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“And you saw it here, now?”

“I saw a flash of white, yes.”

Jyrak shoved Mia to the other side and turned them both toward the science center. “Do not run,” she whispered. “Do not make any sudden movements.”

Mia struggled to match Jyrak’s longer steps, and finally settled on an irregular, rapid trot. “What is it?”

“In a moment.”

The science center loomed ahead of them against the day’s dying light. Laughter and singing drifted to them above the muted engines of conveyances rolling steadily along the causeways, not far from where they walked.

No sound came from the jungle.

Mia broke into a sweat that had nothing to do with their pace. The skin on her nape crawled, and she could nearly feel the gaze of a predator on her back. They weren’t going to make it, she thought, then Jyrak was plowing through a crowd of people walking away from town, muttering to them in Xeruvian.

The people all turned around and headed back toward town, brushing past Jyrak and Mia without another word.

Jyrak pulled Mia into the safety of the science center a few moments later. Mia put her back to a solid rock wall and dropped into a crouch against it, panting, her gaze locked on the view showing beyond the transparent doors. Jyrak had pulled out her tablet and now spoke into it in fluid Xeruvian, her dagger held in one hand.

When her conversation concluded, she tucked her tablet away and squatted in front of Mia, her gaze steady and stern. “Tell me about the animal.”

“I don’t know anything,” Mia said, her voice shaky. “It was just a flash of white in the corner of my eye.”

“And that is all? What about yesterday, on your way from the spaceport?”

“An animal slinking along the jungle floor.” Mia shook her head under a wave of fatigue. “It was just an impression. I didn’t see much. What was it? Do you know?”

“Something impossible.” Jyrak placed her free hand over Mia’s and squeezed gently. “What do you know of our history?”

“Not much,” Mia admitted. “I haven’t been studying it long. We’re thinking of creating a series of learning modules on Xeruvian history as background for our research.”

“This is wise. Our history is long and fraught.”

“Isn’t everyone’s?”

Jyrak nodded. “What do you know of the Var’Kol?”

Mia blinked at the other female. “The Var’Kol? Not much, really, just that they’re extinct and lived on another planet.”

“They were our enemies. It is—” Jyrak sighed. “There is no time for a complete lesson. Suffice it to say that we warred constantly. The reasons matter not, only that the Var’Kol had many weapons, including thevyirkolen.”

“The what?”

“A predator domesticated and bred for their viciousness.”

Mia swallowed a lump of fear and felt it settle uneasily in her stomach. “Let me guess. These predators were completely white.”

“Yes. They originally evolved in a land of ice and snow. During the last Var’Kolite war, they were set loose on Zephyria and given specific targets, sometimes a single individual, more often a family or village.”

“But they’re animals! How could they narrow down a target like that with any degree of accuracy?”

“They may have been animals, but they were also highly intelligent trackers. Once they caught the scent of their prey, they did not stop until they claimed it.”

Mia’s eyes widened. “You think one’s been sent after me?”

“I did not say that.”

“So what then?”