The sun was high and yellow, baking the mud of the riverbank until it cracked.

  Three pairs of pointed, fuzzy ears poked out from the tall, swaying reeds.

  "Go on, Kip," whispered a small Ratling girl, wiping a smudge of black grease from her snout. She shoved the boy next to her. "You said you weren't scared."

  Kip stumbled forward, his bare paws sinking into the warm mud. He was small for his age, with fur matted by coal dust and a nose that twitched when he was nervous.

  "I'm not scared," Kip lied, his voice cracking. "I'm just... assessing the tactical situation."

  "It's a corpse, Kip," the third child, a lanky boy with a chipped tooth, scoffed. " Corpses don't have tactics. Just loot."

  They stared at the thing lying face down in the black sand.

  It was smooth-skinned, like Gnomes, but almost as big as a Wolf Kin. Its skin was pale and bruised, crisscrossed with angry red scars. It was naked, battered, and looked like flotsam washed up by the spring floods.

  Except for the tail.

  It erupted from the base of the big man’s spine—a thick, muscular ridge of interlocking golden plates that trailed six feet into the water. The metal fused seamlessly with the bone, a parasitic growth bursting through the skin rather than armor worn over it.

  And studding the scales were stones. Raw, uncut emeralds the size of Kip’s fist. Rubies that caught the sun and burned with an internal fire.

  Kip swallowed hard. A single one of those red stones could buy the village enough fuel to last three winters. It could purchase new filters for Old Yula. It could satisfy the Wolf Kin’s tithe.

  "I dare you," the girl hissed.

  Kip gripped the handle of his shiv—a rejected bayonet tip wrapped in leather tape, and crept forward.

  The air smelled of pine, river mud, and something else... something faint and sweet, like overripe flowers.

  He reached the tail. Up close, it was terrifying. The gold was organic, layered like the scales of a river-fish, but harder than steel. He reached out a trembling paw and touched a large emerald embedded near the tip.

  It was warm.

  He wedged the tip of his rusty shiv under the edge of the gem. He leaned his weight into it, trying to pry the treasure loose.

  The gem held fast, anchored deep within the thick hide.

  "Harder!" the chipped-tooth boy whispered loudly.

  Kip gritted his teeth. He placed his foot against the metallic tail for leverage and heaved.

  The massive scaled appendage whipped lazily sideways.

  It carved a trench through the wet sand, missing Kip by an inch. The impact sent a spray of wet sand blasting into the reeds, silencing his friends.

  Kip froze, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

  The big man didn't wake. He just let out a low, ragged groan and settled deeper into the sand.

  "He's alive!" the girl squeaked.

  "He's sleeping," Kip whispered, his greed warring with his terror.

  He looked at the emerald. He couldn't go back empty-handed. Not now.

  He crept back, but this time he moved higher up. He found a spot where the golden scales began to merge with the pale flesh of the giant. The skin there looked raw, angry, and soft.

  He raised the blade. His hand was shaking. He aimed for the seam between the scales and the gemstone.

  He struck.

  His sweaty paw slipped on the handle. The rusty blade missed the gap and sliced mostly into the pale, sunburned skin of the stranger's thigh.

  It was a deep, ugly nick.

  Kip scrambled back, expecting blood. He expected the dark, red rush of life that came when they slaughtered a hog.

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  Instead, a thick, glowing fluid oozed from the cut. It shimmered in the sunlight, radiant and impossible. The scent of honey and lightning filled the air, overpowering the smell of the river mud.

  Then came the scream. It was a shockwave. A jagged sound of surprise and pain hit Kip, knocking the wind out of him. It shattered the lazy quiet of the riverbank, sending a flock of herons erupting from the willows in a panic.

  Kip scrambled backward, his paws slipping in the slick mud. He fell hard, his eyes wide and locked on the titan he had just violated.

  "Run, idiot!" the girl shrieked, already a brown blur disappearing into the reeds.

  The iron shiv slipped from Kip's numb fingers and disappeared into the muck with a soft plop.

  The giant’s eyes snapped open. They were wild, unfocused, and terrifyingly bright.

  Kip didn’t think. He didn’t assess. He scrambled onto all fours and bolted, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest.

  There was a metallic taste in his mouth, and his eyes were blinded by the noon sun. The pain in his leg dragged him from the depths of a dream.

