Chapter 11 – Serendipity

  Ridgeplate Spear – Drift 8

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  The cold woke her. She shivered, muscles tense, as the metallic taste of the air filled her mouth. It cut through her senses, mixing with the sand stuck to her skin. Sand covered her scarf, her back, her eyelids. She blinked it away and looked up at the night sky.

  Her wound throbbed, duller than when she first wrapped it. The herbs had helped. Mostly.

  She trembled and sat up, checking herself for fever or fresh blood.

  Her tail was out and unwrapped, swaying and sending small puffs of dust into the air. It wasn’t hiding or attacking, just moving. It felt like it had always been there, waiting for her to notice. She tried not to.

  She remembered the first time it moved on its own. Four, maybe five sols old, lost in a rising storm, too exhausted to keep walking. It sprang free and held her upright until Hayam found her. From that day, it became a living part of her, whether she admitted it or not.

  She was fine. No fever, no bleeding. Just cold. Fine.

  A low beeping caught her attention. She stood up too quickly, tripped over her backpack, and cursed as she hit the ground. She pulled herself up using the runner’s peg. The console showed a low-battery warning.

  She must have hit the switch when she pulled her pack free. The machine had idled all night, draining its battery while she slept.

  Panic ticked up in the back of her throat.

  It was still dark, but she could see the outline of the desert. Lyra shone above, its brightest thread stretching across the black sky like scattered salt.

  The suns would not rise for a while yet.

  Hayam was going to be angry.

  She let out a sigh.

  There was no way to charge the runner without Nero or Hikari, and she hadn’t packed a backup battery.

  She would have to walk, dragging a one-hundred-twenty-kilogram machine behind her. The path ahead stretched for almost fifteen kilometers of sharp dunes and shifting sand, a tough test for her fading strength.

  “Good thing you keep moving when you’re dying,” she grunted. “Or we’d both melt when the sun comes up.”

  The runner let out a slow mechanical sound, as if it resented her complaint.

  “Don’t start with me,” she said. “You’re lucky I don’t leave you here with the Felidae. She might not eat you, but you’d end up looking like the landscape. Rust and all.”

  She didn’t know how much longer she had before the suns rose and the heat became unbearable, or how much strength she had left.

  The runner would move if she pulled it. The low battery could still power the hydraulic legs, but that was all she could rely on. She checked her supplies, noting the power left: 15 percent. Her water flask sloshed, barely a quarter full. These numbers stayed in her mind, obstacles she would soon have to face.

  She grabbed the runner's handle bar and wrapped the rein around her palm.

  She pushed her diminishing odds away from her mind and kept moving.

  With her wound sealed and her tail out, she could keep walking as long as the temperature stayed bearable. Her steps were heavy, and the runner resisted her.

  Ahead, the desert stretched out, long and silent, colored in black and blue.

  The iron-rich sand glinted red and purple in the starlight, like embers turned to glass.

  Her boots sank with every step, leaving crooked, tired prints that the wind soon blurred. Her breath was uneven in the warming air. Her tail flicked dust with each step, almost lazily now.

  She spotted something pale, half-buried in wind-scoured stone. She crouched, careful with her hip, and brushed the sand away. It was a lizard molt, long and unbroken, as fragile as ash. She turned it with her tail, gently, though the motion felt unfamiliar. The skin shimmered in the starlight, transparent and brittle, but still whole.

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  She took out a scrap of cloth and wrapped it gently. Finding one this whole was rare. Hayam had taught her to use it as a base for blood clotting powder or sleep powder, depending on the species. It was valuable.

  She slipped the wrapped molt into her bag, between dried seeds and crumpled cloth. It was small. Maybe it was silly, but it was hers to keep.

  She was wounded, sore, sunburnt, and dragging a half-dead runner behind her. Her fear eased a little, and for the first time since she woke, she took a full breath. Maybe this wasn’t a complete failure. Maybe she could still bring something back, even if the supply run had nearly killed her.

  There was still time for the desert to finish the job, though. She was running low on water, and even if she didn’t want to admit it, the sky was starting to change. A faint gradient appeared above the dunes. She tightened the strap around her hand and walked faster. Ahead, a narrow path crossed a stony dune—steep, loose, and dangerous. Her feet slipped every few steps, pebbles sliding out from under her. The runner followed behind, silent, stubborn, and loyal.

