The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,27

she liked about this young man, not his attitude, the things he said, or the way his gaze slid over her, and yet somehow his words had been carrying her along with them.

“Get out, Pome.” Thurin spat. “Take your pretty lies with you.”

Pome curled his lip in annoyance and strode toward Thurin, thrusting his star before him. “Was that you talking, Taint? Or did you let a demon take your tongue again?”

Thurin backed from the starlight, shielding his face as if it were a fierce heat.

“See?” Pome looked back at the rest of them. “The Tainted can’t stand the stars. The light is what keeps us safe.” He glanced at Kao. “Never go where it’s dark, boy. Not down here. They’ll have you in a moment.”

“Yessir.” Kao gulped and nodded.

Pome turned and jabbed his star at Thurin, who was pressed to the back wall now. The light made him gasp as if in pain, forcing him to slide into the corner on his rear.

“Stop that!” Yaz found herself moving forward. However convincing Pome’s words felt, she didn’t like what he was doing one bit.

“Or you’ll stop me?” Pome swung round, thrusting his star at her chest.

Yaz squinted down to where the star blazed against her mole-fish skins, brighter even than before. It was just light though, no heat, no pain. The star gave off a faint sound, like the strains of a distant song, with a rapid beat beneath it. “You should leave.”

Pome frowned and jabbed the star against her. He looked puzzled.

“Pome!” It was Arka at the doorway. “Get out here.”

Pome’s face tightened. He forced a smile over gritted teeth and left without saying anything more.

“Are you alright?” Yaz tilted her head, not sure if she should offer Thurin her hand to help him rise. Outside Arka and Pome’s raised voices diminished into the distance.

“Fine.” Thurin got to his feet, not looking at Yaz or her half-offered hand. He brushed himself down and went to his bed.

Thurin didn’t speak again until they were all settling to sleep. “People think Pome’s special because he can withstand the stars, but that’s not why he’s dangerous. He’s dangerous because his words get under your skin. Listen to him too long and you start believing what he says. And if he doesn’t manage to hook you that way then watch out for the ones he does hook.”

* * *

SLEEP TOOK AN age to find Yaz. Imagination chased her through her exhaustion. Strangers’ eyes watched her from tainted faces, laden with malice. At last she turned her thoughts from Thurin’s words only to rediscover the unsettling warmth, the dampness in the air—something she knew only from the Hot Sea, the irregular splat of meltwater drops falling upon the roof, the distant groaning of the ice always on the move. All of it conspired to keep her dreams away and instead her mind replayed the events of the pit and the screaming rush of her fall, over and over.

Yaz lay in the gloom staring at the roof above her. In her whole life this was the first time she had tried to sleep anywhere but within her family tent. She needed the constant complaint of the wind against the hides. She needed her father’s growling snore building to the familiar snort then temporary silence. She needed the cold and the knowledge that Zeen and her mother pressed her, hide wrapped, to either side. Yaz thought of her mother then and a tear ran from the corner of her eye. What must it be like in the tent now with just the two of them in all that space? Father, grim-faced, hands in fists upon his lap, knuckles white. Mother, proud, her face carved by the endless wind, iron in her long dark hair, eyes as pale as the wastes. Four years ago she had two sons and a daughter. Now they were gone. Would her pride still carry her over the ruin of her family? A second tear rolled after the first.

Finally Yaz dozed, woken periodically by a gnawing hunger, not helped by regular gurgles from Kao’s stomach. Hunger reminded her that however suicidal her mind might have been in throwing