The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,30

that why they let you go? Your power got weak?”

“We don’t lose our skills, no. If anything they get stronger. Once ice-sworn, always ice-sworn. But I’m exhausted and underfed.” He looked down at his own thinness. “And the Tainted don’t let anyone go. Ever. Arka led a raid to get me back. A woman died. Another man lost his eye. They should have left me.” He stared out into the darkness, bleak and silent for a moment. “Tarko wouldn’t have let them risk it if I weren’t valuable to the Broken.”

“But why? The trick with the water is pretty but—”

“They need me to dig through ice. I can dig faster than three gerants put together. For a tenth of the food ration.” Thurin forced a smile and patted his narrow stomach. “I like the digging too. If I don’t use my ice-work regularly then the energy builds up inside me and when I do eventually use it . . . well, it can be dramatic.”

Yaz looked around at the echoingly large space about them. “These caverns are huge. Why is it so important to dig new ones?”

“For these.” Thurin turned back toward the wall, thrusting his hand out. High up the ice shattered and the brilliant star fell within a cloud of glowing fragments to strike the rock beneath.

“Should you have done that?” Yaz glanced back toward the settlement, alarmed. For all that she wanted to find Zeen she knew she needed help from the Broken. Getting banished on her first night would cap off, with one stupid move, a day’s journey that had started with another very stupid move.

“Relax. It’s us ice-workers who put the things up there in the first place and they’re always being resunk. All of the stars generate a very small amount of heat even without sigils around them. They sink through the ice very slowly. The tiny ones, little more than dust really, sink so slowly that the current of the ice can lift them. The big ones all end up on the bedrock given time.” He advanced on the star as he spoke until he was reduced to a silhouette with the light streaming all around him.

Thurin’s steps grew slower and closer together as he approached the star, almost as though he were fighting to make progress against a great wind. Yaz could hear the strain in his voice when he spoke. “This is the largest of the stars we use as lights. People don’t like to get near them, especially the bigger ones, so we use smaller ones in town.”

“You . . . you’re not worried someone will steal it?” Yaz wondered if that might be exactly what he was doing right now.

“The Tainted? No, the taints can’t abide them. Won’t go near one if they have a choice.” There was real pain in Thurin’s voice now, and still he had a yard to go if he were to pick the stone up.

“What are you doing?” Yaz called, squinting into the light. “Why are you doing it?”

“Proving . . . something . . . to . . . myself.” Thurin took another step then fell back with a cry.

“Thurin!” Yaz ran to help him as he crawled away, the light flaring behind him.

“I’m alright.” Thurin pushed her hand from his arm and staggered up.

“You don’t look alright.” He looked like a rag that’s too worn to be used as anything but stuffing. She glanced toward the star, still blazing on the rock. “How can you put it back if you can’t even touch it?”

Thurin waved a tired hand at the star and the water rushed from the puddle to set it rolling back against the ice wall. He made a fist and twisted it. Somehow the ice drew the star half into it and began to lift it. Fascinated, Yaz edged closer while Thurin continued the slow upward flow of the ice, raising the star above her head toward its former position. Creaks, groans, and small splintering noises accompanied the star’s gradual ascent, the ice protesting just as it did on a larger scale as the great sheets moved across the rock.

Glancing back Yaz could see the effort it was costing