High above the skin, I saw the cliffs on either side, and the three big canyons that fed into the Berwem. Toward the center of the lake, off by a good flight, a dark, box-like shape sat low to the ground, looking the size of several houses. The surrounding lake skin looked flat, regular. Had someone built something in the lake? What did they use it for? Maybe it had something to do with sifting, the only thing this lake was good for.

I angled myself for the center, past the black box, and glided down. The fresh air up here only irritated my throat. Another cough ripped itself from me as I descended.

My steep angle brought me to the ground before I reached the center. So I adjusted my course again, flapping my wings and taking a bounding flight over the lake to the center. Several moments and dozens of wing-beats later, I felt the center before I reached it. A subtle hum prickled my frills at the edges, and built as I flew. It grated, and only tended worse as I drew closer. Never enough to annoy, but so, so unpleasant!

My heart lurched, and tangy anticipation bedewed my fangs. If I could feel this hum, then the glasscrabs, who lived on the humming stones, would feel it as well. I didn’t want to deal with another troop of glasscrabs, who would only grow more vicious with their numbers.

The hum waxed as I approached. A hum this large must come from a massive cryst or some big collection of them. No way I could carry either myself.

Beneath me, glassy rocks scurried away from the hum. What? I lowered myself, glancing about. Glasscrabs bolted over the ground, fleeing. I tilted my head.

A long silvery creature lunged from the darkness! It slammed into the slowest crab. The crab lurched. But the creature bit down. There was a crunch. The prey gave high-pitched cry while the slender thing shook the crab in its mouth. Crunches now paired with shattering glass-cracks, and the cry redoubled, waxing to a keening shriek. The crab bled blue and wet. Blood glistened in the flickering light of its eyestalks.

Another silvery white form lunged at another slow crab. I lowered further, examining the crab-killing things. Six legs sprawled out from the slender body. Yet the creature almost slithered around, the legs hurtling it about, not quite lifting the belly from the ground. Eyes bulged out of its head, glowing like the crabs, but so much dimmer. It had the gaze of a newt that hunted.

I flew low enough for my wings to blow dust on the ground. The glasscrabs fled, oblivious to me, and the predators did not turn from their meals. I saw beaked, munching heads; they looked fat and bulbous, like frogs or salamanders. Where eyestalks had stabbed the things, they bled oily black.

Something slammed into my upper leg! It bit into the glass there, scraping it away. It folded around my foreleg, hindlegs gripping me. My balance fell away. I spun in the air.

A single thought flared in my mind:crush it. Flailing wings spun me faster. I controlled it, angling for the attacker to smash into the lake under me.

I had flown close to the ground. We crashed in breaths, strides away from both the fleeing crabs and the other predators. I couldn’t see either. A short distance away, I heard cracking steps and skittering crunches.

My attacker gave a pained yelp. It turned into a growl and I growled back. This stinking creature attacked me. Why would it do that? Did I smell like a glasscrab?

The creature was writhing under me. When I moved my leg away, it slipped! The creature lunged at my throat! I stared as its glassy, metallic beak, sharp and glinting at the end of its snout, caught a red molten glow. My heart skipped a beat and I drew a final breath.

A glassy green claw punched at the thing. The lunge missed me. I drew another breath.

“Hinte?” I said, voice cracking with fear.

The bright-white figure grabbed the beast. She stabbed it again in the side before it broke free. Her knife was glowing, a shimmering green that swirled along the blade. Hinte was growling low and feral.

My attacker returned it. The smaller creature, half as long as either of us, couldn’t match Hinte’s growl. It looked from my rescuer to me, still yarling.

I growled too, bolstered by Hinte’s rescue. It came quieter, faltering. When Hinte made to lunge at the creature, it backpedaled.

Crystalline slime stuck to the scales of the thing, swirlingly iridescent, reflective and translucent. Its jerky motion flung globs of the slime; they hardened to dark orbs on the ground.

I jumped to my feet, lowering my head. Growling again, I stared down the creature, it stepped back, once, twice. It looked to the side, where the crabs had fled.

The crabs were all gone, and the other silvery predators had run away. The creature gave a last, defiant growl, then turned all slow. Its left side was not there. It leapt and crashed beak-first into the Berwem. The ground was shattered, and the creature was plunged into the molten glass.

I gave a silly, wuthered grin, and might have laughed a bit. I lived, again. I almost died, again. My foreleg felt the shattered glass there. The creature had been a scratch away from ripping into me. It left me with what felt like bruises.

The bright-white figure turned to me, crouching. She placed the knife in her bag. Her amber goggles hid her gaze, but she frowned just below it. She folded her frills.

“Bringing you here was a mistake,” she said.

“What?” I said, stamping a foot. “I’ve found crysts! I can do this!”

She flicked a wing to the side. “And all of those crashes? I could track you in my sleep. You could not even go a ring before getting yourself mauled by olms.”

“But–but I have you?” I spread my wings. “We can be a team!”

She whisked a wing to the side. “Imagine if I had not been right behind you. You would be dead.”

My brilles cleared. “But⁠ ⁠—”

“I am not interested in sifting with someone tongueless as yourself.” The wiver stood up.

“Hinte! I found four⁠ ⁠—⁠ three crysts on my own. Is that worth nothing to you?”

“Show me,” she said, tongue flicking.

I unstrapped my cryst bag. Opening the top, I revealed Sterk and the crabstones. She hummed.

“Well,” I said, “how many did you find, huh?” I couldn’t help the hint of smug that crept into my voice. She looked to me, frills folding back. I made a ‘go on’ gesture with the alulae of my wings.

“Two, thanks to scenting after you.”

“So, I win?” I blew my tongue at Hinte.

She turned around, then stalked off, muttering something about hatchlings. I chased after her, sighing. The vog ripped another cough from me, but a wetness stuck in my throat. Coughing again, harder, I spat out dark mucus that tasted metallic, but unlike any of the metals I could smell in the air. I peered at the dust-congealed blood, alit by molten light. It was flecked with red.

Shivering, I scraped into step beside Hinte, and we marched off together like that. My tongue relished Hinte’s grapey smell, and a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I didn’t walk by myself anymore. With that, the knot in my stomach unraveled, and a weight lifted from my back. It was all I had wanted.

I wasn’t alone.

* * *