Vaysh burned.

I'd watched him ride into our collective, and steered away as any sane sentient being, whether human or har, should do around open flame. He would burn and scorch; he was seared into the very marrow of this mutant blood that flowed in my veins; from sight alone my cells were branded. Of course I briefly tried to keep my distance, knowing as instinctively as a plant turns to the sun, or a drowning man clings to anything to keep him from dying in watery depths, that to get close to him would cause an elemental transfiguration.

I was stone: solid, yet porous when necessary.

But you know what happens when rock is punished by relentless heat. Lava. Liquid, destructive, transient.

Could anyone ever look back at our lives and not marvel at our exploits, our so un-refined, un-controlled, Wraeththu-anathema love for each other?

* * * * *

My first thought when the small entourage came riding in was that some har, somewhere, had made a grave error in judgment. All of us, we Wraeththu, are this mutated amalgam of the sexes, two combined into one, yet presumably not both at once. Ever the enthusiastic pioneer, however, I'd vowed to myself to try and find out, which I did, successfully.

The hara who approached wore leather of rich chestnut, designed scored into them that resembled constellations. They looked heavenly, quite easy on the eyes, but also as haughty and distant as the stars, radiant and far off. We'd known they were coming, as the one who seemed to be their leader had sent out a thought-call. Our clan head, Monarch, had replied and warily bid them approach. Wraeththu hadn't been in existence all that long then. We were still actively hunted down though of course we fought back with deadly vengeance.

Their horses were as well fashioned and groomed as their masters. I wondered if they had some kind of occult or spiritual connection to equines. Each tribe and splinter group I'd come across or heard about appeared to have taken on its own unique personality, passion, and/or perversion. I didn't know, philosophically, what I thought of that, as it reeked of humanity to me. We all came from different backgrounds, though, had been incepted in myriad ways with tales of bliss and horror (or both), so I supposed it made sense that each small stronghold would have a very different culture shaped by their respective leaders.

A willowy har with long hair the colour of burnished sand dismounted, his presence commanding despite his fetching, sinuous body movement. Before I had become har, I'd of course been a human male, with raging hormones that had churned and bruised me though I'd not had an outlet aside from solo release. My fantasies hadn't involved men, back when the decaying world still boasted of its male and female polarities. I'd had a love affair of sorts with the insatiable creature between my legs, dreaming of burying it in a silken heat of some secretive, foreign darkness. A flare of my former self, the insipid human part I'd hoped had been scoured away forever, raised its regressive head when confronted with Vaysh, as I soon learned this compelling har was named.

"He's flaming."

The ancient slur blindsided me, some dormant, pre-har wire in my brain tripped by the sight of him. Perhaps back in the past this Vaysh had favoured his own gender, and been flamboyant about it. It wasn't for me to ferret out of him, or care. We were Wraeththu now, beyond such banal and reductive concepts of she and he. This har evoked more of the feminine in outward display, but I soon discovered he had balls of steel. Vaysh was a sword, clothed as a sylph.

Our tribe leader met with Vaysh and the five har who had accompanied him while the rest of our group got back to what we needed to do, primarily ensuring that our enclave was safe, and our crops tended to. I had additional tasks: I was responsible for writing down in a somewhat organised fashion the lessons to be learned to move from Neoma to Brynie. We had only two Ulani in our tightly-knit group, two Pyralists. They were teaching what they could, but I saw in their eyes and heard in their occasionally strained voices that they knew we would need to seek outside resources. My closest companions, Euclase, Ondin and Belvac, had, like me, been older when incepted; sixteen, or seventeen. In our dead pasts, we'd been groomed for the euphemistically-called higher education; wise-arsed scholars to be, was our triumvirate. Now, as Wraeththu, we hungered ravenously for knowledge, constantly testing our new abilities much to the chagrin of our tribal leaders.

One balmy night a couple of weeks before Vaysh's arrival, I'd been mulling over some bit of telepathic arcana, puzzling over particular uses of controlling energy when I'd paused outside the open windows of Monarch's study.

"Fine. We we'll send for one of the Kakkahaar. Or, perhaps more wisely, enlist one of the Gelaming."

"We've got to do something," I heard my mentor, Kyrgian, say in exasperation. "They could nearly all move on to Ulani, and at least two, Ashmael and Belvac, could, in time, aspire to Nahir-Nuri."

I paused, wondering if they sensed my presence, but they appeared engrossed in their heated discussion.

"Kyrgian, you can't possibly see that in them."

"They're devastatingly intelligent!"

"Many are. It takes more than just brains to achieve those illustrious castes."

"I know that. But it's a crime for them to be stifled at any point in their progress. We've done well so far, but sooner than perhaps you expect, they'll be desperate for more knowledge, at any cost. You know that what I'm saying is the truth. We have an embarrassment of riches in our har, and if they're held back, they'll simply turn to darker, equally powerful conduits."

There was a pause, heavy with foreboding and resignation. My heart had sped up, both at hearing such unexpected praise, but also at the thought of studying the higher levels of instruction. Kyrgian indeed spoke the truth: we weren't particularly brutal or war-like; our sport was learning, seeing just how far we could test and expand our new bodies and energies. I was flattered that Kyrgian thought me capable of achieving such an elevated state within Wraeththu, and didn't doubt for a minute I wouldn't succeed if given the opportunity.



Monarch let out a sigh before taking a drink of something— wine, probably, as we had it in abundance.

"I concur. I've had a premonition, but have been loath to speak of it."

"We'll have visitors soon, won't we? I've had a sense of it as well, vague shadows on the outskirts of my dreams. They won't seek our ruin, at least those are the divinings I've had."

"No, they'll join our tribe, and we'll be stronger for it. But their coming will herald a profound change for us. And the outcome of that I can't envision."

I'd heard enough, and felt both exhilarated and guilty at having eavesdropped on their conversation. It had been an accident, walking by just then, but deep in my guts I'd never been one to think that anything truly happened by chance.

I was brought back from my musings about the premonitions of the arrival of our new guests when Ondin cornered me in the laundry. I'd been supervising the youngest in our clan while he found suitable clothes for the visiting har.

"What do you think? They seem awfully protective, and secretive. And a bit too pretty. I doubt they've ever had to cleanse a town before."

I turned on him, my mouth twisted to the side. "Looks are deceiving, as the pithy saying goes, especially with our kind. You're pretty," I said, a biting sting in my voice. "That didn't stop you from killing over a dozen men."

"It had to be done!" he insisted, hurt and prideful anger jostling for dominance on his expressive face. "And I'm not pretty. I wouldn't break a mirror looking at it, but we all know you're the most dashing har in our group."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," I teased, lightening the mood and grabbing at his admittedly shapely backside, tightly encased in leather trousers.

"Oh, bugger off." Ondin's umber eyes flashed mischievously. "Besides, I'm taken."

I groaned at that. "Are you har or not? This idea of possession, of 'mine' and exclusivity, that's human, Ondin."

"It was a joke," he protested, sitting down and beginning to plait a thin braid from long mahogany hair he tugged down from above his ear. It was a nervous habit, and he knew that I knew that. Still, I wasn't in the mood to rub his nose in it.

"You and Wyngarr are chesna. Fine. But you're not his, and he's not yours."

Ondin sneered, pleasantly. "You're one to talk, tiaharr-steady-aruna-diet-of-Euclase."

I rolled my eyes and heard Jaffa, the young Aralid, snicker.

"Euclase and I have been friends for years. It's natural that we seek each other's company. But we're not all cloying about it."

Ondin's expression grew more grave. "In all seriousness, do you think now that these har have shown up, those changes—"

"Not now," I said meaningfully as I jerked my head toward Jaffa, who'd become still to listen more attentively to our conversation.

"Let's go for a walk, then. Jaffa, I know we don't have much that's spare, but you're bright and can figure something out. The nicest tunic and trousers should be given the Vaysh. He's the one who led them to us."

The youth stood, his gesticulating hands like the fluttering leaves of an aspen. "He looks female."

"For fuck's sake!" I exclaimed, beginning to lose my temper. "Is everyone regressing today?"

Jaffa shrank back, his already wide eyes now as large as saucers. I didn't often raise my voice.

"What are you?" I yelled at him.

Instead of buckling, he stood proudly, though fear still hung in his eyes like a diaphanous veil. "I'm Wraeththu."

"Damn straight. You're male and female, got it? Now quit thinking like the mortal youth you were nine months ago and please assure me that you've actually been paying attention to the life you're living."

"I have, honest. Sorry, Ashmael," he said, worrying his lower lip and shoving his hands into the pockets of his overvest. "He was just surprising, that's all. I'd forgotten, or, really, I'd just put my past out of my mind, and seeing him made some of it come back. I'm har, Vaysh is har. No difference."

My heart warmed at the boy's earnestness. He'd been lucky, and had it a hell of a lot easier than most of us. His inception and clan loyalties had been relatively peaceful.

"Yes. That's right. Ondin and I are going to take a walk, but we won't be long. After you've taken the clothes to the cloister where our guests are staying, please find Wycker and make sure that the visitors' horses have been tended to."

I strode over to him and he flinched, but stood his ground as firmly as a tall pine. Leaning down, I held him in a tight embrace until he softened against me. He snuck his wiry arms around my back and nestled his face against my chest for a moment, then eased away.

"I'll be honoured to take care of them," he said, nerve again in his voice.

"If I knew more about them, I'd tell you," I said. "I don't think they'll be strangers for long, to any of us."

Jaffa nodded as Ondin stood up, leading the way out of the warm confines of the laundry room into an equally sultry twilight. He offered me a cigarette from a silver case and I decided to indulge. Our bodies weren't negatively affected by it, and I'd discovered that my alcohol tolerance had skyrocketed. I didn't see the need to be a lush nor a chimney, however, just because I could.

I found myself wondering why I'd jumped to the defense of this — effeminate, yes — har who didn't know me from the Aghama's house cat. He had triggered something in me. It was unsettling. No, Vaysh's arrival to our enclave of scholarly hara was definitely more than unsettling, or unnerving. I would be changed; my foresight of it was axiomatic. My inner polarity churned, the idea of Strong or Proper or Companion spinning without direction. A part of me wondered, somewhat dazedly, if I would wake tomorrow to see the orb of the sun regally rising— from the West. Angered at my overactive imagination, I took a deep drag off of the cigarette and quashed my whirlwind thoughts.

"As I was saying," Ondin drawled, his Southern accent even more pronounced than mine. We'd all noticed that our speech had been tempered somewhat by our inception, but certainly not made completely neutral, either.

"You were about to go on with your fanciful ideas in front of Jaffa. It was uncalled for."

"You've just been there in your head," Ondin said matter of factly. "It's pretty obvious when you're thinking about things that are either really complex, or you'd prefer to keep secretively to yourself."

"So?" I snapped.

"Down, boy." Ondin put up his hands in mock surrender. "Didn't mean to touch a nerve. But these har, their coming— it's what Monarch and Kyrgian were talking about. Doesn't it have to be?"

"I should never have told you about that."

We ambled slowly, nearly shoulder to shoulder, the droning symphony of cicadas a shimmering backdrop of early evening.

"P'shaw. It's not as though I've not done my share of accidentally hearing things in advance of a Gathering. You and Belvac and me, and maybe Euclase— there's just not all that much left for us to master before we'll be ready to become Ulani. A few months, if that." He shrugged elegantly, taking a deep inhale of his cigarette.

"I don't have the feeling Vaysh and his group are any more advanced than we are," I hedged, wondering what Ondin's thoughts were about their caste. To be honest, it wasn't the caste and its title that interested me, though I'd had a few ridiculous daydreams of exalted status, being a hand-picked strategist for the legendary Gelaming, whomever and wherever they really were.

Ondin cocked his head and grinned wickedly. "If it has to do with aruna, something tells me they're far more advanced."

I snorted, trying to suppress the shudder of delight that had frissoned down my spine to lodge teasingly in my groin. I'd thought the same thing, of course. "And what exactly do you think Wyngarr will have to say about your soliciting of… that kind of instruction?"

My tongue tapped the bottom of my front teeth as Ondin's smile grew more feral, but then his enthusiasm for the sleek newcomers seemed to wane. "I don't know. He might consider letting one of them share our bed. Once. Or twice."

I gave him a calculated look, pausing to lean back against the trunk of an ancestral pine, its bark still warm from the heat of the day. "A ménage a trios? How adventurous."

