He sighs.
I turn a page. I don’t want to be seen with the book, in case someone recognizes it as something I’m not meant to have, but I thought it might be handy with Perg. “Do the trollis keep slaves?”
“Not anymore. Used to.” Perg taps his leg, thinking. “There’s a few books, but I can’t read any of them.”
That startles me. “You can’t read? But the school—”
“Education is based on caste. And I am what I am.” He takes another sip of soup.
I slouch. “Then to use education to advance in your caste—”
“You have to have access to it already.” He shrugs.
Chewing on my lip, I look over the open page of the astronomy book, then hold it up for Perg to see. “Merces—your planet—is moving into the northern sky.”
Perg glances at it. “That map looks a century old.”
“I thought you couldn’t read.”
“I can read numbers.” He gestures to the date in the corner.
Withdrawing, I say, “North is good. Think of it as being . . . on top of things.” That is, at least, my understanding of it. If only I had a teacher to help me unlock the skies! “I think it means you’ll have success soon.”
Perg snorts. “Does any of this look successful to you?” He gestures at his bandaged body. Winces.
Distantly, a horn bellows.
My spine stiffens, and I sit upright on the stool beside Perg’s bed. I finished my shift at the south dock two hours ago. It was uneventful.
Perg lowers the bowl. “Don’t worry. Last time was a fluke. They usually don’t attack the city directly, and they never breach it. Could be just a sighting, even.”
I frown at him. I know how the horn works. “If the horn blows, they’re close.” The others will attempt to scare the monsters off, but still, I listen for the horn to blow again. If it does, I’ll have to leave for the dock.
Perg shrugs. “Usually it’s the new hatchlings you have to worry about. They haven’t learned.”
I think about Unach, who’s on shift now, and say a small prayer of protection on her behalf. What would happen, were she to die in the line of duty? Certainly she’d be honored in her passing. As for me . . . I suppose I would keep trekking on as I was. Unach was only required to see me fitted to the position. She doesn’t need me. Neither does Azmar.
“Perg,” I speak carefully, “do you know . . . did your parents love each other, at all?”
A dribble of soup spills from Perg’s lips. He wipes it with the heel of his hand. “Are you serious?”
I swallow and move my hair over one shoulder to keep my neck cool. “Did they?”
His thick brows draw together, like he’s trying to discern what sick joke I’m playing on him, but the expression gradually relaxes. “I don’t think so. I mean . . . ugh, maybe they found each other attractive? Ugh, Lark, I don’t think about this stuff. I don’t know.”
“They’re not around anymore?”
“No. My father escaped to the settlements, and my mother jumped into the canyon when I was little.”
My mouth dries. “I-I’m so sorry—”
He stirs the spoon around. “It’s fine, Lark. I don’t remember them. It’s just what I’m told. Might not even be true.”
My stomach twists. Still, I push a little more. “Have you . . . ever met another like you?”
He swallows a spoonful of soup. “No.”
“What if you could?”
He glances sidelong at me. “What are you getting at?”
I rub my hands together above my lap. Lower my voice. “Did you hear about the band of humans caught trespassing near Cagmar yesterday?”
His features slacken. He shakes his head.
“I talked to one. Just a little, before he escaped.” I trust Perg to keep my secrets, but I also want to tread carefully. “He mentioned someone named Baten from his township. A half trollis.”
Perg snorts. “Yeah, right.”
I touch his wrist, stopping the spoon over the nearly empty bowl. “I mean it, Perg. I believe him.”
Perg looks down to the soup. He sets the bowl and spoon on the small table beside him, wipes a hand down his face, and winces. “I don’t know, Lark. I don’t know why humans would keep any trollis around, even a half one.”
“I would. And I’m not special, Perg. I’m not the only decent human being in the world. A lot of us are sane, caring people.” The cruel ones merely scream the loudest.
He frowns. “So what, some trollis soldier got weird on an excursion and raped one of you, and the rest felt bad, so they kept the infant?”
I blanch. I had never considered a malignant conception. I had hoped . . .
It doesn’t really matter what I hope. What I feel, or was starting to feel. And yet I ache to meet with Tayler, to ask him about the Cosmodian . . . and Baten, his origin, how he was treated by the others. I have a deep, sick desire to know. I’d thought the humans in Cagmar my last chance at a family, but if there are others . . .
And perhaps, Tayler might justify the strange tilting of my heart.
I think of Azmar, the hooded way he looked at me, his hands on my leg. Were he human . . . the expression and behavior was not so different from that of Andru, my former fiancé. But Azmar isn’t human, and I have not lived in Cagmar long enough to understand the countenances, emotions, and behaviors of trollis. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
“I don’t know Baten’s story,” I admit to Perg.
He leans back into his pillows. Standing, I help adjust them. “Who knows, Lark. Probably just a distraction anyway.” He sighs. “I’m going to sleep.”
I lean over him and take the bowl, then rinse it in the small sink on the other side of the room. When I’m done, I murmur, “I don’t mind teaching you.”
He snorts. “Monster slaughter?”
I click my tongue. “Reading.”
He shrugs. “Maybe. With luck, I won’t need it.”
With that dismissal, I slip out into the stony corridor. The monster horn doesn’t sound again. Perg must have been right about the sighting. I hug the right wall so two Nethens can pass by me, and as they do, I hear a sharp word pass from the lips of the closest.
“Witch.”
I stop. Turn around, cold from the stonework seeping into my joints. The trollis looks back at me, briefly, eyes hard as iron.
Witch.
My heart pounds against my ribs. Did I hear wrong? That name has been flung at me so many times over the years I’m sure I didn’t. Ritha had said the trollis don’t believe in witchcraft. So why . . . ?
Hugging myself against the chill, I walk briskly back to the market. I step aside for several more trollis, who pass me silently. I’m too stuck in my own head. I should find something to do. Unach always has something that needs doing.
I’ve just barely stepped into the market when I hear my name, almost as hushed and sharp as the Nethens’s voice had been. Turning, I spy Ritha, over where the massive walls of the cavern meet their joists in the shadows. I hurry to her.
Then I see the bruise. It’s large and purple and covers a quarter of her face, starting from the jaw and crawling toward her eye.