She crouches, legs raised menacingly.

  Fuck. Think. Salvage this. I’ve said something wrong, something that poked the proverbial bear. Did she lose a lover? A child?

  "Zara, wait... I didn't..."

  Her head tilts. The world seems to slow. Her eyes aren't angry, as far as I can tell, but there's something there, deep, raw...

  “Yes, we have those things,” she says slowly, voice hardly above a rasp. Is that… pain? She stands abruptly, half turning away from me. The chitin of her face shifts with a barely audible click. A facial expression? What does it mean? Her eyes deliberately shift away from me to look down the path. “We can rest here. This is as far from Haven as I have ever managed to trek.”

  Damn. Her body language is different, but it doesn't seem hostile any longer. She moves to the edge of the trees, then passes through them into the forest proper. She does it so casually that my brain glitches for a second. Wait, do people normally just gallivant around off the path? Is that why I’ve seen so few people? Or is it just that many of them are hiding out in the Haven?

  I hesitate, remembering the feeling I got last time I strayed from the path. The feeling of being watched, of being hunted, of something being out there with me. Maybe it was just a feeling.

  Maybe.

  When Threenut traipses after her, I’m left alone on the path. Well. Fuck. This doesn’t exactly feel any better, not knowing that thousands of hostile aliens are walking around looking for trouble. Clenching my stomach, I step carefully into the trees. The soft lilac sky disappears instantly, hidden behind the broad, geometric leaves. The dim violet light feels harsher, like a melody forced exclusively into a minor key.

  Zara nearly disappears in the gloom, her carapace practically invisible in the dimness. The patterns on her thorax almost seem to meld with the shadows. Judging by how Threenut is standing, squinting forward, she’d be impossible to detect without an evolved Perception. A stealth Skill. It has to be. Adrenaline sets my heart racing and my skin tingling.

  Maybe that feeling of danger when I left the path wasn’t tied to the Tournament rules, like I thought. Maybe there was a Laranya there, silent, invisible, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

  I strain my senses to their limit, hearing and tasting and feeling. The air is still and heavy, thick on my tongue and slow across my skin. Aside from the typical scents of the forest, there’s Threenut’s gentle aroma, dust and ancient pine, familiar and almost comforting. And something else, nearly imperceptible, only noticeable now that I’m focusing on my senses. A scent my brain can only connect with one thing: a preschool classroom. The messy smell of unwashed, untrained children poorly hidden by chemical disinfectant.

  “Here,” Zara says, her voice open and clear. I jump and paint her crouching form in purple, ready to Strengthen Gravity with enough force to crunch her little bug self to the ground. “The frelyat is a comfortable enough place to rest.”

  “The… what?” I ask, not relaxing, my waiting Skill still highlighting her crouching form in distinct purple light.

  “Come. See.”

  Warily, I follow Threenut until we get close enough to see over her shoulder. There, the Cobald lays peacefully among some sort of billowy moss, which gently shifts and moves around him like a sea anemone questing in an unseen current. His color looks different, probably better, and he appears to be sleeping peacefully. Zara shifts until her back presses to the tree, nearly disappearing in the whorls of the wood.

  “Zara…” I say slowly. “Are you using some kind of stealth Skill to hide?”

  “This forest is of my world,” she says softly, a pair of slender limbs caressing the bark. “Though there are aberrations in its Weave, they are few. Is it not the same for you? Do you and your world not entwine, one to the other?”

  “Aye, clicks, ye have the right of it,” Threenut says, shaking so that the leaves screening his shoulders and hips rustle. Clicks. Poking at the sound of her chitin when she moves certain ways. Apparently, Threenut is fond of mildly offensive nicknames. “In the shade of the Great Tree, we Otachai are as the soil fresh with rain.”

  “Uh,” I say, feeling a strange sense of… inferiority? “No. I would say that my people are pretty terrible at camo, even when we make it for ourselves. I mean, some people are probably good at painting mud on their face and sticking leaves in their hair, but naturally? Like you guys are talking about? Solid no.”

  “Strange,” Zara says, her eyes fixed on me.

  “Aye, twig. Was yer god not for advantages granted?” Threenut’s eyes seem to glow in the gloom. “Was it to harden yer bark?”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Probably it,” I say hurriedly. “Our god didn’t want to make it too easy for us. Made it harder to toughen us up.”

  “Then why are ye so soft?” he asks, perplexed. “I seen ye break at the first sign of a storm, even if ye put yerself back together again.”