"Surely there's another word for that now," he mused, his handsome face absorbed as he puzzled over the possible harish vocabulary.

"I'll admit it," I said, some drumbeat tapping a brazen tattoo in my chest. "I'd like to ride one of those horse-lords."

Ondin only shook his head, amused and slightly horrified. "Now look who's regressed. Aruna is far more than just a conquesting fuck, Ashmael."

"You're crass."

"I learned from a master."

* * * * *

Dinner was a much more elaborate affair than we usually experienced. Jaffa helped out Vox and Polaris, two other Aralids who, thankfully for us, were quite handy at cooking. We sat at circular tables, as was our custom, one each of the visiting har interspersed with our tribe. Trying not to be overt about my undeniable pull to Vaysh, instead I found a place next to the har who seemed to be closest to him, Opequon. His oddly short hair was an intriguing colour; satiny black shot through with bright viridian. Seeing the luminous green strands lit by our torches made me think of the aurora borealis, and I was all set to tell him that until I was brought up short by the anguish harboured carefully behind his calm demeanour.

The others at my table and I made him welcome, trying to stick to updates of Megalithica and any news we could dig out from him, all without discussing the one topic we were so desperate to know: were they staying? What were their plans? That would be discussed at the Gathering, later in the evening.

The outside world appeared not to have changed too terribly much since we'd splintered off from the Unneah. The Varrs held their stronghold in the north, and apparently some Gelaming had caught wind of their conquests and begun voyaging across the sea, creating a protected realm of their own in the south, but these hara did not really know where. The Gelaming wished to remain hidden in plain sight, or so it seemed. There were still humans in existence; tiny, often fierce bands, grimly clawing at their fading numbers and striking out against Wraeththu when they could. Opequon and their small entourage had been ambushed a couple of months back and three of their hara slaughtered. Suddenly Opequon's shorn neck and haunted eyes made sense. None of us needed to ask; the loss he had suffered was lamented with each breath.

Though potentially deadly, our lives, it was exciting, too. We suffered from a human saying, doggedly lodged in my memory: verily, we were cursed to live in interesting times. Not infrequently in my early years as har I had to go off by myself for walks deep into the surrounding primeval forests. There I would scream out my fear and exaltation at traversing this irrevocably post-human terrain. I sometimes felt even my harish body wasn't strong enough to bear it all. I marveled that one day I'd simply fly apart into a dazzling shower of opalescent sentience before being absorbed back into the ceaseless song of the universe.

Aruna was good for getting me out of the galloping rampages of my mind and back into my corporeal self. I sought it out often.

Once we'd all cleaned up from the sumptuous meal — we were far more egalitarian than most tribes, especially back then — Monarch called us to Gather. Though it was a sticky, windless night, he lit a ceremonial fire regardless. Vaysh and Opequon stood slightly apart from the group, not speaking aloud, certainly communicating through mind touch. They approached to flank Monarch and Kyrgian, representing (so the gesture mandated) their integration to our clan, while observing and accepting the leadership already in place. I felt a knot in my stomach ease at the sight of it. It wasn't that I'd thought this honey-haired har and his few followers would com in and try to usurp Monarch and Kyrgian, but their actions showed an intuitive nod to how we functioned as a group. Their assimilation wouldn't be fraught with misunderstanding and strife. The night air caressed us, suffused with peace and the promise of an enterprising dawn.

I stayed up drinking half the night, my appetite for the stories of these new hara insatiable. In some ways all of our tales were variations on the same theme: in a metamorphosis of blood and pain, we'd struggled away from our human lives, abandoning family, so-called civility as it gasped its tormented, putrid last breaths, and embraced new visions, each of us spawned relentlessly by passion. If we were honest with ourselves, it was obvious that Wraeththu were children of desire. Some boys were incepted against their will; I'd heard of it and didn't doubt it for a second. But in those early years, at least as I believed it, to give the gift of becoming har was a sacred rite. I had been religious, back… before. The transformation from sniveling human to Wraeththu took my breath every time, as I humbly knelt before each new, divine manifestation of the inconceivable.

Vaysh had sat and listened to me blather on about my self-perceived profound thoughts on incarnation and inception for ages, matching me glass for glass of robust red wine. I was seized by the need for him to speak, to share with me, this otherworldly creature who was very nearly my age. Yet, he bore his complex harish self with the same inherent ease of being I'd witnessed at the Gathering. I was dying to impress him, though even in my alcohol sodden stupor I recognised I wasn't doing so. If anything, I was only amusing him as I chattered on into the night.

"Tell me about you," I pleaded, finally. "You should've told me to shut up my pompous mouth ages ago."

His grey eyes glinted with mischief. "Okay, Ashmael. I will, but not right this minute. It's been a long and stressful journey for us, and I think that I should heed the call to bed. Before I go," he said, leaning closer, drumming his long fingers on my leg, "you seem as though you have something else you want to tell me. What is it?"

I didn't even pause to think. "I want to share breath with you," I said helplessly.

"You want to do far more than that," he replied with a sly smile.

"Yes, of course I do." The words came out in a torrent, heedless and unchecked by the usual filters between my mind and mouth. "I can't find the words, but there's something about you, you're so compelling," I said, attempting a last-ditch seduction which, even to my ears, sounded pathetic and desperate.

He chuckled, a melodious baritone sound. "Oh, I am compelling. Aren't you chesna with Euclase? Or am I misinterpreting the way you act around him?"

"We're…" I fumbled. "We take aruna with each other, yes. He's been a close friend of mine, since boyhood. Human boyhood. But we're not like Ondin and Wyngarr. I don't know how I know, but you and I have a destiny together. I'm certain of it."

Vaysh spread out his fingers so the palm rested close to the juncture of my thigh and hip; I was sitting cross-legged. His expression had changed, no longer playful, but introspective and distant, his thoughts flying to a place I couldn't follow. I gazed at him, at the angle of his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw. Vaysh's face was a geometry of promise, the topography of desire.

"I'm not just trying to get between your legs," I whispered, feeling blood roar in my ears.

A feral, possessive smile bloomed on his lips. "When we first take aruna — and we will, Ashmael, have no doubt," he said, his voice roughened with cigarettes and palpable desire, "it is I who will seek out your depths. I'll sink into your mossy glens, and then you'll truly know the fullness of destiny."

A strangled cry escaped my mouth before my lips claimed his, sharing breath with a ferocity that made my heart stutter in my chest. Vaysh tasted of velvet and stormclouds; he withheld nothing as we kissed. I spun through parts of his past, whirling and dazzling like a hawk above mountains. His breath was sunsets and dew, dappled horses and the erotic tang of leather.

Eventually we parted. Vaysh reached tenderly into my mind. We each have partings to make.

I nodded, struggling to my feet and assisting Vaysh up from the ground. In my esoteric studies, I'd spent my energies on distant mind-calling, as well as shielding my thoughts. This speech was so intimate; why hadn't I been practising before now? I struggled for a moment, taming my swirling cacophony of thoughts and longings.

Ashmael, Vaysh chided, lovingly. Breathe.

I did, never losing contact with his gaze, his pupils dilated so only the faintest silver ringed the black.

I'm not used to this, I thought back, humbled.

You have a lot to teach me as well. This is only the beginning, Vaysh said reassuringly, inclining his head toward our small station of dwellings. "We should get back. No doubt our absence has been noted."

I took his hand, intertwined our fingers, and wondered at the smearing of damp against my palm. I glanced over at him, surprised when I saw embarrassment flicker in his expression.

"I was nervous," he admitted with a refreshingly awkward shrug. "You, this—" He gestured vaguely at me. "My mind's a jumble of puzzle pieces. I need to get to know you. It'll take time."

"All the time in the world," I bravely pledged, then unclasped his hand, smothering my face with my palms. "What the fuck is happening? We don't do this. We're supposed to have evolved beyond this, Vaysh." I turned on him, panic burbling up in me, a rare geyser set to burst with a catastrophic explosion. "Why me? You?"

I almost wanted to hit him, to wipe off the untroubled, accepting set to his face.

"Why not?"

His words weren't sarcastic, and now I could sense his feelings. Deep within himself, in fact, there was an undercurrent of wondrous fear. He would stay up the remainder of the few hours until dawn talking through things with Opequon and Zain, his confidantes and allies. I needed Euclase's understanding arms and perspective, too.

On the way to the cloister we'd passed a few har still chatting, and I noted that Wyngarr and Ondin had taken Opequon under their wing, Ondin massaging the new har's shoulders. Jaffa had fallen asleep near the fire, his sweaty ginger hair plastered to his forehead. The light from the burning embers played on his freckled skin. In my euphoric state, he looked like a seraph. Once at the door to his new residence, I paused. There were lights on inside; I suspected that Zain had waited up for him.

"I'm blind and stumbling," I said, trying to articulate my utter shock at my actions, much less my thoughts. I clawed for my usual eloquence. "I'm not supposed to have feelings like this, without purpose, or source. It's like something out of a human novel. A poorly-written one," I added with a harsh snort.

Vaysh leaned forward until our foreheads touched. "It's okay," he murmured. "This scares the shit out of me too. Good night, tiahaar."

I couldn't keep the smile from tugging at my lips as I took my time walking the short distance to my dwelling, a four-room house shared by my three close companions. Quite often only three rooms were actually used for sleeping, but especially since Euclase and I weren't bound by chesna — though our decades-long friendship brought me tremendous comfort — we slept alone at times, seeking solitude or even taking aruna with one of the others in our tribe. Once inside the house I cleaned my teeth and sought out my old friend. He was in his room, sprawled on his side in the dark. At first I assumed he was asleep, but I decided to test my newly-explored thought communication ability, tentatively seeking his mind. He started at my touch, though he'd been awake, his thoughts a turbulent stream of discontent and resignation. He sat up to face me, lips pursed as he, too, reached out solely through thought while trying to place a protective barrier to shield himself.

What do you want? he asked peevishly. Did you get tired of fawning over the lovely har and now you want to share my bed? Or did he turn you down?

His last thought was full of self-congratulation at first. As I shook my head and came to sit next to him, I could sense it change to restlessness. He cared for me a great deal; perhaps only now were we both realising how troublingly complex our interactions had become. I ran my hands through his tousled hair before sharing breath. He resisted just for a moment, but gave in to the comfort and familiarity of such a simple, yet profound exchange. I was enfolded in his warmth as we shared breath; Euclase as always, tasted of book-gilt and rustling leaves.

"I want to hold you," I said, for it was the truth.

"You look as though you need to be held," he said, taking on his usual role of companion more than lover, his unspoken questions hovering busily around him like moths. "Here, let me take off your boots."

I did and then lay on my back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. From a small hook Euclase had hung a mobile, the fanciful birds hanging motionless in the still night. His artistry and imagination in carving and other woodwork never ceased to astonish me, as well as his intuition to understanding my moods. Euclase stretched out beside me, insinuating his arm under my back and gently nudging until I rolled half across him, my face pressed against the hard plane below his collarbone. With wide fingers, he drew sweeping paths on my back, the finger pads pressing gently on the linen of my tunic. I was at home here, brimming with gratitude and melancholy. Our past seemed so simple; now it was changed, impossible to be undone.

"I spent quite a while talking with their Abelard," he said, his voice low and pensive. "They've had a rougher time of it recently, but it's made them strong. If they'd chosen to attack, instead of join peacefully, well, certainly we'd not be lying here like this."

I made a rumbling sound of assent. They were lissome, but in watching them for as short a time as they'd been with us — mere hours! — it was obvious by their selected armaments and wariness that the world had turned them to warriors. Steely, and supple. No wonder our band of defensive philosophers was so enraptured.

"Did he want to take aruna with you?" I asked.

Like all Wraeththu, Euclase was a beauty; surely Abelard had noticed. Stockier than I was, Euclase's corded muscle was accentuated by olive skin, bronzed a deep tan at the end of a long summer. His ebony hair fell in loose ringlets down his back and he gazed out at this new world through startlingly pale green eyes.

"It wasn't brought up, but I wouldn't be surprised he asks in the future. I suspect I'll say yes. Would that trouble you?"

His fingers slowed, undulating and kneading as I pondered the question.

"Aruna keeps us whole, and nourishes our spirits. I want your happiness, I always have."

His rich, loamy scent wafted up from the heated hollow of his neck, the sweet acrid tang of sweat.

