I hold her limp head, brush her sweat-damp hair away from her face.
“Cloth, Circ!” Feve orders, and then takes a deep breath, adding a second hand to his grip on the handle. I hear cloth tearing behind us and it sounds like the rending of my own heart.
“Oh, Joles,” I murmur under my breath, touching my forehead to hers. “You can’t go. Please stay.” But she’s not breathing, not moving, not sleeping like I want to believe.
Circ slides next to us with a panel of cloth. He uses a blade to cut it into long strips. Feve looks at him. “You ready?” Circ nods. “When I pull it out, hold some cloth firmly on the wound. You’ve got to be quick, she can’t lose any more blood.” Circ nods again.
“One…”
I kiss Jolie’s head.
“Two…”
I close my eyes.
“Three!”
Jolie’s body shudders and my eyes flash open to Circ covering a deep stab wound with cloth, holding it in place with the heel of his hand. Jolie gasps suddenly, coughing in my face, her eyes shooting open, wider than the base of the mountain.
“Jolie? Jolie?” I say, holding her, but her eyes drift closed slowly, her head heavy once more. Lifeless.
But wait.
Wait.
Please, wait.
Her breath’s on my face. It’s weak, so frighteningly weak, but still there.
Feve pushes in next to Circ, lifts the bandages, which are already tinged with blood, pours clear liquid across the wound, refolds the cloths, and presses them back down, closing Circ’s hands on them once more. He looks at me. “To help close the wound,” he explains.
I want to know more, how he knows to do what he’s doing, how he’s going to save Jolie’s life, but not now. Now, all I want to do is feel her breath on my hand, on my face, as I watch her sleep.
Really sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Three
She hasn’t woken up and I haven’t left her side, sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair that hurts my back and my arse in equal measure.
Three days have passed with her little chest rising and falling, rising and falling, but other than that, she hasn’t moved more than a whisper, not even stirring for the dark dreams that surely plague her sleep.
Mother’s oblivious to everything.
I’ve held Jolie’s hand for hours and hours, just in case she can feel it and draw strength from me. And in case she can hear me, I speak to her, tell her memories of growing up together, when Father and Wes weren’t dead, when Mother wasn’t a ghost of a human. Good stories. Stories I can’t tell without feeling melting snow in my eyes.
Feve comes every day, gives her herbs in a drink that we dribble on her tongue, both for strength and for healing. I help him replace her bandages and watch as he sprinkles his strange medicines on her wound. Every day I hope it’ll look better, but it never does.
And every day I get plenny of visitors. Buff, Siena, Circ, Wilde—even good ol’ Yo from the pub comes by. My friends from fire country are staying at Clint and Looza’s with my mother. I never ask them how that’s going and they don’t offer the information.
Skye comes by more than anyone, at least six times a day. It’s weird, seeing her on a daily basis outside of the prison, outside of the woods, outside of battle. She can be so different when she wants to be. So much less strong, more tender. Sometimes she holds my hand while I hold Jolie’s, and I can almost feel her strength running through me and into my sister.
She might never wake up.
I think it all the time, but I won’t say it out loud, even when Feve cautions me that it’s a possibility. “There’s no way to predict how a body will react to something like that. And she’s so small,” he says.
“She’s strong,” I reply back, but still the thought is in the back of my head.
(She might never wake up.)
I’m so tired, so freezin’ exhausted, both mentally and physically, that all I want to do is curl up in a ball next to Jolie and sleep forever with her. But the bed’s too small and I’m too big and I’m afraid of crushing her in my sleep.
For the third night in a row and with tears in my eyes, I drift away into an uncomfortable sleep filled with dark riders, burning houses, and the king stabbing my sister.
I’m still sitting in my chair.
But I’m still holding Jolie’s hand, too.
~~~
I awake with tearstains on my cheeks and Buff punching me in the shoulder.
