Four people pass by my cell, their skin orangey-brown under the torchlight. They’re wearing light-brown skins, exactly like Skye was wearing when I first met her. They look in at me but their eyes don’t register any sort of recognition, because they can’t see me in the shadows. A few hours ago I’d have said they were Heaters, but now I have no clue, because no one except the men at the border seems to be Heaters.
Two are guys, two girls. I only get the barest glimpse, but one’s got shortish black hair, longer than Skye’s but only by a few months’ growing, and could almost be her sister, if she wasn’t so much skinnier. Still muscular, but with bones no bigger than the splinters I occasionally pull out of my feet. Next to her is a guy, lean, muscular, with a look of strength about him. Behind them is another woman, with long, black hair and a regal walk to her, almost like she’s dancing. She looks strong as chill, too, but in a way that’s more graceful than Skye. And bringing up the rear is the Marked man, every bit as full of muscle and hard edges as Buff described, covered with dark markings that shine a bit in the light, which, when combined with his dark eyes, give him an intimidating look.
Only I’m not intimidated. Not by him. Not by his posse.
The only one who might intimidate me is Skye, but I’m not admitting that just yet.
Then they’re gone and I crawl back outta the shadows. Clinks and clanks and four more prisoners are locked in.
I return to the brick, waiting until Big passes and slams the door before pulling it out. “Skye,” I hiss.
“Whaddya want, Icer?” And then her eyes are there and I’m blushing and my heart’s beating just a little bit faster.
“Why weren’t you with your friends?” I ask.
“Who’re you talking to, sis?” a voice says from nearby. Sis. Must be the thin, splinter-boned one.
“Just that searin’ Icy that tried to git us in the trees,” she calls.
“Scram, Icy,” another voice says, this one warm but full of pressure. The Marked guy. Gotta be.
“’S okay,” Skye says. “He ain’t causin’ no problems, are you, Icy?”
I almost laugh at how they continue to refer to me as Icy. To me that means they think I’m attractive, but from their tone I know they mean it in an entirely different way. And not a friendly one. “Dazz,” I say.
“What?” she says.
“My name. It’s Dazz.”
“Okay, Icy Dazz. Whaddya got to say fer yerself?” Skye says. I snort, unable to stop the laugh from escaping me.
“You laughin’ at me?” Skye says.
“Sorry, nay. It’s just…ah, never mind.” I repeat my question from before.
Skye laughs, and it sends a beautiful tremor up my spine. “I mighta been causin’ more trouble than they could handle,” she says.
“You searin’ nearly killed one of the guards,” her sister says across my cell.
She closes her eyes and laughs again. “Siena’s right,” she says. “I mighta done just that.”
“So they left you in the cell?” I ask.
“I’m here, ain’t I?” I’m racking up some sort of a record for freeze-brained questions.
“Where’d they take the others?” I ask, moving on quickly.
“How the scorch should I know?” she says. “I been sittin’ here havin’ the most unfortunate conversation with you.”
My face is becoming an unending pile of red blush.
“They took us to see the king,” Siena says.
“King Goff?” I say.
“Is there more’n one King?” Siena says. “Anyway, he’s more like King Goof if you ask me. Here we are, leaders of the new fire country Tri-Tribes, and he’s got us locked up tighter’n a hand up a tug’s blazeshooter.” Like her sister, Siena seems to have a way with words, although she has none of the grit in her voice that I admire so much about Skye.
Thankfully, Buff chimes in, because I’ve only got more stupid questions. “What happened in fire country?” he asks. “And what’s this new Tri-Tribes you’re talking about.”
“You ask too many questions,” the warm voice of the Marked guy says.
“It’s okay, Feve,” the song-like voice of the long-haired woman says. “Anyone we can tell our story to could help us.” Although there’s nothing special in her words, they seem to command attention, obedience, like she’s used to people listening to what she has to say.
“Please,” I say. “We’ve got as big a problem with Goff as anyone. Just tell us what happened.”
“My father happened,” Skye says.