"That's not an answer." His tone was light, but I felt the grave seriousness behind it. "Are you really beyond jealousy? Or have your sights been swayed that quickly, even though I know you better than anyone?"

I scooted up onto an elbow so I could look into his dear, familiar face. "You know me best," I agreed, cupping his jaw with my other hand, brushing my thumb on his cheek. I drank in the handsome contours, the bewitching sparkle of his eyes that was now lacquered with sorrow. In looking into his eyes, I saw that we felt a similar perplexing weft and weave of wanting to rush forward into our diverging lives, and yet grasp tightly to the moment at hand. Our years together underlay it all, the pentimento only we could perceive in each other. That would change— Euclase did know me best, but that time was coming to its end.

"Anyone you deem worthy to hold in your arms, flesh to flesh, should consider himself exalted," I said, feeling my own flesh stir slowly to life as I rocked my growing arousal against his hip.

"Then you must be a demigod, you flatterer," he teased, canting his groin to further stimulate the stiffening flower that throbbed between my legs. I smiled seductively and was gifted with a predatory stare before our mouths drew together again. Our kisses grew more passionate until the need to remove the hindrance of clothing became overwhelming.

"Let me be behind you," I said, feeling that he was still fully flowered, our lengths sliding together with a delicious friction. Euclase and I had explored myriad avenues of pleasure once he'd become har. We had discovered much to our mutual satisfaction that our advanced bodies intuited when our ouana-lim wasn't in danger of possible injury and didn't retreat, even when soume.

I spooned behind him, my chest to his back, and slid deep into his welcoming body. We groaned together; I began to thrust into him, a rhythm slow and ancient as waves crashing on the beach. I sowed a blooming path of kisses on his neck and shoulders as he guided my hand to his ouana-lim, a jetting spire of bronze and orange. A near-steady stream of profanity interspersed with my name tumbled from his lips. The curled petals at his tip nudged my fingers as I took him in hand, stroking in tandem with my thrusts.

Euclase was a master of control and skill, both as ouana and soume and he was generous in heightening my pleasure. His body was a silken glove, the spiraling unstoppable in our increasingly frenzied pursuit of each other's completion.

"Mael, please, God, oh fuck," he groaned, clenching around me so that I swore a torrent in return. "Please, release me, so close," he babbled as I snapped my hips a few times and then arched into him, stopping my motions on his outer organ. Deep inside him, my butterfly tongue uncurled; it flickered against his hidden ember and he shouted his ecstasy. As though I were outside of myself, I sensed more than felt his jeweled drops on my fingers. My simultaneous release had catapulted me to another plain of being, diffused in a chorus of pounding heartbeats, the savoury musk of Euclase's devotion sparking on my tongue.

We lay coupled together for some time until our breathing at last evened out and I carefully withdrew from his warm hold. He shifted and turned over, an apple-red flush in his cheeks and curled, wet tendrils of hair stuck to his forehead.

"You've undone me," I rasped, my voice hoarse from our unusually vocal lovemaking.

Euclase regarded me for a few moments, and then pressed a swath of light kisses along my sweaty brow before he shared breath again. I tried to memorise his taste and the comforting landscape of his soul. We would be parting; perhaps not forever, but that was how it seemed at the time. I brimmed with perceived profundity back then, every action and decision, I felt, sent irrevocable ripples across the bottomless waters of our new race.

"It's you who's undone me," Euclase countered softly, wiping his face on a damp pillowcase. He snuggled against me in defiance of the heat and our sweat-slicked skin. "I may be sore tomorrow. Today. The sun will be up in not too long," he said, his voice plaintive and timid in a way I'd not heard in a long time.

"Think of it as a gift to the tribe. I wouldn't be surprised if the energy from our aruna created a protective aura around the camp," I suggested, half serious.

"We've never even attempted Grissecon," he scoffed, but then he slowly raised his head and used his fingers to move damp strands of hair from out of my eyes. "But maybe these new hara are versed in it. Beyond dry book knowledge, that is."

"That would be welcome, indeed."

I cocked my head before leaning in to press my lips chastely against Euclase's. I was spent in every way, and wanted nothing more than to drift off, sated and at peace. We held each other in weary but contented silence, though I didn't let myself truly relax until I heard his regular, feathery noises and was certain Euclase was asleep. I spared a thought to Vaysh and wondered what the upcoming day would reveal about him as well as the other five hara who were now a part of our tribe, and how we would all certainly be changed. A short time later, I followed Euclase into sleep.

* * * * *

The next few days were filled with excitement and a few minor power skirmishes as the new hara became fully integrated into our camp. Belvac, who had been spending much of his time off in a hermitage of sorts in the woods, engaged in solitary contemplation and study, renewed his dedication to the future of our group as a whole by actually being bodily present. I'd respected his need for space and individual pursuits, as I'd often felt that same pull myself. Now, however, I saw him conferring with Kyrgian, or trying to take Jaffa back under his wing, though the har would have none of it. He was far too intrigued by the newcomers, especially Iolethe, trailing around after the kindly har like a shadow. One midday I took Iolethe aside to reassure him that if at any point Jaffa became a nuisance, he could let any of us know.

"I don't mind, truly," he said, wiping at the sweat on his ruddy skin. Iolethe wore his thick, caramel hair in a sea of complicated braids, woven full of coral beads. Lively, robin's egg blue eyes evaluated me before he asked, "When was he incepted?"

"Less than a year ago. Wycker is his older brother; they'd fled when their town burned. Rival human gangs had destroyed every decent person they could, and massacred their family."

Iolethe nodded. Violence and death had been the norm in the dystopic playground of most large cities. I didn't know Iolethe's particular inception story, and assumed if and when he wished to share it, he would. "Has he been told about Feybraiha?"

"About what?"

"Feybraiha. Harish puberty."

I must have looked dumbfounded, because he scratched absently at a mosquito bite and continued on. "He'll probably become an emotional mess, have meltdowns, be miserable, feel like his body is on fire, and then he'll need to be instructed in the ways of aruna. It's much like human puberty, but more intense. He'll know who he's been called to take aruna with; it's another one of those things that we just know instinctively as har."

"But he's taken aruna, of a sort. He had to, after his inception. Even though he was only eleven at the time."

"Right, but it was only to finalise his change, I assume. And he doesn't crave it now."

I suddenly felt that I'd done our youngest member a terrible disservice and realised just how much I still needed to learn about our newborn race. All at once Vaysh's calm but sensual voice sounded in my head.

You couldn't have known. Come and find me; I'd like to talk with you.

I felt soothed by his voice, though disconcerted that Vaysh had seemed almost a part of the conversation without physically being there.

Were you eavesdropping on me from wherever you are? I asked through mind-touch. My mind was indeed adapting, the different parts of my brain stretching their newly aware, harish muscles.

Not exactly. I could hear the smile in his voice. But come when you can.

"Oh, sorry," I said to Iolethe, who seemed to be expecting a verbal response during my silent exchange with Vaysh. "Vaysh was checking in with me, telepathically." I shook my head. "No doubt it'll become second nature, but chatting like that from a distance with regularity is still a novelty. I still struggle a bit."

He smiled, warmth dancing in his expression. "It's worth learning, but you're wise to be cautious. Getting back to Jaffa, I'd be happy to talk with him about what to expect."

"Shouldn't we all know?" I asked, brushing invisible dirt from my trousers and turning toward the edge of our dwellings nearest the woods; without being told, I knew Vaysh would be there.

"Yes, that would be smart." Iolethe reached out and held my bicep firmly, but in an unthreatening way. "Before Zain and I left our former clan, there were har already trying to create new life, solely among our own kind. It's only a matter of time before it happens here, too. Jaffa is alone in his upcoming bodily trial; the rest of you were older, as is common. I've at least seen somehar go through Feybraiha and know the signs."

My mind was reeling; I'd been stunned into a rare silence by the seeming preposterous statements Iolethe had so earnestly made.

"Har? Procreating?" My riotous imagination envisioned bloody rooms, bellies cut open and reptile-like monstrosities rending the air with hideous cries. "That's… unnatural," I settled on, though 'perverse' and 'horrifying' wanted to slip out instead.

Iolethe loosened his hand and instead pulled me close to him, his hand snugly at my waist. "You're an academic, or were," he said smoothly, taking a step in the direction I'd been heading to heed Vaysh's summons. I walked necessarily at his side, not minding the proximity. He, like Kyrgian, radiated a common sense and caring benevolence I gravitated to at that point in my early harhood.

"Surely you know that eventually humanity will succumb, and become as extinct as wooly mammoths. Inception has been the necessary way of our generation, but we're already evolving as a race."

"I know. It's mind-boggling," I said, jamming my hands into my pockets.

I was fond of Iolethe and his understated mannerisms; even in his few days with us, I'd noted that he had a unique ability to make anyhar around him feel useful and clever, though he rarely praised individuals outright. I didn't think Vaysh would think anything of us walking and talking, should we have our arms slung behind each other's backs, but we were so early in our courtship — he and I were nearly erupting with sexual tension after three days, but I was letting him set the pace and we'd not taken aruna yet, which was excruciating — I wanted him to be sure that I had no designs on anyhar else. No doubt I had every reason to eat my self-aggrandizing words I'd posited to Ondin about possession, and he'd gloat until he'd gorged on it.

My mind was still fixated on harish… pregnancy? Incubation? What the hell would it be? There were no Wraeththu anatomy books, no surgeons. I certainly wasn't going to volunteer as a wielder of a scalpel or as a subject.

"Have you seen?" I asked, my voice low and breathless. "I just can't fathom it."

As we approached the edge of our camp, we saw Vaysh sitting on his horse, Arches. Mine, a diligent mare named Willow, wandered nearby.

"In my mind's eye, I've seen," Iolethe answered with equally quiet reverence. "First things first, though. We'll get Jaffa through his Feybraiha. I think it'll happen before autumn is over, he just has that look about him. For now, enjoy your time with Vaysh. You're good for him."

I turned as he stepped away, glancing up at Vaysh who gave him a knowing, irritated glare. His affection for Iolethe and the others in his small group poured from him, though, an auralic energy that pulsed strongly enough to be felt, like enfolding, protective wings.

"You're meddling," he accused Iolethe before sitting up straight. He tossed back his hair, the mannerism evoking a horse shaking its mane. "I don't need your help, though your unnecessary approval is noted."

An excited crowd of fireflies seemed to have lodged in my belly as I went over and swung myself into Willow's saddle. I knew why there was such a muddling in my stomach, the unrest travelling down to my groin as I discreetly rubbed against the leather for a modicum of relief. Vaysh's eyes were guarded as he told Iolethe we'd be back later in the day. Once we'd ridden for a couple of minutes, however, he glanced at me. The unspoken message was blatant, his formerly tamed hunger now voracious.

To distract myself from the increasing discomfort of suffering an erection while riding, I asked Vaysh whether or not he'd known any har who had tried to generate life together, not through the ritual of inception.

"How on earth did you come to that topic?" he asked, disdainful curiosity reflected in his furrowed brow. "It's inevitable, of course, or as a species we'd not last much longer than our actual life span, which is in itself an unknown. Still. I was first born as a human male, so having a child of my own wasn't a possibility. Reborn as Wraeththu perhaps I can, if the right har comes along." The last part was said dryly and I snickered under my breath.

"Someone to make a respectable har out of you?" I joked, leering at him even as I spent precious seconds reining in my roaring libido. It wasn't the idea of my seed combining with Vaysh's to create an unspeakable, fantastical creature which ensnared me; it was joining with him at all, knowing him intimately from inside and out, his bewitching body, beguiling mind and mysterious soul.

We were riding into the woods, following a disguised trail to Belvac's hermitage. There he and I would take aruna, I simply knew it, just as I'd known where to find Vaysh. I'd never… inseminated? other har when taking aruna, and there were thankfully no har-children around to that effect. A sliver of my rational self tended some embers of fear that Vaysh and I could do such a thing, unwittingly, but a soothing calm from outside myself reassured me that if and when I created harling life, I would know. I had every belief that this, Vaysh's and my inaugural and — I dared to treasure the word — sacred joining would be burned into my memory forever.

"Respect like that doesn't interest me," Vaysh declared, rousing me from my musings. He arched an eyebrow and gave me a look so molten with lust I felt my ouana-lim strain against its confines.

"By the Aghama," I moaned, knowing full well he could tell how desperate I was to feel him, to share breath, to share absolutely everything.