  The air was still cold, but walking had warmed her bones. The pain faded a little. Halfway up, her foot slipped again. She stumbled and caught herself with one hand, gravel digging into her palm. Her other leg buckled, and her chest hit the slope.

  “Shit.”

  Then her tail moved, fast and sure. It braced against a rock behind her, muscles tightening like a coiled rope. It was just enough to keep her balanced and stop her from sliding backward.

  She froze. Pain pulsed in her hip. Her hands were scraped, but she didn’t slip further. Slowly, she pushed herself upright again, her breath ragged.

  “Alright,” she muttered. “Thanks. I guess.” She paused. The tail didn’t answer. It just swayed left, then right, silent and mocking.

  She brushed off her knees, pretending her hands weren’t shaking, and tried to ignore how alive her tail felt. The hill still looked steep, but now it seemed possible.

  She tried to accept this other part of herself, at least for now. Just long enough to get home. She could figure it out later—or maybe not.

  She climbed the last few meters slowly, letting gravity and her tail help. At the top, she stopped. The desert spread out below her like a faded tapestry, dunes soft with shadow and ridgelines barely visible in the dim light.

  The stars above still shone. Lyra hung low, its brightest point stretched along the horizon. Below it, a bruise of color appeared, dark gold fading into violet. The suns were coming, bringing hope with them.

  She stood there longer than she meant to, taking in the view. She drank a little water and took a few deep breaths. She was still far from home.

  At her feet, a few starsong pieces lay scattered in the dust, small white fragments in the dark red sand, like bones half-buried in rust. They were broken pieces of something ancient, their edges worn smooth by wind and time. She crouched and picked one up. It hummed softly against her fingers, the sound faint but vibrating in her spine and teeth. People said they were relics from lost civilizations, long before the monks came to the planet.

  Or meteorites.

  She hoped they were meteorites.

  Movement below caught her eye. A small herd of trumpet-nosed skinners grazed in the brambles, their long legs and red fur shining like burnished copper in the early light. She froze.

  A younger one, lean and scarred above its front joint, watched her. She gripped the starsong tighter and slipped it into her pocket.

  Below, the mount waited, limping slightly. She made her way down the ridge slowly, step by step, until they stood face to face.

  She bowed, remembering one of Hayam’s early lessons: always show respect to wildlife. She waited.

  The young Skinner stayed still, but its tail swayed behind it, nervous. She smelled of blood and sweat. She took off her scarf and held it out for the animal to smell.

  It sniffed the scarf and took a single step forward. Acceptance, just like Nosey had done.

  She moved closer, draped the scarf over its neck, and leaned her shoulder gently against its side. They stayed like that, quiet and still in the growing light.

  “You’re hurt,” she whispered. “Me too.”

  She crouched, touched the swollen joint on its front leg. It flinched slightly.

  “I know,” she said, reaching for the last of her supplies: wrap, dried leaves, Hayam’s powder, and the last drop of water to clean the wound.

  The bandage wasn’t perfect, but it would hold. The mount blinked, looking tolerant—or maybe grateful, she hoped.

  She smiled, tied her gear across its flanks, and kept going. "Alright," she muttered, "you're coming home with me. You pull the dead weight, I'll do the limping. He does nothing," she said, nodding at the battery-drained runner. "If we both make it back, maybe he'll forgive us... or at least me."

  As she trudged on, she thought of Hayam, who had taught her most of what she knew about surviving this harsh land. By the time the suns climbed high, the edge of Hayam's outpost appeared on the slope, stone and solar panels shining in the early light.

  He stood just outside the arch, arms crossed, body still. Waiting. Not searching. Not shouting. Just waiting.

  He must’ve been tracking her pins; of course, he knew she was coming. But he didn’t run to meet her. He let her walk the last hundred steps herself.

  She didn’t speak. Neither did he.

  When she finally reached him, feet dragging, every part of her aching, she looked up.

  And he pointed past her.

  She turned.

  At the top of the last dune stood the Felidae, motionless and watching. Her pale fur shimmered in the heat haze, tail flicking once, then again. She didn’t growl or run. She turned and slipped over the ridge.

  Had she been hunted or accompanied? The young Skinner beside her made Serendipity’s stomach twist at the thought of another offering to the beast.

  She faced Hayam again. “Home,” she rasped.

  He nodded. “Welcome back.”