With a sigh, I sat up and glanced over my shoulder. "Did it stick a tracker on me?" I asked.

Brielle moved behind me and began brushing leaf fragments off my back. "How close did it get?"

"It pinned me in the leaves," I admitted, making a face. I furrowed my eyebrows as something occurred to me. How could it have planted the tracker? One hand had been on my back, and the other had been on the ground, supporting its weight. Nor had it sat on its hind legs to free up its hands.

She frowned and carefully examined all the seams, eventually saying, "I don't see anything."

"We should stop by the Guard Station," Tib said, keeping an eye on the horizon.

I nodded, still sitting on the sand by the crystal. "I need a break first."

"It was a long hike. Rest as long as you need to," Brielle told me, still checking my shirt seams. "It's too bad the Saursune showed up. We got good shots on two peccaries."

"I'm just glad you got away," I said truthfully.

"So am I," she murmured.

We kept an uneasy eye on the sky while I rested, still sitting within arm's reach of the crystal. No airships haunted the horizon.

Eventually, the sun grew too warm, and I stiffly got to my feet. I was still tired, but that was to be expected after a long hike in a thick jungle on a mountainside and then being pinned in the dirt by a deadly predator.

The hunters held onto my shoulder as I reached for the crystal. "Guard Station."

The temperature dropped as we appeared in the shade. The wind gusted past like it always did up here, ruffling my clothing and hair. A guard I wasn't familiar with came over with the scanner.

He paused when he noticed my dirt-smudged knees and elbows, then quickly closed the distance and brought up the scanner. "Were you pinned as well?"

The question made me blink. "How did you know?"

"You're the fourth one today," he replied as he moved the device up and down.

"The fourth?" I gawked at him. I would have been less stunned if the sun had risen in the west this morning.

Tib and Brielle frowned at that news and exchanged a look. A female guard came over and gently brushed the dirt off my elbows, revealing a few small scrapes, but no cuts or larger abrasions.

The guard lowered the scanner, whose lights remained a steady green. "Yes, and just like them, you don't have a tracker on you."

I just stared at him, unable to form coherent thoughts.

The female guard walked around me, checking for any other injuries. "You must have played dead if you only have lightly scuffed elbows. Most of the others did the same." Her gaze drifted to the hunters. "I assume you weren't close by?"

Tib and Brielle shook their heads, and Brielle asked, "Did the others survive?"

"Yes. The porters just have bruises. A few hunters tried to fight back and got minor slashes along their arms when the Saursune disarmed them. As long as they can keep any infection at bay, they'll recover."

Another guard told me, "Sit down for a bit. You look beat."

I didn't need a second invitation to go to the hides spread across the packed sand. The final wisps of adrenaline were wearing off, leaving me in dire need of a prolonged break. A nap would have been better, but I didn't feel comfortable enough here.

Brielle and Tib chatted with the guards while I rested. My fingers played with the thin scraps of fur that had been sewn together. The hair wasn't right for rabbit or rat, but it was too tattered for me to properly identify what it had come from. The air near the crystal shimmered a mere second before a porter and three passengers appeared.

The porter's legs gave out, and the hunter barely slowed his fall. The two gatherers didn't look much better. Their wide eyes darting around as if expecting a Saursune to leap out at them.

I sat up straighter as the guards converged on them and helped them to a stone bench. The guards half-carried the porter to the seat, where he rested his head between his knees.

"Got caught by a couple of Saursunes," the hunter said shortly, still out of breath. "They snuck close to the crystal and ambushed Vic. The other one knocked me to the ground."

"You dropped your weapons?" Tib asked as I finally realized neither him nor Brielle had their bows or quivers. They must have dropped them when they ran.

"Yeah. I hoped it would go easy on me if I was unarmed," he replied, his eyes never leaving the green scanner in the guard's hands.

As they kept talking, their story became eerily similar to what we had just gone through. The porter has been pinned until no resistance was given, then the group was stalked back to the crystal with a grey device pointed at them. They didn't have any trackers either.

"I still think that weapon looked more like a scanner than a zapper," another hunter grumbled.

"What could it have been scanning?" the guard with the scanner asked, glancing at him in confusion.

He shrugged. "Beats me. But I'm very glad we didn't stick around to find out."

"I agree," the porter mumbled, his head still resting on his knees.

"Do you think you can make it back?" a guard asked dubiously.

The porter finally raised his head. The exhaustion etched into his face was echoed by his faint voice. "I doubt it."

