as big as Hetta maybe, but larger than anyone Yaz had ever seen before. More gerants, given time to grow. For a moment she wondered what they found to eat, and what had originally worn the skins they dressed in.
Between the Broken’s reception party and Yaz a group of four new arrivals huddled together, wet, shivering, some clutching injured limbs or sporting angry red marks that would be black bruises soon enough. Zeen was not among them.
Yaz turned back toward the tunnel, meaning to leave. “Let me pass.” She advanced on the boys blocking the passage.
A hand clamped on her shoulder. “You can’t go!” Arka tried to pull her around. “You have no idea where you are or what’s out there.”
“Zeen’s out there.” Yaz jerked free of Arka’s grip.
Pome, the young man with the light-stick, slipped between her and the exit. He stood nearly a head taller than her, brown hair scraped back. His mouth held a brittle smile that put her in mind of the hook-eels that play dead right up until the moment they’re hauled into a boat then unsheathe a hundred claws and start to thrash. “Tarko is going to speak to all the wets. After that he will decide what to do about your brother.”
Arka moved to stand beside Pome. “I don’t know if Zeen can be got back, but I do know you can’t do it by yourself.” She set her hand to Yaz’s breastbone as she tried to advance. “I remember the Ictha being famed for making the best of bad situations . . . like everything north of the Three Seas.” She allowed herself a smile. “So let’s see some of that alleged common sense.”
Yaz ground her teeth but the sting of the rebuke managed to reach through both her anger and her resolve. She had let her clan down in a dozen ways since the sun rose. Every act she had taken unwrote the Ictha code. She bowed her head. Her recklessness and sacrifice had been as foolish as she had always been taught they were. She would do it right this time. Wait, plan, gather resources, and strike only when reason dictated. The Ictha way. Slowly she turned back and went to stand with the others who had fallen today.
Yaz joined the new arrivals. The gerants she passed to reach them made her feel as though she were a child again despite it being the day she was given her adulthood. She went to stand at the back of the group. The girl just ahead of her turned to see, teeth chattering. She looked to be just a little older than Zeen, of slight build with long brown hair and curious brown eyes. It was the different eyes that would take the longest to get used to.
“S-so you’re the special one.” The girl’s voice shook with cold. Yaz hardly noticed her own damp clothing. The cavern was warmer than her mother’s tent in winter. “Th-the one they’re excited about.”
Yaz frowned. “Me?”
“Th-the boy said he saved you from a hetta. I don’t know what that is but he made it sound bad.”
“It was pretty bad.” An image of Jaysin’s dangling head flashed across Yaz’s vision again. She hadn’t considered why they would risk themselves to help her. They hadn’t helped little Jaysin. She shook the thought away. “Why would they care about me? I’m not special—” She bit the word off. They were all special down here, she guessed. Just not in a good way. Broken. Unfit for the ice. “Why? I’m not worth saving.”
“You don’t see it?” The girl hugged herself, hands to her shoulders. “I guess maybe you wouldn’t . . . I saw it as soon as you came in.”
“Saw what?”
“The stars,” the girl said. “They burn brighter when you’re near.”
5
YOU STAND BEFORE us still wet from the drop. Your tribe and your clan have thrown you aside and not one of them raised their voice to save you. They called you flawed, wrong, unworthy, and you were cast into darkness to die.” The man who addressed them was neither tall nor old. Yaz had thought one of the gerant would lead, for who could stand against them? Or failing that,