The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,28

her down the Pit of the Missing, her body intended to live and was demanding that she look after its needs or things would go hard on her.

When a dark shape crept past her Yaz imagined that whoever it was was heading for the distant hut Arka had pointed out. But the figure, too slim to be Kao and too tall for Maya, left the door ajar and turned the wrong way. Curious, Yaz slipped from her covers and moved to follow.

She saw now as she left the barracks that it could only be Thurin ahead of her. On the ice he wouldn’t last long, too thin to resist the wind’s assault. Yaz herself lacked the full solidity of the Ictha but Thurin looked as though he might be blown away before the wind froze him.

The gritty rock felt curious underfoot, sticking to her damp feet. To leave a shelter without boots and liners was to lose toes to the frost, but here a lifetime’s learning could be undone in one drop. Yaz stumbled as she followed Thurin away from the settlement, stubbing her big toe on a fold in the rock. She cursed as quietly as she could, hobbling along a good thirty yards behind her quarry.

Thurin crossed the length of the cavern, jumping two small streams, and came to an archway that led to some new chamber, darker than the one they occupied. Near the entrance a single light burned, a star-stone larger than any of those Yaz had yet seen, bedded in the ice at a level she might reach if she were to stand on Thurin’s shoulders and stretch.

Thurin came to a halt near the arch. “You’re not doing a very good job of spying on me, you know.” He didn’t turn toward her.

Yaz froze and said nothing.

“Stealth isn’t really a skill you need on the ice. I’m told the wind hides every other noise and that there’s nothing to hunt.”

Still Yaz remained motionless, the air trapped in her lungs.

“You should have told me that you weren’t trying to be quiet.” Thurin at last turned to face Yaz and she released her breath. “But I have heard that the Ictha can’t lie.” He cocked his head. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” Yaz lied, and they both smiled.

“You can’t sleep. Most can’t on the first night. Maybe the others are just faking it. The big lad, Wayo?”

“Kao.”

“Kao, then. He can’t really snore like that? I’m sure it must be some kind of a joke . . .”

Yaz found herself chuckling and made herself stop, suddenly stern. “What are you doing out here?”

“Answering questions.”

Yaz didn’t smile this time. “I have more. I want to know—”

“Aren’t you cold?” Thurin asked.

“I—” Yaz looked down, mortified at the reminder she had nothing on but the mole-fish skins she’d been sewn into. She should have stolen Kao’s cape but it was so warm she hadn’t noticed her state of undress. Now beneath the brightness of the nearby star she felt next to naked. “No!” She had hoped the word would come out defiantly but it ended up as more of a squeak. “Too hot if anything.” Not a lie. Under Thurin’s amused gaze every inch of exposed skin felt as if it were burning.

“It’s a breath away from freezing.” Thurin shook his head. “The stories about the Ictha appear to be true. Are you all as strong as bears too?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a bear, let alone wrestled one.”

Thurin smiled, though there was a sadness in it, the same sorrow that had been haunting him when they first met and ran beneath his laughter. He turned back toward the ice again.

“I have more questions.” Yaz moved closer.

“I didn’t come here to answer your questions,” he said.

“But, you said—”

“I have questions of my own.” He crossed to where the rock held a puddle and crouched before it.

Yaz bit back on her impatience and went to stand behind him. Shouting at Thurin was unlikely to get her the answers she needed. Though she was prepared to