Everyone had seen porters who pushed themselves too far; there was no doubt that if he tried porting, he wouldn't be awake when they carried him to bed.

"If you give me a few minutes, I can port your group back," I offered.

A female guard raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you can make it home after that? You didn't look that great when you arrived."

I shrugged, still fiddling with a tattered piece of hide. "I'll have to rest at their village for a while, but I've only ported a couple of times today, so I should be able to manage two more."

"Have you been to Keywa Village?" one of the gatherers asked.

I tilted my head, remembering their crystal but trying to recall a unique landmark there. "Did it have a big, white stone nearby?"

She grinned. "That's the one. We'll gladly accept a lift, and you can rest there as long as you need. Is your village having issues finding enough food?"

"Unfortunately. We keep trying to think of ways to catch one of those crocs by the river, but the small ones stay close to the water's edge, and that's where the bigger ones lurk—"

"And d'em big ones will drag you in," she said, nodding in agreement. "No holding them with a spear either."

As was common, talk shifted to the various animals we wished we could hunt, and how they or the Saursunes foiled our attempts. The crocodiles, of course, waited in ambush along the water's edge and had claimed more than a few hunters who were trying to snag a small one.

Antelope, deer, and other large herbivores were rarely seen and ran as soon as they thought we were near. Leaving snares overnight was an excellent way to meet predators or Saursunes. Few lakes or rivers were big enough to support many fish. I carefully avoided any mention of our new spot.

Eventually, I got to my feet. "Ready to go?"

The porter needed a hand up, and their group, Tib, and Brielle gathered around me, holding onto my shoulders.

"Keywa Village."

The air hazed around us and cleared to reveal a small desert village built between massive craggy rocks. I stumbled as I stepped away from the crystal and was steadied by Brielle and Tib, who promptly guided me to a pile of hides nearby. I sat down heavily, although the villagers here didn't seem to think it was unusual.

Several locals were already converging on us. After a quick explanation, the porter was ushered away by an older woman who fussed over him. Whether she was his mother or the doctor, I wasn't sure. From her tone and words, she might have even held both roles. The hunter and gatherers were busy telling their story, which gave me a momentary respite.

While I tried to catch my breath, I looked around. I hadn't been here in over four years, but the signature white marble block was exactly where I remembered it. Whereas my home was hidden in a long ravine, this village was concealed among five towering sections of rock, whose bases created a network of paths. Just like back home, no one wandered out of the sheltering shadows where we might be spotted.

By the time the villagers turned their attention to us, I wasn't feeling quite so drained. They gathered around, talking a hundred miles an hour and excited to have a guest. A child brought me a wooden cup with water, which I accepted with a thank-you. No food, of course; that was only offered if one was joining a village.

"Have you heard about people being pinned by Saursunes?" I asked, hoping to learn more about what the guards had mentioned. It would also encourage them to do most of the talking.

They stumbled over each other in their haste to tell me about the various rumors of people being knocked to the ground by Saursunes, as well as informing me that there was quite a crowd of people at the Oasis right now.

I was itching to return and tell Grant, but—oddly enough—I needed a break. I did my best to look attentive while trying to remember the last time I had been this tired without porting myself to my limits. No aches lingered in my chest though, so it wasn't porting strain. Admittedly, I had just finished a long hike down and back up the side of a mountain, but this felt like a different kind of tiredness, deeper inside, not the kind caused by hours of physical activity.

Once the villagers and my hunters finished talking, I was ready to head home. I braced my legs when I ported, which turned out to be a wise precaution since the exhaustion returned full force. I didn't think my knees shook, but they sure wanted to. No porting strain appeared in my chest, for which I was grateful. Brielle and Tib helped me over to the resting hides before heading off to get cleaned up.

Grant emerged from his office with a book and special inking pen in hand. "Your back earlier than I expected."

"That isn't a trip I want to repeat."

He took a seat next to me. "Why is that?"

I began retelling our story, including the usual details like where I'd hidden the shard. As I started telling him about the Saursune, Belle returned, being held up by two gatherers. Grant quickly got to his feet and went to check on her.

~

"—so the carry net and nuts will be within fifteen paces of the crystal, but anyone who tries to collect them will be walking into an ambush," I said as we sat around the porter's circle.

