The berries, young clover leaves, and clover flowers made this breakfast one of the best I'd ever had. I pulled a carry net out of my pocket and began collecting greens while keeping my eyes open in case more snakes were around.

After having found one bush with berries on it, I kept searching for more. Dandelions and clover might be tasty and easy to gather, but they didn't have many calories. Fruit, berries, roots, and nuts were much better prizes, and of course, far harder to find. Meat was a protein-packed powerhouse, but that wasn't an option for a porter, especially not with a Saursune nearby.

This close to a field, no one had planted any fruit-bearing shrubs or trees, and I soon resigned myself to bringing back common plants. At least they were plentiful here. I'd be able to collect more in a couple of hours than some gatherers did all day in the increasingly overharvested areas.

I carried the full carry net over to the crystal and slowed when I saw a snake. Then I noticed there were actually two of them. Both were dead.

I set my collection to the side and crouched down beside the headless snakes. It wasn't a kind I recognized, and with no mouth to pry open for a fang-check, I had no way of knowing if it was venomous.

After a quick check to make sure the Saursune wasn't in sight, I quickly gutted the snakes and put them under my carry net to stay cooler and keep flies at bay. I grabbed a few empty carry nets and continued collecting greens.

I located another berry bush and put the handful of berries into a leather pouch. I quietly hummed while I worked. It would be a relief to bring back a decent haul. If I worked hard, I might even be able to collect enough to ensure Callie got breakfast tomorrow morning. If nothing else, at least none of the children would cry from hunger tonight.

I didn't see any glimpse of the Saursune, although his coloration was a shade that would let him blend into the forest very well. Was he hanging around, just out of sight? Or after getting the energy, preventing me from getting bitten by a snake, and leaving two dead snakes as a trade, had he left? I truly hoped he wouldn't harm the hunters if he found them...

The morning wore on as I collected more greens. A glimpse of brown had me looking up, but it was just a bird. I took a break around midday and sat on a log while nibbling nearby greens.

At least I wasn't pacing this afternoon. The thought gave me pause. My eyebrows furrowed as I chased it around. Where had that come from? Yet, the restlessness I'd experienced yesterday stood out, even though the oppressive heat should have removed all ambition. It hadn't faded until I'd ported several times.

I didn't recall pacing the day before, although I had been walking all over while trying to find something to eat. But I hadn't sat down until...until after the Saursune had shown up. Admittedly, after having that much energy drained, it wasn't surprising that I needed a rest. But the restlessness beforehand was unusual.

Normally, a porter collected anything edible or useful around the crystal. The activity kept us busy if we were bored, and simply porting a group usually meant we spent a lot of time sitting and conserving our strength for our next port. Not pacing restlessly.

Had yesterday just been due to frustration with how little I found and how little there was to do at that spot? Or was it possibly something more? Was my strengthening porting ability possibly to blame? Or was it because I was porting less now that I remained at one crystal all day?

I decided to keep track of it, just in case it wasn't a unique event. It wasn't a hardship to port a few extra times a day, but if it was related to my quickly-strengthening porting ability, it would soon become noticeable to those around me.

I shook my head and got to my feet to continue collecting greens. When my carry net was full, I took it to the crystal and slowed when I saw something that hadn't been there before. I tilted my head as I walked over to the sack made from a type of coarse fabric I'd never seen before.

There was a braided circle sitting on top.

Apparently the snakes hadn't been the only payment. I slowly knelt beside the knee-high sack, which was at least as wide as it was tall, and picked up the braided circle. Five plant stems had been braided together, and I studied the unusual pattern, eventually setting it beside me.

I unrolled the excess fabric on top to peek inside. My jaw dropped. Was—was that grain? I ran my fingers through the kernels. It was.

I was so stunned I could barely form coherent thoughts. All I could do was stare at the sheer amount. This much could potentially make enough bread for everyone in the village to have a piece!

A quick poke of the sides confirmed the entire thing was full. The outer husks had already been removed, which made it hard to identify what type of grain it was. I tugged lightly on one of the leathery handles, but the sack barely shifted. It weighed more than Callie did, and she wasn't the smallest five-year-old around.

This was far too valuable to leave here all day. Some other brave group might stop by when I was out of sight and decide their children were hungrier than ours. My biggest concern was if there was a tracking bead inside.

I rolled the top up, not wanting to lose a single kernel. With one hand on the handle, I reached for the crystal. Light shimmered through my veins as I ported to the Guard Station. A towering mountain cliff loomed on one side, with the rolling sand dunes spread out beyond and below the cliffside ledge. The guards quickly got up from the bench and came over.

