Finished, I hand back the pencil and stare upward. Take a deep breath, hold it, release. “When I look at the stars, at the universe, I realize how very small I am. And how very small others are. Small people, small problems, and none of it really matters in the great vastness of it all. Somehow, that makes me feel better. Somehow it encourages me to be . . . bigger.”
Azmar considers me silently. I only ever shared that idea once before, with Andru. Thought of him pings sharp in my chest. He had the opposite view. The universe made him feel small, too, but instead of being encouraging, it instilled in him a sense of worthlessness.
I’m hesitant to turn in, though Homper has already vanished into the city. Today has been a good day. Yes, I have a new wound to nurse, and yes, we were attacked . . . but the rest of it was good. The stars make for a happy end to it all.
I point to a cluster of them peeking just over the horizon. “Territopus.” Azmar follows the line of my arm. When he doesn’t respond, I add, “It starts with those two stars close together, then goes up to that bluish one, and down. It’s a scorpion. Its tail points to Mirras.” The fourth planet, the snake. One of the few that I’ve been able to find with unaided eyes. It looks like a tiny star with a faint red halo.
A soft hum radiates from Azmar’s lips. “Ours adds on a cone.” He indicates several stars above. “The warrior. He’s holding a club.”
It takes me a second. “Oh! It does look like that. More than a scorpion.” I scan the sky. “I never realized there might be different interpretations of the stars.” The very idea sends an excited chill through my skeleton. I point again. “That one is Swoop, the spoon.”
He finds the six-star constellation. “Here, it’s Makog, the spider.”
“It looks nothing like a spider.”
He shrugs. “I did not name it. But above is the web.”
The dozens of stars above the constellation cluster so closely it’s nearly impossible to draw lines between them. I can see it as a web, a great, tunneling web full of prey. A spider, just like me. Just like Unach. “A spider that eats stars.”
We point out a few more, some completely different, others similar, and I repeat each trollis interpretation in my mind so as not to forget. We have one constellation with the same name, a set of twelve stars simply named “the arrow.” It points north.
“I use that one the most.” I lean against the bridge, the wood still warm from the sun. “That, and the South Star. I never got lost if I could see the stars.” I always made sure I knew how far and in what direction the next township was, just in case. And I always ended up needing the information, until I ran out of townships and the old bard’s song was the only hope I had left.
“Lark,” Azmar’s voice rumbles, nearly as quiet as the night itself, “why did you come here?”
I keep my gaze on the arrow, the bright star at its tip. “Because I’m different. And my people fear difference.”
I feel his gaze on me like the fur blanket he draped over my sleeping form so many times. “Are you so terrifying?”
A few heartbeats pass. “I can be.”
I feel I should be more forthcoming, as he was with me earlier, but I can’t bring myself to confess my secrets. In truth, I worry Azmar will look at me the way Andru did after the attack from the aerolass, and I don’t think I could bear it.
“Are you afraid here?” His voice sounds closer. Close enough to touch him, if I reached out. The tips of my fingers would graze his chest. Caress the silvery scar beneath his clothes.
I don’t try, of course, even in the safety of the dark, and the privacy of the night. I’m too afraid, though that isn’t the fear Azmar meant.
“Fear is an interesting thing.” I match his hushed pitch, search for his shadowed eyes. “It isn’t instinctual; it’s learned. Learned for self-preservation. It can cripple the strongest of men, and yet it can strengthen the weakest of them, too. It’s both debilitating and invigorating. It’s a curse we all have in common—human, trollis, aerolass—and when handled in the right way, it can be almost . . . comforting. So yes, I’m afraid. I’m always afraid. But I don’t think I would have made it this far if I weren’t.”
He’s quiet for several breaths. “You are an anomaly, Lark.”
I warm. “So you said.”
“No, not like the rest.” His voice is sober, direct, yet soft. “You’re very different than anything else in Cagmar.”
His words burn in my chest. I want them to be complimentary and fear they’re not, but I don’t ask for an explanation. I don’t ask or say anything, and neither does he. Our silence is comfortable, comforting, alone with the stars and the endless sky, like we’re the only two beings beneath it.
It’s late when we finally climb back into the city. So late that Unach has already retired to bed. I check on her before making my way down to my own room. Quiet, so she doesn’t know. Unach isn’t someone who likes to have tabs kept on her.
But Azmar is my only witness, and he won’t tell a soul.
The good news is that the other humans got away. Dart’s team returned empty-handed. Whether they were outpaced or the human band knew of tunnels or such to get away, I don’t know. I wasn’t told.
The unfortunate news is that the next morning, while I’m collecting water and prepping a meal, I am utterly clumsy in Unach and Azmar’s apartment, and not because of the injury to my thigh.
For whatever reason, I am aware of Azmar’s every movement, his every breath, his every gaze. And not simply because I served him breakfast. And not simply because he thanked me.
It’s because I am a fool woman who can’t keep her head straight to save her own life.
What’s worse, I feel that Unach senses my awkwardness, my looking but not looking, and yet at the same time, I’m sure it’s all in my head. My senseless thoughts tumble over each other again and again, and all I want to do is haul the water down to my own apartment and run to my shift at the south dock. Monsters would be easier to face right now.
Unach picks at her nails, frowns, and says, “Would you get the rest of that hot water in the basin?”
For a bath, she means. I oblige, eager to be out of the main room where they’re eating. I feel like I’m being watched, but I don’t dare turn around to see if I am. I carry the iron pot from the fire to the little back room and fill the basin there, then carry in cold water from the pump until it’s half-full. When I return, Azmar glances up from his reading, and I think of the bath, of him half-dressed, and how human and trollis physiques really aren’t very different, and how his is rather spectacular.
I grab my pitcher and leave without excusing myself, closing the door behind me, harder than I should.
Perg can sit up now. The swelling in his face has gone down, though he’s still in the infirmary until he has the strength to walk unaided. He cups a bowl of carrot soup in his hand and happily brings an oversized spoon to his lips.
“I’m going mad,” he admits. “I’m so bored, Lark. I’d rather be a slave than an invalid. At least I’d be doing something. At least I wouldn’t be . . . weak.”
I look up from studying the book Wiln gave me. “You’re not weak.”