  It was fading already. He remembered a home and a white-furred fox-woman. He knew her amber eyes. Her pointy ears. Her name… but he blinked, and the dream was gone.

  The world was an overwhelming glare of white light and blurry greens.

  Through the haze, a small fuzzy shape scrambled away in the mud. It vanished into the tall grass, followed by the frantic rustling of people rushing through vegetation.

  "Wait," he rasped. His voice scraped against a throat coated in dust.

  He tried to scramble after them, driven by a shapeless instinct not to be alone.

  He planted his hands and lunged forward, but a massive dead weight kept him anchored to the sand. He tried to sit up, but his body felt wrong. Clumsy. Off-center.

  A sharp sting in his thigh drew his attention downward. He blinked, bringing the world into focus. There was a deep cut on his leg, just above the knee.

  But there was no blood.

  Instead, a thick, luminous fluid oozed from the wound. It moved slowly, like tree sap, dripping onto the black sand where it pooled and shimmered in the sunlight.

  The smell hit him then—a cloying, overpowering scent of honey and something electric.

  That’s...

  The thought trailed off, tumbling into a mental void. He reached for a word, a definition, but found only a blank space where the knowledge should be.

  He knew, with a cellular certainty, that this was wrong. Blood was iron. Blood was salt and the copper tang of a bitten lip. It wasn't sweet. It didn't smell like a storm trapped in a beehive.

  He reached down to touch the wound, but his hand stopped. He brought his limb up and stared at it. The index and middle fingers were gone, the flesh healed over in a messy, cauterized knot of scar tissue.

  What happened to me?

  He tried to shift his weight, but his center of gravity was wrong. A massive weight was dragged at his lower back, anchoring him to the sand.

  He twisted his torso, gritting his teeth against the stiffness in his spine.

  He looked behind him.

  A ridge of shining metal sprouted from the base of his spine. It wasn't armor; the plates were interlocking, organic, fusing seamlessly with his skin. It extended outward, thickening into a muscular tail that trailed six feet behind him, half-submerged in the river.

  Raw colored gemstones—emeralds, rubies, sapphires—jutted from the metallic scales like barnacles on a hull.

  He stared at it, his breath catching in his throat. Is that... mine?

  He focused on the alien limb. Instinct guided him to the muscle group at the base of his spine, and he flexed.

  It responded instantly. It curled, the scales grinding against each other with a sound like heavy chains sliding over stone.

  The power in the movement was terrifying.

  He pushed the thought away. He needed to stand. He needed water.

  He planted his good hand in the mud. He tried to bring his legs under him, but the weight of the new limb pulled him backward.

  He slumped the wide appendage down against the sand to keep his balance. He pushed against the ground with the tail, leveraging his body upward with shocking ease.

  He stood, swaying slightly as he adjusted to the new, muscular counterweight behind him. He was naked, caked in dried mud, bleeding amber molasses, with a fortune in gems on a limb that could crush stone.

  He looked at the rushing river. He looked at the wall of green reeds. He looked at the distant, hazy blue of mountains he didn't recognize.

  Where am I?

  The question echoed in his mind, hollow and unanswered.

  He reached for a memory. Any memory. A name. A home. A face.

  There was nothing. Just a grey fog and a lingering, crushing sense of guilt. He felt like he had forgotten something vital, something he had sworn to protect.

  He looked down at his reflection in the calm pool of the river's edge.

  A stranger’s face stared back. Wild eyes framed by a mat of dirty hair. But it was the mark on his cheek that held his gaze.

  A thick, jagged ridge of white scar tissue ran from his left ear down to the corner of his lip. It wasn't a clean slice. The flesh looked like it had been dragged apart by something ragged and hot, leaving a puckered trench that pulled tight against his mouth.

  He raised his good hand, his trembling fingers tracing the line of the scar.

  A spark jumped the gap in his mind.

  The touch didn't bring back his name. But it brought back a flash of white fur, matted with blood. Amber eyes, burning with a fierce, protective intelligence. Jagged claws that would tear the world apart just to let him through.

  "Mara," he whispered.

  The name made his heart beat. It was the most important word in the world.

  He looked up from his reflection to the hazy blue mountains. The aimless confusion in his eyes hardened into a razor-sharp focus.

  "Where are you?"

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