"Oh, Ashmael, you're so transparent." False irritation threaded his voice. "I know you're dying to be naked together, after days of waiting. Not much longer now before we burn your companion's bed with the flames of our passion."

"Do you always talk like that about aruna?" I asked candidly. Never mind my own inner flowery thoughts, but I kept them to myself. Vaysh had arrived and without preamble or warning produced the key to my heart and let himself in. But that didn't mean I adored all of his mannerisms.

"Are you always so judgmental?" he shot back.

"No."

I bristled with righteous indignation as the rustic wooden structure came into view. Vaysh had a point, which explained my itchy discomfort with myself. Through all of this, my irrevocable change from human to har, from intended university student to necessary murderer, survivalist, and embarrassingly self-fascinated new creature, I'd never let anyhar truly into my being. I did judge, and everyhar, even Euclase, came up wanting. I did love Euclase, but we were like old pines, comfortable and familiar, planted side by side centuries ago.

We dismounted and let the horses wander nearby. I guessed that Vaysh had spoken to Belvac about this spot; like so much about Vaysh, the understanding simply flowed between us, wordless and certain. He stood before me on the top of the three stairs until I walked up to join him, paused on the threshold of the inevitable. My rancor had melted away; all I felt as I interlaced our fingers was a labyrinthine emptiness, that my soul was a hollow, chambered nautilus.

"Fill me," I whispered, bereft.

I began to drown, swept into his swirling currents of empathy. Then he closed his eyes and tenderly pushed his breath into my awaiting mouth. Vaysh shared pleasant memories from his childhood; images of his inception and banding together with his current clan danced into me. I gifted him with scenes of my own, including some wishful fantasies of the two of us whose time I hoped would yet blossom into being. There was a restless urgency pounding in my blood as our bodies rutted together. I pulled away, breathing heavily, my hands itching to feel every inch of his skin. A question I'd never thought to ask skipped onto my tongue.

"How do I taste?"

Vaysh's gaze was that of a starving man sitting down to a feast. He didn't answer for a time, unbuttoning my shirt, his fingers fumbling in their haste much like my racing, stuttering heartbeat.

"Ashmael," he breathed into the sensitive flesh of my ear, lust frissoning down my spine, "you taste of fire-warmed stone and twilight. Of home."

I could do nothing but worship him. We somehow managed to situate ourselves inside the hermitage and shed our clothes before I fell to my knees before him, drinking in the wonder of his ouana-lim, its pulsing vermilion and plum. I swallowed him down, working my throat to bring him the greatest pleasure I could. Easing back, my tongue darted around the opened petals, lapping and savouring the vinegarsweet of his phosphorescent essence. His curses and adulations rained on me until I was soaked in his praise.

I wanted to absorb him; I needed Vaysh to know every heated, grasping contour, every dark recess of my heart. He put a finger under my chin and tilted up my head. I released my prize, though his crimson stem continued to jut proudly from its thatch of golden curls.

"Bed, I think," he said hoarsely.

We tumbled onto it, rolling and pressing skin against skin, hands flying over muscle and bone like careening birds. I held my breath as I hovered above him, achingly empty, soume in its entirety. A flicker of fear ghosted across Vaysh's countenance; neediness seeped from my pores, and doubtless the scent to him was overwhelming. I sank down onto his ouana-lim, he the bolt, and I the latch until with a ragged sigh, we were locked together.

Aruna isn't always transformative or profound, but for we Wraeththu it has the potential to shatter and remake the universe. In my first years as har, for all of my experimentation, I hadn't yet learned much in the arts or finesse of taking aruna. That afternoon, however, as the scent of primeval pine and resin filled our humble bower, I had my first real taste of euphoric delirium. Vaysh clasped me down to him and rolled us over, my legs thrown around his waist, my ankles crossed so I could pull him ever deeper into me. Vaysh's frenzied rockings caused the rickety bed to slam repeatedly against the floor. Through sweat-stung eyes I consumed him, his open, panting mouth, the slightly crooked lower teeth that were so precious in an otherwise too-perfect visage. I was the sea; he was fey and bold. Valiantly he navigated through my roiling waters until at last his thin, whipping sail struck at dry land, deep within me.

Our release was the terrifying rush of a tsunami, and when it had passed we lay in a jumble of limbs, gasping and wide-eyed. Amid the flotsam of sheets and leather wrist bands that had slipped from their fastenings, we gazed at each other, survivors of our passionate shipwreck.

Instead of being exhausted, I was invigorated, yet all I wanted was to clean up a bit and rest together. Trust in my own limbs was suspect. Vaysh gently and carefully uncoupled us; I wasn't all that often soume and due to our athletic enthusiasm, I knew I would be a bit tender for a time.

"You are—" I started to say, but Vaysh placed a finger on my lips, effectively silencing my inadequate commentary.

He manoeuvred to lie on top of me, his lean form not quite as long as mine. My ouana-lim had slowly re-emerged to take its usual place of attention, so Vaysh was especially cautious as he covered me, pale and silent as snow blanketing a mountain. He spread his fingers into mine, burrowing his face against my neck, his lyrical chant only barely audible. At last I figured out that he was offering up a prayer of thanks, or of gratitude, though to whom I wasn't certain. After a few moments he slid to his side, spooning to my torso. That was how I dozed, the haunting hoot of an owl punctuating my hazy dreams.

* * * * *

"Get up! Ash! The camp!" Vaysh hissed, his eyes wide and terrible.

"What?!" I exclaimed, my nerves instantaneously on alert as well. Then I felt it, Belvac's call and, perhaps most startling of all, Jaffa's abject terror.

"They're under attack. Come on, come on!" he bellowed as we frantically dressed.

The horses had intuited our distress, and raced us home to our small cluster of buildings. The sight assaulted all of my sensibilities— depraved, brutal har battling with those of our clan, who with their own knives and fists were retaliating fiercely.

Uigenna. I've got to find Llembara, Vaysh's clipped voice sounded in my head.

"Vaysh!" I yelled, but he was gone and I fell into the fray.

I wish that had been the day I'd discovered my calling to command, but I was too young then, and everything I did was reaction, not guided action. I saw we were vastly outnumbered, though to my crazed and grateful evaluation, I saw nohar from my clan in my line of sight had been slain. I roared as I galloped past one of the scarred Uigenna, plunging the knife I'd taken from its holder at my waist into his back, ignoring the sickening sensation of the blade sliding though muscle and ribs to pierce his heart.

We fought bravely, but the Uigenna obviously had far more practise at intimidating and killing hara. Eventually I found myself snarling, standing at the front of a group of three of our tribe, slashing at our enemies. Behind me was Jaffa, now soaked in blood, his hand gripping his own knife he'd doubtless stolen from our kitchens. There was a gloating sneer on the har facing me, certain he and his ruthless cronies would murder us all, take our horses and God only knew what else. My blood turned to ice when one of them, a terrifying beauty aside from the gaping wound where his left ear once had been, spoke, his gaze fixated on Jaffa.

"Somehar is a fiery, pretty thing. I think we should take him, unspoiled."

There was a choking, terrified gurgle as Jaffa pressed up behind me.

"Over this har's dead body," I growled.

The macabre joy of his intent to kill me had just passed across the Uigenna's face when we were all cowed by an explosion. Our assailants looked confused for a moment, then horrified as dazzling tendrils of scarlet, corded light wrapped around their necks, disappearing into their bodies as they writhed in agony, falling to the ground.

I could only stare in shock, clawing at my own neck as I watched the three Uigenna die in front of me. They screamed in pain until he life had been choked from their bodies from this unrecognisable, malevolent and yet resplendent force. Regaining my wits, I kicked at them to make sure they were dead, yelling out in mind-touch to Vaysh and Euclase.

Are you okay? What the fuck was that?

Yes, and Oh God, Mael, come now. It's Monarch, ricocheted into my mind both at once, Vaysh's trembling, weary voice and Euclase, in a panic.

I turned around, my body still thrumming with adrenaline. Jaffa, Polaris and Wycker appeared relatively unharmed, albeit in a state of shock.

"I'll be back. The Uigenna are dead. I've got to get to the rest of our clan."

They nodded and Wycker's expression settled into disgust and fury as he looked at the bodies of the dead har on the ground.

"I'll take them out away from here and burn them," he spat.

I knew I needed to find Monarch and Euclase, but I spared precious seconds to pull Jaffa to me. He shuddered.

"I killed one," he said fiercely.

"He won't be the last," I said, realising then just how close we'd all come to being exterminated by these har. "Take care of yourself. I'll be back as soon as I can," I promised before sprinting away to the laundry where I sensed I'd find the one who'd called for me.

The scene I faced there was too terrible for my rational mind to contemplate, yet my body continued to go through the necessary motions as I collapsed by the body of our clan leader. He'd been sliced open from neck to hip, a festering wound oozing a hideous stench. I couldn't imagine what they'd put on the blade to cause this. His pallor was yellowish, the floor around him dark with pooling blood. Euclase's eyes begged for assistance, for relief and consolation. Kyrgian was chanting, his hands held above Monarch, incanting spells of healing and restoration.

"Ondin," I urged, and Euclase flew out the door to find him.

Crouching at Kyrgian's side, I, too put forth what powers I had to try and channel strength and regrowth from the earth. My concentration wasn't what it should have been and I cursed my rampant mind. Ondin ran in a few moments later, an audible gasp dying on his lips before he snapped to attention and fell into the role of surgeon. He readied a nearby pail with herbal water and cleansed the wound until at least the stink from it had been washed away. Kyrgian was in a trance, his lips never ceasing their intonations as Ondin sewed up the slashed flesh.

Vaysh and Llembara staggered in and I looked helplessly at them. Part of me felt dead. The rest wailed silent banshee cries at the world and the barbaric hara who had attacked us, bringing us to our knees, and for what? Surely it was bloodlust, nothing more. I loathed them with every fibre of being, shaking with wrath even as Vaysh sank down next to me, pulling me to his chest and rocking me as though I were a child.

"What did you do?" I asked once Monarch had been laid in a bed, still unconscious.

"Grissecon," he said quietly, his long fingers cradling my head. "We'd never tried anything that powerful before. Thank God it worked."

Mutely I nodded, unable to formulate a sentence. Vaysh was still at my side when Monarch died, on the cusp of a lilac dawn.

* * * * *

"Sage and guide, may your spirit rise on the winds, whisper in the stars, lighten us in the dark places. In us, your memory will live forever. Be at peace, Monarch Lunidas," Kyrgian intoned, his melodious voice swallowed effortlessly by the hazy heat of noon. The muggy, sweltering air draped heavily on us, the physical discomfort adding to our emotional bruising. A simple ceremony was the most we had to offer; with Iolethe's help, I'd found a way to make something resembling incense. I swung a small bowl of it from a chain as had been done for high services in the eucharists of my early human childhood, censing the air above Monarch's grave with symbols of protection Belvac suggested.

I hated the smell of our camp right then; I knew it would pass, and doubtless the austere face of death would be no stranger to me in the years to come. There was shock ringing in the air as clearly as the tolls on the brass bell that hung in the kitchen, twenty-one peals for the years on this earth our murdered clan head had lived. I felt the wild animals of my conflicting emotions pulling and snarling, grazing on my bones. I wanted to tell everyone that I was taking Monarch's place as leader; I wanted to take Vaysh by the hand and run away to some hidden land, never once looking back; I wanted to hunt down every fucking Wraeththu who killed pointlessly like a human punk, to slice figure eights into their abdomens and to watch their guts tumble onto the earth like mutant slugs. I wanted to hold Jaffa to me and swear to him that it was going to be all right, that he'd never again have to kill another har in self-defence, that we were more enlightened than the humans we'd once been…

Of course, I did none of those things. I became as practical and composed as I could, and was gratified when I saw that my actions allowed other hara to mourn openly, or expel their rage, and to seek solace in each other. I took comfort in having helped to bring order so quickly to our chaos; my insightful efficiency and patience was respected and valued. My harbrethren's ability to cope was a salve to my spirit, still reeling from it all.

Opequon, Vaysh, Kyrgian, Belvac and I sat up that night in the library, drinking vralsfire. It was a rather potent liquor Ondin had distilled from the peaches found in orchards in the nearby valley.

"We'd known there would be changes soon," Kyrgian said dully.

"Not like this," Belvac said, rocking on the back legs of his chair, his crossed feet propped up on a desk. "I wouldn't want foresight to see my own death."

