Frozen: Heart of Dread, Book One (20 page)

T
HEY TOSSED HER BACK INTO HER CAGE.
Wes was still lying in a crumpled heap in the middle of the floor, and she ran to him. She was so afraid of what she would find that she could hardly breathe.

“Ryan!” she cried, turning him over.

His face was bruised and bloody, but he was breathing, and she ripped her shirt to wipe blood from his forehead. The slavers had been brutal, but they had left him alive, and for that she was thankful.

Wes opened one eye. “You’re back,” he croaked. “Thank god. I’m still going to kill him,” he said. “I’m going to kill him with my bare hands. Tear him limb from limb. What happened? What did they do to you?”

“Shhhh,” she admonished, wiping his face gently. “Shhh . . .” She shook her head. “No. No. I’m okay. I’m okay. Nothing happened.”

Wes groaned. “What do you mean?”

“Traders didn’t want me. They said I wasn’t marked and they wouldn’t pay, said I was worth nothing. Avo was furious, but he couldn’t talk them out of it.”

“But how?”

She whispered into his ear. “Look at my eyes.”

He opened the other eye and stared up at her.

Her eyes were gray.

“Lenses?” he said.

She nodded her head.

“Well, I’m still going to kill him,” Wes mumbled. “That promise I’ll make sure I keep.”

Nat smiled, remembering his lovely kiss. “Okay,” she said, as she continued to clean him up. He would look pretty banged up for a while, his handsome face swollen and cut, but he would be all right. His wounds would heal.

She kissed his forehead and held him close. “You know what?”

“What?” he asked.

“I remember now why you look so familiar. You’re a death jockey, aren’t you?”

“Used to be.”

“The night I escaped from MacArthur, I walked right into the race. Do you remember?”

He sat up and opened his eyes. “I remember. You . . . you kept the car from hitting me, and from hitting you. You were the girl. The girl on the tracks. I looked for you, you know. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m okay.”

His eyes crinkled. “What happened to your shirt?”

“You’re wearing it as a bandage.”

“Is that right?” he smiled wickedly. He looked at her again, and she saw that he was looking at the mages’ mark on her skin, the flame that she always kept hidden, right above her bra.

“So that’s it, huh?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, grimacing. “That’s my mark.”

He reached his hand to it, and she recoiled, preparing for the pain, but when his finger touched her skin, she was warm, so warm, and there was no pain, only . . . peace. “It’s beautiful, like you, like your eyes,” he said. “Now cover up, you’re going to get cold.”

That night, when Wes had fallen asleep, Nat spoke to Liannan through the walls. Nat told her friend everything. The traders’ arrival. How the traders had made the marked prisoners stand in line for inspection.

“What did they want with us? Do you know, Liannan?” she asked. The head trader had been garbed in priestlike robes. Their skin was coated in white powder, and their hair dyed to match. She described the way they had culled the marked prisoners, and those who were showing signs of rot—sallow pallor, yellow eyes—had been dismissed.

“I’ve heard stories about the white priests,” the sylph said quietly. “They believe that they can transfer the powers of the marked to their own bodies. It’s a lie. They’re butchers. False prophets. Fakers. They pretend to have power, but all they have is their mad religion.”

“Transfer our power . . . how?”

“In a ritual . . . a sacrifice.”

Nat shuddered. “They had some specialist with them, but she said I was nobody, that I wasn’t marked so they didn’t want me.” She told Liannan about Wes’s kiss and the miracle of her safety. “My lenses . . . they came back. I don’t know how . . . I’m a lucky girl,” she said.

“Luckier than you might guess; only a spell could provide such protection to hide your true nature,” Liannan told her.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Nat protested. “I had an iron collar on, I couldn’t do anything. Maybe the trader just didn’t know what to look for.”

“No, don’t you see? When Wes kissed you, he blessed you with a protection spell. One that even iron could not restrain.”

Nat was taken aback. “But how?”

Liannan did not answer for a long time. But when she spoke, her words were light and almost teasing, “He must like you very much, Nat, to have woven one as powerful as that.”

