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“Gunchar.” She doesn’t meet my eyes as she cleans her nails with a knife.
I think back to my studies. “Bird, thirty-foot wingspan. Short beak. Deadliest weapons are its talons.”
“And?” she presses.
“And ... they nest high in the canyon and generally stay away from the bridge?”
“Andtheir wings create gusts that can knock you off the wall.” She grabs a rope and tosses it at me. I catch it with both arms. She’s manning my line today. “Crag snake.”
“Crag snakes live in the south—”
“North.”
“North,” I amend, then remember. “Near the mountains, but occasionally they travel down here if prey is scarce. Two heads, with sharp teeth. Blind. Poisonous. Inedible.”
Unach nods, which is the most praise I can expect from her. I loop the rope through my harness, triple-checking the tightness of the knot. I’m still not comfortable climbing across the city and canyon walls, even with the handholds.
“Spreener.”
“Also poisonous.” I hand the rope back. I’m tall for a human woman, but I can’t reach the pulleys on the ceiling of the south dock without help. Unach does so with an annoyed grunt. “Spiders with sharp beaks and tusks, hard outer armor. They ...” I look upward, trying to remember. “They like crevices?”
Unach nods again. Kesta, the female troll with deep-gray skin and long dark hair, pushes off the wall, twisting Troff’s rope in her hands. “Can we get going?” She glances to the door. “Kub’s late, as always. I’m getting sleepy listening to her school lesson.”
I try not to frown. “I’m ready.”
A soft garble sounds in the distance. The others hear it as well. Unach’s shoulders stiffen.
Kesta looks at me. “Next question. What was that?”
“Uh.” I glance at Unach. “Tor rat?”
Troff snorts. “It’s a lecker. Let’s go.”
Lecker.My mind spins as Troff climbs out of the dock.Edible, large and agile. Lizard-like.Spiked tail?I can’t remember. Unach ties my ropes around her waist with an air of impatience, so I hurry to follow Troff, watching which handholds he grabs. I haven’t yet encountered any canyon monsters, so knowing a lecker prowls nearby spins fear upmy legs. But I’m familiar with fear. It’s as much a part of me as my own blood, and I need to prove myself.
Pulling on a mask of bravery, I drop from the dock, grasp my first handhold, and hurry after Troff, who moves far more swiftly than I do. He’s had more practice. Has more muscle as well. All the trolls are riddled with muscle, even the elderly and the few children I’ve seen.
Troff stops at the first lookout. I climb up after him, trying to keep my heavy breathing quiet. He pulls a spyglass from his belt and peers into the canyon. I squint and search. Far to the south, a shadow moves.
“There.” I point. Troff confirms with a grunt. We watch the shadow silently for two full minutes before it shifts into the light. Before I can take a breath, it vanishes into the darkness. “It’s huge,” I whisper.
Troff laughs, readying a sling to scare it away, should it come closer. “That’s only a juvenile.”
A shiver courses down my back. “Truly?”
He raises an eyebrow at me, a shade of distaste passing over his face. “Yes, truly. Are you scared, little human?”
I bury my fear deep inside my gut.
“Yes,” I admit. “But I would be a bad slayer if I weren’t.”
I have only a couple of hours after my second shift to read the almanac before meeting up with Colson and the others, and I don’t waste a second of it. Crouching by Unach’s hearth, I hold the old book sideways, pinching it carefully, as several pages have come unglued from their spine. I read through the entire section on stars, wondering if Azmar would lend me paper to copy down everything verbatim later, including the star charts. I learn that the constellations Ufreya, the queen, and Sankan, the oak tree, cross paths every twelve years. Some read it as an omen for fertility, others as a sign of war, thinking that the queen will take boughs from the tree to fashion weapons. The almanac is very old indeed, for its list of sightings of this phenomenon ends at 796, and theyear is 964. I do the math and realize that the constellations will cross again this year, and I wonder if I’ll be able to witness it.
Time rolls forward, and I know I need to leave or else be late. I kiss the almanac and stow it under my pallet. I’m to meet new friends tonight, carve out a little niche for myself in this heavy city made of stone. I think again of the reading that the Cosmodian—a servant to the stars—gave me when I was eleven. She’d come for my mother, who wasn’t religious; none of my family was. But she found star-reading intriguing, a rare treat for the household. For whatever reason, she’d forbidden me to be present, despite including my two half siblings. This wasn’t a surprise. She had never favored me. But the Cosmodian, whose name I never learned, had seen me crying by the woodshed where my parents wouldn’t hear. My mother hated tears almost as much as my father did, and I hadn’t the strength for a beating.
The Cosmodian took pity upon me. Asked me my birthdate and year, traced the lines on my palms. I’ve repeated her words many times since, so as to never forget them.
“You are strong, Calia,” she says with a grin, looking into my eyes. “So strong that others fear you.”
