“Dayton! Are you… oh gods.” Cara had returned from the boat, clutching a damp loaf of bread in one hand and the neck of a leather sack in the other, only to find Dayton cradling a small form in the crook of his arm. A finned tail swung gently from the hammock of his elbow.

“You looked at it, didn’t you?”

Dayton looked at her, beaming like a proud new parent. “Yes! And she’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Cara only huffed and turned back to the boat. “What are you doing? Cara?”

“Getting gloves” was the answer. She returned to the fire, pulling on a pair of brown, scuffed leather gloves. She wiggled her fingers into their covered tips. “I’d rather not get ichor on my hands, if it’s all the same to you.”

Dayton drew back, hunching over the peeping bundle of scales in his embrace. “You’re not doing… doing that to Cami!” He glared at her.

Cara sighed. “Do you know about mesmer?”

He shook his head mutely.

“It’s a defense mechanism.” Cara stretched her fingers in front of her. “Few monsters can use it when they’re grown. Cockatrice can, and that’s part of what makes them so dangerous. They can only use it to make a threat freeze, and only if they keep their gaze on it all the time.

“But spawn—spawn use it to charm predators. It works the most strongly when they’re first out of the egg and fades over time as they grow into whatever adult strengths they have.

“The idea is to make a predator… love it, I guess, is the best way I can describe it. And the spawn sticks close to the mesmerized predator—at least, until its parent finds it to dispatch the intruder.

“That’s not love you’re feeling, Dayton—that’s a trap to keep you close until the adults come back.”

The baby kaprid squeaked under Dayton’s arm, and he hushed it quickly. He set his jaw and raised his chin. “I don’t believe you. Cami can’t hurt anything right now—she’s just a baby.”

“Oh, for Cern’s mercy, we just went over this! It’s a danger to—wait. Hush.”

“No one was talking except you!”

Cara would’ve replied, but she was listening to the swamp.

The crickets had stopped, as had the frogs. The fire’s crackles sounded like explosions in the sudden silence.

Her heartbeat drummed with each slam of her quickened pulse.

The tiny kaprid chirped again.

A liquid growl answered. The water in front of the obliterated mud-nest rippled.

“Get your ass in the boat!” Cara snapped. She thrust her sword hilt toward Dayton while scooping up the cooking pan to hold it by the threadbare fabric pad that saved her hand from burning. “I’ll distract it. You get ready to shove off!”

Dayton fumbled the hilt, almost dropping it, but her attention was no longer on her marque. A full grown kaprid was wading ashore, snorting to clear its nostrils of river water.

Its shoulder came to Cara’s head, its lizard body held up by straight, muscular limbs as thick around as she was. A ridge of spikes ran down its head and spine, ending in a spectacular tail-fan that waved gently to and fro as it bobbed its head up and down.

Cara braced herself and held the cast iron pan a little harder, trying to steady her shakes.

The kaprid’s attack came suddenly, a questing snuffle of the cook fire turning into a hammer-strike into Cara’s side. She barely had enough time to bring up the pan as a shield.

The impact threw Cara to the side, her head dipping into the river edge and the stones ripping open new flesh wounds.

She staggered upright, the pan slack in her grip, to see the kaprid swaying, its head dipping back and forth. It veered closer to the fire—and the two remaining eggs that had started the whole trouble.

Cara darted forward, ducking beneath the kaprid’s bobbling head and through a cloud of carrion breath, to grab the last survivors of the kaprid’s nest. She held both eggs in her left hand, waiting for the kaprid to see what she held.

The kaprid’s sides heaved as it breathed, its attention focused on Cara once more. The monster rose onto its hind legs, towering above Cara, but she was prepared.

As the kaprid swiped at Cara’s exposed throat, she threw the eggs at the monster swamp lizard with as much force as she could muster. She then ducked and rolled, trying to keep the now-dented pan between her and the kaprid’s claws.

She didn’t wait to see if her gamble had paid off. Cara turned her tumble into a full-out sprint for the last place she could remember the boat. Thankfully, Dayton hadn’t been able to get more than ten feet away from the shore before being forced to hop the high wall of the former chariot-wagon.

The makeshift boat was still close enough to make an undignified, splashing flop to land like a landed fish on the pile of hastily repacked bags.

She took a deep breath and flipped herself upward to peer over the top of the boat’s wall. The dying cooking fire showed the kaprid with its back turned to their boat, nuzzling a tiny mound on the shore. She shivered and reclined on the pile of bags—

—to find smooth scales and warm hide instead of cured leather. She bit her lip, and turned her head.

The baby kaprid stared back at her, unblinking, its muzzle firmly bound with a strip of fabric.