The Girl and the Stars

Petrick shot her an incredulous look. “She ate your friend. Killed and ate him. What do the Ictha do to murderers? Tie them up?”

Yaz hadn’t forgotten Jaysin and she didn’t know what the Ictha did to murderers. She wasn’t sure murder had ever happened among them. But she knew the Ictha had watched an old man push children into a miles-deep hole and done nothing. “Hetta was one of the Broken once, wasn’t she? Like Thurin. Was Thurin responsible for what he did while tainted?”

“It’s a madness, the demons take control.” Thurin joined them. “She has three in her at least. It’s worse when there are more than one, and even more so when they are different breeds.” He indicated the purple, black, and red stains moving across the gerant’s brutal face, the changes as slow as the writhing of the dragon-tail lights in the northern sky.

“Can’t we save her?” Yaz knew Hetta as a monster but Zeen was a monster now and she wouldn’t allow this fate for him. “Like you were saved?”

Doubt clouded Thurin’s face. He stared at Hetta as if he was remembering her in the years before she was taken. “I don’t—”

Hetta drew in a great shuddering breath, startling them all, though her eyes stayed shut. Maya let out a brief scream then stifled the rest of it. The Axit girl was back to being her scared little self, Yaz thought.

“There’s no time for this.” Petrick started forward. Something in the way his knife trembled made Yaz sure the boy hadn’t taken a life before.

“Where do you think I’ll find a home when she dies?” The voice came from Hetta’s night-black lips but sounded too calm for the howling monster that had attacked them. Hetta lay motionless, eyes still closed; only her mouth moved and the inky stain seemed to flow into it from all sides. Hetta’s pointed teeth gleamed blackly. “Thurin son of Gatha has already shown himself cracked and open to my kind. He’ll make an acceptable replacement. Will you try to kill him too when I take him?”

“If you’re going to do it, do it quickly!” Thurin moved behind Petrick. “I won’t let them in my head.” His voice had a quaver in it though and he stepped away as if eager to put distance between himself and the deed.

Petrick gritted his teeth and reached his blade toward the gerant’s neck. His arm steady now. All of him tensed to spring aside should she wake and lunge for him.

“Hear me, Yaz of the Ictha.”

Petrick paused. “How does a demon know your name already?”

The demon working Hetta’s mouth seemed untroubled by the knife so close to her throat. “Did you not think it strange that no Ictha has fallen here in twenty years and then three take the plunge in a row?” Within the scarlet stain one of Hetta’s eyes opened, wholly red like the skin around it, save for the black point of the pupil.

Yaz had no answer.

“I spoke to the child before we tore his head off,” the demon whispered, inviting Yaz to lean in closer. “Jaysin he called himself. He was very keen to let us know he shouldn’t have been down here.” A black tongue licked black lips. “Shouldn’t have been down here. Even the regulator said so, little Jaysin told us.”

“What do you mean?” Yaz snarled.

“Don’t listen,” Thurin called out from behind her. “The demons always lie. They cast a spell on you with their voice.”

The black mouth spoke again. “Regulator Kazik pushed little Jaysin down the pit to bring you a message. He promises to send more innocents down to repeat it if you don’t follow his instructions.”

“What message?” Yaz shouted.

Hetta’s other eye snapped open, scarlet and demon-filled. Her body remained slumped against the rock, a trickle of blood running out from behind her head. Close up the size of her continually shocked Yaz and the idea that she had thrown the woman back with such force seemed hard for even her to believe.

“Ah . . .” Hetta or the demon exhaled slowly. “I could tell you. But then you would have to swear by all your gods to let me go.”

“We can’t do that.” Petrick brandished his knife, though his voice lacked conviction.

“Kill this woman then,” Hetta said. “Though she was once one of your people and has no control over the things we make her do. Condemn more children to the pit to carry Kazak’s message to Yaz of the Ictha. And see what happens to your friend Thurin when you make us homeless.” A grin showing pointed teeth. “But whatever you do, do it swiftly for she is waking and when she does the time for talking will be over.”

“Why were you hunting me?” Yaz demanded.

The black mouth only smiled.

“What was the message?”

“Do you swear to our bargain?”

Yaz spat. She didn’t want to let the cannibal go but she didn’t want Petrick to slit the woman’s throat either. Especially not if Hetta was simply a victim of these monsters living under her skin.

“I swear by the Gods in the Sky and by the Gods in the Sea that if you answer my questions I will let you leave this cavern unharmed.”

“The others too?”

“By Eon of the Ice,” Thurin muttered. Petrick echoed him in a whisper.

“By the White-Hope-That-Burns-Above.” Quina named some southern deity unknown to Yaz.

“There,” said Yaz. “Now—”

“And the tiny one who wrapped the shadows around her,” Hetta said. “The fierce one.”

“By the Seven Gods of the Wind,” Maya said.

Hetta’s head turned to stare past Yaz. “And the gerant who is pretending to be unconscious.”

“By Eon of the Ice.” Kao sat with a groan, rubbing the back of his head.

“Ask your questions,” Hetta said. The purple stain wrapped her neck like a strangling hand.

“Why were you hunting me?” Yaz asked.

“We weren’t hunting you. We were hunting the new one.”

“New one?” Yaz wondered if Kazik had already thrown down another child.

“Most unusual. Seemed to be a grown man, not built like a gerant. Has a spear. Not tainted. Spying on the Broken. Cunning too. But we’ll catch him.”

“What was the regulator’s message?” Thurin asked, still keeping his distance. It was the question Yaz wanted to ask but one she wanted answered for her alone, not spoken in front of an audience.

“The regulator wants you back, little Ictha. You weren’t supposed to jump! If you come back soon he will allow you to bring Jaysin with you . . . oh . . . well, we still have his skull in our collection . . . you could take that maybe.”