Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(50)

He knew it was a metaphor, but it did feel like she had shaped something in his palms. He cupped it carefully, thinking of how precious it was.

“But direction is not enough,” she continued. “You are correct that at night without the sun, the horizon becomes useless.”

“So you navigate by the stars,” he said, remembering her earlier comment.

“Yes, and no. The stars move, rising, traveling, and falling just as the sun does. But if you divide your map”—she rubbed her thumbs across his hands, starting in the center and then moving east-west and then north-south—“into four quadrants, and those four quadrants again until you have sixteen, you have a map that will allow you to track the stars. When a constellation rises in the house of the water beetle here”—she touched his hand just below the eastern horizon she had marked on his thumb—“it will set here.” She ran her finger diagonally across, ending just above the western horizon she had marked opposite. “So if I set my course with the water beetle constellation at my back and watch it all night, keeping the ship steady toward the same house opposite, I can guide us with no sun.”

“Spatial awareness. You sail the same way a blind man moves.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” His attention caught on a detail. “This name for the house, you call it water beetle?”

“We do.”

“And the others?”

“The other sky houses? Black bird, white bird, water snake.”

“Like the four Sky Made clans of Tova. The names are almost the same.”

She was dismissive when she said, “For the Teek, these are not real houses, not real clans. There are no giant creatures like the ones in Tova, just ways to remember the movement of the heavenly bodies through the sky.”

“But there must be a connection,” he pressed. “In Tova, it is taught that the ancestors came from the stars and settled on the continent. What do the Teek teach?”

He could tell by the way she leaned away from him, the heat of her body leaving his space and her breath no longer warm against his face, that she wasn’t interested in finding the similarities between Teek and Tovan.

She answered, but her voice was reluctant, “That we crawled from the sea, the offspring of a great manatee.” She paused, and then added, “Like I said: siblings.”

Another joke; at least he thought it was.

“I think I prefer the sky,” he said bluntly.

“As would a man like you, made of star shadow and dedicated to a crow.”

He grinned. He wanted to tell her his story, share something about himself and Obregi, or perhaps his mother and Tova. Well, what he knew of Tova from her stories, anyway. He wanted Xiala to know something of him, the way he felt he now knew something of her. But his mother’s voice stopped him. You will have many enemies. Silence is your greatest ally. And there were the voices of his tutors, reminding him that no one was his friend. So he held himself back.

“Thank you.” He could say that much and mean it.

“You’re welcome.” She sounded surprised, but pleased. He had done well, he thought, to ask her to share. And now he would have another story, another place, to keep him company during his own vigil.

“What will you do tonight?” he asked.

“Stay up and watch the stars. Keep us steady until the next shift of paddlers starts near dawn and they have the sun to show their way.”

“Will you sleep?”

“Only then.”

“I can keep you company. I slept much of the day and am not tired.” It felt daring to offer to stay, but he remembered the feel of her skin against his and wanted her to hold his hand again. And her voice was soothing after spending so many hours with only the banter of the crew through the wall to keep him company.

He heard her slide to her right, the rub of her clothes across the wooden bench, and she tapped her hand on the newly empty space as invitation. He reached out to find his way and then moved his body across to sit next to hers. Their legs touched through the fabric, and her shoulder pressed against his. Around him he could feel the movement of the ship as her magic entreated the waves to press them forward, hear their soft rocking against the canoe. This close, she smelled of salt and sea and magic, yes, but also of clean sweat and the oil she used on her hair and skin. The air had cooled considerably, but her body was warm next to his.

“Tell me more of the Teek.”

“What is there to tell?”

“Another story.”

“What kind of story?”

“I do not know any stories save the one about the princess. I do not want to hear a lie.”

“All stories are lies.” She exhaled dramatically. “You have a lot to learn for some crow grandpa.”

He wanted to tell her she was wrong. All stories were true, in their own way. But instead he said, “I have not experienced much of the world. All I know are its stories. Will you tell me more of yours?”

And to his surprise, she did. Perhaps not the most important ones, or the most secret, but she did tell him Teek stories. Of the manatee that gave birth to her people. Of how the great reefs came to be, and how the fish got their stripes, and why one never tried to catch a crab on a full moon.

He relished each one, careful not to interrupt but eager with questions when she was done. And he became more adept at following her jokes. He found Teek humor centered around body functions and nudity and being caught in an awkward situation by one’s female relatives. There were also jokes at mainlanders’ expense, usually a sailor who had had too much to drink or sometimes not enough to drink, and people who could not swim died in prodigious numbers. He did not tell her he could not swim.