Lyra Verdantis had waited her whole life for a face that did not share her green skin. Her village bred within itself, cousin to cousin, and she dreamed of a mate from beyond it. That morning the sky split with fire, and she ran toward it alone. The wreck lay smoking under the giant weeping willow, its branches draped in curtains of purple and blue. Lyra pushed through them. Metal hissed. Inside the twisted shell lay a man unlike any she had seen. His skin was red. Two black horns curved from his head. A black tail lay still beside a torn seat. He was alive. His chest rose in shallow jerks. Blood ran from a gash along his ribs. When she touched his shoulder, his yellow eyes snapped open. He spoke fast, harsh words she did not know. She shook her head. He tried again, slower, then winced and fell quiet. Neither of them held a single shared word. Lyra pointed at herself. "Lyra." She pressed her hand to her chest and repeated it. The stranger stared. Then he lifted one shaking hand and tapped a small badge clipped to his flight jacket. A pilot's insignia gleamed on it, wings spread wide. Below the wings sat three bold letters she could not read aloud. She traced the shapes with her finger. He watched her mouth. "Vex," he rasped, tapping the badge again. "Vex." "Vex," she echoed. He nodded once, then his eyes rolled back. Panic hit her. She had a name and nothing else. His wound gaped wider now, dark blood pooling under him. Words would not save him. She needed her hands. Lyra remembered the salve her grandmother made from tree sap. She tore strips from her own tunic. She climbed the willow and cut thick, glowing sap from a broken branch, then packed it into the gash. Vex groaned but did not wake. She wrapped the strips tight and pressed until the bleeding slowed to nothing. For a long time she watched his chest. It kept rising. The sap sealed the wound gray and firm. He would live. When his eyes opened again, they found her face first. He did not flinch at her green skin. He reached up and closed his rough fingers around her wrist, weak but sure. He said one word she almost understood, then said her name. "Lyra." He had remembered it. She helped him sit against the willow trunk. He could not walk. He could not speak her tongue. But he was hers to keep alive now, and he had chosen to hold her hand instead of pull away. The badge lay in the dirt where it had fallen. Lyra picked it up and closed it in her fist. She would learn his words. She would bring him home to a village that had never seen a red man with horns. And she already knew they would not want him there.