"He certainly didn't see that," Kyrgian slurred, his face drawn and haggard. "The air's no good here now. We should move."

"I agree."

Vaysh slumped elegantly in his chair, his long legs spread wide, the heels of his boots planted on the wooden floor. It was a sight that normally would have inflamed my passion like a raging forest fire, but the thought of aruna was far from my mind. "There's a stone refuge on a mountain not far from here. There was no sign of human inhabitants for miles around it, and the buildings themselves are vacant. It would be easier to defend, and it has sacred ground. It's haunted me in dreams since we passed through."

"A stone refuge?" I asked, knocking back my drink and pouring another large splash. A fizz of memory crackled in my mind; chills of premonition caused goosebumps to rise on my skin. "I think I know exactly where you mean. But we've got to give it a new name."

Opequon looked curiously at me, his green-striped black hair pulled into a short ponytail at the base of his neck. "Did your clan come from middle Megalithica? From your voices, I assumed you were from further south."

I couldn't bear to say the name of the bombed-out wasteland of my beloved childhood home. Yes, its human refinement had been mauled from it by gangs of humans and then rampaging, untamed Wraeththu when I was still rather young, but I'd seen pictures and been told of the jewel it had been in history. It was so awkward, wanting to shed every trapping of my humanity and yet being so close to it, part dispassionate anthropologist and part regretful scribe of my own former race.

"We did," I said, and poured the rest of my vralsfire down my throat. "I had family, uncles and a grandfather, who were scholars at the refuge you passed through. I think it would be a safe place to go. There's arable land around and plenty of it. Lots of woods, too. I doubt there are any working generators, though. Electricity is a dream of the past."

"We'll find other ways," Belvac promised.

"Tomorrow, then," Kyrgian sighed. "Tomorrow we'll gather our things and move on. Ashmael, I think you're the har to organise it."

"I will."

There was time for more remembrances, and talk of the future before we all retired to our rooms. I went with Vaysh, to the former guesthouse. That night we took aruna together, slow and with the promise of healing. Away from everyone else, I watered his compassionate face with my tears.

* * * * *

It was a few days' unhurried ride to the base of the plateau. This part of Megalithica remained relatively unchanged and unmarred from the cataclysmic events that had gone on around it. The low rollings of hills and trees didn't harbour ghosts, though the oppressive heat was wearing. There was a black ribbon of asphalt I knew led up the mountain, but for our safety we took a route through neglected farms and tree-covered countryside. Euclase and Llembara rode ahead, scouting for humans and hara alike. I'd wanted to talk with Jaffa about his experiences during the attack, but he was tight-lipped, sulky and withdrawn. Wycker and Belvac stayed protectively by his side, and I noticed Iolethe's light eyes returned to the young har time and again, but Jaffa had no words of substance for any of us. On the evening of our fifth day of travelling, after dinner Iolethe suggested to Kyrgian that they go take a walk. Dark storm clouds hunkered over our destination, and the electric tang of an intense thunderstorm permeated the air. Opequon, Ondin and Wyngarr were tending to our horses, who whinnied their unease as the churning clouds began to unleash their rain, miles away.

It reflected my own turbulence; I was ready to see what the former university looked like, ready to begin this new chapter in my harish life.

"Kyrgian and Iolethe had best not wander too far," I said to Vaysh as we erected our tent. "And I'd give my right hand for some mosquito netting right now."

"They'll be fine," Vaysh reassured me, futilely waving a pale arm at the swarm of insects that wouldn't leave us alone. "Iolethe never does anything rash. I'm sick of bugs, and summer. I always hated summer anyway." He looked up at the tree-covered mountain, its top under assault from the rain. The leaves on the trees around us were brown from lack of rain, looking as wilted as I felt.

"Autumn will be here soon. I bet it'll be absolutely beautiful once all the leaves change colour," I said. "We sure need the rain, or the earth does," I thought out loud. "Don't know if our tents are designed for the likes of the storm coming, though."

"They'd better hold so I don't spend the night feeling like a drowning rat," Vaysh said, wrinkling his nose in a way that made me think inexplicably of a twitching rabbit. He had such an animated, expressive face, once the mask of chilly haughtiness was dropped. I felt that everyhar could see my inner feelings, too, but Euclase had informed me more than once that this wasn't the case.

Vaysh tilted his head, his eyes raking over the structure, presumably looking for flaws. He turned on me suddenly. "Do you know how to reinforce it? Using some of the elemental force from the earth?"

"Me?"

His grey eyes rolled heavenward. "Yes, you. I know you've been studying, several of you. But you're not that far along in your caste, are you?"

"No, but I've gotten to be pretty decent with a knife and a gun, and that's what the Uigenna use as weapons," I snapped defensively. "I could train our group into a small army if need be. Probably should. But Kyrgian knows I can learn anything. We only have — had — two Pyralists, though. Caste progression just doesn't matter a whole lot if there's a bullet lodged in your heart or a steel-toed boot is grinding your guts into the ground."

It was only when I saw Vaysh's widened eyes take on a speculative, knowing look that I realized how sore a spot he'd touched. I was clenching my jaw, bristling like a cornered cat.

"That really wasn't meant to imply anything negative," he said, cautiously snaking out a hand to place on my bicep. His thumb swept back and forth a couple of times on the exposed, hardened muscle; if it weren't for the mosquitoes I'd have been shirtless. "It was just an observation. Not everybody's out to get you, you know. You have some rare gifts, and I know that you know you do."

With a slight squeeze he stepped back, playing with a long braid he'd pulled over the front of his shoulder. It was ridiculous, but a feeling of abandonment drifted over me at the loss of contact.

"My gifts aren't all in my strength, or my mind." I wondered where this unexpected need for confession had come from. "I'm not the most soume har around, but I do have a heart. I can make room for someone else in it. I've loved, and do still. Even if it's something we're supposed to have moved beyond."

Noises of the others in the camp drifted in and out of my awareness; I couldn't help but be semi-conscious of where everyone in our clan was, or was supposed to be, even while bearing up under Vaysh's now somewhat frosty scrutiny.

"Does this love dare speak its name?" Vaysh asked imperiously.

Before I could answer and deal with any unnecessary jealousy, an anguished cry of rage sounded from near the stream where we'd set up our bivouac. It was followed by a flood of repetitive invectives ending with another yell, cursing all of us.

"What the hell is Jaffa's problem?" I asked, stomping off to remind the young har that we really didn't need to be broadcasting our presence to every living creature in the woods.

"Ash, he's coping with his change."

Vaysh's pacifying tone didn't make me feel any better, and I doubted it would do anything but piss off the young har to a higher level of rage.

"We're all coping with a lot of baggage, but we're not all telling the world to fuck off," I retorted, unsurprised when I saw Wyngarr and Vox had beaten me to Jaffa's side.

Yes, but you're not dealing with a first crush, obsessing about aruna, being uprooted from your home, all on top of a few days of high excitement with new har, ending with your harbrethren being brutally attacked. He killed for the first time just days ago, and we buried Monarch, who was obviously like a father to him.

I chose to ignore the implied "you insensitive clod" that followed his telepathic chastisement.

True. Where's Iolethe? He said he'd help Jaffa out.

Taking aruna with Kyrgian, I'm sure, Vaysh's mind-touch stated matter-of-factly.

Oh. I felt sheepish at having not come to that conclusion myself. Of course.

Jaffa's expression was stormy, his cheeks red and splotchy under the constellations of freckles that adorned his whole body. Vox pulled a bottle of white wine out of the stream where it had been chilling and poured some in a tin cup.

"Getting him drunk will only make him miserable and hung over!" Wyngarr said, exasperated.

"I won't get drunk, I just want to be able to sleep," Jaffa growled, scratching at his arms. Tension pulled at his limbs like a puppeteer with a willful marionette. "Thanks."

He took the cup from Vox's hands, swallowing it all in several gulps and then belching. "That's awful," he moaned, covering his mouth and looking very young again. The fierceness had been plucked from his face, the thorn pulled from a rose. Jaffa's heavy-lidded eyes came to rest on me, then skimmed over to Vaysh. In the background of the drama, Wyngarr made soothing noises and shot dagger glances at Vox.

"Jaffa, I'm sorry you don't feel like yourself." I squatted near to him and Wyngarr made a space for me to sit. Oddly enough, Wyngarr looked more like kin than Jaffa's own brother did, though Wyngarr's hair was more auburn and straight. Jaffa's was a true orange copper that formed ringlets at the slightest provocation.

"I feel like utter shit," he said vehemently. I did notice the wispy smile tug at his mouth when he saw I would let him get away with his swearing, at least for now.

"Iolethe says it's feybraiha and, thank the Aghama, it doesn't last that long. I'm sure we should have some ceremony— you're a celebrity, Jaffa. First in our clan to go through it!"

"It's not exactly anything worth celebrating," he said, scratching under his right armpit. "I'm always itchy, and these damn mosquitoes are terrible, my skin's hot where the hair's growing, and I can't believe…" his rasped voice trailed off. Vox poured more wine into the cup and placed it gently in Jaffa's hand, ignoring the disapproving rumble in Wyngarr's throat. "I killed another har."

His pale hand trembled and just then a deafening crack of lightning ripped at the sky. The white wine soaked Jaffa's shirt as the tin cup went flying over his shoulder with his startled reflexes. A booming roll of thunder pounded above us, though there was still no rain.

"Quite a show," Vaysh said sardonically. He threw his braid over his back and gazed up at the lightning as it cavorted, streaking blinding white arrows across the churning sky. I could tell the rain wouldn't arrive for a few minutes, perhaps a quarter hour. It seemed prudent to make sure everyhar's tents were as waterproofed as possible.

"It is worth celebrating," I heard Vaysh continue on behind me. I turned around to see he and Wyngarr help Jaffa up from the ground. He cursed his sodden shirt and fate in general. "You've obviously been thinking about what's happening to you; you don't need to be embarrassed. Aruna is the most natural thing in the world. We'd become bitter, hollow creatures without it."

"Nothing against you, tiahaar," Jaffa said, fuming at the world, his lips pursed and hands balled into fists, "but I really, really don't want to talk about this. Not with you."

Vox's gaze lit to mine, his eyebrows raised. I just felt out of place. I was no guide, and Jaffa hadn't been giving me any furtive glances that I'd noticed. And notice I would have, I assumed— he wasn't exactly a paragon of subtlety right now.

"It's okay, I understand," Vaysh said, raising his voice to be heard above the wind. It had picked up, teasing groans and sighs from the overhead tree limbs.

"I suggest we get back to our shelter," I said, unable to stop myself from dropping a hand on Jaffa's shoulder and rubbing at the bony line.

Discussions about who should explain the nuts and bolts of aruna as well as its more esoteric and emotional qualities went on despite Jaffa's wishes otherwise as we walked back to the center of camp. There a fire still crackled, its heat unnecessary but it beckoned cheerily nonetheless.

"Shut up about it!" Jaffa yelled, his face scarlet. "Just leave me the hell alone! I'll take care of this on my own. Not until we're at our new place, don't worry, even though I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin," he said spitefully, glaring at me.

"Do what you want!" I said, holding up my hands in surrender. "I'm not your father. Don't hurt yourself, that's all I ask." Why he'd turned on me I couldn't fathom. He was being supremely irritating, even though I did feel sorry for him.

"Fine!" he snapped, his tone dripping with sarcasm and frustration.

"Can't he just do this now? I know he's physically mature enough," Wyngarr said, appealing to Vaysh, which only further grated on me. I wasn't meant for this kind of domestic exchange, but Jaffa held a special place in my heart due to his youth. "What does the difference of a few days make?"

"What do you think?" Vaysh asked of Jaffa as the scent of rain filled my nostrils.

"Nobody asked me, but I still think we should get ready for a downpour," I said, looking pointedly at each of them. We'd approached a pair sitting near the fire, talking in low voices; it was Abelard and Belvac.

"I think you should all leave me the fuck alone! Except you! You're who I want," Jaffa spluttered. He looked to be on the verge of furious tears. I followed the arch of his trembling arm to see he was pointing, inconceivably, at Abelard.

"You want me to do what?" he asked, obviously confused and a bit taken aback at our group arrival and Jaffa's manners. Abelard had seemed the most reticent of their group, dark and brooding in a way that reminded me of Belvac. Those two had drawn closely together and got on like a house on fire. They had a secretive, intense friendship already. How could Jaffa, a blazing comet of good humour and precocious intelligence, be drawn to Abelard?