“I brought you breakfast,” he says, and he doesn’t even call me a sissy-eyed snowflake-lover for the tracks of white salt on my face. That’s how I know everything’s changed.
“How’s your gut-slash?” he asks, and I know what he means. It took him asking me that three times before I realized he was asking about Jolie, not me. After all, Jolie’s the gut-slash that hurts me the most, deep under the surface, in the pit of my stomach, worming and gnawing away.
“No worse, no better,” I say, my standard response that I hope will change one day soon.
He nods and we’re both silent for a moment, just watching Jolie sleep. “So, uh, you said something about breakfast?” I ask. I’m not hungry but I need something to distract me.
“Rolls again,” he says. “Harder than rocks. Less tasty too,” he adds with a grin. He hands me a hunk of bread from his satchel. It really is like rock.
For a few minutes we scrape at our rolls with our teeth, trying to get some kind of sustenance from them. Watching Buff gnaw away, I almost laugh, but my lips don’t turn up so quickly these days. “You make these?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
“Shove it up your snow-blowin’ arse!” Buff says. I glance at Jolie, who’s as silent and motionless as ever. If she can hear us, she’s getting a topnotch education on the intricacies of cursing. Buff’s as good a teacher as anyone.
“Sorry,” Buff says, covering his mouth with a rock-roll. “It’s easy to forget your…gut-slash is there sometimes.”
“Stop calling her that,” I say, feeling a flash of heat for the first time in three days. “Her name’s Jolie.”
“I know, it’s just hard—”
“And quit forgetting she’s there,” I interrupt. “She’s still a person. She’s still my little sister.”
Buff nods a heavy nod and right away I know I’ve been too hard on him. It’s not like he doesn’t have problems of his own. It’s not like he doesn’t care about Jolie. The fire in me dies quickly, like it was no more than a spark anyway, and I find myself backtracking. “Look, man, I’m sorry, it’s just…seeing her here like this, day in and day out, it’s getting to me.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Dazz. Everyone’s on edge. It’s natural. And she’ll…Jolie will come out of it. I know it.”
“Thanks,” I say, nearly breaking a tooth as I try to bite into the roll again.
Buff grins. “Alright, alright, I made them. But only because Darce was busy cleaning my father’s injuries.”
“How is he?” I say, wishing I’d asked right away. It’s so easy to get stuck in the snowdrift of our problems sometimes, so deep and cold that you can’t see anything else at all, even the important stuff.
“The slash he took from the rider should’ve killed him,” Buff says. “Even the healers can’t explain how the rider, in that position, didn’t manage to do more damage. It’s like he only did enough to keep my father from hurting him, so he could get past and on to the castle. The men he was with had similar injuries, none of them fatal. They’re healing up nicely.”
“That’s good,” I say, managing a weak smile. “And his leg?”
Buff frowns. “Not so good. When the horse stepped on him, his leg shattered into a whole lot of pieces. He won’t be able to work for a long time. But even that…” Buff trails off, staring at Jolie.
“What?” I say.
Buff tilts his head thoughtfully. “It feels like even that was an accident, like the rider didn’t want to hurt him badly.”
Now I frown. “Buff, t
hat rider was lighting houses on fire, stampeding through the village with a sword, chopping down good men like your father. That’s no accident. It was the Stormers who took the children, too. I told you what the king said, they wanted my sister to marry one of their boys. They were going to force her to obey him. They’re evil.”
“The king was evil,” Buff says, “he might’ve lied to you.”
I close my eyes because I know Buff’s right. “Some of it was the truth,” I say. “He had no reason to lie.” Like the part about my sister being betrothed.
Buff sighs. “I know, I’m just saying it’s weird. My father said the horse was bearing down on him, about to stomp all over him, and then the rider pulled up sharply, like he didn’t want to step on him. The horse turned as best it could, but wasn’t able to avoid my father’s leg.”
“He still trampled him,” I say. “He still slashed him.”
