Ice Country(72)

“Herbs,” Maddy says.

Feve pours out the contents of a small skin, sprinkling black and green flecks onto my brother’s torn skin. Are they magic from fire country?

“Would you shut up!” Maddy says sharply in my direction. “He can’t hear you anyway.”

It’s only then that I realize that I’m rubbing Wes’s leg, saying, “It’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay,” over and over again, even while I’m watching them try to save him. I stop, noticing that Skye’s not across the table anymore, but next to me, a hand on my back, looking up at me.

“Yer right,” she says. “It’s gonna be okay.”





Chapter Twenny-Seven





But neither Skye nor I was right. We never were. Nothing is okay. Nothing will ever be okay.

Wes died that night from an axe wound to the stomach. They worked on him for three, four hours, dabbing away the blood and stitching him up, both stuff on the inside and the skin on the outside. By the end of it my legs were shaking and I could barely feel Skye’s hand on my back, her other hand gripping mine.

The blood was gone. He was whole again. And then he took his last breath.

I collapsed, fighting all the way to the floor even with Skye trying to hold me up. She lay down with me, curled up, her arm around me, holding me, as I sobbed and shook.

Sobbed and shook.

Now I’m all cried out, torn and broken on the bed that Buff and Feve carried me to. Skye’s never left my side, not once, but even her caring can’t bring my brother back. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

And it was my plan—my stupid freezin’ dimwitted plan that caused it.

So my head’s down, my face pressed flat against the bed, as tight and low as I can make it. I tried to get lower twice, attempting to throw myself off the bed and onto the floor, but Skye wouldn’t let me. She held me up, her strength like a rock, bearing all the weight of my body and my grief in her arms. Then she rolled me back on, where I am now.

A few of the others, those able to walk—Buff, Siena, Circ with Siena’s help, Wilde—have come over to offer me words of sorrow, how they wish it hadn’t happened, how they’re sorry. But none of that’ll make things right, or bring Wes back.

I wish for more tears, a whole lake of them, enough to make the sum of my sorrow worthy of my brother, of the man that he was. But try as I might, I can’t squeeze one more out, my eyes burning with salt and fatigue and despair.

When Skye pushes onto the bed and right up next to me, I finally sleep.





Chapter Twenny-Eight





I need to take a break from my brain, but every time I try to push my thoughts away, they come roaring back all the harder, pushing against my skull like they’re trying to burst out, flying away on wings of sadness and winds of ache.

I’ve been awake for at least an hour, but I haven’t moved, haven’t opened my eyes. I don’t want anyone to know I’m awake, because I can’t take their sorrys and regrets any more than I can take the awful memories that my brain is spinning around.

Jolie needs you.

Wes is dead.

Jolie’s not.

Wes is.

Jolie.

Oh Jolie, Jolie—are you there? Are you really in the palace or did I dream up Goff holding you high on the wall?

With questions lingering still in my mind, I open my eyes to the sound of voices. Abe’s, harsh and definitive, rises above the others.

“You can do what you want, but I fer one ain’t goin’ back to that place,” he says. “Hightower neither. King Goff’ll roast us alive.”

Skye, Siena, Circ, Wilde, and Feve stand in a semicircle, watching the argument.

“They’ve got Dazz’s sister,” Buff says. “He’s just lost his brother, if we can…if we can only get her…”

“Good luck with that,” Abe says.

“I’ll go on my own if I have to,” Buff says and I see him cross his arms across his chest. “Is anyone else with me?”

Silence. There are quick glances between the people of the Tri-Tribes.

Wilde says, “We’ve talked it over…”

Skye scrapes a foot on the floor, looking down the whole time. I notice she’s shaking her head slightly, as if she doesn’t necessarily agree with the decision that’s been made.

“…and we think it best to return to fire country, to gather as many able-bodied men and women as we can, and to come back in force.”

“Nay,” I croak. I intend it as a shout, a cry of defiance, but it comes out all garbled and raspy. When everyone turns to look at me, I say it again, even softer. “Nay.”

Buff strides over. “I’m going with you,” he says. “We’re going to get Jolie. We’ll break down the gates and kill every one of Goff’s men, and then the king himself.”