“I’m just surprised,” I say, trying to keep the conversation going.
There’s a heavy thud on the door behind me, which doesn’t bode well for the rider. He lasted a while, but never had a chance against so many foes—not really. I don’t look back.
Goff smiles, looks past me to the door. “Seems we’re finally winning,” he muses. “Should we let them in and end this quickly?”
“Nay,” I say. “Not until I understand.” And freezin’ kill you, I add in my mind.
There’s a heavy thud on the door and the metal bar rattles in its fixture.
Goff smiles, but I’m not sure if it’s at the door or at what I’ve said. “As you wish,” he says. “It’s simple, really. The Stormers want children.”
“The Stormers? But they’re…”
“Attacking us?” the king says, smiling. “I guess I’m not delivering enough of them, or the children aren’t strong enough, who knows? Although this one”—he squeezes Jolie harder—“is a real firecracker, always trying to escape, fighting the guards—I wonder where she gets it from?” He kisses the top of her head.
“Let go of her!” I scream, my rage rising up quicker than I can bite it down.
“Oh-ho, are you forgetting who has the knife to whose neck? Another outburst like that will get her killed,” Goff says, his green eyes gleaming maliciously, as if he’s hoping he gets just such a chance.
Thud, thud! The hammering on the door is getting louder, more persistent. If Goff’s guards get in, it’s over.
“You wouldn’t,” I say.
He laughs and that answers my question. He would. He has. Killed children. Enjoyed it. “Don’t be so naïve, Dazz,” he says.
I grit my teeth. I shake my head, trying to take it all in. “Why children?” I ask, pushing the conversation forward. The second it ends Jolie dies.
“How should I know? I don’t even give them our children, just natives from fire country, but I’m sure you already know that.”
THUD, THUD!
I ignore the pounding, keep things moving. “And you give the Heaters the Cure.”
“Gave the Heaters the Cure,” Goff corrects. “Since Roan was killed, the situation has changed, become more complex. But I never gave him much, just enough to get the children. I keep the rest for me and my men.”
“What do the Stormers give you for the children?” Food, goods, what? Nothing seems to fit.
“Are you slow, Dazz?” the king says. “The same thing I gave Roan, except in much larger quantities.”
The air goes out of my lungs. The reason the bags of dried plants looked so unfamiliar, unlike any plant I’d ever seen growing in ice country, was because they weren’t from ice country.
“The Cure comes from…” I don’t finish the statement.
“Of course. It comes from storm country. Those plants only grow on the shores of the sea.”
The pieces click, snap, lock, and then weave together, into a sickening and screwed up tapestry that somehow, somewhere came to include my little sister, Jolie, ending with a knife to her throat.
THUD! The slam on the door is the loudest and heaviest yet, but I barely notice it, barely notice the metal bar bending under the pressure.
“Why her?” I say, spitting out the words, feeling a fresh wave of anger boil to the surface. “You said you only traded Heater children, but then you—you—” Memories of the night I went to visit Jolie at Clint and Looza’s hits me like a punch to the gut. Finding them tied up, silence and darkness surrounding the house like a suffocating blanket. Seeing them drag Jolie out the back. Running, running, a knock to the back of my head, falling, falling, failing the only one I ever wanted to protect…
I can’t speak another word or I’ll lose it.
“I took your sister,” Goff says. “Well, not me personally, but some vile men I dredged up from the Red District. They’ll do anything for silver there.”
“Why?” I growl, pushing him to get to the point.
THUD! I’m vaguely aware of voices shouting behind me, where a crack’s opened up in the door.
“Let’s just say she caught my eye,” he says, licking his lips.
“Liar!” I roar. “That’s not what your captain of the guard told me.”
“What exactly did he tell you?”
“That she’s a special trade item. That I’m the insurance to keep her in line,” I say.
The king raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t authorize him to say that. I’d have needed to punish him if he weren’t already dead,” he muses. “No matter. What you know now is of no consequence to me. In a short while you’ll be dragged across the border with your sister. And she will obey her new masters, because if she doesn’t it’ll be you that pays for it with pain.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you, Dazz,” Jolie says.
“I know, Joles,” I say. “So you can’t hurt her, Goff. If she’s so special, surely you can’t just kill her here and now.”
“Tsk tsk, Dazz,” the king clucks. “I thought I warned you about being foolish. If she dies, I’ll find another little girl to replace her in an instant. And another brother or sister or friend to force her obedience.”
Something doesn’t make sense. The Heater children were both boys and girls. “Why a girl?” I ask
The king smirks. “Now you’re asking the right things. Because she’ll be betrothed to a young man, of course,” he says.
“Betrothed?” I say, the word sounding foreign because it was so unexpected. “The Stormers want my sister to marry one of their boys?”
“Yes.” One word. The king may have lied about a lot of things, but this one word rings true. “But not just any boy. I suspect it’s a boy of some importance to them. A son of a king or the equivalent.”
“Why? Why an Icer?”
“Like I said, they want to ensure her cooperation and subservience to her master, her husband. Perhaps the young women of their lands are not as…easy to control. And the brown-skinned Heater children are their servants, so it wouldn’t be appropriate to use one of them.” I remember the unchained wildness of the dark riders, many of whom were women.
There’s a series of sharp cracks against the door. Goff glances at the door, then back at me, smiling wider than ever. “Don’t make me out to be such a bad guy,” Goff says. “She’s only one girl, no one will even notice she’s gone.”
“You stupid, stupid man!” I shout, taking a step forward even as there’s a massive THUD! behind me.
“Not another step or I’ll—”
But I’m not listening, not to the pathetic icin’ King who’s got my sister, nor to the incessant pounding at my back. Not anymore. “She’s a child,” I say. “Someone’s daughter, someone’s sister. My sister. You didn’t think anyone would notice? You’re insane.”
I step forward, spurred on by another massive THUD!
“Not one more step, kid,” Goff warns.
I hesitate, not because I’m scared of the king, but because it’s still my sister he’s got, still Jolie, biting at her lip and trying not to cry.
“Dazz?” she says, her question full of a thousand other questions, none of which I can answer without lying.
Men’s voices pummel the door, even as a series of vicious pounds erupt behind me.
THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD!
I glance back at the door. The bar is fully bent now, the crack in the door widening with each hammer of the battering ram. “It’s okay, Joles, everything’s okay,” I say, wondering how it will be, how I can speak something I don’t believe myself.
Now is the moment. My moment. My one chance to make up for everything, for all the mistakes, for all the pain and hurt and anguish of the last few days, weeks, months, years.
I step forward and Goff lifts the knife from Jolie’s throat, pulling it back in a slashing motion, as if he wants to shove it all the way through her neck, not content to simply slit her throat.