Ice Country

Only I’m not intimidated. Not by him. Not byhis 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 theshadows. Clinks and clanks and four more prisoners are lockedin.

I return to the brick, waiting until Bigpasses and slams the door before pulling it out. “Skye,” Ihiss.

“Whaddya want, Icer?” And then her eyes arethere and I’m blushing and my heart’s beating just a little bitfaster.

“Why weren’t you with your friends?” Iask.

“Who’re you talking to, sis?” a voice saysfrom nearby. Sis. Must be the thin, splinter-boned one.

“Just that searin’ Icy that tried to git usin the trees,” she calls.

“Scram, Icy,” another voice says, this onewarm but full of pressure. The Marked guy. Gotta be.

“’S okay,” Skye says. “He ain’t causin’ noproblems, are you, Icy?”

I almost laugh at how they continue to referto me as Icy. To me that means they think I’m attractive, but fromtheir tone I know they mean it in an entirely different way. Andnot a friendly one. “Dazz,” I say.

“What?” she says.

“My name. It’s Dazz.”

“Okay, Icy Dazz. Whaddya got to say feryerself?” Skye says. I snort, unable to stop the laugh fromescaping me.

“You laughin’ at me?” Skye says.

“Sorry, nay. It’s just…ah, never mind.” Irepeat my question from before.

Skye laughs, and it sends a beautiful tremorup my spine. “I mighta been causin’ more trouble than they couldhandle,” she says.

“You searin’ nearly killed one of theguards,” 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 sortof a record for freeze-brained questions.

“Where’d they take the others?” I ask, movingon quickly.

“How the scorch should I know?” she says. “Ibeen sittin’ here havin’ the most unfortunate conversation withyou.”

My face is becoming an unending pile of redblush.

“They took us to see the king,” Sienasays.

“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 lockedup 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 thegrit in her voice that I admire so much about Skye.

Thankfully, Buff chimes in, because I’ve onlygot more stupid questions. “What happened in fire country?” heasks. “And what’s this new Tri-Tribes you’re talking about.”

“You ask too many questions,” the warm voiceof the Marked guy says.

“It’s okay, Feve,” the song-like voice of thelong-haired woman says. “Anyone we can tell our story to could helpus.” Although there’s nothing special in her words, they seem tocommand attention, obedience, like she’s used to people listeningto what she has to say.

“Please,” I say. “We’ve got as big a problemwith Goff as anyone. Just tell us what happened.”

“My father happened,” Skye says.

Chapter Eighteen

“It wasn’t entirelyhis fault,” Siena says.

“He didn’t help matters though,” Skyesays.

“No, he didn’t,” says a fourth voice, one Ihaven’t heard yet. The muscly, athletic-looking guy. I wonder whatgroup he’s affiliated with. “The Glassies attacked us,” the guyexplains.

“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 thestart of the summer. Siena and Skye’s father…Roan…he was a bit oftyrant.”

“A bit?” Skye says. “I still got scars fromwhere he used his snapper on me. Siena too.”

Sounds like a real good guy. “At least he wasgoing out and getting the Cure for you,” I point out.

“Ha!” Skye scoffs. “Whaddya you know aboutthe Cure?”

Something in her tone tells me to treadcarefully. “I, uh, I know we delivered it to Roan’s men all thetime.”

“You don’t know what he did with it?” theHeater 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 forhimself and maybe a few of his baggard friends. There wasn’t enoughto go ’round, and no one knew ’bout it anyway.”

I don’t know what to say. Not only did Roa

“Me and Sie are Wildes,” Skye says. “We ranaway 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, choosingthe wrong time for a bad line. “I’m Buff. And my friend’sDazz.”

“I’m Circ,” says the other guy, thenon-Marked one. Circ, Siena, Wilde, Feve, and Skye. Skye.

“Got it,” I say. “So the ladies joined theWildes. Then what?”

“My father tried to burnin’ kill us,” Skyesays. “But we searin’ near killed him and half his Hunters.”

“I bet you did,” I say, rubbing my bruisednose.

“Then when the Glassies attacked the Heaters,we went to help them. Not ’cause of my father. ’Cause of the restof the Heaters. The good ones.”

“We showed up to help, too,” says Feve. “TheMarked.”

“Yeah, when the fight was mostly over,” Sienasays. There’s a hint of something in her voice. Not hatenecessarily, but something bordering on it, animosity maybe. Shedoesn’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 ofthe—”

“Wait, Roan’s dead?” Buff says.

“Searin’ right,” Skye says, not a speck ofsadness for her father in her voice. “Glassies killed him deader’ntwo tons of tug meat.”

Well, that explains why the trade stopped.Given the secrecy, I wonder if he didn’t orchestrate the wholething. He and Goff. Skye and the rest know about the Cure, but Iwonder if they know about the “special cargo”…

Circ continues. “Most of the Greynotes werekilled too. Given how small each tribe’s numbers were, we declareda truce amongst us and formed the Tri-Tribes. At least until thedanger from the Glassies passes.”

“Why do the Glassies want to kill you?” Iblurt out. There’s silence for a minute, so I say, “They seem tolike us just fine.”

“You’ve seen them, Icy?” Feve saysincredulously.

“Well, yah. Not that often, but they come upthe mountain from time to time. Only to meet with the kingthough.”

“What does the king have to do with theGlassies?” Feve’s questions are filled with sharp edges, likejagged rocks and icicles.

“I du

“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 lookthrough the hole, but Skye’s eyes aren’t there. The back of herhead rests against the wall.

Skye’s not talking, so Circ says, “Goff’strading with Roan on one hand and then dealing with the Glassies onthe other. Seems like he’s straddling the middle, playing bothsides. Or he’s really on one side, and helping the other.”

“But he’d be helping your side by giving youthe Cure,” I say.

“But my father didn’t share it ’round,” Sienainterjects.

“But Goff doesn’t know that,” I reply.

“But you don’t know what the scorch yertalkin’ ’bout!” Skye suddenly yells, twisting her eyes around andpointing them back through the hole at me.