Ice Country(60)

“I saw them,” Wes says.

“Your sister?” the king says, turning his back on Wes, clearly unafraid of my brother’s previous threat.

“Nay,” Wes says. “The other children. In your Heart-forsaken tower. Prisoners.”

“Are you sure you hadn’t been drinking?” the king says. “Seeing things maybe? There are children in the palace, but that’s because their fathers and mothers work here. They play in the towers while their parents earn silver to feed and clothe them. I’m a charitable man.”

“You’re a sick man,” Wes spits back.

Goff turns, smiling, as if my brother paid him a compliment. Everything about his demeanor says control, as well it should, considering he’s got all the cards on our lives.

“Ever since our forefathers hid in the caves in this very mountain, the Heart has protected them, saved them from what the Heaters call the Meteor god. My bloodline was chosen by the Heart to be your leaders. Something for you to think about while you and your brother rot away in my dungeons.”

“Is that all?” I ask, suddenly feeling anxious to get back to my cell.

“No. Before you ever stepped foot behind the castle walls I knew who both of you were. You think I’m stupid? From the moment you lost that card game, your sister’s—and your—lives were mine, part of something much bigger than the pathetic world you think you live in.”

My head starts to spin. The card game? What does that have to do with anything? A piece falls into place, then another. I stiffen, my knees locking.

“You chose Jolie because of my debt?” I say.

“Hmm,” Goff muses. “You’re smarter than you look. But that didn’t stop you from destroying yourself. I need you both, you see.”

“For what?” I growl, anger rising, cloaking the real emotion I’m feeling. My fault—it’s all my fault.

“Your sister is an important trade item, and you’re my insurance that she lives up to her expectations,” the king says cryptically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Wes says, taking a step forward.

One of the guards kicks him in the back of the legs and he goes down.

“I can have you killed any moment I choose,” Goff says to Wes. “You’re not part of any of this. The only reason you’re still alive is because I want both your brother and sister to watch when I personally slit your throat.”

“You’ll have to kill me first,” I say, knowing even as I say it that it’s an empty threat.

“As much as I’d like that, I need you alive. Like I said, you’re insurance that your sister will do as she’s told for the rest of her life. Don’t you think you’d be dead by now otherwise? At every turn you disobeyed Abe, broke the rules, practically begged me to kill you. You were warned time and time again, but even the small, stuttering man’s death didn’t stop your insolence. I promoted the two men who were able to place his body so expertly in your path. I have to admit, I was as shocked as anyone when you tried to talk your way inside the castle. Again, my guards would have killed you if you were anyone else. Only my orders to keep you alive stayed their hands.”

I want to call him a liar, to believe that it was my own skills and strength that kept me alive all this time, but I know that’s the real lie. They killed Nebo, planted him in our path as a warning. The moment I met him he was as good as dead. It was never our fault, not really. I’m nothing but a bug under the king’s spotless black boots, to be scraped off and mounted on a board as he sees fit.

“Guards—take them,” Goff says. The guards start to move to grab us, but the king raises a hand. “Oh, yes, there is one other thing. Does anyone besides your dimwitted friend—I believe they call him Buff—know about your suspicions regarding where your sister was taken?”

“Nay,” I lie, watching Yo slide a tinny of ’quiddy to me in my head.





~~~





When Big brings our one meal, I feel like doing laps around my cell—I’m so energized. I can’t take another minute in this place, much less a rotting lifetime as Goff suggested.

And whatever he’s got planned for Jolie—her obedience cemented by my own life—I can’t let it happen.

Skye’s feeling the same, apparently, because she wastes no time throwing our plan in motion.

“Hey, Big,” she says, after he gives her a plate of gruel, balancing the others along his enormous arms.

“Shut yer—”

“Pie hole, blazeshooter, yeah, yeah, I got it,” Skye says. “I’m just tryin’ to help you. But if you don’t wanna know ’bout the weird fungus growin’ on yer back, then that’s up to you.”