Nichal frowned at the corpses of the lizards he and Master Sai had slain. They lay on the floor of the hunting cabin near the Kingswood outside the Shadowed Citadel. The lizards had attacked them, and he and Master Sai had defended themselves. He hated it. He hated even more that he knew there was something missing from these lizards. Whatever it was that made Nichal a child of the Abriasha was absent from the mindless drones they'd just killed.

  "Hey, Nichal," called Master Sai. He was reading a hunting guide he'd found on the bookshelf. "I have a question about this passage here."

  "Yes, Master Sai?" Nichal asked. He did not look away from the bodies.

  "Here, listen," said Master Sai. "'All lizards are far smarter than other wyrmkin, even to the point of arming themselves with makeshift weaponry. But to date, no female specimens have been harvested.'"

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Nichal's jaw dropped. "Harvested…!" he gasped.

  "That's odd about the females, isn't it?" Master Sai asked. "Where are you hiding them?"

  "Harvested…" he repeated. This was how the other children of the Abriasha saw them? As another entry in a hunting guide? Another trophy to be harvested?

  "Nichal?" said Master Sai.

  Nichal ground his teeth and took a deep breath before he turned to face Master Sai. He reached into the ancestral memories for an answer, but the answer he found was little better than the entry in the hunting guide. "My kind are created by the Great Ones in blood rituals from unhatched eggs," he said. "They make us only male so that we are entirely dependent upon them."

  "Really?" asked Master Sai.

  "We are slaves to them," Nichal said. He looked back at the corpses on the floor of the cabin. "They want us to be nothing more."

  "Interesting," said Master Sai. He reshelved the book and left the cabin without another look at the lizards he had just killed. Nichal had little choice but to follow.