t’s well for me,” he says with his own little smile in return. “Thank you.” Nkemi, he almost addresses her, but the name sticks in his throat; he can’t say it so easily anymore. He doesn’t feel as if he has permission. A relief, he almost says; I don’t think I could’ve stood another night like last. His eyes linger on her face for a moment – a little too long, he thinks, and feels badly for it – before flicking away.
There’s no phosphor up here, no oil lamps; there’s no light but what the stars trickle around and between the drifting clouds, and what can be seen of Ossa and the tiny sliver of Benea, now and then. He smooths the blanket over his bedroll.
He hasn’t bathed. The rain’s no longer misting, but the air is still wet, and the dew glistens on whorls of shifting leaves. The wind picks up, ruffling the hangings; far below, he can still hear the chatter of the village winding down, along with the ever-present rush of the Turga.
She’s stretched out, looking up at the stars.
In time, he crawls onto his bedroll. His mouth is dry, and he takes out his waterskin for a few swallows. He watched the lights dampen over the edge of the roof for a little while, the prefect at his back; they were silent then, too, both of them on their stools. He was breathing in the sage and thyme with his eyes shut, thinking to say –
First rains, he wants to say dumbly, as he lies down on his back. One hand rests against his mud-spattered, sand-dusted shirt. The rest of him’s no better; he can feel it in his hair, clinging to his skin in the humid evening.
The only tastes lingering in his mouth are that of the stew and the fried groundnut paste he had afterward. It wasn’t for want of being offered. He wandered slippery Al’Aqas on aching legs, watching the drummers laugh at their ease, rolling out their sore glistening muscles. There wasn’t far to wander; he thinks he could’ve wandered farther – further, more like – with a few cups of wine. Once or twice, he caught sight of Nkemi’s small straight frame, wandering back through a scattered flock of chickens; the wind snatched up and carried to him a familiar high voice, and he wandered around and away.
It’s a long time before he says anything. The night deepens and darkens, or maybe it’s the last of the lights in Al’Aqas gone out. The rain has begun to dry, as she’s said, but any heat is cut through by the night’s chill. Clouds drift across the sky, fast enough he can watch them come apart and reform themselves.
The night deepens and darkens, until the silence seems to him too thick to cut with mere words. They’re both silent, but the back of his neck prickles; he doesn’t think she’s sleeping. The prickling grows worse and worse, and the night deepens and darkens.
“Nkemi,” he says quietly, looking up at the stars.
He pauses. He wishes at first he hadn’t spoken. Tonight is the last night they’ll have to spend together; there’ll be separate rooms on the steamship, and people all around, and when she disembarks, the busy streets of Thul Ka will wash it all away.
Will they? “I read the ancient arati used the stars as a map,” he says, “to get across the desert. In ada’xa Dhe’fere’s book.” How dare you say his name, he thinks. “I don’t recognize any of these; there are too many clouds tonight.”
He swallows a lump, shifting.
“My name is Thomas Cooke,” he says very, very quietly. Perhaps this is another stone in the pocket. But he’s already told her too much; he wonders if she feels, too, that only one foot is over the crack, and the chasm is widening. It’s all he can think to give, that isn’t even more horrifying than what he’s already laid at her feet.