Ice Country(40)

“Thanks for the input,” I say.

“My pleasure.”

The trail continues up the mountain, aiming right for the eastern edge of the village, the White District, and eventually the palace.

“They were heading for us,” Wes says, meaning the Icers in general.

“Well, we could’ve led them,” Buff says. “If they hadn’t beaten the shiver out of us.”

“Maybe they wanted to surprise the king,” I say.

“Why?” Wes says.

“Because maybe Roan is dead,” I say, feeling my brain working double time, spinning a few impossible theories into one possible one. “What if something did happen to the Heaters and the Marked? Something really big, really bad—devastating even. What if the Head Greynote, Roan, was killed? What if a bunch of the Greynotes were killed and there was a big shakeup in their leadership? You’ve all heard the rumors. People are saying the Heaters were destroyed, but maybe they were just attacked and they survived, but Roan and the other Greynotes were killed. If they have new leaders they’d want to check things out with their neighbors, make contact with Goff, figure out how things work with the trade agreement. Wouldn’t they?”

The questions float for a moment, settling over us like the quiet before a winter storm.

“It’s possible,” Wes admits. “It would certainly explain them showing up out of nowhere. But we’ve never seen a Heater in ice country, not this far up the mountain anyway. I don’t think the king would take too kindly to them appearing unannounced at the palace gates.”

“Nay. He wouldn’t. You’re right about that,” I say.





~~~





And the Heater’s footprints do lead toward the palace gates, at least for a while, but then they veer off away from civilization again, taking us back into the thick woods.

“They’re going around back,” I say. It’s still crazy that they’re making for the palace at all, but at least they had enough brains to skip the knock-on-the-front-gates approach.

“There’s an entrance in the back, isn’t there?” Wes says.

“Yah,” Buff and I say at the exact same time. We’ve talked about finding a way through the back door many a time. But like every other way in, it’s well-guarded and impossible to breach.

We pick a path through the forest, easily following the mess of snapped twigs the Heaters left in their wake. When we reach a clearing, the path suddenly opens up in a wide swathe all the way to the palace walls. A guard stands atop the wall and I swear he’s looking right at us.

“Shiv!” I hiss, ducking back behind the trees and pulling Wes and Buff with me.

“Did he see us?” Wes asks.

“I dunno. I don’t see how he couldn’t’ve,” I say.

“Maybe he was looking past us, over the forest,” Buff says.

“Maybe,” I say wanting to believe it.

We wait for a long ten minutes, expecting a parade of palace guardsmen to come charging down the track at any moment. But they don’t, and the forest stays quiet, save for the occasional song of a snowbird.

Ever so slowly, I stand up, conscious of keeping myself behind the army of trees that separate us from the palace. When I look at the tracks in the clearing I gasp.

Footprints trample every which way, but not just six sets. Twenny, maybe more, cut deep from heavy steps and packing the snow down to a hard skin. But that’s not what caused my sudden intake of air. There’s blood, too, bright and wet on the snow. Mostly droplets, perfect little crimson circles burnt into the snow, but a few rivers too, crisscrossing and zigzagging around the middle of the clearing.

“What is it?” Wes says, hearing my gasp and standing up next to me. “Holy shiverbones!” he says.

“Not good,” Buff says, taking it all in along with us. “The guards got ’em.”

“You think they’re…” I say.

“Nay,” Buff says. “Goff woulda wanted to talk to them. But after what they did to us, I expect they’da fought like mountain lions. The blood might not even be theirs.”

I think about that, hoping my friend’s right. “Then they’re prisoners,” I say.

“Probably,” Wes says. “I doubt they’re guests, especially not the way they snuck in and put up a fight.”

Prisoners. The word hangs heavy between my ears.

Prisoners. Just like Jolie.





Chapter Fifteen





“We gotta get in there,” I say. “Not just for Jolie, but for the Heaters too.”

We’re back at our place, discussing what to do next—me and Wes and Buff and my mother. Well, she’s not discussing so much as scraping a rock in a circle, marking the floor. Every time she finishes another round, she cocks her head as if to say, “Huh?” like she can’t figure out why the circle keeps on going. Then she draws another one.