I want to cry and laugh at once, but I do neither. I just stare up at him. The candlelight makes his eyes look like jewels and his skin look like agave leaves. There is nothing human about him, and yet he’s so human to me, so much more like myself than any creature I’ve met before. He is beautiful, and his beauty warms my skin, even in the cool air of my narrow room.
His hand has not left my face. He studies me, and I’m desperate to know what he’s thinking. What he sees in my face, what he hears in my breaths. What questions and theories turn inside that mind of his.
I step closer without thinking. The fine hairs on my arm stand on end when he bends, his face close to mine, closer still. The warmth of his breath grazes my cheekbones.
I’m the one who closes the gap. Who rises to my toes to brush my lips against his. The contact sends a thrill through my bones that makes my ears ring.
And yet as soon as we touch, he jerks away. Steps back and runs a hand down his face.
My very spirit sucks toward the floor.
“Azmar—” I blurt.
At the same time he says, “We shouldn’t do this.”
Despair trickles down me like freshly pumped water. My lungs shrink, as if I’m wielding my fear. “Azmar, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“I shouldn’t be here.” He steps toward the door, hesitates, and glances at me. His stony face reveals nothing, but the light in his eyes bounces between regret and frustration. When his irises shift toward the shadows, my very bones start to crumble. “You’ll be safe tonight, Lark. I’ll make sure of it. But I can’t stay here.”
And just like that, he leaves, unbolting the door and slipping into the dimly lit hallway, forgetting his blanket. Perhaps he’s discarding that, too.
I am frozen, swaying on my decrepit skeleton, staring at that door and wishing, praying, pleading with the stars to reverse time. But forward the seconds tick. Several minutes drag by before I remember how to move, and I sit numbly on my cot, hollow, confused, and humiliated. Biting my lip, which tingles from the touch of his, I drop my face into my hands and curse myself, squeezing my eyes against oncoming tears. Stupid, stupid, stupid. There was such a delicate boundary between us, tight as a stuck thread. Yet instead of easing the knot, I’ve broken the filament. Practically thrown myself at him. And I’m a human, as everyone here reminds me daily. As he reminded me. I let hope blaze too bright and destroyed everything.
Shaking, I bite down hard enough to draw blood. Numbly cross the room to bolt my door before dropping back to the cot.
The fledging hope of family wilts before it could truly bloom, and I wilt with it, growing small and dry and insubstantial.
At least Azmar is trustworthy, I remind myself. He is a good man, a good trollis. He won’t share my disgrace. It isn’t in his character. And why would he, anyway? How embarrassing it would be for him, to admit to letting a human get that close.
Stupid, I chide myself, slapping a tear off my face. The flame of my candle flickers, as though laughing at me. I pinch the wick to extinguish it, not even flinching when it burns.
Chapter 18
“You’re quiet today, Lark,” Perg says.
I push a pair of large pliers—made for trollis hands—down on a stud in a leather vest refitted to my frame, curling the prongs. I’ve ripped through so much clothing that the tailor finally complained and got me approved for armor of my own, but much of the labor was left to me. I’ve gotten only two rows of the brassy studs intact. I flex my hands after setting down the pliers, then pick up the awl again.
“I suppose I have a lot to think about,” I offer. We’re in Perg’s quarters. His cot is a mess, and he sits up on it, dishes littering the floor beside him. I should offer to take care of them.
I jab the awl into the leather.
“You’ll hit your leg, holding it like that,” Perg says.
“I haven’t yet.” But I think of the scar on my thigh from Tayler’s comrade, which makes me think of Azmar’s hands as he bandaged it, which makes me feel small and idiotic all over again.
Perg watches as I press the next stud into place and pinch it with the too-large pliers. At this rate my hands will be useless tomorrow.
“Are you angry with me?”
I set the pliers down and lift my head. “Why would I be angry with you?”
He shrugs. Doesn’t wince. That’s a good sign.
I pick up the awl.
“I’m back to work tomorrow.” Perg runs a finger along the edge of a scab.
That gives me pause. I take in his splints, his bandages. “Already? Perg, you need to rest longer.”
“I’d love to, even though I never want to sleep again.” He sighs. “But I can’t earn my rations without working.”
I set the awl and vest on my lap. “You can’t work with your injuries!” Not in construction, with all that heavy lifting. “Does the council not allot recovery time to injured trollis?”
“They do. I’ve just used it up.”
I’m incredulous. “But you’ll hurt yourself and then need it all over again. You’re not ready.”
He flexes his hands. “I can manage lighter loads. It will just take me longer.”
I shake my head and wield the awl like a weapon. “If they can’t give you the proper time to recover, then they shouldn’t have allowed Grodd to have his way with you.”
I sense, more than see, Perg deflate.
Frustration curls in my chest. “I’m sorry, Perg. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Mean what?” He reaches into my bag and hands me a stud. “The truth?”
I shake my head. I can tell Perg wants to ask me more about that day, but I keep my focus on the vest.
I’ve told only one other person my secret, and now I can’t speak to him at all.
I close the pliers, harder than I need to. I saw Azmar only briefly this morning, while Unach demonstrated how to stud the leather. He didn’t speak to me. He didn’t look at me. He just got his things together and left for work, leaving me smothered in my own shame. Something about my apartment’s walls felt claustrophobic, so I came to see how Perg was. Not that I’m good company.
Is this how it is to be, then? My fears realized, and not because I am a human endowed with fear, but because I dared to kiss a trollis? Is that what I am now, not a monster or monster slayer, not a servant, but a mistake?
I think about the men of my past, their propositions, their eager hands, their judgmental stares. Then I think about Azmar, and that brief moment of contact, and the tip of the awl bites my thigh. I hiss and pull it away.
“Told you,” Perg says.
Moving the vest, I inspect the damage, but it’s minimal. I put my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands, allowing myself a few deep breaths.
“Lark?” Perg sits up straighter. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Is she beating you?”
I laugh, though it’s dry and hard. “Unach? No. She’s prideful and hard skinned, but she wouldn’t lift a hand to me.”
Perg nods. “I’m glad.”
A bit of frustration ebbs out of me. Setting the vest aside, I gather up Perg’s dishes.
“I can do those,” he insists.
But I carry them to the tiny tin tub that serves as his sink. “I need something else to do.”
Perg frowns. “If you insist.”