“But didn’t you say one of the riders saved your life? That he left you with Jolie and gave his life to hold back the guards? That he told you to save her? Why would he do that if they wanted your sister? It doesn’t make sense.”
Vivid memories flash through my mind: the rider, dark-robed and menacing, stepping toward the king and my sister; his words, “You’re here for the girl?”; then, watching him leap past me and into the flow of guards, fighting them back while I barricaded the door. He did save my life. Maybe Jolie’s too. But why?
“He thought it was over,” I say. “He thought he’d killed the king, which apparently was what the Stormers were after in the first place. And he didn’t take Jolie because he knew he couldn’t possibly escape and abduct her.”
“Maybe,” Buff says. “But no one else in the village died. Other than the castle guards, casualties were zero. The Stormers massacred or injured almost every guardsman and then galloped off with their own injured on their backs. They could’ve taken over the entire village if they’d wanted—but they didn’t.”
“But the burning,” I say.
“Only houses with no one in them.”
“But why?”
Buff cringes, closes his eyes—opens them. Says, “I don’t know.”
“Aren’t the people angry?” I ask.
“At King Goff mostly,” he says. “Now that the truth is out, people are saying he brought a curse on our country.”
“I meant, aren’t they angry at the Stormers?”
Buff chews his lip. “Yes and no, but mostly no,” he says. “Sure they’re angry that they have to rebuild, but mostly at Goff for bringing the curse on our people. Already the Stormers are falling back into myth and legend. There are rumors that they rose out of the ground, formed from clay, and returned to it, like inhuman shadows.”
“I saw them. They’re as real as you or I. They’re evil,” I repeat. “Child stealers. Don’t you get it?”
Buff nods. “I do, but the rest of the villagers won’t be so easily convinced. At least they didn’t get your sister.”
“Thank the Mountain Heart,” I say.
“Do you want to know what’s been going on at the castle?” Buff asks, changing the subject.
I raise my eyebrows. I’ve been so set on watching Jolie and praying for her to wake up, I’ve almost forgotten there’s a whole world out there, one that’s broken into a thousand pieces. “The king?” I say.
Buff nods. “You gave him quite a beating, but he survived it. The truth is out though, and already the people are calling for his head on a platter. A consortium’s been created with an equal number of representatives from each of the Districts, which the White District folks aren’t too happy about, but given the situation they haven’t fought it too hard.”
“Who’s included from the Brown District?”
There’s a twinkle in Buff’s eye. “Yo, for one,” he says, and I smile. I couldn’t think of a better choice. He’s always had more wisdom and kindness than most.
“Good,” I say. “What’ll this consortium do?”
“Decide on what’s to become of the king, and then what’s to become of the Icers. Yo says they’ll be announcing the king’s execution any day now.”
I feel like I should smile, but I can’t, not with Jolie the way she is.
“And then what?”
He shrugs. “Not even Yo can predict, but he expects things’ll get better.”
“They could hardly get worse,” I say.
Buff leaves after that.
~~~
Skye comes shortly after Buff leaves. She’s wearing thick snow pants and a heavy coat, borrowed from Looza, so they hang from her like extra skin, way too much material for her lean frame. But at least she’s warm. And she still looks beautiful, breathtakingly so.
“She’ll heal soon,” she announces when she sees the frustration on my face. “Feve’s a searin’ good healer.” She flips Buff’s chair around, straddles it backwards, her leg close to mine.
Her words give me hope, which surprises me.
With her leg tapping on the floor, always moving, I feel the warm sensation I get inside me whenever she’s around. “Skye?” I say.
“Yeah?” She tilts her head to look at me.
“Why’re you doing all this?” It’s a question I’ve been holding for a while, but with everything happening, I haven’t had the chance to ask it.
She shrugs, keeps on tapping her foot. “Why not,” she says. “We were ’ere. The village needed help.” You needed help. The rest hangs unspoken on her pink tongue.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help you get your sister back from the Stormers. Jade.”