Chapter Eighteen
“It wasn’t entirely his fault,” Siena says.
“He didn’t help matters though,” Skye says.
“No, he didn’t,” says a fourth voice, one I haven’t heard yet. The muscly, athletic-looking guy. I wonder what group he’s affiliated with. “The Glassies attacked us,” the guy explains.
“Who’d they attack?” I ask.
“The Heaters.” So the other guy’s a Heater. I’m still trying to figure out how everything fits together. “They’ve attacked us three times. The third time was just at the start of the summer. Siena and Skye’s father…Roan…he was a bit of tyrant.”
“A bit?” Skye says. “I still got scars from where he used his snapper on me. Siena too.”
Sounds like a real good guy. “At least he was going out and getting the Cure for you,” I point out.
“Ha!” Skye scoffs. “Whaddya you know about the Cure?”
Something in her tone tells me to tread carefully. “I, uh, I know we delivered it to Roan’s men all the time.”
“You don’t know what he did with it?” the Heater guy says.
“We assumed he passed it out to the village,” Buff says, even though we weren’t really sure of that at all.
“He didn’t.” Siena again. “He kept it for himself and maybe a few of his baggard friends. There wasn’t enough to go ’round, and no one knew ’bout it anyway.”
I don’t know what to say. Not only did Roan not share the Cure with the Heaters, but he kept it from his own children? It’s not what I expected. “So back to the Glassies,” I say. “They attacked the Heaters, but where do the rest of you fit in?”
“Me and Sie are Wildes,” Skye says. “We ran away from home to join them. Wilde, well, she’s the leader.”
“Sorry, who’s Wilde?” Buff asks.
“I am,” says the musical voice.
“Yes you are,” says Buff, like me, choosing the wrong time for a bad line. “I’m Buff. And my friend’s Dazz.”
“I’m Circ,” says the other guy, the non-Marked one. Circ, Siena, Wilde, Feve, and Skye. Skye.
“Got it,” I say. “So the ladies joined the Wildes. Then what?”
“My father tried to burnin’ kill us,” Skye says. “But we searin’ near killed him and half his Hunters.”
“I bet you did,” I say, rubbing my bruised nose.
“Then when the Glassies attacked the Heaters, we went to help them. Not ’cause of my father. ’Cause of the rest of the Heaters. The good ones.”
“We showed up to help, too,” says Feve. “The Marked.”
“Yeah, when the fight was mostly over,” Siena says. There’s a hint of something in her voice. Not hate necessarily, but something bordering on it, animosity maybe. She doesn’t like Feve, and maybe not the Marked in general.
“The Heaters, Wildes, and Marked,” I say. “The Tri-Tribes, right?”
“Right,” Circ says. “Roan was killed, most of the—”
“Wait, Roan’s dead?” Buff says.
“Searin’ right,” Skye says, not a speck of sadness for her father in her voice. “Glassies killed him deader’n two tons of tug meat.”
Well, that explains why the trade stopped. Given the secrecy, I wonder if he didn’t orchestrate the whole thing. He and Goff. Skye and the rest know about the Cure, but I wonder if they know about the “special cargo”…
Circ continues. “Most of the Greynotes were killed too. Given how
small each tribe’s numbers were, we declared a truce amongst us and formed the Tri-Tribes. At least until the danger from the Glassies passes.”
“Why do the Glassies want to kill you?” I blurt out. There’s silence for a minute, so I say, “They seem to like us just fine.”
“You’ve seen them, Icy?” Feve says incredulously.
“Well, yah. Not that often, but they come up the mountain from time to time. Only to meet with the king though.”
“What does the king have to do with the Glassies?” Feve’s questions are filled with sharp edges, like jagged rocks and icicles.
“I dunno. I assume something trade related,” I say. “It’s all a bit secretive, and Goff doesn’t really tell the Icers anything.”
“Doesn’t make any sense,” Circ mutters.
“Doesn’t make one burnin’ lick of sense,” Skye agrees.
