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“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 canstrengthen 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.”
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.