"I'm going through feybraiha. I hate it," he moaned, burying his face in his hands. Seconds later he stood up straight again, looking wretched, as though about to martyr himself. "I just want this to be over with. If you don't think you could stand being with me, I understand. But if I get to choose, it's you I want to take aruna with. Since I'm supposed to, and then it'll get everybody off my back."

Everyone appeared surprised at Jaffa's poignant outburst, Belvac and Abelard not the least. From the gauzy curtain of hurt on Belvac's face, he'd evidently thought he might have been selected, not his companion. Abelard slowly stood up, angular but fluid in his movements, his soume side not particularly pronounced. His dark brown eyes shone with delight, though when he glanced over at me, I saw trepidation and a silent entreaty for approval. I nodded, not that I was Jaffa's guardian, but I was closer to him than Kyrgian was. And Kyrgian had his own agenda right now.

"How about you and I go to my tent with some wine, and let's talk first," Abelard said, walking the few steps to take the bottle from Vox's hands. "From there what we do is up to you. I'm flattered that you want to share yourself with me."

That seemed to be the perfect response. Though the rain and thrashing wind was almost upon us, the storm in Jaffa's expression had passed and he beamed at the lanky har. "Sounds great," he enthused before turning to grin widely at Vox. "Don't you and Polaris wait up." Swinging the bottle of wine to one side and taking Abelard's proffered hand in the other, Jaffa sauntered off to a tent near the outskirts of the circle.

Heavy drops of rain began spattering the ground, forcing us all hurriedly to take cover in our own tents. I've always loved thunderstorms, but they make me sleepy. Being held in Vaysh's arms on as flat and rock-free a surface we could find, I yawned, still reveling in the novelty of feeling so protected and cherished by another being.

"I hope Jaffa doesn't feel cheated out of a big party," I said, nosing at the sandalwood scent of Vaysh's neck. Given how violently Jaffa's moods were swinging, chances were he'd sulk if we had one, and sulk if we didn't. Hopefully taking aruna with Abelard would smooth out the edges and make him bearable again, even endearing.

"Who's to stop us from having one once we're up on the mountain and get settled in?" Vaysh asked reasonably. He combed his fingers through my hair and I wished I could purr. I was so content, the rain pounding on canvas above our heads, Ondin and Wycker on first watch, my ouana-lim heavy but not demanding attention.

"Nobody. Abelard seemed like an odd choice, but what do I know?"

"You know to follow your instincts," Vaysh murmured in my ear. "It's served you well, and will him, too."

We lay together in a comfortable silence as the storm raged until I heard Vaysh's quiet voice again.

"What was it like for you?"

"My inception?"

He nodded into my scalp. I spread out my palm over his hip, grounding myself against his increasingly familiar body as I brought back the key memories of that time.

"I was scared. Exhilarated. It was painful, and rebellion, and seduction."

I leaned back and slowly angled my head so that we could share breath. Like an unhurried bee, going from flower to flower, I gave him a memory here, a remembrance there. My becoming Wraeththu had been an act of anarchy, my perceptions and worldliness smashed by the reality of writhing in terror and agony in my own filth for days before it was over.

"Euclase was there?" he asked gently as I laid my head back down on our makeshift pillow of blankets.

I nodded. He'd had an easier time of things. I was now certain that this had been because his imagination soared to truths I couldn't truly believe until I felt my own realities shift and mutate in my own body. I'd had no regrets, but the blunt blade of transformation had torn ragged holes in my spirit which took time to heal.

"What was his name?"

"Before?"

It was difficult to say; it seemed like a defamation, to evoke his human name. "Eric."

I of course knew the next question before it was asked.

And you?

I buried my face into the soft skin of Vaysh's neck, pressed against a masculine, adult jaw and chin that would never again need to know the scrape of a razor. I was changed. My old self was gone forever, our whole former race, doomed. We had moved on, and looking back made me discomfited and melancholy.

Andrew.

* * * * *

We had our first newcomers well before the first snow fell.

Autumn was a fiery glory; the trees were peacocks, waving their scarlet and copper feathers under the shortening days. The woods displayed their bold colours in a proud, decadent beauty, the sentinel forest marching up and over the plateau and across the lands of Castlegar. I was undone by the vibrant riot of our first autumn. At first there were only small eruptions of colour, daubed here and there as though by a crazed painter. All at once the woods were ablaze in russet and gold, touched by the inflamed whispers of nature's seraphim.

There had been much to be done to prepare for the upcoming winter, but I couldn't help from returning to the many viewing grounds around this mountaintop paradise. There was one location in particular set at the end of a thin asphalt ribbon, where the trees had been cleared to provide an unhindered vista of the valley below. A relic of the religious heritage of the university perched proudly on display, its bold white cross easily visible from any approach on this side of the mountain. I was of two minds about it: it did no harm, but we would be making our own gods now, and this was our home. Ultimately my reason for leaving it be versus its removal was due to practicality; we were sorely lacking in cranes or wrecking balls. Any such heavy machinery that we did find on the grounds was rusting away, already being reclaimed and oxidized by nature's powerful elements.

The view from this particular scenic location, however, was second to none, and I often found myself pulled to the spot as though by an invisible hand. Our group of Wraeththu pioneers felt they had rediscovered Paradise. Several enterprising humans had tended gardens in the past that we were able to cultivate; evidently students had kept horses as there were stables and countless acres for our horses to get exercise; vineyards were on the other side of the mountain, but the scholars on the campus had stashed away enough wine and liquor in their abandoned homes for us easily to get through our first winter without becoming vintners ourselves.

And the stone buildings— they were the soul of Castlegar, as we'd come to name our new home. Some were relatively new but in an old style, and others were genuinely old, perhaps older than a century. A couple of hara did elect to move into actual houses that hadn't yet fallen much into disrepair, but most of us settled into barracks-like dormitories in the heart of what had been the campus. The sandstone structures and spacious grounds beckoned our exploring: there were winding staircases; a peaceful graveyard; squat, solitary huts that still smelled faintly of beer and a lingering, heady tang of testosterone. The campus was evocative of far older enclaves of learning, and the whole mountain seemed to welcome us. We embraced the protection of stone and trees with gratitude. One building held more secrets than the rest. Inside it on the ground floor, some couches were now home for mice and birds as several of the windows were broken or missing. Even on approach to the formerly renovated but now-decrepit dormitory, I felt goose bumps on my flesh; it was haunted by specters and tormented spirits. What Kyrgian discovered through observation, I confirmed by looking through books in a former inhabitant's private library, full of histories of this place.

"It was a hospital, even back before the turn of the century. No wonder," I said to him over coffee one morning. The day had presented another endearing, capricious quality to Castlegar: we were shrouded in fog. It seemed created for otherworldly phantasms to travel in, a soupy, dense quiet that had crept over the mountain during the night and showed no sign of going anywhere for quite a while.

"Many humans died there," Kyrgian noted, spreading raspberry preserves on a piece of wheat toast. "But many were also born. I'd let it be for now, we have plenty of houses and other residences to choose from. I'm certain that other hara will find us. Maybe this will become a school for our kind as it was for humankind for so many generations."

"As long as it's not more warmongering tribes," I groused. "I want us to be prepared. We should scout around all of the towns within a three-day ride to retrieve any ammunition we can find. Better to get what guns and bullets we can before nature, any rogue humans or somehar else comes along to claim them."

"A prudent course of action," Kyrgian acknowledged through a mouthful of toast. "But not today. I've never seen fog like this. It's a natural phenomenon," he went on, intuiting my question as to its possible malevolent origin.

"Good. Then I'll just go and take a wander around in it, see if any of the legendary human ghosts written about in some of those histories I've read want to show themselves."

Kyrgian looked at me as though I were a juvenile. "Be careful. And don't forget that you and Belvac owe me your afternoon."

"I haven't forgotten. I'll remind Belvac."

With an eye roll, Kyrgian nodded. "Please do. Oh, and would you ask Vaysh to see me? I'll be back at my rooms in not too long."

"Certainly."

I wasn't sure what those two were discussing, but it probably had to do with training for our lowest caste hara. Or maybe it had to do with persuading Vaysh to surrender more of the potent cinnamon tea he'd found and hoarded somewhere. I stood back from the table, swallowing the last of my lukewarm coffee before buttoning up my leather coat and putting on gloves.

Outside of the stone and glass dining hall I paused, drinking in the sight of such dense, milky mist as it shifted and folded in the air. Pockets of visibility would appear and vanish again, shrouded in the chilled, murky air. I couldn't help the cheeky grin as I made my way down one of the sidewalks; this was marvellous. Even the sound of the heels of my boots on the cracking cement was whisked away into the heavy grey haze. Castlegar was full of surprises, this mountaintop cloaking of impenetrable fog being a particularly memorable one to add to my mental list. I walked down what had been the main paved road, out past a small in, ivy and shrubs having begun their inexorable annex of its walls. Behind the inn was a wide, treeless space, the few sandy indentions betraying its former function as a golf course. I'd fancied I'd seen a plethora of angels or shape-shifters as I ambled along, but when I passed the inn, my nerves went on true high alert. Sliding up against a side wall, I felt at my hip and realised that while I had on my holster, it was empty. I swore under my breath before realising I hadn't heard any actual noise to indicate that anything was amiss. The fog was so thick that nothing but stealth was possible. Still, I walked near the treeline, heading back alongside a gravel road toward an overgrown sports field and mouldering tennis courts.

"We're not armed! Put down your guns and let's be civilised about this!"

It was Euclase.

"You're freaks! Killers! We'll kill you first!" An enraged, triumphant young voice shouted.

My heart leapt into my throat as I began running toward whomever it was threatening him. The blood pounded in my ears as I now cursed the soupy air, much less my absent gun.

What's going on? I mind-called to him.

Young humans. Big guns. I'm a fucking idiot, he replied tersely. Zain's here, too. But Opequon and Ondin are coming up behind them. I just hope—

There was a startled, confused shout, and an all-too-distinctive crack of a gun firing. I raced toward the sound, heedless of the consequences.

EUCLASE! I yelled into his mind.

"I'm fine! Zain's been shot," he shouted angrily as the indistinct forms I was running to became corporeal realities. The scuffle was over, Zain the casualty. He moaned and spouted a river of curses, his hands protectively covering his knee. Ondin and Opequon held their guns steady at the back of the two humans' skulls. I strode toward the group, shocked that this was our first run-in, and pissed off that we'd been taken unawares.

"Somebody fill me in. NOW," I barked even as I sent a message to Vaysh: Come to the old sports field behind the inn. On a horse. Zain's been shot in the leg.

What?! Vaysh's immediate response was full of fear and barely-controlled fury.

I don't know details. I will when you get here. Hurry.

It took only a few minutes for Euclase to tell me what had happened. They'd just been out for a walk, equally intrigued by this unique weather phenomenon, found they couldn't keep their passions in check and were sharing breath when the two humans had startled them. Thankfully Ondin and Opequon had been on their way back from some mind-body exercises Opequon was providing instruction in, and Euclase had sent a silent mind-call warning to Ondin. They'd had sense to be armed and stealthfully crept up on the adolescents but in doing so, had scared one of them who'd accidentally shot Zain in the knee.

"Are there more of you?" I asked one of the youths whose expression of defiance was tempered by encroaching fear as more of us showed up.

"No," he snarled. "But we'll get away, just like last time."

"You know what we are, then?"

"You're murderers. The other ones killed everybody except the guys our age, and fuck only knows what happened to them. Probably made into sex slaves, or something," he said, disgust saturated in the words.

"What're you going to do to us?" his compatriot asked, his arms hugging himself tightly around his ribs.

Ondin had taken the liberty of disarming them and I'd just noticed how underfed they were. I was about to ask their names when I heard a horse galloping toward us.

"Got here as quickly as I could," Vaysh said tersely, dismounting from Arches and giving the youths a hasty glance before striding over to Zain. He held his hands over Zain's knee, closing his eyes and casting some kind of healing energy into him as I focussed my attentions back on the two humans.

"What are your names?" I asked. When they didn't answer immediately, I said, "Opequon, Ondin, you can give them a little breathing space. They're not going anywhere. Vaysh, you stay here, okay? Let Opequon take Zain back to his room."

