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Supra is the highest caste. All Supra are council members, meaning there are only five total. Qequan, who tested my fear and deemed me worthy to stay, heads the council, making him the most powerful troll in Cagmar.
Beneath them are the Alpines, composed of decorated warriors and military leaders. Beneath them is the sixth caste, Montra. Many of the monster slayers are Montra, Unach included. It’s understandable why my place here confuses so many, as I’m a human and without caste. Unach knows I’m hiding something. Others, like Troff, assume the council simply wants an accident to take care of me.
Because engineering is so critical to the survival of Cagmar, many engineers claim the fifth caste, Centra. Azmar is Centra. During my carefully placed questions about the caste system, Unach let slip that Azmar contradicted his family’s wishes by pursuing engineering, and he dropped a caste level because of it. His parents, grandparents, and so on were highly trained warriors. Why Azmar strayed from that path, Ido not know, and yet I understand it. I’m not what my father wanted me to be, either.
Centra and the fourth caste—Intra—are composed of teachers, hunters, and strategists. Those in higher positions of employment, such as food handlers, make up the Deccor caste, and below that sit the Nethens, including Perg. Plebs, the weakest trolls and lowest caste, work in servitude. From what I’ve seen, they’re treated little better than humans.
I internalized the hierarchy quickly. So many years at my father’s side, whether negotiating land or war, taught me the importance of information, especially in the political sphere. I am the lowest of the low in Cagmar, but I will not be caught unaware.
Unach has decided to uncover my secrets by pushing me to my limits: making me stitch together my own armor, sharpen weapons, and mend rope and having me do drills in the docks. (Humans are not allowed in the training hall, or the “rec,” as Unach’s friend called it earlier.) She still speaks to me brusquely, like I am a burden, but I don’t entirely mind. Unach is constant and predictable, and she often lends me that extra blanket at night, though always after I’ve fallen asleep. She hides a soft spot in her heart, I think, under all those layers of hardened muscle.
Unach tries to get under my skin by signing me up for two shifts, the first of which I must report to by the fourth morning hour, which thankfully passes without event. However, because of the shift in schedule, I manage to have time between shifts to visit the enclave. I wind up to the market, using Azmar’s fading map, and find the tunnel Wiln pointed out to me before. It’s a direct route, thankfully, and I soon find myself in a hallway similar to the one where Unach’s apartment is, but many of the walls have been knocked away for more open space. Altogether, it’s about the size of my father’s house, if all three stories were laid out in a row. Two hundred feet long, made of stone and steel.
Colson had not been lying when he said it was full.
The enclave is even more packed than the main roads on shift changes. Humans bustle everywhere. It’s impossible to walk the single path without brushing shoulders with them. All in all, I estimate fewer than one hundred of my kind, but in such a cramped space, their numbers seem monumental, and that doesn’t include humans away at work.
There are no separate apartments, only tiny rooms made from hanging leather, rugs, and cloth—whatever is on hand. Some of them have been drawn aside, exposing pallets and beds. Everyone here must share. But all the draperies lend color to the enclave, and despite the dim light from sconces, it’s the cheeriest-looking place in all of Cagmar, if not also the most disorderly. The entrance to the enclave has several blankets laid out with human-made goods for sale, likely only to other humans—others would be taken to the market, for I can’t imagine someone like Unach coming here to shop. I get a few inquisitive glances as I pass through. Everyone would know everyone else here, and I’m a stranger.
Still, despite the bodies and the clutter and the fullness of it all, I want so badly to belong.
I find Wiln’s spot among the chaos easily. I want to call it a shop, but poorly tanned leather composes its walls, upon which hang gears, tools, and clock pieces. It has no door and only a tiny three-legged table for him to work on. The entirety of it measures no larger than the closet in Unach and Azmar’s apartment.
“MissLark!” Wiln waves when he sees me, and a thick monocle pops from one of his eyes and dangles from a tarnished chain fastened to his vest. His cheer spreads over me like a balm, soothing hurts I’d long learned to ignore. “What a surprise! You found us.”
“It’s been the easiest place to find yet.” Someone rushes by, singing a song at the top of his lungs, while a woman chases him, wielding her shoe like a club. I laugh and watch them weave in and out of makeshift shops and homes, never once colliding into anything. I can tell they’ve been here for a long time.
“Will you be moving in?” Wiln asks, picking up the monocle and wiping it on his shirt.
“Not yet.” I haven’t heard anything from Housing. Unach, too, grows impatient with it. “Soon, I hope.” I don’t care where they fit me. I’ll sleep under someone’s bed, or standing in the corner. The idea makes me grin.
“Where is Ritha?” I ask.
Wiln shrugs. “Likely either distributing in the market or collecting off the walls. Cave walls, that is. Sometimes they let her venture to the surface to look for the plants she needs.”
I run my finger over the sharp edges of a gear on the table. “Sometimes?”
“We’re not slaves here. But they don’t want us leaving once we come in. Darkness, monsters, and trolls aside, Cagmar flourishes where our townships do not.” Wiln slides the monocle into a trouser pocket. “They don’t want us sharing what we know with others. Could invoke war.”
I can’t think of a single township that could hold its own against the warrior-driven trolls of Cagmar, but then again, if they were to bind together ...
My father would find a way to best them, if he set his mind to it. He is not a man who accepts failure.
Wiln snaps his fingers, the sound muffled by his gloves. “That’s right, I wanted to lend you something.” He turns to a shelf behind him, only as high as his knee. There are a few books and several sheaves of papers on it. He pulls out a particularly worn volume. Its front cover has been torn free, and water damage has crinkled and yellowed the pages.
He extends it to me, and I take it gingerly in both hands. “What is this?”
“An almanac.”
My breath catches. My father had almanacs. I already know what lies within—
“It’s old, but it dates the seasons, sunrise and sunset, the like,” Wiln explains, unable to hear the whirring of my speeding thoughts. “Also includes the night, of course. Star charts and comets, if you’re interested.”
“Yes. Yes!” I hug the book to my chest. “Oh, yes, thank you! I’ll copy everything I can out of it and return it to you.” A passing human glances at me—I hadn’t realized how loud I’d been speaking. “I’ll take good care of it.”
Wiln is about the same age my father would be, and when I realize that, a sudden image comes to me. Not of sitting, invisible and quiet, in a shadowy corner of the immaculate office of my father, Ottius Thellele, waiting for his gesture to shrivel a man, but of sitting on that little stool in front of me, handing Wiln the tools he needs to build or fix or invent, sharing quiet jokes and warm smiles. Hearing his advice and talking about almanacs. The very idea raises gooseflesh on my arms.
Wiln chuckles. “I’m sure you’ll be kinder to it than I have.” He spies someone over my shoulder. “Is it working?”
