The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,160

by what she was saying, or perhaps offended given the horrors he’d so recently experienced, but instead he’d surprised her. “You sound like you agree with that monster rather than with the Missing.”

“Theus spoke to me before he left. I think he knew I’d tell it to you though, so perhaps it was a message for you.” Thurin stared into the tunnel as if trying to recover the words, as if he were hearing them again. “He said we’re all of us falling through our lives. It didn’t start when you jumped or end when you hit the water. Each of us plunges through our own existence, punching me-shaped holes through days, through weeks, through conversations. We’re none of us one thing or the other; we’re legion; there’s a different Yaz inside your skull for every day of your life. We deceive others, we deceive ourselves, we keep secrets that even we don’t know and hold beliefs we don’t understand. And in that state of profound, fundamental, primal ignorance we still think we can sculpt the clay of our own selves, we think we know what to cut away, that we understand the consequences of excising greed. Are we so sure we don’t need it? Might we not be creating new and different demons whose most frightening trait is that they truly believe themselves to be angels? Do you say everything you think? Do you do everything you feel? Any divinity we might lay claim to is in the restraint we exercise against our nature. Every one of us is bound by our own constraints. To call them all fears makes us sound cowards. Many are judgments. Balancing harm against benefit, hurt against pleasure, our feelings against another’s, the now against the maybe . . .” Thurin trailed off, coming back to himself. He spat, perhaps trying to rid himself of the taste of Theus’s words. “Theus is a monster, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. It’s a dangerous game to try to rid yourself of weakness. You never know what else you might be losing in the deal.” He shook his head and forced a grin. “We’re talking about Kaylal, aren’t we? You don’t want to take him.”

Yaz shook her head. “We’re talking about me. And we are taking him. I’d rather die trying to carry him than live with myself having left him behind.”

Thurin’s grin broadened into something natural. He nodded. Then, as if to lighten the load of Theus’s observations and the weight of Exxar’s death: “So, you don’t want to leave him behind. I can understand why you’d feel that way. He is very good-looking.”

Yaz punched his arm, snorting.

“You do know he only likes boys?”

Yaz stifled a laugh. Her nerves were frayed. Both of them were on the edge of hysteria. She composed herself and turned back into the cave. The sight of Exxar’s body blew away any further inclination to smile.

“Time to go. Erris can carry Kaylal.”

Kaylal shook his head. “I can make my own way.” The stumps where his thighs should have been were bound thick with iron and hide so that he could drag himself without damage, and his arms were equal to the task.

“Alright then. But if we need to run or to move quietly then Erris or Kao will carry you.”

Kaylal nodded.

“What will we do with Exxar?” Thurin asked gently.

Kaylal lowered his gaze. He had pulled the body beside the small patch of red-ball fungi. “The gods have the best of him now. Let the ice take what’s left.”

33

YOU DID A remarkable thing, Yaz.” Erris came to walk beside her as they trekked through the ice caves of the Broken, bound for the city.

“I did?” She gave him a doubtful glance.

“All of you look defeated!” Erris shook his head. “But you have your brother back, and your two friends. Three people freed from the taint. Didn’t you say Thurin was the only one rescued in an age, and that even that wasn’t successful? And now here you are, walking away with all three, thumbing your nose at the odds.”

Yaz managed a smile. It was true, all of it. She had pulled off a great and unexpected victory. The Ictha said people divided into