Page 41 of Corvak's Challenge

Like twice as many as I'm used to seeing. Dozens and dozens.

That's…not good. I set the bowl aside and sit down again, trying not to frown. "Pinkie, are there more snow-people down below? More today?"

Yes, she tells me.All come.

"All?" I choke out and remember to sign it. "What do you mean, all are coming?"

All people, she agrees.Skies say come. Say Great One here.

And Corvak is their Great One. "You mean the water in the sky?" I ask, using the words she does for the Northern Lights. "It told all your people to come?"

Fire and water, she says.Pictures in mountain. Water fill sky. Fire come to ground.

She must mean the meteor. I suppose they think the cave art is telling them something, and the Northern Lights and the meteor must have "confirmed" it in their heads. Greaaat.

I sign,I see.

Sky fire always bring people, she continues.Always people.

I frown to myself. "What do you mean? What people?"

Some like you, she says.Some color of water. Some…She makes a gesture for horns on someone's head.All different. All come with sky fire.

"You know these people?" I ask, fascinated.

No.They… She makes the gesture for yesterday and then repeats it so many times that I know she means "long ago."Others here now.

"Others like…Corvak? Other gladiators? Others in the game?"

She makes the gesture for horns and then adds,live at big water.

Big water. A beach? There's a freaking beach here and we're living in the freaking arctic mountains?! For a moment, I'm absolutely furious. "Awarmbeach?"

Warm here, she says.Snow here, snow there.

That soothes my irritation. Not a warm, tropical beach. A shitty cold one just like the shitty cold mountains. "And people live there? Near the water? People that look like me?"

Smooth people, yes. She touches her cheek, running her claw down it in the gesture we've established for "human."Come from the skies.

Other opponents, then. Gladiators. "And then they leave? Once the game is done, they leave?"

Her expression turns puzzled.No leave. Stay at big water. Many family. Many people.

A knot forms in my stomach. Corvak has said repeatedly that when the game is over, we'll be pulled from this awful planet and sent somewhere else. But if what Pinkie is saying is correct…

What if no one leaves this planet? Ever?

I'm terrified at the thought.

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

AIDY

I fightto contain my unease as I make food all day long.

No leave. Smooth people come from skies. Stay at big water.

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