Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,188

signal.”

“I can start a fire.”

But it was better than the truth. Marcellus couldn’t face the truth, let alone utter it aloud. The truth was unbearable. And morbid. And …

His fault.

This was all his fault.

Gabriel getting shot. The hypervoyage disaster. Their destroyed escape pod.

He pushed the thought from his mind and focused back on the small pile of twigs and spindly branches in front of him.

“Almost there,” he said breathlessly to Gabriel. “We’ll be warm soon.”

Another lie. They might never be warm again.

But Marcellus kept telling himself that the lies didn’t matter. Even if Gabriel was awake, he wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway. The Terrain Perdu’s winds howled and gnawed too loudly from every direction, and Gabriel was bundled too deeply inside layers of jackets, hoods, and emergency blankets that they’d managed to grab from the escape pod right before the floor—which had been pummeled during the crash-landing—collapsed out from under it. Then the rest of the pod had folded in on itself in a plume of shattering plastique and buckling PermaSteel.

Marcellus continued to bang the rock against the metal. He’d never started a fire without matches before. His matchbox had been in his sac on the voyageur, which was now nothing more than a pile of ash floating through space.

Alouette had told Marcellus she’d read in a book once that a spark could be created with nothing but a stone and a steel blade. The stone had been easy to find among the craggy outcrops, but, for the blade, they’d had to use a fragment of metal from the crumpled escape pod instead.

Another small spark ignited but, predictably, died before the kindling could catch. Everything in the Terrain Perdu was either frozen or wet or somewhere in between, making the fire nearly impossible to start. And the icy winds kept snatching away anything that even resembled a flame.

A low groan rumbled behind him, and Marcellus turned around to see Gabriel’s eyes were half open. He looked like he was struggling to say something.

“Pi …” He winced at the effort. “Pi …”

“What’s that?” Marcellus asked, leaning in closer.

“Pi … ,” he murmured again.

As Marcellus watched the pain pull at Gabriel’s face, more guilt bubbled up in his chest. He squeezed Gabriel’s shoulder. “Hang in there, mec.”

Gabriel’s eyelids fluttered closed. Determined, Marcellus turned back to the paltry pile of frozen grass and sticks. His fingers were rigid from the cold, but he grabbed the stone and PermaSteel and struck them together with more ferociousness, more urgency than before.

Gabriel needed to get warm.

This fire needed to burn.

“Please,” Marcellus muttered. “Please light.”

Then, as if answering his prayer, a spark erupted. The twigs suddenly flickered to life. But no sooner had a beautiful orange flame danced before him, than a gust of wind swooped in and, like a cruel, icy joke, snuffed it out.

“For Sols-sake,” Marcellus spat, and collapsed backward, tossing the pieces of stone and PermaSteel on the ground in front of him.

“Still no signal.”

Marcellus looked up through the icy mist to see Cerise trudging toward him. Her cheeks glowed from the bitter cold, and he could see that every drop of blood had drained from her fingers, which were clutching her TéléCom.

“Nothing?” he shouted over the howling winds.

She dropped down next to him and blew into her hands. “No. Which means I know exactly where we are.”

Marcellus pinned her with an eager stare. “You do?”

She let out a dark laugh. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not good. Due to the way the satellite orbits are set up, every three days there’s a gap in coverage right over the center of the Terrain Perdu. Unfortunately, I have no idea where in the orbit cycle they are. So we could have signal in ten minutes … or three days.”

Marcellus shivered. Both from the cold and from Cerise’s words. He’d hoped that maybe they would be close enough to Montfer or the town of Lacrête to walk, but the center of the Terrain Perdu meant they were thousands of kilomètres from any city or civilization.

Cerise peered over at Gabriel wrapped in his myriad of blankets and clothing. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s hanging in,” Marcellus said, somehow managing a smile again, despite their predicament.

Marcellus couldn’t tell if the tears forming in Cerise’s eyes were from the cold or from the sight of Gabriel’s drawn, pained face.

“Unfortunately, this was all I could find,” said another voice.

Marcellus looked up again to see that Alouette was back too. In her arms, she cradled a pile of brown grass