T
HE NEXT AFTERNOON, AS THEY WERE
gathered in the circle, Nat noticed the guards were distracted. Suddenly there was a great screeching noise, and the ship listed to the right—and then picked up speed. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“We’re headed somewhere else, looks like,” the smallman next to her said.

Wes whistled for the nearest guard. “Hey, man, what’s happening? Aren’t we going to the markets?”

The guard laughed, showing his broken teeth. “Don’t worry, mate, it’s still the auction block for you all. But before then, the boss has been called to do something else.”

“What?”

“Now, why would I tell the likes of you?” Then he whacked Wes on the head with a blow that would have killed a weaker man.

• • •

The answer came the next day, during preparations for the circus. The slavers went from cell to cell pulling out marked prisoners for another show, but the cold had taken its toll. The prisoners had reached a turning point and had neither the strength nor the will to perform anymore. The pirates would have to look elsewhere for amusement.

They didn’t accept this revelation very well. A particularly ugly pirate sneered as he kicked open the door to Nat and Wes’s cell to find them sitting on the floor, weak from the cold. “All of you who were looking for the Blue—well—by tomorrow it will be just another occupied territory. Maybe they’ll call it Nuevo Asul.”

Nat raised her head in horror. “What do you mean?”

“Navy’s zeroed in on the location of the doorway. We’re shoving you lot off on the Ear’s ship so we can move faster; Jolly wants us travelin’ light so we can pick up any bounty. They owe us for the work we did,” he said, as he shined a flashlight into their irises and grunted his approval.

“He’s checking for frostblight—can’t sell us if we’re too far gone, can you?” Wes explained.

The pirate nodded. “Yeah, whaddaya know, the land of unicorns and honey’s real after all. Fresh air and food for everyone, right? As if.” He snorted, and left them to their cell.

The Blue.

Vallonis.

The military was on its way to the Blue, so that the RSA could take it as a territory, just another extension of its borders, imposing its will and dominion over the land.

Wes stared at Nat. “The stone . . . you’re not wearing the stone,” he said softly, the horror dawning on his face. “Why aren’t you wearing the stone?”

“Because I gave it away,” she said quietly.

“You what?”

“I gave Avo the stone.”

“But why?”

Nat shook her head. “Before the traders and the white priests came, Avo took me to his room.”

Wes gripped her forearms. “What did he do?”

“No . . . it wasn’t . . . that wasn’t what he wanted.”

She remembered the slaver’s smug smile.

Avo had put a hand on her collarbone, caressed her jaw. “Exquisite,” he had whispered. He was talking about the stone. She had unhooked the chain and given it to him without a fight.

“The voice in my head, it told me to do it.” She looked up at Wes, and there were tears in her eyes. “I tried to resist, but I couldn’t stop myself. I told you, I’m a monster. There’s something wrong with me, Wes. I gave it away. I gave away the stone.” Rage and ruin. Devastation. She was the catalyst, she was the key . . . What did she do? Had she given up hope? Had they turned her into something? Was this something they had programmed into her at MacArthur? But she couldn’t stop, had given up the stone as easily as a trinket, as if it were nothing. As if the Blue were nothing to her.

She sunk to her knees. “There isn’t any hope. Everything will be lost. Just as Liannan said.”

“Stop it! Let me think, okay? Just stop! Didn’t you hear what he said? They’re moving us.”

“Only to another cage,” she said bitterly.

Wes put a finger to his lips. “Hold on! Do you hear that? I think those are
Alby
’s engines. They must have fixed the old bird. Listen, I think this is it. This is our chance. Remember what you told me? About never giving up hope? We can still work with this.”

“But how?”

“No one’s going to die, and they won’t take the Blue.” He smiled.

“You’re crazy,” she said. “Getting cocky again.”

“If I am, it’s because I’m betting on you.”

INTO THE BLUE

I’ll find the havens fair and free,

and beaches of the Starlit Sea.

—J.R.R. TOLKIEN, BILBO’S LAST SONG: AT THE GREY HAVENS

“O
KAY,” WES SAID, SHAKING NAT AWAKE
in the morning. “You know what to do?”

Nat blinked her eyes open. “Yeah.”

“Tell me.”

“They’re dropping us off at the other ship.”

