The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,55

“And has Kazik tried to get you back yet?”

“He sent me a message. He told me to come back by myself.”

“Those messages will become more urgent and insistent if he discovers that you have a power over the star-stones.”

“But you said all the priests are quantals . . .” Yaz frowned. “Why would he be so eager for one more?”

“Many of the priests have some quantal blood in them, but for most of them it’s just a touch. Even Pome may have a small touch of it. One of the reasons he so resents his life down here. He feels he should be up there, living in the Black Rock, a lord of the ice!

“A few of the priesthood are half-blood quantals. I don’t know if any of them are full-bloods. And even among full-bloods any level of mastery with the star-stones is rare.”

“What are the stars?” Yaz asked, wondering what the priests did with them, why the tribes had never seen even their dust.

“Things of the Missing. The heart of their civilisation,” said Eular. “Our ancestors made similar stones. The largest of them sat deep within the ships that sailed between the stars and brought us to Abeth. Shiphearts they are known as. The Missing also used these star-stones, heart-stones, core-stones—call them what you will—to power their cities, before those cities were abandoned. And as the ice ground over what was left behind, it scattered the stones. Most were broken into many pieces, but a star-stone is always a sphere, break one in half and you have two spheres, grind it to dust and you have many tiny spheres. The flow of the ice has long since carried away anything from the city that was aboveground, but the stones’ heat means the ice can’t carry them far. They sink and are caught amid the bedrock’s folds. This is why we are here. This is why the priests give us what little they do to keep us from dying too swiftly. Iron and star-stones.” He sighed. “If you want to return to the ice then speak with Tarko. Tell him about the regulator’s message.”

“I’m not going back without my brother.” The words burst out without permission. Even with Zeen at her side Yaz wasn’t sure she could go back. Not now. Not after seeing all this. And how would Zeen live up there in the wind if what they said about being broken was true? “I mean it.”

Eular chuckled at the defiance in her voice. “Did I ask you to?”

“But the regulator wants—”

“What do I care for what the regulator wants?” Eular rapped his knuckles on the frozen pool again. “All of the Broken are like this water, child. Long overdue for change and yet unable to change. And now you have fallen among us and I think that the change will come swiftly and that nothing will ever be the same again. That includes you, Yaz. You have the potential for greatness, but first you need to change yourself. Not by degrees, but all at once, like the pool. Dangerous, maybe, but it’s something that couldn’t happen up there in the monotony of your old life.”

11

WHAT IS IT you want me to do?” Yaz had lived her whole life taking direction. From Mother Mazai, who led the clan from one sea that was closing to the next that would open. From her parents. From the wind and ice themselves. To survive as part of a people all working together was hard. To survive alone, impossible. In the darkness of his cave the blind man seemed to offer direction and something within Yaz yearned to take it.

“I have advised Tarko and those that came before him. And here we are. The Tainted grow in number and the Broken diminish. Soon all who are dropped from above will fall into their hands.” Eular pursed his lips. “But as to what to do . . . it was my advice and the actions of our leaders that brought us here. What we need is an agent of change. Someone with new thinking that follows their own direction. Who told you to jump into the pit?”

“Nobody.”

“Keep listening to nobody.”

“And what do the priests tell you,