I’m missing something. “What doesn’t?” I look through the hole, but Skye’s eyes aren’t there. The back of her head rests against the wall.
Skye’s not talking, so Circ says, “Goff’s trading with Roan on one hand and then dealing with the Glassies on the other. Seems like he’s straddling the middle, playing both sides. Or he’s really on one side, and helping the other.”
“But he’d be helping your side by giving you the Cure,” I say.
“But my father didn’t share it ’round,” Siena interjects.
“But Goff doesn’t know that,” I reply.
“But you don’t know what the scorch yer talkin’ ’bout!” Skye suddenly yells, twisting her eyes around and pointing them back through the hole at me.
“Sorry,” I say, feeling hot, although there’s a cool chill in the dank dungeon air. “Look, I’m not trying to defend Goff, or Roan, I’m just trying to understand things.” I wonder if now’s the time to ask about the children cargo. Probably not, there’s enough on the table already.
“Us, too,” Wilde says. “Skye?”
“I’m sorry, too,” she says, although I’m not sure she would’ve said it if Wilde hadn’t pushed her to.
“Maybe I can help,” I say. “Let me tell you what I know.”
~~~
So I tell them mostly everything, from the beginning. My gambling mistakes, the job, how we learned about the Cure, how Goff is hiding it from the Icers almost exactly like Roan was keeping it secret from the Heaters, about the job suddenly ending and Buff and I going looking for answers and finding Skye and Feve. I only leave out the part about Jolie getting taken and the children being traded for the Cure. I don’t even know why I skip it, but Buff doesn’t say anything.
“So Goff is keeping the Cure all for himself, too,” Wilde says. “Interesting. We thought part of the trade agreement was keeping the Heaters out of ice country so as to not spread the Fire.”
“Not spread the Fire?” I say. “The Cold—that’s what we call it—kills many of us every year. Something about the snow and ice and cold air slows it down, so we live a little longer, but it still gets us all eventually, like it did my father a while back.”
“I’m sorry,” Wilde says. “About your father.”
“Me, too,” I say.
“Goff sounds like our father,” Siena says. “Eviler’n a pack of Killers scorch bent on biting their fangs into anything that moves.”
“Yah, well, we’re learning very quickly that he’s not such a good guy,” Buff says.
“Where’s he get it?” Siena throws out there. “The Cure.”
It’s another good question none of us know the answer to. “I’ve taken a fair look at the dried herbs,” I say. “But it’s nothing I’ve seen growing on the mountain. But it’s possible he grows it right in the palace somewhere.”
No one has anything to say to that. A question they’ll be able to answer pops into my head. “Why’d you come here anyway?” The question I don’t ask is: why’d you sneak in the way you did?
“The Cure,” Siena says. “Mostly. We want to get more of it for our people, to stop the death. Whatever’s in the air is killin’ us all, one by one. We can’t barely live past thirty. We were gonna offer a new trade ’greement, a good’un, in exchange for more of the Cure, but he wouldn’t e’en listen to us. All he cared ’bout was what happened to my father.”
“When we told him Roan was dead, he threw us all back down here,” Circ explains. “He didn’t look like he’d be letting us out anytime soon.”
And there it is. Unless Wes can come through for us, we’re all freezed. I’ll keep that to myself too.
~~~
Everyone goes silent for a while after that, each lost in their own thoughts. Mine are like dead leaves in the wind, drifting and swirling and scattering every which way, as haphazard and random as falling snow. Too many questions and not enough answers.
But mostly I just think about Jolie. Whether she’s wandering the palace somewhere, carrying a bucket, or planting seeds in the palace gardens that will sprout the stems that’ll eventually grow into the Cure plants. Whether she’s thinking about me, about ways to escape so she can come home. Whether she’s tried to escape and gotten caught, been punished. Whether Wes’s seen her around, and is biding his time to get us all out together. Wes has always been so icin’ good at protecting us, at taking care of us. Can he do it now?
Then I hear a voice through the hole in the wall, raspy but whispered. “Hey, Icy,” Skye says. “You there?”
