The Kimon coughed once, then opened his eyes. They were a startling green, in eerie contrast to his mottled skin, though he squinted almost immediately against the winds and rain that still rattled across the grass. When he turned and saw Arie standing over him, however, he froze.

“Where am I?” he asked. Though he spoke Therlerian, each word was heavily accented, clearly not his first language.

“You don’t get to ask questions,” Arie bit out. “You answer them. Who are you?”

The Kimon’s gaze swept down Arie’s body in a quick assessment. He shook his head when he was done. “I don’t have time for this.”

When he started to sit up, Arie thrust his foot into the Kimon’s shoulder to pin him down, only to feel his world warp around him as the man grabbed onto his ankle and twisted until he fell sideways. He landed with a grunt on his left side, knocking his head into the sonic extinguisher he’d set out of the way. By the time he leapt back to his feet, the Kimon stood as well, staring at the thinning smoke issuing from the nearby trench.

“What did you do?” the Kimon asked.

The query could mean anything. In the face of uncertainty, Arie floundered for the correct response.

Those sharp eyes cut back to him. Arie had to tilt his head in order to meet his gaze without flinching. “I know my Therlerian isn’t so bad that you don’t understand me,” the man said. “So I will ask this only one more time before I lose my patience for good. What happened?”

Arie held back his natural instinct to inform the Kimon of his mistake. It wasn’t the same question at all. This one he could answer.

“I pulled you out of there before you got caught in the fire.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Most people would consider that a good thing.”

The snide addendum took both of them by surprise. The Kimon’s scarred brow shot up, while Arie tamped down the bile that rose in his throat at such obvious childishness. That type of reaction was beneath him. He could only credit his weariness and the inconstancy of his current circumstances for it occurring at all.

“I didn’t ask to be saved.”

Whirling on his heel, the Kimon began marching toward the smoke. Arie stared at his stiff back for a moment before breaking into a run after him. When he attempted to grab the Kimon’s arm to stop him, though, he ended up on the ground again.

“You can’t go down there,” Arie called after him.

“You can’t stop me.”

“No, but the burver can. How do you think I put out the fire?”

Where physical strength had failed, his words succeeded in dragging the Kimon to a halt. “Burver.” He said it slowly, as if weighing it on his tongue. “I don’t know that word.”

“How do you know Therlerian at all?” Arie asked. “No Kimon has come through the creek in decades.”

“The same way your government has been studying us. You don’t really think you’re the only one to harness the power of the skies, do you?”

Arie hadn’t thought about it at all, to be honest. It wasn’t his place. “Did you cause the storm?”

The Kimon laughed. It wasn’t a chuckle or a phony response. It was full-blown amusement, resounding from his broad chest to ring out into the jaundiced night, and it knocked Arie even more off-balance than he already was. The man’s full mouth was still slanted into a smile when the laughter faded away. “Are those the fairy tales they’re selling you these days?”