Waking came with a damning ache. Sam moaned deeply, his body on fire. His sight blinked, moving from absolute black to a dim orange glow. Panic swallowed him. He was surrounded by cold, smooth stone. Questions piled up in his head. Fears mounted. He made to move, but a hand pulled him back down. Sam jerked away and regretted it immediately. Pain. Like a flush of melted lead in his veins. Everything burned. He groaned, his eyes widening.

  “Slow down,” a familiar voice said beside him. “You have disturbed the herb, you must stay at rest for you to recover properly.”

  Sam tried to push the hands off him, but they were strong. The grip pushed him down, and that face he’d seen so many times in his dreams hovered over him. Her hair fell around her face, sand-gold and long, almost touching his chest. She blinked large eyes, terrifyingly black and yet sincere. Sam made a last effort to push her off him, but even with his enhanced strength, she wouldn’t budge. She gave him a sad smile, her brow lifting as if to ask if he was done struggling. Sam nodded. His heart still rattled in his chest, but he knew when he’d lost. And he wasn’t sure why he felt safe here. The walls were muted stone, cold and smooth. The roof above him was just the same. His eyes moved around, scanning to make sense of where he was. The whole of what happened the night before rushed back to him, and he closed his eyes.

  “How did I get here?” Sam asked, trying to sit up, but the female’s stern gaze held him back. There was something in the air, an aroma. She was making something. Sam cursed for not being able to sit up.

  He fought the need to dwell on what had happened. There was nothing he could do now but make peace with it. He was not on the Earth he knew anymore. He wasn’t sure there was any of that former world he knew anyway. That light had swallowed everything and pushed people to kill themselves.

  “You walked,” the woman said. She was completely covered in a drab, grey garment with patches of black. She looked human, except she was not. Her skin was pale where it wasn’t covered, and when she walked back to him, he saw she had six, long fingers on each hand. She smiled down at him—motherly and warm. Sam felt his chest clogged with emotions and worries.

  “You came here bloody three nights ago,” she said and bowed. “I am sorry. We have lived here for so long we have forgotten the old ways.”

  Sam frowned. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he nodded instead. She squeezed a bright green leaf between her palms, filling the room with a fragrance that made Sam’s head swim with dizziness. She brought it over to him, hesitating before bending close. She gestured for him to open his mouth.

  “Crean leaves,” she said, showing him the squeezed leaf. “It tastes like a nightmare, but it will help you recover faster. And the taste fades fast.” She smiled, nodding for him to open his mouth. Sam did, and she dropped the lump on his tongue. He frowned immediately, his face twisting in disgust. He made to spit it out, but six fingers clamped on his mouth, soft eyes bearing down on him.

  “You have to chew,” she said. “Your wounds are healing, but you need to heal from within.”

  Sam closed his eyes and started one of his mental activities to distract himself from the taste. The howl of the wolves echoed in his mind. The snouts snapping and their claws. He shuddered. He’d thought he was going to die. Once or twice he’d been close to death itself. And now he was suffering at the hands of something else.

  “What do you think?” she asked, pulling Sam from his thoughts. Sam nodded. The taste vanished almost immediately after he swallowed the leaf. There was a hint of mint on his tongue, but that was probably just his imagination.

  She sat down beside him again, her eyes fixed on him. Sam stared at her, wondering what she was. Then decided it was better to ask.

  “You are not human, are you?” Sam asked. He saw her flinch, her body inching away automatically, as though he’d tried to slap her. . “No, I mean, you look human but you don’t at the same time. What are you?”

  “You don’t know?”

  Sam’s brow shot up. He’d messed up with that question. She had thought he was someone else. Was she going to try to kill him now? Everything in this new world had tried to kill him; why should she be different? He was stunned when she chuckled, looking amused. He tested his hand, hissing at the pinch from both arms.

  “The Elders will be shocked to know that you don’t know,” she said, grinning to show rows of small, sharp teeth. Sam tried to control his reaction, but he did that a little too late. She chuckled. “I was named Veena by the Elders. This is my home. And you are in the Lost Stones, the new home of our Scavenger tribe.”

