Suddenly a thornbat whizzed past her, its wings beating furiously. It homed in on a vine and stabbed its needled beak into the red sac of a puff lizard. As the puff deflated with a whoosh of air, the lizard scrambled away to safety, leaving the disgruntled thornbat to whiz on without its prey.

Powdered scales drifted across Kamoj’s arm. She wiped off the shimmering dust, wondering why people had no scales. Most everything else on Balumil, the world, had them. Scaled needles fat with water nestled among the leaves, and roots swollen with moisture churned the soil. The trees grew slowly, storing water and converting it into energy as a bulwark against summer droughts and winter snows. Seasonal plants had other methods of survival. They lived only in spring and autumn, but their big, hard-scaled seeds could lie dormant for long periods, until the climate was to their liking.

If only people were as well adapted to survive. She swallowed, remembering the last winter, when nearly a fourth of Argali had died in its blizzards and brutal ices. Including her parents. Even after so long, that loss haunted her. She had been a small child when she and Maxard, her mother’s brother, became sole heirs to the impoverished remains of a province that had once been proud.

Glancing at Lyode, Kamoj wondered if her bodyguard shared her concern about seeing Lionstar on Argali lands today. A tall woman with lean muscles, Lyode had the brown eyes and black hair common in Argali. Here in the shadows, the vertical slits of her pupils had widened until they almost filled her irises, like black pools. She carried Kamoj’s boots dangling from her belt by their laces.

“Do you know the maize-girls that work in the kitchen?” Kamoj asked.

The older woman glanced at her. “Three children? Tall as your elbow?”

“That’s right.” Kamoj smiled. “They told me, in solemn voices, that Havyrl Lionstar came here in a cursed ship that the wind chased across the sky, and that he can never go home again because he’s so loathsome the elements refuse to let him sail again.” Her smile faded. “Where does all the superstition come from? Apparently most of Argali believes it. There is some story he’s centuries old, with a metal face so ugly that if you look at it you’ll have nightmares.”