The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,60

it would be a different me who went back. Already, even after just a day.” She walked away, aiming herself at Petrick. The two were of an age and Yaz had already noticed them spending time in each other’s company.

Yaz returned to her own thoughts. The regulator wanted her back but his message didn’t tell her how to leave. Or perhaps it did and Hetta chose not to pass that part of the message on. Did she truly want to return? If she managed to recover Zeen, and if the regulator allowed him back too . . . wouldn’t the ice kill him? And life for her would be in service to the priesthood, part of their number, caged within the confines of the Black Rock, her clan forgotten. Was it better to be imprisoned in the priesthood, part of the system that discarded children into the Pit of the Missing? Or to have the freedom of the caves along with all the hardship and danger that came with them?

* * *

EVENTUALLY PETRICK LED them back to Forge Lake and, following his report of recent events, stayed at Arka’s request.

Yaz joined the others in the smiths’ shed to observe the beautiful Kaylal and his friend Exxar tease iron into chain links with their hammers. Later the drop-group provided an audience while silent Ixen and the bony woman sorted newly scavenged metal by type. And finally they watched a gerant smith and several apprentices beating steel plates into pieces of armour.

At last, with their ears ringing and sweat running inside their furs, Yaz and the others followed Arka from the cavern. Yaz found herself eager to leave. To free Zeen from the taint she would need stars of a size the Broken were unlikely to risk using up for someone who had never been part of their community. The city held such stars. Eular had said as much.

Arka lined them up and cast a critical eye over their short rank. “We will be going down to the city. I fear you may find it somewhat quiet after your recent . . . excitement. On my last dozen trips to the city I saw no taints and only once glimpsed a hunter. So you already have me beaten with just today! In any event, we shall not be going deep. Just far enough to give you an idea of the place.” She led off, waving for them to follow. “Keep your eyes open. They say bad luck comes in threes.”

Yaz walked near the back with Thurin. Petrick brought up the rear.

“How is it,” she asked, “that Hetta was hunting someone through the tunnels and ready to attack us all when only the day before I put my knife through her foot and hand? I know she’s tough and . . . well . . . insane, but I’ve seen Ictha take weeks to recover from smaller injuries.”

“Maybe the Ictha heal slowly.” Thurin offered that half grin of his. “There has to be a price to pay for not feeling the cold, surely? And for being ridiculously strong.”

Petrick spoke up from behind. “The tainted are full of demons. And some of those demons bring gifts as well as curses. Hetta’s been left for dead before and killed someone a week later. We have orders to remove her head next time. Just to be sure.”

Yaz walked on, thinking about Hetta, the size of her, the ferocity, and how she ate Jaysin. Thurin said it was the devils under her skin that made her do it, but it was difficult to hate a black stain rather than the woman who has tried to kill you.

Several times Yaz had the strong feeling she was being watched, followed through the caverns. But glancing back over Petrick’s head all she saw were gloom and shadows divided by the distant glow of stardust. She found it hard to imagine Hetta as a stealthy tracker even if she had managed to surprise them earlier.

* * *

ARKA LED THE group through chambers thick with fungi, great swathes of the stuff growing silently in the light and relative warmth of broad bands of stardust. It seemed to Yaz that the fungi mimicked in beiges, browns, purples, and pinks the striations of colour in the ice above