Ondin gave me a dark look, but then shrugged. He kept one of their own rifles aimed unwaveringly at them, while Opequon went over to assist in getting Zain up and on the horse.

"I'm not telling you anything, you fucked up freak," the more aggressive one growled. "Neither is he."

"We're not going to be able to get out of this!" the second one said to his friend, his anxiety flowing off of him in waves.

Now I was amused, watching them bicker at each other. Neither was shockingly handsome, but they were reasonably attractive in a rustic, unrefined way. I decided to put them out of their misery of unknowing, creating my plan as I spoke it aloud.

"You're going to be incepted, be made like us. There's no choice, really," I said, nodding my head to Vaysh. He raised his eyebrows and came over to my side. Ondin made a menacing sound at the taller of the two adolescents as he began looking quickly around, as though to escape.

"I'd rather die than be one of your perverted fuck toys," he said, his voice low in his throat and hands balled into fists. The other boy just stared, his green eyes wide as saucers as his chest quickly rose and fell.

"I hate to disappoint," I said dryly, "but from what I know of the sexual practices of the rest of our clan, we're pretty pedestrian, and no-one is forced to do anything exotic."

"Then why are you forcing us?" the green-eyed youth asked with a trembling voice.

His name is Jared, Vaysh said to me in my mind. Where do you want to do the inceptions? Is it your intent for us to do this together?

Yes. You can have the angry one. Hopefully some of your calming influence will work on him.

Calming influence? Vaysh said, sounding shocked.

I chuckled softly so only Vaysh heard me before answering the boy. "Because, Jared, we're the future. There is no choice. And besides, as Wraeththu we live far longer than humans, we heal much more quickly, and we have mind skills you could only dream of."

"You know my name," he said in a rasped whisper.

"Shut the fuck up!" the other one yelled at him.

"I think it's high time you learned some manners," Vaysh said coldly, walking the few steps over and holding his chin in a viselike grip. "You don't talk to loyal friends like that, Paul," he said, the words measured and full of disdain.

Paul made a rumbling growl and spat on him. Vaysh let go of his face, and boxed him soundly across the jaw with such force and speed that he fell backwards, barely missing Ondin and Euclase, who'd ventured over to watch the circus. I gawped at the adolescent knocked to the ground now rubbing at his face, as did Jared and Ondin.

Vaysh made a contented, purring sound, flexing his hand a couple of times and then turned to me. A mordant smile settled on his lips. "Let's do this now," he suggested.

I nodded. "No time like the present. Jared, you're with me." I pulled him to me, holding his arm close to my side.

"Get up," Vaysh hissed at Paul, not offering to help him stand. He did, shrugging off Vaysh's hand before Vaysh tugged him close with a strength that surprised me. "You'll behave, Paul, or I'll break every one of your toes and make you walk back. Am I making myself clear?"

Paul grunted, presumably in the affirmative.

"I'd like for us to get along," Vaysh said with slightly less acid in his tone. "You'll be a strong member of our clan, once you get that prideful pole out of your ass."

"Keep an eye on him," I said under my breath to Euclase once Vaysh and a shuffling Paul had passed them. Ondin's gun was still pointed at Paul, and I couldn't help but be grateful. I expected him to try and bolt, to underestimate Vaysh, just as I had done.

Euclase flanked Jared, talking to me just over Jared's head. "Vaysh has quite a tongue on him!" he marvelled as we walked through the thick fog back to the heart of Castlegar.

"You have no idea," I drawled.

He laughed at the implication. At my side, Jared made barely audible whimpers of distress. I was trying to be objective— I really did feel we were doing these two a favour, giving them the gift of hardom. It was that or kill them outright, which would have been a waste. There was indeed a lot of spirit in Paul; Jared, I suspected would come around far more quickly. While Euclase and I chatted in wonderment about the heavy mist, which appeared in no hurry to burn off, Vaysh and I communicated telepathically.

Before an hour had passed, he and I were on our own with the two humans and had taken them to one of the abandoned houses deep in the woods out near my favourite viewing spot. By now they both looked scared to death, and as we approached the house, Paul gurgled, "Gonna be sick." He began retching into the red shrubs proudly flanking the door, which hung slightly askew on its hinges.

"You'll be fine," Vaysh said airily before kicking open the door.

I had to chew the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, though poor Jared blanched and then turned a sickly shade of green himself. I'd been discovering all sorts of things about Vaysh over the past couple of months, but this wicked, showy side was totally new. I knew it was spiteful actions to retaliate for being held in such contempt, but I was impressed nonetheless. We'd stopped by our room to get a couple of flasks of water, blankets, and some wine. I'd asked Euclase to send Vox and Polaris over after a time, but the basics were all we needed for now. Vaysh led the way to what had been a sitting room with a working fireplace. I'd also retrieved my pistol and kept it trained on Paul while Vaysh got a fire going. I had butterflies in my stomach; I'd never incepted anyone before. It was a bit nerve-wracking, with all of the intimate flutterings of having sex for the first time.

Vaysh must've tapped somewhat into my thoughts as he turned and smiled warmly at me, the look in his eyes anything but innocent. He quickly became serious, however. Paul and Jared sat on a couch whose stuffing had burst out of one side of a cushion, making a fibrous waterfall to the floor. Terror was etched on their faces now, and I felt the need to reassure them.

"This isn't death. We're not going to kill you," I said as tenderly as I could while still aiming the gun at them.

"Ashmael, I think you can put the weapon away," Vaysh said, shrugging off his coat. He was dressed as he so usually was that winter; leather trousers, a tight wool sweater, cordovan cowboy boots. My libido perked up at the sight, but I wasn't there to perform that particular ritual with him right now. He got one of the bottles of wine, rummaged around in our rucksack for a corkscrew, and freed the cork. After pouring wine into tin cups, he handed one apiece to the youths. Jared gulped his down, but the nauseous look on his face shortly thereafter prompted me to give him a water flask. Paul drank his more slowly as the room heated up thanks to the fire. I found a pack of cigarettes and lit one, offering the pack to the innocents on the couch. Paul pulled one out and lit it, now back to glaring at me.

"How old are you?" I asked, pulling over a chair and making sure it wasn't going to collapse as soon as I sat down in it.

"Does it matter?" Paul said, his expression mutinous.

"No. Your attitude doesn't, either," Vaysh said, also getting a chair and taking a seat. He crossed one foot on top of his knee, the very picture of a har at ease with himself. "Oh. I almost forgot."

Jared couldn't keep his huge, fear-filled eyes off of him as Vaysh leaned over, searching again through the rucksack and pulling out a finely decorated leather sheath and knife it protected.

"Oh God," Jared said, hiccupping at the same moment.

I wasn't sure why I had no qualms making these two into hara, though obviously they wanted nothing to do with us. I guess I still firmly believed it was a gift, and that they'd come around. All they could think to do was feast on their own fear, and yet, we were giving them as close to immortality was we could.

"I'm fifteen," Paul said, narrowing his eyes at the knife, still in its scabbard. "Jared's the same."

"Am not! I've been sixteen for two months, not that it was worth celebrating," Jared babbled. Wild-eyed, he looked from the knife which Vaysh smoothly took out from its holder, and up to Vaysh's face, his voice pleading as he said, "Will age make it hurt less?"

"There's not that much pain. C'mon, let's get this done, then I'll ask Vox and Polaris to come and keep vigil during their althaia," I said to Vaysh, who glanced speculatively at me before turning his attentions back to the two youths. "More wine?"

Jared stood up on trembling legs and shuffled over to him before collapsing to a heap at Vaysh's feet, wiping under his nose as he sniffled and made syrupy coughing sounds.

"What we're giving you is a gift," I said gently, raising Jared back up from the floor. I'd watch out for Paul, I warned Vaysh in mind-touch.

Oh, I will.

In the end, it wasn't as dramatic as I'd expected. I'd never incepted anyone before, but drew on my own experience to cut a gash in Jared's arm. He gasped at the shock of it. I slit a line down my own forearm until the blood spilled, the same colour as Jared's, but oh, so different. He'd given up the fight a while ago and sat meekly as I pressed our arms together, willing my blood to flow into his body. After a few minutes I figured it was enough and we stepped apart.

Shell-shocked, Jared stared down at his arm, smeared with sticky blood, already congealing. "That's it?" he asked harshly.

"Well, the whole transformation takes a few days. They'll be rough, sorry to say. But Polaris and Vox will be here. They'll look after you, and then once you're successfully changed, there'll be one last ritual."

Paul bristled with defiance. He'd continued to smoke, watching the proceedings until I'd wiped off the blade and handed the knife back to Vaysh.

"Well? Hurry up," Paul demanded, shoving his shirtsleeve to the elbow and wiping at the beads of sweat on his upper lip. A few coppery hints of beard stubble glinted on his jaw, and all of a sudden he seemed heartbreakingly naïve.

"Ah, your common sense has returned. Delightful," Vaysh said, standing up to his full height. He was a couple of inches shorter than I was, but he was impressive enough as he drew next to Paul.

"In blood, in fire, into forever," Vaysh breathed quietly, making twin crimson slashes on their arms and pressing together the open wounds. Paul's lips were a tight, white line. He'd not made a noise, only watched and breathed quickly, his nostrils flaring when the knife cut into his skin.

It was so calm and quiet, the fog drifting outside and muffling other sounds as though the whole mountain were draped in a diaphanous blanket. Jared had backed up against the couch, hugging his knees to his chest. Paul stood, staring at his arm for a time before looking over at me. His eyes were half closed, a profound weariness harboured in their hazel depths.

"Could I get another cigarette?" he asked. I handed him one and he leaned over so I could light it. I helped myself to another and gestured to Vaysh with the pack. He demurred, helping himself to a swig directly from the wine bottle.

I laughed at him, faintly shocked.

"What?" he said with a small shrug. "We're all family now. I'd rather drink from the bottle than these ridiculous camping tins."

It all seemed so anti-climactic, or perhaps I was becoming used to changes like this occurring so suddenly. I did find that I was curious about our new to-be brothers— or sons, almost, as we'd made them, though Vaysh and I weren't that far apart from them in chronological age. Then again, none of us were.

"So. Tell me about yourself," I said cajolingly to Jared. Amazingly enough, he stumbled through a brief history of his life over the next half hour or so, and Paul followed suit.

I'll ask Kyrgian to send the Aralids, Vaysh suggested after an hour began to creep into two. We both remembered our own experiences, and I wanted Jared and Paul's althaia to be as comfortable as possible.

"Two har will take care of you for the next few days," I said, squatting by Jared and running my hand through his stringy hair. They both needed a bath in the worst way, but that could all be done properly once their change was complete.

"You're leaving?" he asked dully. "Who'll protect us?"

"Vox and Polaris will be here with you. At times you may feel like there's a war going on in your body. Because there will be. But you're both strong-spirited. You'll make it, and there's a definite reward at the end."

"Reward?" Paul sneered. "Probably a gang-bang. I've heard about what you get up to. You're all deviants."

Vaysh was almost shaking, trying to keep his temper in check. "You have no idea how much I want to string you up by the balls right now," he said menacingly.

"So do it," Paul said, his upper lip curling.

"No, because somehar will have to take aruna with you and for aesthetic purposes, I want you to be unscarred, you and those jewels of yours."

The sound of two horses approaching cut through the tension and broke their standoff. As Vox and Polaris began to settle in, I introduced them to their two charges. I didn't envy any of them, but it had to be done, and the memory of the moments of agony would fade in time.

"Thank you," I said to Vox, patting him on the back as Vaysh and I left. I glanced over my shoulder to see Jared still huddled on the floor, and Paul standing at the fire, looking smug.

I ventured out only once during the following few days; their screams and moaning were more than I wanted to know about. I'd been elected to get Paul started on his new path; Vaysh and I had discussed it in the comfort of our own bed, sated in post-aruna lassitude.

"You should be with Paul," he said, running his nose along my jaw.

"We could all parade in front of them, let them decide for themselves who they want to do the deflowering," I joked.

"Do be serious. You'll remember that a few hara are only just on speaking terms with you again."

"We can't afford to be principled like that," I insisted, recalling some of the reproachful thrashing I'd received once the news got out. "It was us, or the Uigenna, eventually, or they would've found some other humans and they'd have attacked. We'd have had to kill them. No, there wasn't a choice. Llembara and Belvac can climb down out of their lofty towers. The world's not safe for us, not yet."