  “Scavenger?” Sam asked and she nodded. “You are scavengers?” He asked again, wondering if that meant something else. The place was clean, although scarcely furnished. It looked as though everything in the room had been carved from stone. It didn’t look like what he’d expect from a people called Scavengers.

  “You don’t know what that is either, do you?” Veena asked, a smug smile lighting up her face. Sam shook his head slowly, careful not to introduce himself to more pain. Whatever herb had caused the burning before, he didn’t want to mess with that again. Instead, he kept his eyes on Veena, waiting for her to give him answers.

  “We are Scavengers, born to serve,” she said, forcing the words with a frown. “At least that is what the stories say. That the ancients created us to serve humans. To be slaves eternally. All tribes teach their children this story. That Scavengers are sub-humans. Imbued with specific gifts that make us good for our purpose. Large hands,” she said, spreading her fingers for Sam to see. “For cleaning, farming, mending—serving. Sharp eyes for those who serve as low-rank guards. And thick skin for whipping.”

  That last part she said with a scowl, her face darkening. And in the next moment, she was smiling again. She shook her head, standing to get close to him. She checked his arm, still wrapped in torn fabric. She pressed a little, and Sam winced, and she nodded. When she went back to her seat, there was a measure of defiance in her eyes. It was alive, bright, and dangerous. Not for the first time, Sam wondered if he was going to die.

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  “There are other stories, though,” she said. “Stories where we are not called Scavengers. This is the story of the Nehit tribe. The Elders teach it now, after The Cleansing. I prefer this story, this new story.”

  “The Cleansing?” Sam asked, pulled into the story. “Your people were killed?” Veena nodded. It was a brisk movement of her head, her eyes looking away. She didn’t look at him for a while. Sam wondered what she felt. Anger? Shame?

  “They tore through us,” she whispered. “They spared no one. Not even the children. All because of the rumor of an uprising. They started with the old, the ones that had served for so long. The ones with established loyalty. That was how we knew to flee. Many fled south.” Her words came out low now, almost as if she was holding back sobs. Sam watched her quietly, waiting. There was nothing he could do for her. No word he could say to help her feel better. She had suffered, and now he imagined she relived it in her memory. He cursed himself for being tactless. But then he hadn’t known what happened to her and her people.

  “They chased us as far as they could,” she continued, her hands clasped in front of her, squeezing tight. Sam closed his eyes, trying not to imagine the chaos that had been brought to her and her family. The pain. If he tried, he could see her scared face, terror real in her eyes—the children crying as they were picked to flee.

  “We are rewriting the story,” Veena said. Her eyes were wet with tears when she finally looked up. “We are rebuilding our lives and this time we won’t be serving anyone. We will be free, and we will find our place in this world.”

  Sam nodded, smiling. Although he could see the determination in her eyes, he knew it would be difficult. Perhaps, even impossible. There was the possibility that they’d waste away in hiding, fading away like an old memory. They’d just pass away, vanishing so subtly that it would seem like they were never there.

  “You will kill him with all those dreary stories,” an old voice said behind her. Sam craned his head to see who had entered. Veena scrambled up from her seat, wiping her eyes. She bowed, her face folding into a cold frown. Sam heard the slow scraping footsteps, and when he saw the old man, he knew he had seen the face before. Veena didn’t look up from where she stood. Her low bow was still in place. Sam looked from the old man to her and then settled on the man.

  “You were listening,” Sam said. It was a guess, but he was almost sure the man had been there for a while. Why hadn’t he sensed him? He was usually attuned to things like that. The old Scavenger smiled. His face was just as pale as Veena’s but his eyes had lost much of the black, showing a faded grey. He shrugged, taking Veena’s seat. Sam didn’t like the man. There was something off about him, but there was also a staggering kind of authority in the way he moved. It was the hunch that reminded Sam of where he’d met him.

