The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,58

for Hetta.

Pome turned as Yaz came into view. “What have you done?” He stared in horror at the muted blue glow in Yaz’s right hand and the rod in her other. “You’ve broken it. You stupid child.”

“I’m not a child. I passed the regulator’s inspection. Twice.”

Pome looked up from the star, startled and sneering. “Everyone who drops is a child. And you’re still wet from the fall.”

Behind him Petrick and Thurin looked worried, Petrick spreading his hands and guesturing down in a motion that told her to leave it, that this was a dangerous man she did not want to make an enemy of. She was a day old in a new world and Pome held sway among gerants who would twist off her head at his order.

Yaz drew in a deep, slow breath. “I wasn’t dropped. I jumped. I am Yaz of the Ictha and you will treat me with some measure of respect or there will be a reckoning between us.” Before the astonishment of her drop-group Yaz strode across to stand before Pome, just feet between them, his face not so far above hers. “Your star.” She held it out to him, making it blaze.

Pome ground his teeth together, cheek twitching at the star’s proximity. “It must have broken when it fell. It’s no use to me now.” He turned away. “I have duties to attend. Petrick, you can escort the other children back to Arka when Eular is done with them.”

They watched Pome stalk away and nobody spoke until he was gone, then all of them tried to speak together.

“Why would you do that?” Thurin asked.

“Not clever.” Petrick shook his head. “Pome deserved it but a lot of the Broken listen to him, especially the warriors. He speaks of times when they will be more important than the other castes. So watch him. He holds grudges, that one.”

Yaz studied the star in her hand, returning it to its sleeping state. The blue glow bled around her fingers. “He wants to kill the taints, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.” Thurin nodded.

“That makes him my enemy.”

* * *

WHILE THURIN WENT in to speak with Eular Yaz crouched and examined the star that Pome had abandoned into her keeping. It felt cold in her hand and yet they sank through the ice. But slowly. The heat given out must be a very small amount. She rolled it idly across the rock then brought it back. It seemed that trails were left in the air where it had passed, lines thinner than the finest hair, perhaps invisible to someone without the talent to see them, but there even so.

“Why doesn’t it shine anymore?” Maya had come away from the others, who were still muttering together.

“I asked it not to,” Yaz said.

“Do they speak?”

“No . . . maybe . . . like the wind and the ice maybe. They speak but we’re not meant to understand it.” She rolled the star toward Maya but the girl shied away.

“I can’t.” Maya shook her head. “When I get too close to them I get voices in my head. It scares me.”

“So they do speak?” Yaz was intrigued.

“No . . . I don’t think so. It’s like the voices are parts of me. As if the star were . . . breaking me apart.”

Yaz bit her lip, thinking. She reached to retrieve the star, and finding it just out of reach she made to shift position. But, before she could move, the star somehow answered her desire and rolled to meet her fingers. No one but Maya saw and the girl looked at her wide-eyed. “What?” hissed Yaz. “You can pick up shadows and make a cloak out of them!”

A grin escaped Maya at that and she shrugged her acceptance. “Everyone has some trick they can do. My sister’s friend could balance three fish bones end to end in a tower on the tip of his finger. I would rather have had a trick like that, one that meant I could have stayed with my family.” The grin faded once more.

Yaz picked up the star again, the strange