began to retreat into the thickness of the wall.
“The demons don’t like stars. We know that,” said Petrick, unimpressed. “It’s all that’s kept the black ice from spreading into our caverns.”
Yaz shrugged and retreated toward the group, not trusting the blackness not to leap out at her if she showed it her back. “The Ictha find very little that is new to them, and when we do we like to look into it.”
“We have a much bigger star,” Quell said. “Maybe we should—”
“No.” Thurin said it so fast that Yaz almost thought he might have voiced his objection just to disagree with Quell. “Carrying something like that in there will alert all of them.”
Without waiting to argue he led them on into the next chamber. Yaz glanced at Quell, shrugged, and followed Thurin out.
He caught up with her swiftly, putting a hand to her arm and hissing just for her ears, “I don’t trust this one.”
Yaz shook his hand off and walked on, saying nothing. Quell gave everyone his trust until they betrayed him. This wasn’t the Quell she knew above the ice nor the Thurin she knew beneath it. She wondered for a moment if they were really at odds over her, engaged in some sort of unvoiced competition for her good regard. She pushed the foolish notion away. They couldn’t be jealous of each other, surely? And besides, if they were competing for her respect then all they were achieving was to let it slip through their fingers.
A short way along the next tunnel Yaz reached an area of red ice that looked as if someone had dealt the wall a huge wound, leaving old blood frozen in with the water. Passing it, she felt an echo of the anger stored there. Not anger at her in particular, just a bubbling rage of the sort that can lash out in any direction. It proved infectious, blowing at the embers of her own discontent, the fire of resentment she had started to bank even before the Ictha first had sight of the Black Rock. A fury at a world so set against giving her a place in it. She gritted her teeth, hastened her stride, and tried not to let the demons’ anger become one with her own.
“Will we find the Tainted wandering alone?” Quina hissed as they advanced along a long tunnel through faintly grey ice. “Because if they stay in a big group then what chance have we got?”
“I saw two,” Quell said. “Both on their own.”
“What do they even do?” rumbled Kao. “I mean, they’re crazed, yes? They don’t forge or scavenge or tend the fungi. Do they just wander around being mad?” He paused and his stomach chose the moment to growl. “What do they eat?”
“They eat the fungi from the ground, or better still they eat the rats that eat the fungi.”
“Raw?” Quina wrinkled her nose, though until her drop Yaz was sure the girl had never eaten a cooked meal.
“Raw.” Thurin nodded. “As for the rest, they stalk the Broken, looking for anyone they can steal without open conflict. But mostly they search the ice. Mining it. Melting it. Drinking it.”
Ahead of them the cavern they were crossing opened onto a much larger space and the roar of rushing water made itself known.
“Search for what?” Yaz asked.
“Once you’re tainted you don’t think to ask questions like that.” Thurin slowed as he approached the opening. “Theus tells them they’ll know when they find it. He tells them to mine the ice, bring it to the melting pools. Always digging, melting, drinking. The Tainted are full of demons, so it takes a strong new fiend to force its way into them. If they find one it normally ejects one of their weaker passengers. Sometimes, though, the tainted person’s mind breaks entirely and demons flood into them until they contain a multitude. We call those eidolons. Very dangerous. Even Theus can’t control those. They just wander off beneath the ice. Some say they find their way to the surface and haunt the world above.”
Thurin took them out into a space too large for Yaz to light. Before them a ravine ran through