  “You were there,” Sam said. “With the others. You took me.” The Scavenger grinned, his wrinkles deepening when he smiled. He leaned forward on his staff, his weird eyes peering at Sam.

  “So, you are not from here,” the man said, confirming what Sam had guessed. He saw Veena cringe and fix up her face immediately. The old man waved for her to leave. She hesitated a moment and left. Sam appreciated the concern. There was nothing he could do anyway. If this old man wanted to kill him, he could.

  “At first, I didn’t want to take you,” the old man said. His eyes were smaller; perhaps they shrunk with age. His hands were weak too; they trembled around his staff. Sam caught the small details, like the cleft on his left ear, an old wound, and the way the words he heard from the man differed from the movement of his mouth.

  “Why did you?” Sam asked.

  “Fear,” the Scavenger said. “If you are from one of the outer cities, we’d have killed you. But your forge was…strange.” He pulled out Sam’s Glock, still strapped in its holster. “We have not seen something like this before. Not in the Steel City or Archistes where many great tinkers and forgers dwell. It is different. Which gave us no reason to kill you. And you spoke our words. How did you learn that?”

  Sam stared at the man, unsure what answers would give them a reason to kill him. He didn’t have much time to contemplate, so he went with the truth.

  “I don’t know,” Sam said, feeling tired. The Scavenger scowled, his eyes suddenly sunken. Sam felt like he was being measured. He held the man’s stare. “I only know that I can understand you. I didn’t even know that I was speaking a different language.”

  The old man nodded. “It is the System of Ascension,” he said as if Sam should understand what that was. “That makes things easier. I didn’t want to kill you. We are Scavengers, not butcherers. We work, we suffer, we grow things.”

  “And serve,” Sam added. The Scavenger grinned.

  “There was a time that made my soul rejoice, you know? Children like Veena only know about The Cleansing, but there was a much better world before that. A time when we were respected for the perfection we brought. We were not feared or revered, but we were not made out to be filth either.” He snorted. “Now we are the enemy of all. We hide, sneak, and… scavenge. We have been turned into beggars and thieves. Less than beasts.”

  “But you are not angry at the humans,” Sam said, frowning.

  “I hate them,” the old man said. “I hate that they forgot centuries of loyalty in a snap of moments. They ignored the services of my people and the importance of the tribes spread around them. They saw only the weakness to exploit. They knew we were not built for violence, and they brought war to us. I hate them for that. But I abhor the tribes that banded together too. They forgot who and what they were. And they put generations in danger. Humans are fickle, but they have long memories. They will remember, and they will kill us until there is nothing left of us.”

  Silence stretched between them. Sam was too stunned to speak, and the old man was breathless. He sighed as if all that talking had drained him.

  “Here,” he said, placing Sam’s gun on the bed beside his hand. “Veena is young, but she is one of the best at herbs and concoctions. She saved Sylvian when we found him. And he was almost dead. Humans are cruel,” he said. He pulled himself up, groaning with every movement. Sam watched him lean forward and sniff the air around him. He nodded and smiled. “Like I said, you will be fine. You should come see the Elders. They would like to talk to you and ask you questions.”

  Sam nodded. He was exhausted. Talking had taken more from him than he had expected. He wanted to close his eyes and be gone from this place of talking werewolves and strange human-like people. As he fled from the wolves, he wished he was dreaming. But now, he didn’t mind being dead, just to end the weirdness happening.

  Instead, he watched Veena come back in. Her face fixed in that frown that told Sam that she didn’t like the old man either. She sat down quietly, not speaking for a while.

  “You have the same access to the system as Sylvian?” she asked. Sam stared at her blankly.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Sam replied, ignoring the window of light hanging between them. She gave him a look that said she didn’t believe him. Sam let her think whatever she wanted. He closed his eyes, trying to sleep. He heard her shuffle out of the room and come back. Sam’s eyes flung open when he didn’t hear her speak. She loomed over him, a steaming bowl in hand. Her dark eyes held him for a moment.

  “You should eat,” Veena said finally. “And then you will tell me about where you are from.”