Jayce nodded. "That's pretty much what happened to me too. It came out of nowhere and knocked me to the ground. And just like you and Belle, it pinned me in the dirt and sniffed at my head." He shivered. "I was positive it was going to kill me—but it just left. It was over an hour before the hunters returned, and they hadn't seen anything. Once everyone was back, we got out of there as fast as we could."

With a sigh, Grant said, "Those at the Oasis said the same thing happened to over a dozen groups. The ten who had trackers were all trying to raid the fields and farm storage bins. About half of those groups had a weapon pointed at them as they ported away but none were hurt. And no, I'm not counting the idiots who tried to steal chickens out of the Saursunes' coops."

I shook my head in disbelief. The villages knew the Saursunes were on high alert and setting up ambushes left, right, and center. Why send two groups into the middle of a farm with animals? Those critters were checked on several times a day by Saursunes.

They were lucky four made it out alive—and that was probably only because they had trackers. One of the beads had been pushed into a cut and had barely been extracted at their scanning station before the airships arrived.

"I still don't understand why they'd pull out weapons when they were within pouncing distance," Belle murmured tiredly, leaning against a rock like sitting up was too much energy. "I'm positive it means something, but I don't know what."

"There's no understanding those lizards," Derek grumbled, "but they're definitely up to something, and I don't like it."

When I yawned, Grant gave me a long look. "I'm not sure how much you ported today, but I think you overdid it. If you're stubborn enough to take the water cart later tonight, only take the small one. Don't attempt it if you might pass out, and don't go to Orange Flower. It's too risky with that Saursune hanging around there. Try the high mountain meadow."

I made a face but nodded. The comment and my lingering exhaustion nagged at me. I tallied up my ports several times and kept getting the same number. Six.

Not sixteen. Not twenty-six. Six. A number I had laughed at when I was just thirteen. This kind of deep drain wasn't caused by physical exertion, so I couldn't blame it on the jungle hike. I only ever felt like this when I ported too much—except that I hadn't ported that much.

Belle and Jayce were also yawning.

Grant's comment, their actions, and the topic at hand made me ask, "Belle, Jayce, are you two more tired than usual?"

"I haven't been this tired in a long time," Belle replied wearily.

"I'll be heading to bed shortly," Jayce admitted.

The others looked about as tired as they usually did.

"Could the Saursunes' weapons have drained our energy or something?" I eventually asked. "Is that even possible? Because I'm not used to feeling this tired, and I didn't port much."

What had its weapon looked like? All I remembered was the Saursune pulling something dark grey off its belt and pointing it in my direction. The group from Keywa Village had mentioned something similar. Was the weapon responsible for the exhaustion we currently felt? Was such a thing even possible? Or were our desperate, terrified attempts to port using more energy?

"I've never heard of anything like that," Grant replied.

At the same time, Jayce said, "Mine didn't have a belt or weapons."

"There goes that idea," I murmured, wondering if I should tell them that I had only ported six times today. I decided against it since Grant might curb my trips. The water cart's weight always caused porting strain, and after my earlier exhaustion, I was pretty sure it was going to kick my butt by the time I finished that round trip later this evening. I didn't think I'd pass out. Not after only doing six light ports.

Janette shivered. "I don't even want to imagine a weapon that drains energy. What if we were too tired to port?"

"Simply being scared can really tire you," Jayce reassured her. "Remember how jittery you feel after a close call with a predator or a Saursune? We were pinned for at least a minute, so I'm not surprised we need some time to recuperate."

I kept silent as my friends compared the after effects of adrenaline and extreme fear to what they were feeling. Their discussion finally made me realize that they didn't feel the porting energy as being somewhat different from their physical energy.

The porting strain and resulting aches we encountered on a daily basis proved the energies were linked, but I'd always considered them to be separate. Kind of like how my physical energy was different from my mental energy.

You could be mentally drained and still do physical work, albeit not as efficiently or as quickly. If you had too much physical stamina left, it was hard to sleep, regardless of how tired your mind was. For those who remained in the confines of the village and didn't move much, the lack of exercise was a known issue.

But I still had no good explanation for why six ports had left me more tired than sixteen usually did. The weapon had seemed like a good answer, but Jayce hadn't seen one. Perhaps it was due to the prolonged terror while pinned and me trying to "will" the crystal into porting faster?

Despite having ported for almost half of my twenty-one years, I didn't know how my power worked or understand how the crystals could move me incredible distances in mere seconds. They just did.

I hadn't encountered anything unusual or strange with my porting powers until now, and I didn't like it.