The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,72

She lifted her head and found that the blades were no longer than her fingers and marched in from the distance, running beneath her splayed hands and on behind her. The stuff bent beneath her palms, it stirred in a breath of wind. It seemed to grow from the ground itself, and that ground, hidden beneath a thickness of the greenery, was soft, like nothing she had ever felt before. Not yielding to her weight but lacking the rigidity of ice or rock. And the heat. Heat suffused her. Not with the fierceness of a flame, but soaking into flesh, warming bones.

The city! She had been falling! In sudden panic Yaz got to her feet, spinning around, overwhelmed by a view so open and yet so complex, nothing in it familiar, nothing that made sense save the sky and the red eye of the sun. Even the clouds were strange. Great puffy white clouds, moving lazily, seeming so close she might touch them. She tensed to run, but where to? There was no ice. None. The ground swelled and dipped and rose toward distant hills. Green everywhere. Beneath her feet. Rising in lumps. Crowning tall structures, a million waving, fluttering pieces. Yaz found herself able to do nothing but stare, overwhelmed.

“Hello.”

Yaz turned to find a young man walking toward her. It didn’t seem possible that she could have missed him. His smile broadened.

“I’m Erris.” He was taller than her, broad shouldered, his skin as dark as Tarko’s, the leader of the Broken. Yaz had never seen its like on the ice. The clothes he wore were like nothing she had seen before. Impossibly colourful, and from no beast she had ever seen or heard of. They didn’t hang like hides or furs. “Lestal Erris Crow, actually. But call me Erris.”

“Where are we?” Yaz glanced around, her gaze returning to the man.

“Not far from where you fell.” Erris pointed behind her. “Above those trees you can see the ruins of the city.”

“Trees?” Yaz turned. The things her eyes had refused to understand. They were trees. So tall, like vast tent poles, splitting, branching into an infinitely complex storm of green. And where Erris had pointed so many of them stood that there seemed no space between them, just a vastness of them. Objects reached above the treetops, hazy in the distance, buildings. Ruins Erris had called them, but Yaz had no idea what they would look like if not ruined. They gave an impression of height, making the trees, which must surely tower above her, seem tiny in comparison. “I don’t understand.”

“It was like this when I first came here.”

“You . . . Are you one of the Missing?” Yaz stared, trying to see past his disguise.

“Ha! No. The Missing were gone long before I came to their city. Before our people even came to Abeth.”

“But . . . there’s no ice.” Yaz shivered despite the pervading heat. “And no wind.”

Erris pursed his lips, seeming gently amused. He watched her with dark eyes. His black hair held close to his head in tight, tiny curls. Yaz had never seen anyone like him.

“I came to the city a very long time ago. The ice followed me a while later.” Another smile. Yaz guessed him to be around Thurin’s age. Handsome. Strong features. “I wasn’t supposed to, of course. All our laws forbade it. For our own safety, they said. But how many our age are going to ignore a city of wonders on our doorstep ‘for our own safety,’ I ask you? It wasn’t just that law keeping fools and dreamers away though. The city had its own defences. Much stronger back then. The script would turn anyone away in those days, though it was most effective against quantals like you.”

Yaz tried to hide her surprise in a question. “Why didn’t it stop you then?”

Erris shrugged. “That was my talent. You quantals might get all the fire and the glory, but we marjals sometimes manifest curious talents. Nobody ever stopped me going anywhere. Not locks and doors. Not ship-tech security. Not even a Missing script wall.”

“Eular said the marjals had lesser magics . . .”

Erris’s smile showed all his teeth. “There’s