“You’ll stay ’ere with yer sister,” she says. “We’ll take care of it.”
“I need to know the truth. Who wanted my sister. And why.”
“You want revenge,” Skye says, right on point as usual.
“Wouldn’t you?” I ask.
“Yes,” she admits. “But we can give you that. You need to stay with her.” She motions to Jolie.
“When are you leaving?” We haven’t talked about what comes next, but I know it’s got to be coming soon. Skye’s not the type to wait around for heroes to rescue her. She is the hero.
One side of her lip turns up. “I know what yer thinkin’ in that pretty little Icy Dazz head of yers,” she says. “You’ll follow us, you’ll find a way to stay with us till we realize you ain’t takin’ no fer an answer. Am I right?” Before I can answer, she adds, “Yer not comin’.” She’s got that locked-jaw look that says it’s the end of the conversation. Only for me it isn’t. She was exactly right. I’m going with her if I have to follow like a shadow from a distance.
“If you say so,” I say, laughing. I cut off short, however, when I realize it. I can’t laugh, not when Jolie might be dying beside me.
Can I really leave her like this?
“I do say so,” she says, getting that look in her eyes, the one where she narrows them and you know there’s no way you can change her mind, so it isn’t even worth trying.
So I try anyway. “You helped save my sister, so I’ll help save yours. This has nothing to do with us.”
She punches me lightly on the shoulder and gets that other look in her eyes, the one where her eyebrows raise, pulling her big brown eyes open a little wider than usual, and you know, just know, she’s about to say something that’ll surprise you, because it’ll be so honest, so straight to the heart that you wonder where she came from, how she can wear her emotions on the outside like that, when most people are hiding them deep inside, locking them in a box, throwing away the key.
“Dazz,” she says, and I wait for it breathlessly.
“Yer a real icin’ fool sometimes,” she says, and I burst out laughing, both because she’s right and because she used one of our words, the one that I think means the same thing as searin’ in her language.
~~~
After Skye leaves I feel that hole in my soul that always seems to appear when she’s not around. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but maybe Skye is right, tha
t I’m a real icin’ fool for thinking I should leave the side of my unconscious sister to go on some wild hunt for a Heater girl I don’t even know, who’s probably not alive anyway.
Call it foolishness, call it the need to pay the Heaters back for what they did for me, call it a hot desire for revenge, call it bear crap for all I care, but that’s what I know I need to do.
The Stormers can’t get away with stealing children, not from ice country, not from fire country, not from anywhere. We’ll make them stop.
I’m staring at the floor thinking about it all when there’s a heavy knock at the door, so heavy I think the guards are back with their battering ram, trying to smash straight through our hut. “Ice it all to chill!” I hiss under my breath, striding to the door with snow water in my veins.
I throw the door open, ready to knock whoever’s disturbing my thoughts and my sister’s peaceful slumber all the way into fire country.
I suck in a quick breath when I find myself staring into the chest of a giant.
He grunts and I look up. Hightower stands over me, a foot taller and twice as wide.
Abe steps around him, leaning on a stick and smiling the nastiest smile I’ve ever seen, all bite and no warmth. A smile that makes me smile back. “Hey, kid, mind if we come in?”
I chuckle. These are the last two people I expected to show up on my doorstep. “It’s not like I can stop you when you got him leading the charge,” I say, motioning to his Yag-sized brother.
“Icin’ right,” he says, pushing past me. I step aside and let Hightower grunt his way inside, having to duck and turn sorta sideways to get through the narrow entrance.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” I say when I close the door.
Abe smiles wickedly. “Tell ’im, Tower.”
I frown and look at Tower, who I’ve never heard speak even a single word. The monstrous man reaches a big ol’ hand into a deep pocket in his bearskin coat. There’s a jingle when he pulls out a fistful of bright, gleaming silver.