Vaysh's long fingers drew fanciful, slow patterns on my abdomen and I tightened my arm across his ribcage. "You don't sound like the worldly scholar you used to," he said thoughtfully, his fingers trailing down to the shadowy, heated juncture where thigh and groin met.

"I think I have a different calling now. I like being a protector, making sure we can take care of and defend ourselves. Especially you." I pulled him impossibly close, nosing at his temple, breathing in his woodsy scent and painting the skin with dry kisses. "Not that you need me. You'd kick the ass of anyone who tried to attack you."

He snickered, the husky tenor sending a pleasant coil of lust from my ouana-lim slithering all the way down to my toes. "I'm no damsel in distress," he said, inching down to take one of the hardened nubs on my chest between his teeth. He tugged gently until I moaned at the exquisite pain of it.

"No," I rasped. "You can watch my back any day."

His hot tongue licked a stripe to the hollow of my neck. "I do exactly that, my dear Ashmael. I'm your paladin."

That thought made me smile; of Vaysh as my knight in shining armour, his now-red hair fluttering in the breeze. I still wasn't entirely sure why he'd felt compelled to change his hair colour. He'd said something about truly becoming himself, embracing his harish destiny, and other commentary that I'd decided to tune out after a while. It did suit him, his hair flowing down his back like crimson, silken ribbons.

"So, paladin," I said raggedly as his nimble fingers stroked my passionate fires back to life, "do you have any particular noble cause of mine to champion?"

"Nothing noble," he purred. "Only my pursuit of your utter sexual conquest."

"Shouldn't I call you a conquistador, then?"

His nonverbal rebuttal lasted well into the night.

* * * * *

Paul's change took more out of him than Jared; given his anger and perhaps false bravado, he wasn't able to stand on his own or clean himself for several days once his althaia had run its course. Jared had already taken a harish name, Gladwyne, and begun learning of his new race (and the delights to be found in his newly-modified body) with Wycker. Jaffa also spent a lot of time with him, as they were closest in age. And Jaffa was drawn to novelty, as a newly incepted har certainly was. Maybe Gladwyne's pull to Wycker had brought Jaffa back in harmony with his brother. Wycker and Jaffa were enough alike to be thick as thieves, especially in times of danger. Not infrequently, however, they sniped and were at each other's throats.

Apparently I'd made an impression on Paul as he did ask for me to come and complete the pact he'd been forced to sign with Wraeththu. Polaris had sidled over to me during dinner, squeezing Vaysh over on the bench so he could speak low in my ear. I'd felt Paul's eyes on me through the meal, his first with us as a group. His gaze had felt like burning coals, stirring embers of intrigue in my loins.

"Paul's well enough now, and his body's going berserk. You remember what it's like," Polaris said softly, though doubtless everyhar at the table knew why he'd undertaken his mission to talk to me. We lived rather in a communal fishbowl, none of us taking residence too far away from the centre structures of Castlegar. There were also no secrets, and relatively little privacy, which was beginning to gnaw at me.

"I didn't have the best first aruna experience," I said candidly, using my dinner roll to sop of the last of a tasty venison stew Vox and Jaffa had created. "More along the 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am' variety. I'll make sure Paul's is more memorable. In a good way," I felt the need to clarify.

"Of course," Polaris said, the words dripping with innuendo before his face took on a more sombre expression. "You will treat him well? I've become quite fond of him. And he's a stunning har. Who'd've thought under all that vitriol and filthy mouth would be such raw beauty?"

Vaysh turned and gave the new har a look under which anyone else, even myself, would have withered and turned to a pile of ash. Paul took a long drink of wine but held Vaysh's gaze, challenging him unflinchingly. Though I didn't let it show, my soume aspect kicked into high gear for a moment— I swooned at the ferocity etched in Paul's face.

"Vaysh incepted him," I said, stabbing at some chunks of potato still in my bowl. "Are you sure he doesn't want him? You have my word Paul won't be disappointed."

Vaysh growled low in his throat, then composed himself as though this were perfectly normal dinner conversation.

"I might get carried away with one that feisty," he said, angling his head to speak to us in conspiratorial tones. It also allowed him to show off the bruised blossoms of my enthusiastic kisses on his neck from the night before. "He should only be broken in, not broken, full stop."

"Enough," I said, my brow furrowing even though I knew, or really hoped, it was all in jest.

Polaris clearly reveled in our banter; a born gossip, thankfully his fists were as fast and lethal as his tongue. "He's been staying with us, but Vox got him set up in his own room. On the second floor."

I nodded. They lived in a large residence in the heart of the grounds, a home the size of an inn and structurally sound. Anything of value had been stolen ages ago, and there were shadowy marks on the walls where pictures had hung for a few decades according to the histories I'd read.

"I could keep you company, Vaysh," Polaris offered, genuine warmth in his voice. "I just happen to have an unopened bottle of bourbon that I found during my last scouting mission. That and some cards and my charming self? You'd be a fool to say no."

My heart swelled at his hopeful earnestness. Our two groups had merged near-seamlessly once we'd settled on the mountain, and everybody adored Vaysh in their own way.

"Bourbon?" Vaysh's head snapped to Polaris, eyes twinkling. "You're a rogue for not telling me until now. Come to our room later. The door will be open." A sly smile slid onto his lips.

"I guess I'll be going," I said to nohar in particular, and there was no answer. I did feel the scrutiny of several pair of eyes as I left the dining hall and found that I stood up straighter under their pressure. Back in the suite of rooms I shared with Vaysh, I took my time engaging in some perfunctory primping; knowing Vox and Jaffa, who'd been close as shadows to Paul during the meal, they'd try and turn him into some prettified manwoman. I suspected that at first, until he learned to understand his feminine aspects, Paul would shun his less familiar side. I'd be the first to teach him, through lessons of transcendent pleasure — I hoped! — to welcome and embrace that unknown, secretive and strong part of himself. Soume. To be honest, it still intimidated and perplexed me at times.

It was bracingly cold; I was glad I didn't have to walk far to get to the building I thought of as 'the chancellery,' as the chancellors of the school had lived there in the past. My pulse quickened once I was inside and could take off my gloves, warming my hands over a merry fire down in the main foyer. Somehar had also thoughtfully placed a decanter of some liquor on a side table, though I wasn't sure what it was. It seemed like a mix of vralsfire infused with cinnamon, and I poured two glasses, taking them upstairs.

Paul's room wasn't hard to find, a band of light cheerily escaping into the corridor and beckoning me in to behold the treasure hidden within. Since my hands were full, I nudged open the door and found myself engulfed in the scent of spruce and sandalwood. Paul was pacing, but stopped when he heard me enter. I placed the glasses on a dresser and shut the door behind me, leaning on it for stability. Whatever Jaffa and Vox had done to him was subtle, bringing out the stark beauty that had been formerly hidden under his arrogant faade. I couldn't help but stare, devouring him with my gaze, suddenly irritated when a feeling of guilt flitted in my chest. Taking aruna after inception was a necessary act, and besides— it was integral to our being, like eating or breathing. Jealousy and the idea of possession was a human trait. Though I strove to cast such things off, back then, they continued to mark me like the whorls on my fingers.

"What are you thinking?" he asked hesitantly, striding over to pick up one of the glasses of amber liquid. "One of these is for me, right?"

"Yes, sorry."

I didn't know if my apology was for not offering it to him, or for my regressive thoughts. "I was thinking about how attractive you are."

This was no fiction. His hair was a rich chestnut, wavy and hanging around his face. His hazel eyes as he evaluated me, tended toward a tawny gold, though I well imagined they would seem to change colour depending on the light or his mood. Paul's face transformed at my words; timidity and uncertainty fled, replaced by a sultry stare.

"So you don't mind, then?"

He drank the entirety of his liqueur and ran the back of his hand against his lips. It was such an unassuming gesture, I felt my reserve give way. His lips weren't particularly lush; in truth, his more soume aspects were elusive.

"No. I hope I don't disappoint," I said, putting down my glass to walk over to him. I rested one hand at the base of his spine, the other cradling the back of his head.

He made a dismissive sound.

"Impossible."

Paul moved against me, wrapping his arm about my waist, swaying his hips slightly. I felt a noticeable hardness pressing into my thigh. This was going to be interesting.

"Breathe into me," he commanded softly. "Don't hold back tonight, not with anything." His gaze was molten, ferocity gleaming in his eyes.

"You seem to have taken this well," I said, my lips hovering over his as he let out hot puffs of air. "Not going to surprise me by kneeing me in the balls and running off, are you?"

Paul leaned back just a bit, licking at the corner of his lips where a sticky moisture from the drink still remained. Desire and physical want radiated from him. I knew that feeling, of being parched and needy, desperate for the renewal only another har's touch could bring.

"No." A sheepish look crossed his face. "I'm glad I still have my own balls, to be honest. You were a damn bastard, you know," he said, beginning to grind against me with more intention. "You didn't say a word about the fact that all of our changes would be sexual."

"Because they're not!" I insisted, leaning in to share breath with him, but he evaded my lips to get out another confession.

"I've had my hand in my pants. A lot. The new parts— they kind of creep me out, so I need you to make it right. I know you can, that's why I picked you. You're strong and you act like a man. You seem safe to me."

"Let's go lie down on your bed," I said and Paul nodded. My ouana-lim was beginning to press insistently against my own trousers, but I felt I owed him a short explanation and clarification before I ravaged him. No doubt he'd heard plenty from everyhar else, but I was with him now.

I took the liberty of tossing another couple of logs on the fire before joining him. I also took off my sweater, shirt and boots, and forced him to keep my gaze while with unhurried hands, I unbuttoned his shirt. Skin on skin was sublime. It took all of my willpower not to shove down our trousers and swallow his stiff length and make him writhe in pleasure. A quick — very quick — overview of being a hermaphrodite, and then I would tease to life the pleasures inside of him he formerly never could have imagined.

"Like all hara, I'm male and female, though I know I don't express my feminine as blatantly as some. Having both genders is our gift, one of them," I said, kneading at the narrow flesh of his backside. Paul and Gladwyne both could stand to put meat on their newly harish bones.

"I know. I just didn't…" his voice trailed off, and he buried his face in my neck. "I've been stuck in my head, analysing things, and feeling myself up. I'm tired of both," he said impatiently, pressing faint, chaste kisses on my skin.

I felt another embarrassing swoon coming on.

"Share breath with me," Paul said, his voice raspy, all but begging. "I'm ready to really be one of you."

"You already are."

Deep and expansive, we shared breath, images and rising winds of desire flowing back and forth. Our tongues danced and teased; I savoured sparkling summer starlight and the flavour of tart apples, Paul's warm taste. When his fingers became grasping talons, I broke away and we finished undressing. He'd been bountifully endowed in the ouana-lim realm, and felt my body warring with its two polarities. I had to penetrate him, that was the way our bodies shuddered and threw off the last vestige of being human. We might contain both sexes, but right then I wanted nothing more than us both to be ouana, to cross swords and spill our delights on each other. What if that only made his body more crazed?

"Ashmael," Paul said, his voice demanding. He turned so he lay on his back, his kiss-swollen lips parted, eyes heavy-lidded as they'd been the afternoon Vaysh had incepted him. He tugged me on top of him, pulling me down and intermingling our hands in a tight grip. Velvet over steel, soft petals opened as we rubbed together, slick with opalescent offerings. I sighed and growled, rutting against him, not heeding how thin and wiry he was. My own passions had become like a wild horse, bucking and running amok. This wasn't for me, however, the focus was on Paul. I eased out of his grip, mapping the cartography of his bony torso with kisses.

He groaned and uttered other, less-defined noises, sounding like a wounded creature. I pushed him up the bed and lay on my stomach, ignoring for now the shimmering pearl of his ouana-lim and instead trying something whose inspiration had come just moments before: I licked and drank, teasing forth the honey-lemon nectar from his soume-lam. Paul's moans softened to surprised gasps and trills of pleasure. When my tongue and jaw began to ache, I sat back and noticed his body had responded to my ministrations.

Taking aruna with Paul that first time, I was a long spade, digging deeply into warm, loamy earth. He kept his eyes open, unable or unwilling not to keep my expressions in his sights. With each thrust I planted my own strength and hope for harakind into him; he seemed like the embodiment of a comet, a constellation of light fallen to earth.

He chanted a steady stream of monosyllabic profanity as our energies neared completion. "Don'