from Hinton was showing a stranger the crystal's location."

Grant made a face. "That would explain why so many villages know about the crystals we usually use."

"I'm very glad we stopped trading crystal locations with them ten years ago," Andre muttered. "That place never could keep a secret if they could barter it away for a bag of grain."

"I propose we keep the Orange Flower location to ourselves," I quietly requested.

Everyone nodded firmly.

"It's the best spot we've found in decades," Grant said. "I plan to space out how often we hunt and gather there since I suspect we're going to need the food more desperately in the months to come. That place might be the difference between us pulling through and the...alternatives."

A haunted look appeared in his eyes. He knew the horrors of a cull firsthand, having watched as food ran perilously low and the eldest individuals had been forced from the village. It had been a huge blow to the remaining villagers, but it had kept most of the children from starving to death.

My gaze wandered to the racks of dry meat. Only a couple of the rungs had anything on them.

One super good day of hunting and gathering had helped supplement our findings over three days. I wracked my brain, but there weren't any crystals old enough to port to that I hadn't visited yet. It would be at least six months before I could try the next one.

Our meal was a distant memory by the time two young men diffidently approached the circle with water buckets in hand. I couldn't see the other crystal from here, but I had no doubt the water cart was beside it. The seeds in the new garden were already sprouting, and they definitely needed water. Grant raised an eyebrow at me as I got to my feet.

"I'll be fine," I told him. "I'll just sleep very, very well tonight."

He merely nodded even though he knew I'd be sprawled out on the hides for half an hour while waiting for the porting strain to fade. But only two others could port something as heavy as the full water cart, and they'd also ported to their limits today. Dancing with exhaustion when we faced starvation was acceptable. Passing out was not.

A man and a woman sat near the cart with bows, looking hopeful.

I shook my head. "Sorry, not today. I'll be at my limits bringing this back."

They looked disappointed but nodded. The two men with buckets—both of whom were hunters with excellent speed and endurance—held onto the cart, already alert and looking around. I knelt down and held onto the handle while reaching for a lower spire about the same height as the young crystal.

"Orange Flower."

The air hazed around us, becoming more humid. An ache reappeared in my chest; nowhere near as noticeable as my previous port, but a warning of what the return trip held in store for me.

We must be later than usual, since the shadows were beginning to stretch and dim the surrounding area. After a quick scan of the area, the two men jogged to the creek.

I stood beside the cart while keeping watch. My eyes flickered across each bush and tree trunk. There was so little wind that only the upper leaves shifted silently. I kept turning, making sure nothing could sneak up behind us.

Saursunes weren't my only worry; evening was also when other predators came out to hunt. Bears weren't very good at sneaking, but pumas and some wolves made up for it.

Both men were breathing hard and sweating by the time the water cart was full. They set the buckets on top of the jars and held onto the sides.

Just as I was about to kneel down, a bush rustled about four hundred paces away, and a Saursune walked out. Its dark brown coloration blended into the foliage far too well. An armband, also brown, adorned its upper arm. This one didn't wear a belt or armor. Uncannily like the one I'd seen by the child.

The two men tensed, staring as it lazily sat down and continued watching us. My mind raced. How long had it been there? There was no way it had stuck a tracker on us, right? No, it definitely hadn't gotten close enough.

I dropped to a knee to grab onto the crystal. The ache in my chest skyrocketed and rolled through my limbs as I dragged us to safety. The cliffs appeared around us without incident. I remained on my knees, trying to catch my breath after that last port.

I wasn't close to passing out, but between the porting strain and the adrenaline humming through my veins, I wasn't entirely certain I could stand at this moment.

"You okay?" one of the men asked, letting go of the cart and coming over to check on me.

With a sigh, I put some humor into my voice and tried to downplay it. "That was more nerve-wracking than poking the dirt at Snake Swamp. It's just too much suspense for this poor porter."

He chuckled, buying my act, or at the very least, pretending to. "Let me help you over to the hides, and I'll let Grant know about our visitor."

"I'm sure he'll be delighted." I rolled my eyes as I took his outstretched hand.

He laughed at that rally and pulled me to my feet, pretending not to notice how much my legs shook and how heavily I leaned on his arm as he helped me to the nearest resting hide. I rested my back against a sun-warmed rock and let my mind return to the dark brown Saursune.

Why did it show itself? It didn't seem aggressive, despite us returning to that location so soon. If it wasn't trying to attack us or scare us away, why had it revealed itself so purposefully? Was it the same one as last time?

I chewed on a ragged thumbnail. All my life, I'd run from the Saursunes. I'd seen several friends killed and had lost dozens more to their claws, teeth, and weapons. It was the way of life that all humans were trapped in. Drop your weapons and run. They might let you escape.

The last few days had certainly seen hundreds of humans killed, but dozens of others had been allowed to live, more than in the last five years combined. And pinning people in the dirt just to let them go? Without trackers? Where had that come from?

I closed my eyes. Why couldn't these aliens be more predictable? And what was this one up to?