I wake up scream­ing and I can’t stop.

The black­ness of the tent doesn’t help mat­ters. It all looks like the black­ness of the Under­world abyss. I keep on scream­ing, gulp­ing in air, flail­ing my arms and legs until I feel Kiddu pin me to the ground.

“Calm down! You’re okay. Shh­hhh.”

I can’t see her, but feel­ing her skin helps reas­sure me that I’m back in my own body. I breathe slower and lay back into the sand.

The tent­flap flies open.

“Who is scream­ing like an infant!?” says Kripa.

 

“It’s okay,” Kiddu says. “He was just hav­ing a night­mare.”

“Harumph! Night­mares, a boy of your age? Filthy Akka­di­ans…”

The war­rior throws the tent flap down. His foot­steps soon fade away.

“That’s the sec­ond one in a row,” Kiddu says.

“Yeah. Well, they hap­pen when I’m stressed out.”

“Don’t be stressed.” She yawns, and stretches out so much that she almost swats my face in the dark.

“I’m sorry I woke you up again—”

“Ha! Don’t worry about it. Do you want me to stay up with you?”

“No, it’s fine.”

 

But it isn’t.

I lie awake, eyes open, star­ing at the hint of starlight flow­ing in beneath the tent’s can­vas.

When Kiddu starts snor­ing I get up, dust myself off, and tip­toe out­side.

I can’t stop shak­ing. I need to make sure the sky is up and not down.

I step two paces out of the tent—

 

“Stop.”

It’s Hat­van. He sits in the sand right next to our tent. His big hat is sloped down, cov­er­ing his face entirely.

“I just needed to get some air.”

Now Kripa jogs over from where he had appar­ently been prac­tic­ing bat­tle moves with his club.

“You! Get back in your tent!”

One of Hatvan’s hands mate­ri­al­izes from out of his robe sleeves. He holds it up gen­tly.

“Lord Jaruna said they must be allowed to walk around, if they so desire.”

Kripa tow­ers over Hat­van, who still hasn’t both­ered to look up. Finally, the big war­rior looks down at me.

“Very well,” he says. “Do not go where we can­not see you!”

I spend a full minute star­ing up at the sky, all the while try­ing to ignore Kripa’s glare. Hat­van recrosses his legs.

I trace the glow­ing rib­bon of Yanu’s River across the dome of the sky, forc­ing my mind to con­form to the upside-up real­ity in front of my eyes.

When I’m sat­is­fied, I duck back into my tent.

 

Kiddu is now stretched out diag­o­nally, corner-to-corner, an impres­sive feat for some­one as short as her. I lie down, con­fin­ing myself to a cramped cor­ner, my back to hers.

That only works for a minute. Then she rolls over, snores, and puts an arm and a leg over my body.

Con­tinue