“It’s Dazz,” I say, peering through the hole. “And where else would I be?”
She laughs and I see her lips turned up into a smile. She’s not looking through the hole—just talking through it, laughing through it. “Good’un. I meant if you were sleepin’, but considerin’ yer speakin’ to me, I s’pose you ain’t.”
“I ain’t,” I agree.
“Watcha doin’ down ’ere?” Skye asks. “Watcha in for?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” I say, trying to think up a good response.
“No, you stopped yer story when you followed us through the woods and found where we got caught.”
“We picked a fight with a coupla of castle guards,” I say, bending the truth just a little for effect. We didn’t actually fight them, although I definitely wanted to.
“You did what? Are you wooloo?” The word rolls around in the hole, clattering against the sides like a pebble. I can easily guess what wooloo means.
“Uh, yah, I guess we are,” I say, wondering if being crazy is a really bad thing where she comes from.
She laughs and I admire her lips. I could reach through and touch them so easily. Shame I can’t fit my head through. I’ve never made out in a dungeon before. “We’re all a little wooloo too,” she says. “Hafta be to survive fire country.”
I steer the topic away before she asks any more questions. “You know, the only reason you knocked me out in the woods was because I was surprised you were a girl,” I say.
“Ha!” Her laugh echoes loudly through the dungeons. “Surprised, eh? Seems to me you were the one chasin’ me.”
“Yah. But when you turned and you were so—so…”
“So what?” she says, a smile in her question. I wish I could see her face again. All I’ve got is a memory, a set of eyes, and a pair of lips to go offa.
I laugh. “So…not a guy,” I say. “Except for the hair.”
“Short hair don’t hafta be a guy,” she snaps.
“Nay, I didn’t mean—I’m not saying—” I’ve never been this rattled talking to a woman before. When I was courting the witch I was as smooth as butter, at least up until the point where she cheated on me and threw me out on my arse.
“What’re you sayin’?” she asks, once more laying the pressure on hard.
My face is hotter than fire country. “I’m saying I like it. Your hair. I like your hair. I like everything.” Buff chuckles. I realize my voice has risen like the temperature on the way down the mountain. Our private conversation is no longer private.
A hard voice says, “I think you’ve said
enough.”
Feve has spoken.
Buff chuckles again. “More than enough,” he adds.
Chapter Nineteen
Not much happens for a day.
The dungeon’s not so bad, mostly because my cell’s right next to Skye’s, and she’s been pretty set on sitting near our shared hole, so I get glimpses of her all the time. A strong shoulder. A slender neck. Did I mention her lips?
A few times I think I’m doing something wrong by paying her so much attention, because I should be focused on finding Jolie—which I am—but it’s kind of hard to find your sister when you’re locked in a tiny cell. So I figure anything to pass the time is fair game—at least until Wes breaks us out.
Which he will.
Of that I’m certain.
Well, mostly certain.
When I think it’s near the end of the day, Big brings us each a thin metal dish of something gruel-like, but even under the torchlight it’s hard to identify what it is. It tastes like a mixture of dirt and bark, so maybe that’s what it is, seasoned with yellow snow and fried up in a big old pot, made special for prisoners. Wanting to stay strong, I eat it anyway.
Skye messes with Big on the way out. “Hey, Big,” she says.
“Eat your food!” he says.
“I will. It’s just, there’s this nasty searin’ fungus goin’ ’round and I been wonderin’ if you know anythin’ ’bout it.”
What’s she up to?
Big stops sharply. “I’m the one who told ya about it, Woman. When I tossed you in ’ere.”
“Was it you?” Skye says, false question in her voice.
“Yah!”
“Oh, I guess I forgot.” Skye’s voice echoes off the walls.
“What about the fungus?” Big asks, a hint of something that I think is fear in his tone.
“Is that a spot of it on your chest?” Skye says, pointing.
Even under the dim light, I can see Big’s face go white. “Where?” he says, frantically searching with his fingers.
“Above that big ol’ crater you call a bellybutton,” she says.