“Why do you copy them down?” Azmar asks as I work.
I place a careful dot on the paper. “To learn.”
He hesitates. “Their movements?”
“That’s part of it.” Another delicate dot marks the tip of the constellation Ceris, the mother. The rest of her hides behind the horizon. “We’re all part of the cosmos, and understanding the cosmos can help us understand ourselves. Or, I like to think so.”
Finished, I hand back the pencil and stare upward. Take a deep breath, hold it, release. “When I look at the stars, at the universe, I realize how very small I am. And how very small others are. Small people, small problems, and none of it really matters in the great vastness of it all. Somehow, that makes me feel better. Somehow it encourages me to be . . . bigger.”
Azmar considers me silently. I only ever shared that idea once before, with Andru. Thought of him pings sharp in my chest. He had the opposite view. The universe made him feel small, too, but instead of being encouraging, it instilled in him a sense of worthlessness.
I’m hesitant to turn in, though Homper has already vanished into the city. Today has been a good day. Yes, I have a new wound to nurse, and yes, we were attacked . . . but the rest of it was good. The stars make for a happy end to it all.
I point to a cluster of them peeking just over the horizon. “Territopus.” Azmar follows the line of my arm. When he doesn’t respond, I add, “It starts with those two stars close together, then goes up to that bluish one, and down. It’s a scorpion. Its tail points to Mirras.” The fourth planet, the snake. One of the few that I’ve been able to find with unaided eyes. It looks like a tiny star with a faint red halo.
A soft hum radiates from Azmar’s lips. “Ours adds on a cone.” He indicates several stars above. “The warrior. He’s holding a club.”
It takes me a second. “Oh! It does look like that. More than a scorpion.” I scan the sky. “I never realized there might be different interpretations of the stars.” The very idea sends an excited chill through my skeleton. I point again. “That one is Swoop, the spoon.”
He finds the six-star constellation. “Here, it’s Makog, the spider.”
“It looks nothing like a spider.”
He shrugs. “I did not name it. But above is the web.”
The dozens of stars above the constellation cluster so closely it’s nearly impossible to draw lines between them. I can see it as a web, a great, tunneling web full of prey. A spider, just like me. Just like Unach. “A spider that eats stars.”
We point out a few more, some completely different, others similar, and I repeat each trollis interpretation in my mind so as not to forget. We have one constellation with the same name, a set of twelve stars simply named “the arrow.” It points north.
“I use that one the most.” I lean against the bridge, the wood still warm from the sun. “That, and the South Star. I never got lost if I could see the stars.” I always made sure I knew how far and in what direction the next township was, just in case. And I always ended up needing the information, until I ran out of townships and the old bard’s song was the only hope I had left.
“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 can strengthen 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.”