As I slinked along, my only warning was a sudden lurch. My hindleg tripped on a crag! I stumbled, flew forward. One foreleg buckled. I threw the other out to break my fall. But the leg punched through the ground! Dustone cracked, disintegrating, and a burst of dust sprayed onto my brilles.


    I was more important, right now. The leg glistened a warm golden yellow. As I watched, it hardened to glass, glazing onto the scales. The new glass grew murky and speckled with flakes of stone and metal, already vitrifying where it met the air.


    me, and that hurt more, right now.


    No. It doesn’t matter.


    died! Draw two deep breaths. Then four. Then six. Let it go. You lived, that was enough.


    that would be even more of a nightmare to clean.


    foreverto scrape off completely. I would have to wait until we left the lake, as much as it bothered me. But I slid my other foreleg over it, sloughing off some still-liquid hunks of glass.


    awful! The blackened, burned gash stretched a few claw lengths along my foreleg, bleeding and blistering. Lumps of mottled glass stuck out from my foreleg. And on the clear patches, the protective black slime oozed back, almost glued to my skin. The glass formed almost rubbery the closer it''d glazed to the slime; and the stuff flaked or crizzled more than it shattered.


    died…


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    Above me, Hinte stared, frills wrinkling as she huffed, sounding both annoyed and exasperated.


    on the lake, not in it.” She made a walking gesture with four toes.


    help me up?


    long rings. I’d spent all evening in the Berwem.


    lifted Hinte. She had flown out into the cliffs every cycle in the few moons I had known her. I wanted to know why, and I wanted to help her.


    something of the stones’ secret. I didn’t hold my breath, though.


    you are injured. Do not lie to me,” she hissed.


    Hinte!” I rasped.


    fine,” I said, but even I found it weak.


    prevent these burns.”


    wanted to talk to. We could be friends.


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    For once, something new lay under the blackened ash sky and the fake glass stars shining from below instead of somewhere above me. Here, the crags and pits of the Berwem deepened, becoming troughs and valleys and gorges. Scaly plates of dustone met and hugged each other so tightly they folded together into mountains as high as my withers.


    She never tells me anything! I mouthed to myself. My imagined voice is deep and stormy, with clarity and anger I’d never allow into my voice otherwise. It’s like she can’t be bothered to explain even the simplest things!


    pointless.” The words left me, and there was a certain emptiness where I’d kept them inside for so long.


    should I care?”


    need your help. Go get lost in the vog or quit bothering me.”


    curious.” I stepped closer. She looked at me, a frill tensed. When she spoke, I smelled her anger, but I heard a certain note of hesitation.


    dare you!” My voice came out airy and unwavering. The words hadn’t even left my mouth when my frills widened. I cringed. My legs stiffed, becoming loose and floaty dustone about to crack. As my tail coiled around a hindleg, I brought a wing to my mouth and coughed. It came easily with my throat already burned raw.


    on my own???—??you will taste it!”


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