Page 8

The communal platforms throbbed with frantic energy. It started as a low vibration—a ripple of clicks and trills that grew into a deafening roar of voices as I approached the Great Hearth.

"The Huntmaster brings a ghost!" a female trilled, her voice climbing with an edge of hysteria.

"Is it a Vakra spy? Did it come to kill us?" a grey-skinned elder barked, his tail thumping the woven wood in a warning.

To my left, a group of younglings—barely past their first shedding—scrambled onto a high bridge, their eyes wide and glowing with a dangerous excitement. "It has hair like the star-fire!" one chirped, leaping from a vine to get a better look at me. "Is it true, Kaelen? Does it have the sun trapped in its head? Can we touch the gold?"

"Back to your nests!" I rumbled, a sharp click vibrating in my throat. They scattered like startled birds, but their curiosity remained, a thick, palpable cloud in the air.

"It is a bad omen," a weaver muttered, her three-fingered hands clutching her looms. "The sky-fire burns the roots. To bring the fire into the village is to invite the ash."

"Kaelen!"

Toren dropped from a suspension bridge and landed in my path. His dark hair was tied back in a tight braid that had come loose at the edges, a few strands whipping across the sharp, angular lines of his face. His ears were pinned back, his tail lashed behind him in a sharp, agitated rhythm. Behind him stood several of the younger warriors, their skin-markings flashing a nervous red. They were uneasy, their twin hearts beating a discordant rhythm I could practically feel through the platform.

"The village is in an uproar," Toren clicked, his voice sharp enough to cut. "The scouts say you carried the sky-thing to the High Deck. They say you touched it. That you spoke its jagged tongue."

"I did what the Pulse dictated," I rumbled, my voice a low warning. I didn't stop walking, forcing them to part before me or be trampled.

"The Pulse dictates the balance!" a voice spat from the crowd. It was Vahn, a seasoned hunter whose thirst for blood often outpaced his wisdom. He stepped forward, his black claws extended, the copper markings on his shoulders flickering with a challenging heat.

"That thing is a corruption," Vahn continued, his voice rising so the entire clan could hear. "It fell from the black void in a hail of fire. It should be pinned to the bark, its skin peeled back while it still breathes, and left for the Vakras to record its screams. We should see if its blood is as gold as its hair, or if it bleeds grey like the metal it arrived in. Why does the Huntmaster protect a parasite? Perhaps he wants to see how it tastes before he shares the meat."

A murmur of agreement—dark and hungry—rippled through the gathered crowd. Fear was a powerful poison, and they were drinking it deep.

"She is injured," I said, my voice dropping an octave, my blood thudding in a heavy, synchronised pound. "She is a specimen. Nothing more."

"She is a threat!" Vahn barked, stepping closer, his chest flaring a defiant, violent orange. "You risk the safety of the hearth for a plaything. Perhaps the Huntmaster has grown soft. Perhaps the golden-haired alien has cast a spell on his mind, and he is no longer fit to lead the prowl. Look at him—he still carries its scent!"

The air went still. The only sound was the crackle of the blue flames in the communal pits.

I stopped. Slowly, I turned to face him.

I let out a trill—not a song, but a bone-shaking, high-frequency shriek that tore through the clearing. It was the sound of a predator claiming a kill, a sound that made the younger Oru-Ka duck their heads and cover their ears. It silenced the chatter instantly, leaving only the ringing echo in the humid air.

I stormed toward Vahn. I stood a head taller, my shadow swallowing him whole. I leaned into his space, my eyes locking onto his. I didn't use my claws—didn't need to. I let the markings on my chest flare with such intensity that they cast a harsh light on his fearful face.

"You speak of leadership, Vahn?" I whispered, the words vibrating with a lethal edge. "You, who would butcher a broken creature before understanding why the Great Alu’un allowed her to survive the fire? If you want my role, take it. But you will have to go through both my hearts to get it."

Vahn recoiled, his tail tucking between his legs. He didn't speak. The dominance was absolute.

I turned away, my pulse an uneven rhythm against my ribs. I didn't stay to hear their apologies. I leapt, catching a series of handholds grown into the trunk of the Great Tree, and hauled myself upward. I climbed past the communal levels, past the nurseries and the storehouses, until I reached my own personal hut on the highest tier.

I stepped onto my platform and stood at the edge, looking out over the sprawling, glowing network of my home. My hands were shaking—a rare tremor I couldn't suppress.

Chaos. That was what she had brought. In the span of a few hours, she had caused more dissent in my tribe than a season of famine. I looked up toward the dark silhouette of the Observation Deck, where I knew she was huddled in the cold, thin air, her blood cooling on her pale skin.

What in the trees was I doing?

Every law of the Oru-Ka dictated that I should have ended her in the vines. But the memory of her scent was burned into my senses. And the way she had looked at my body... the heat that had flared between us in that moment when she realised my sex... it wasn't just fear. It was a friction I had never felt with our own females, a serrated spark that refused to die.

I slammed my fist against the living wood of my wall, the vibration echoing through the platform. She was just a woman. A small, golden, fragile intruder.

I paced the length of the platform, my tail twitching behind me. My mind replayed how the light had hit her skin, how the tears in her suit had revealed the soft, vulnerable curves of her form. She was so easily broken, so fundamentally different from the rigid, hardy females of my kind.

The tribe wanted her dead because they feared the unknown. I wanted her alive because... because I couldn't let go of the curiosity burning in my gut. This star-woman was a riddle I wasn't finished solving.

"Kaelen?"