I stood up. "Could I please get a scan on this?"

A woman had the scanner this time. "What is it? And where's your group?"

I decided honesty was the best route. "My group is out hunting. I got pinned by a Saursune, and it came back later with this."

I opened the sack to reveal the grain.

"A Saursune brought it? You didn't raid a farm?" she asked doubtfully. Her scanner only had green lights, but that didn't mean much nowadays.

"I can take you there if you want," I said dryly. "I'm not suicidal enough to set foot in a field, let alone raid storage containers on a farm."

"Saursunes have been bringing food after they trap a porter," another guard told her. "Someone yesterday had a big bundle of oat stalks."

The woman frowned at the scanner. "It's not showing anything, but we can't trust a quick scan. Not with those intermittent trackers. Some other scanning locations found quite a few yesterday."

"Other places? Not here?" I asked.

The other guard replied, "Nothing that we saw. So either none of our five villages encountered trackers or the time between tracking signal bursts was longer than they waited. But other scanning locations found a few yesterday."

"All of those places had been raiding," the woman grumbled. "So you better be telling the truth about that bag."

I shrugged. "It's the truth." After a brief second of hesitation, I turned to the elderly porter in the corner. "Weylan, I don't want to leave my group alone for too long. Can I leave the bag with you and pick it up later? If there is a tracker in it, can you drop it in one of the abandoned villages and I can take a villager there to sift it later?"

Weylan continued rocking in his chair as he considered it. "In exchange for a handful of grain, I can watch it all day. It can even sit behind my chair where others won't see it and wonder."

"Thank you so much!"

I pulled a small leather pouch out of my pocket and put a generous handful of grain inside. As I handed it to him, two of the guards each took a handle and carried the heavy sack behind his chair.

He tucked the pouch inside his shirt. "Even if the tracker doesn't show anything, I'd still recommend taking it somewhere else and sifting through it."

I nodded. "That's a good idea. I can pick someone up when I take the first group back."

"Have a good day."

"You too," I replied as I returned to the crystal. "Three Stone Forest."

It was a risk letting them hear the name, since at least three of their villages knew the location by that name, but it would prove my innocence if they checked there and found a lot of good foraging. Someone was bound to start checking those sorts of locations anyway, especially since food was running low elsewhere. If I had to have competition, I'd rather it be non-raiding villages that we were on good terms with.

I just hoped Hinton Village didn't become a nuisance when they learned about it. The last thing we needed was them telling dozens of other villages where the good foraging was in exchange for food.

~

I sat beside the crystal, becoming more and more concerned. I'd already taken ten hunters back to the village, but only three other pairs had returned. Two hunters were still missing, and they should have been back some time ago.

"They could have just lost track of time," one of my hunters murmured. "Do you mind taking us to the Guard Station and then checking back here?"

The sun was lower in the sky here than it was back in the village, so his words didn't reassure me. Still, I stood up. "Sure. I can take you back and check on Wilma and her sisters. They might have finished sifting the grain by now."

They gathered around me with their carry nets, leaving the leather bucket of rabbit guts behind. I could take it to the cat later.

"Guard Station."

The guards on the afternoon shift were the usual ones, and my hunters chatted while I rested.

"Shouldn't you have two more?" a guard finally asked me.

"We're hoping they're just late," I replied quietly.

He winced, and the guard from our village looked worried. No one asked if I planned to keep checking back. They knew I would.

As soon as I left the six hunters in the village, I bounced back to Three Stone Forest. No one was waiting for me. The braided grass circle hung from a spire where I had left it, although I hadn't seen any sign of the Saursune all afternoon.

With a frown, I ported to Sunrise village where I had left four women and the bag of grain.

"Excellent timing, Natalie," one cheerfully greeted me, unaware of the weight on my heart. "We just finished. Nothing besides grain! Not a single beetle or piece of chaff."

I forced a smile onto my face. "Thank you so much! I can take you straight to the village, if you like."

"Please. These cliffs..." She glanced at the soot drawings on the long-abandoned cliffs and shuddered. "They remind me of how many villages have been overrun."

I nodded sympathetically as I helped them carry the various leather pouches and bags to the crystal. I bundled the empty sack under my arm. No one knew what kind of fabric it was, but we all agreed to leave it by the crystal for the Saursune to reclaim.

I ported them back and promptly bounced to Three Stone Forest yet again. Still nothing.

Taking a chance, I called out, "Cruz! Rachelle!"

I kept my hand on the crystal. Shouting was usually a very dangerous thing to do. Not only did it have a tendency to bring in Saursunes—I wasn't worried about that at the moment since one already knew I was here—but it also lured in curious predators.