  “We have… other advantages,” I say, feeling suddenly defensive about my species. When did this become a humanity roast session?

  “Like?” Zara asks, her voice flat.

  “Well, we’ve got opposable… no, I imagine that’s not particularly noteworthy.” I pause, looking between two of them, thinking of what advantage I might have over either. Or over the gorgeous vampire. “We… we might be weaker, but we find new and unique ways to make up for it. We’re smart, I guess. And we don’t give up.”

  “Now that is a tale I can tell,” Threenut says, nodding and steepling his fingers over his belly. “The twig is pretty quick to see paths unwalked. The beastie what hurt the little sleeping fellow was bested with her mind and me arm, when neither could serve without the other.”

  “That does not bear with my experience at Haven,” the Laranya answers, folding six arms carefully across her torso. “The examples there of her species are soft, frail, ignorant brutes.”

  Damn, Kora. She sounds like you.

  “In that I am kind enough to tell you the truth?”

  Hah.

  “What’s funny?”

  Sighing, I force my focus back to my companions.

  “Fine. What are you guys so good at?” I ask, more challenge in my voice than I intend. “What makes you so much better than humans?”

  “It is not that the Laranya are particularly good at anything, not when compared to the other Competitors.” She pauses, long enough that I begin to wonder if that’s all she’s going to say. “It is that we are merely better than humanity in every feasible metric, as far as I can tell.”

  “Wow,” I say, feeling a vein in my temple start to pulse. “Is that how you feel, Three?”

  “Not… not in as many words, twig,” he says, his eyes suddenly looking anywhere but at me. “I’ve no way to know the strength yer other people may carry. And ye are quick in wisdom, I grant. And… and…”

  “Fantastic.” I look between them, then at the little dude sleeping between them. “You know that I’m higher level than any of you, right?”

  “How could ye know?” Threenut says skeptically.

  “Yes, the measures of our strength are hidden to any but ourselves and our Mentors.” Zara tilts her head, which tilts her entire body slightly. That’s not uncanny. “Why make such an obviously false claim?”

  “Don’t let your pride guide you, Competitor. Knowledge is power, and right now we have that pow—”

  “I have a basic Skill that lets me gauge the strength of others,” I say, keeping the extent of my Identification hidden. “At least their level, though I think I can learn more if I evolve the Skill.”

  “Then what am I?” Zara asks, her bulbous eyes giving off the impression of narrowing, though she doesn’t have the eyelids to do so.

  “6. No, 7,” I correct myself, surprised, as her Identification window pops up again. When did she gain a level? How? We haven’t fought anything, haven’t been anywhere near a death she could absorb soul energy from. Can you absorb soul energy through healing? Unless she’s somehow parasitically sapping strength from the Cobald, I don’t see how. “You’re level 7. And before you ask, Three, you’re 11.”

  Which means Three hasn’t used the soul energy we took from the Warbreaker yet, or he’d be higher. Interesting. Hoarding it, or undecided, like me?

  “It is possible, though unlikely, that he may not have absorbed enough. Do not forget your first Boon after the very first Proving. With Ravenous Soul, you will advance at a faster rate than many, if not all, of your fellow Competitors.”

  “That is why you spoke so confidently about the Drelni,” Zara says slowly. “What level was she?”

  “21.”

  “Then I must be thankful, once again, for your intervention.”

  She doesn’t sound very thankful. Abruptly, she stands and moves away into the trees, her carapace blending with the strange twilight such that I have to focus to watch her leave.

  “And what level are ye, twig?” Threenut asks, narrowing his eyes.

  “12,” I say honestly, though I imagine that number would jump the moment I spend the soul energy lurking in my chest.

  But what Skill to evolve? Gravity Shift is the clear winner, especially if I could get it to be as narrowly applicable as Weaken and Strengthen. But there’s no guarantee that it will evolve how I think or want it to, and there’s also every probability that whatever I think it should be is pretty dumb, since I’ve never thought about how to murder someone with gravity before.

  Threenut thrums from deep in his chest. Well, an inch or two into his tiny chest. Hard to really say it’s deep, per se…

  The huddled figure of the Cobald suddenly twitches, and Threenut and I step back far enough so that the little scaly thing can’t attack us out of reflex. He’s only level three, but still. We have no idea what he’s really capable of. And God knows what the parenthetical 12 next to his level is.

  At the edge of my senses, I feel more than see Zara return to watch. Over the space of a few seconds, the diminutive creature shifts, groans, and forces itself upright.