The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,155

and patted her hip for a knife.

“Let me.” Erris released Kao briefly and broke the rope between his hands. “There.”

Yaz took it, blinking. She saw that the rope had a metal core, an orangey red; her mind supplied the word “copper,” one of Erris’s. She tied Kao’s ankles as Erris held him on his knees, then she bound her brother similarly. He fell silent once she’d secured his hands, watching her instead with baleful eyes. She stood back to consider him.

“I didn’t rescue my brother to maim him!” The idea of cutting Zeen’s hand off turned Yaz’s stomach. “There has to be a better way.”

“Sometimes a clean cut is the kindest way.” Thurin let go of Zeen’s head and got to his feet. “Some cankers have to be carved out before they spread.” He led Yaz closer to the ravine where her starlight would keep the Tainted at bay.

“There may be another way.” Thurin spoke in a hushed tone so the others wouldn’t hear. “Eular told my mother that if you could get the demons to stay still and then hit them with a massive star they would be destroyed.” His voice lacked certainty. “She never really knew what he meant at the time. She didn’t have a star anything like the one you’ve got and she couldn’t have held it if she had. But you could do it.” He frowned. “It would be difficult though. If you’re using the star to drive them and trap them in an extremity they’d slide away while you were readying yourself for the final strike . . .”

Yaz bit her lip, pondering. “Where do the demons like to stay?”

“In the head.” Thurin furrowed his brow, remembering the invasion.

Yaz knew what damage even a small star could do to someone’s soul. Pome had some resistance to them and yet a star considerably smaller than the one in her hand had broken his mind, splitting away some of his darker side into a demon not so different from the ones haunting the black ice. “And if not in the head?”

“The heart,” Thurin said without hesitation. “Sometimes they go there to let you understand your plight. They return your senses to you and let you think clearly, while they sit in your heart to savour your despair. If you try to run or to destroy yourself they do . . . something . . . to your heart, and all you can do is lie there in agony gasping for breath. And sometimes even that’s better than standing thinking about what they’ve made you do.”

“The heart. That could work . . .” Yaz tried not to think about Thurin’s suffering. She hoped Zeen’s demons had been less interested in torturing him. Either way she would take pleasure in their annihilation.

“I don’t know anything else,” Thurin cautioned. “It’s probably a lot harder than it sounds. And if you damage the heart . . .”

“I’ll try it on Kao first.”

Thurin glanced at her, a hint of reproach in those dark, haunted eyes of his.

“What?” Yaz felt instantly guilty. “He obviously has the strongest heart. If it doesn’t work on Zeen I won’t know if it will work on Kao. But if I start with Kao and he doesn’t survive I’ll know there is no point trying that approach with Zeen.”

Thurin raised his brows a fraction but said nothing. Instead he gestured back at the cavern where Kao lay bound. He nodded toward Erris. “You’ll have to tell me later who that man is and how he seems so much stronger than an Ictha.”

* * *

AT YAZ’S REQUEST Erris laid Kao on the rock beside Zeen and held him steady. Thurin knelt beside Erris, holding Zeen’s head to keep him from dashing it on the ground.

Yaz approached Kao, who twisted and turned in Erris’s grip, roaring threats. Thurin shrank back as the blazing star came nearer to him, as if the thing were as hot as it looked, but he kept hold of Zeen.

Yaz focused as much of the light as she dared onto Kao’s face. He screwed his eyes tight shut and turned his head as far away as he