Lions or tigers wouldn't be found in this sort of forest, but bears, cougars, and wolves were a possibility. Feral dogs too, and they were especially nasty since they had no fear of us.

Some birds screeched in alarm. But the voices I wanted to hear didn't come. I set the empty sack under the braided circle and waited for some time as the sun dipped toward the horizon.

Picking up the bucket of rabbit guts, I decided to visit the cat to distract myself. My view hazed over, then cleared to reveal another forest. The sun was higher here, but no one was present. Plenty of trampled grass through; other groups were here daily. I hoped Cleo was okay.

"Cleo?" I quietly called.

As always, I was relieved when the shrubs rustled, and she popped out. I knelt down as she carried over a small bird.

"Good girl! Look what I brought you. You're going to eat like a queen tonight."

Cleo was more than happy to trade the tiny songbird for the handful of rabbit guts and bits that even the cooks refused to put in the soup pots. I petted her while she ate. Soon enough, my worry for my missing hunters sent me back to Three Stones.

As my view cleared, I looked around rapidly. There were no predators, but my hunters were still missing. This wasn't the first time hunters hadn't come home—the forest was full of all sorts of dangers, even when traveling in pairs—but it had been years since it had happened to someone in my group, and the sense of failure and pain it created had no equal.

"Cruz! Rachelle!"

I lingered by the crystal, watching and waiting, hoping, but knowing the odds were stacked against them the longer they were missing. Unless they took shelter in a tree overnight, or managed to find a small cave for protection, they likely wouldn't survive until morning. Assuming they were even still alive at this point.

I tried calling a few times as the sun sank lower in the sky and touched the horizon. The sky went through a beautiful orange and pink display that didn't match the increasing sorrow in my heart.

When the sun had halfway set, I knew I had to leave soon, even if just to give Grant an update and make sure he knew I was okay.

I tried one last time. "Cruz! Rachelle!"

A distant voice answered, "We're coming!"

My heart leaped at the faint call. They were alive! Even though they were much too far away to see, I took a step forward, my hand still touching the crystal. My eyes scanned the shadowy trees and foliage eagerly.

"Where are you?" the other hunter called.

"Over here!" I quickly replied.

Crackling of branches and leaf litter announced their arrival long before I saw them in the dimming light. They finally stumbled into the open area around the crystal. Each carried four carry nets, although it was too dark to see what they held.

The bushes behind them moved as a Saursune emerged.

My two companions staggered toward me, unaware of the danger behind them. As best I could tell in the shadows, it was the same one I'd seen earlier. He met my gaze. I bowed my head in thanks. He turned and disappeared into the forest.

The two reached me, and I wasted no time in porting them to the Guard Station, leaving the braided circle on the spire with the empty grain sack beneath it. As soon as the forest humidity was replaced with the dry desert air, both hunters sat down hard.

"Are you okay?" I asked, quickly kneeling beside them.

The sun was just about to set here, but I didn't see any obvious injuries in the fading light. The guards rushed over.

"Check for trackers," Rachelle told them, panting for breath as she spaced out her carry nets as best as she could from where she sat.

"What happened?" I asked as I spaced out the carry nets for them, although the light on the scanner remained green.

"Got lost on the way back," Cruz said. "Finally got our bearings late afternoon when the sun showed us which way was west, but we somehow ended up behind a field—"

"We didn't step foot on it," Rachelle quickly reassured me, "but those fields are weird loopy shapes. We had trouble finding a way around until a Saursune herded us back."

I blinked. "It herded you?"

"We wouldn't have made it back otherwise. Scary as hell, but it definitely herded us to the crystal." Rachelle glanced at me. "Reminds me of the tiger incident. Did a Saursune catch you today?"

I nodded slowly. "Less than an hour after you left. It brought a bag of grain, but if it guided you back, then I count that to be an even greater value."

A Saursune had brought my hunters back.

It defied logic and everything I'd seen and heard throughout my twenty-one years. Saursunes killing our hunters and gatherers had been the norm until the last few weeks. This...this was different. It felt like the world itself was turning and about to reveal something.

During my last stop, the guards had told me that at least a dozen porters had been caught by Saursunes, all of whom had found some sort of food by the crystal after, often with a braided circle made from grass or plants. Many more porters had been close enough to the crystal to bounce before the Saursune caught them.

None had reported a Saursune helping their members. But had any of them ventured far enough to need such help? Or had they just not said anything? I didn't recall hearing any stories where someone had encountered trouble lately, but I'd also been waiting for these two to return, so I would have missed most of today's gossip.

If this had been the benefit of deliberately sharing my energy, I was glad I had done it.