The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,115

toyed with the blade. “It would take a big star though, to have much of an effect.”

“I have one. From a hunter.” Yaz shook her arms free of the gerant’s grip.

“A star that large would break you,” Theus said. “Not that I care but it would let the many in the black ice flood into you and you’d be useless to me.”

“No, I can resist it.” Yaz reached toward her fallen star and it shot back into her hand. “You’ve already seen what I can do.”

Theus’s face twitched, a snarl on his lips, wild anger, raw hatred, and something else holding them back but just barely. He answered through his teeth. “I will think on it.” He took a coil of hide rope from Thurin’s pack, forcing his face to calmness. “For now give me your wrists.”

Yaz shrank back. “No.”

Theus looked meaningfully across to where Quina stood, stretched between two Tainted, each holding a wrist in two hands. Both of the men were bleeding from gashes that she had apparently cut into them. A third Tainted, this one a young girl, had recovered Quina’s knife and came to stand in front of the trapped hunska.

“Present your wrists or the little one there will show us all what you people keep inside your bellies. It’s actually quite surprising, though rather disgusting. You wouldn’t believe the length of intestine that can be pulled—”

“Here.” Yaz raised her crossed wrists. “Just do it.”

24

WHERE’S KAO?” YAZ could see nothing. The cave to which they had been dragged was cold, dry, and utterly dark.

“They must have taken him a different way.” Yaz hardly recognised Quina’s voice and realised the girl must be trying not to cry.

“This is bad.” Petrick sounded utterly dispirited.

“How are we going to escape?” Quell asked at her side. From the strain running through his words Yaz guessed he was trying to break his bonds again.

No one answered and even though she couldn’t see them Yaz felt that each of the others was looking her way. She’d never asked to be the leader but it seemed that that was what came when you convinced people to follow your ideas. She had brought them here, hunting her brother, and somehow had acquired responsibility for all their lives.

“I don’t know.” They’d made her leave her star, reduced to a faint glow. None of her friends had weapons. They were all tied, and blind once more in the dark. Lost. She wanted to ask their forgiveness but knew that she didn’t deserve it and that asking would remove the last strand of their hope. “I think my offer was a good one. I hope Theus agrees to it.” But whether the creature inside Thurin was sufficiently rational to see where its best interests lay Yaz was far from sure.

They lapsed into silence. Yaz found herself shivering, the cold having as much to do with it as her fears did. Working with the stars really had removed the last traces of Ictha resilience from her. She shuddered to think what havoc the winds above the ice would wreck upon her weakened body.

She thought about how shockingly thin Zeen had looked. Yaz had never seen starvation before she threw herself into the Pit of the Missing. The wind up above wouldn’t allow anyone to grow thin. The cold would kill a person long before their ribs began to show.

Time passed in its slow way. None of them had much to say and the ice spoke into the silence between them, its groans seeming a lament.

Yaz wriggled her way to Quina and found her shivering. They huddled together for warmth, saying nothing. Quina’s silence heightened Yaz’s sense of guilt. She liked Quina. She liked her quick mind and her humour though it often came with a sharp edge. Given more time they could have been close friends. Quina who had saved her from falling to her death in the city. Quina who despite her toughness had stolen that wooden bead and kept it close to her heart, hoping those who valued the trinket more than they did her might recover them both. Quina who always had something to say . . .

Quell