The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,62

too.

It seemed like a shadow to Yaz. A shadow on the ice above them. Only there was nothing to cast such a shadow. “The ice is . . . grey?” It took her a moment to understand. “The ice is grey!”

Following the stain back across the cavern roof she saw that it thickened and darkened until where it vanished into the gloom of the next chamber it might even be black.

“Back!” Arka turned, arms spread, ushering them toward another cavern.

“What is it?” Quina asked, staring but backing away.

“The taint,” Thurin said.

“You didn’t know it was here?” Kao asked Arka, pale in Yaz’s light. “You led us into it?”

“Theus is behind this. I know it.” Thurin backed away slowly as if holding every part of himself tight. “The taint can spread. It can move. Not fast, but faster than the ice moves.”

“It’s followed some fault in the ice or a shift in the heat flow,” Arka said. “I don’t think Theus—”

“You don’t know what he’s capable of!” Thurin was nearly shouting.

“You’re right. I don’t.” Arka held up her hands, peacemaking. “All I know is that it can spread.” She ushered them into a tunnel leading away. Standing to count them past her. “But it almost never does . . .”

Thurin followed Yaz away from the cave with a last glance over his shoulder and a shudder. “A lot of things that never happen have happened today.”

Even as she left, something tugged at Yaz, the feeling that she was being watched an unbearable itch on the back of her neck. She swung about, shaping the star’s light into a beam. It took an effort—a small shard of pain made itself known deep in her head—but the star shone as she asked it to, and she sent its radiance lancing into the chamber from which the taint had spread.

“Arka!” There, exposed in the distance, darkness’s black sheet whipped from them, stood a handful of ragged figures, grime stained, frozen by the light’s sudden interrogation.

“Tainted!” Thurin cried the warning. But the Tainted were already in full retreat, running for the security of the shadows.

The smallest of them lingered, just a moment, casting a malevolent glance over his shoulder, black eyes gleaming, mouth twisted in a rictus of hate. And in that heartbeat before he looked away and sprinted after the rest of the Tainted, Yaz recognised her brother.

“Zeen!” She gave chase with no thoughts for her safety, knowing she could never catch her brother in a footrace.

Thurin brought her crashing to the ground and they struggled briefly before she flung him away, slamming against the nearest ice wall. Yaz found her feet but Zeen was gone. Even the sound of his footsteps had faded into the distance, and into the momentary silence came Thurin’s groaning.

“You stopped me!” She helped him up, her anger warring with concern that she might have done him some serious injury.

“It’s how they trap you!” Thurin rose, clutching his side.

“That was my brother!” Yaz shouted.

“That was a demon wearing your brother like you wear a hide.” Thurin winced and straightened. “They would have trapped you in the black ice and tainted you.”

Arka joined them, the others following. “It’s true. At least you know he’s alive.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “Though it might be better for him if he weren’t.”

Yaz shook off the hand Quina reached tentatively toward her. Her anger still smouldered even though she knew they were right. Zeen was alive and she wasn’t able to drive the taint from him. Not yet. “Come on.” She headed back the way Arka had been leading them, eager now to reach this city.

Even in the tunnel Yaz felt followed, as though the taint might be snaking after them through the ice, and the Tainted following in its wake. Zeen’s hate-twisted face returned to her mind whenever she rested her eyes on any patch of shadow. Thurin, limping beside her without complaint, was her only proof that her brother remained behind those demon-tainted eyes, whole and restorable.

The sensation of being watched returned so strongly when they