“And?”

“They’ll be distracted, everyone will be out of their cages, and they’ll want to dump us as quickly as possible, which means they’ll let down their guard, hustling us out. When we see an opportunity, we need to take it.”

Truly, it wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all he had. They had knocked out the strategy to the smallfolk as well. He only hoped that Shakes, Brendon, and Roark were still alive and on the Ear’s ship. He would need their help when it began. Wes felt better than he had in days; his color was high and he felt his blood pounding in his ears.

“You love this,” she said to him, watching him prepare for battle, as he wound strips of cloth around his fists.

“I won’t deny it.” He smiled. “We get out—and we beat them—or we die trying.”

“But if I can’t . . . ,” she said. So much of his plan hinged upon her ability to use her power and she wasn’t sure she would be able to. She didn’t trust herself—she had given away the stone—she was worse than a monster. She was a traitor to her own kind.

“You will. I know you will,” he said. “You won’t let me down.”

• • •

It was another miserable morning. Around noon, the prisoners were marched out of their cages and brought on the deck for another round of cruel amusements.

“You, boy,” the fat pirate with the worst mean streak said, singling out a small child from his family. “Come here.”

“Please no!” his mother cried. “No—take me instead—please!”

“Take ’em both,” another suggested.

“Why not?” the first one agreed. He looped a rope around each of their necks, making a noose. The other slavers brought out a bucket and a barrel for the mother and son to stand on. Then they tossed the other end of the ropes over one of the sails.

A skinny pirate with a chipped tooth pointed to the father, whose mark was shining on his cheek. “See if ye can save ’em both, eh?”

The fat pirate laughed. “See who ye love better.” Then he kicked both the bucket and the barrel and the wife and the boy were hoisted into the air, their legs kicking and their faces turning bright scarlet as they fought to breathe.

“Save him!” the mother gasped. “Save our son!”

The father of the boy held out his hand, so that his son floated higher than the rope around his neck, but the energy it required was killing him. And as he held his son from death, his wife began to lose consciousness, the noose cutting into her throat.

Nat buried her head in Wes’s shirt, stifling a scream. Wes trembled with fury as he held her close.

“Ear’s here—he’ll want them all alive! They’re no use to him dead!” a voice snarled; it was the first mate, and in quick succession both the boy and the mother were cut down from their gallows.

The boy lived, but the woman did not respond, and both father and son were weeping over her lifeless body.

“Get up, get up,” the fat pirate yelled, kicking at them. “Get ’em all out!” he screamed, ordering the rest of the prisoners lined up to board the Ear’s ship.

The
Van Gogh
pulled up next to the
Titan
; the Ear’s crew amassed on its deck, awaiting its newest cargo. They had slaves on hand as well to help with the new prisoners. Wes was glad to see Shakes among the slaves.
Alby
was floating by the
Van Gogh
as well. They must have been using it as a scouting vessel, just as he had hoped. Maybe this plan would work after all. He caught Shakes’s eye and gave him a signal, the military code that meant “prepare for escape.”

Shakes flashed two fingers to indicate he’d received it.

Next to him, Nat squeezed his hand. “Remember our deal,” she said.
I would rather die at your hands than at theirs.

He shook his head. “It won’t come to that.”

Nat looked over the row of prisoners waiting to board the
Van Gogh,
and spied Liannan’s sleek blond head among them. Wes had gone over the plan with her the night before as well. Liannan looked as beautiful as ever. Her eyes sparkled. She had seen Shakes on the other ship, alive.

Brendon’s parents, Magda and Cadmael, were among the smallkind waiting to board. Magda had Brendon’s curly red hair and Cadmael shared Brendon’s shy smile. Nat hoped no harm would come to them.

The wind started to howl and the two ships rocked unsteadily as the ocean kicked up black waves. The two slave ships were only twenty feet apart, but the water was too rough to pull the vessels closer. If they were roped together, the two ships would bump each other, and neither seemed sturdy enough for that.

The Ear sent a smaller boat, two men on an outboard motor, from the
Van Gogh
to ferry the slaves from the
Titan
to his ship. When it arrived, Slob’s men threw a makeshift rope ladder down to the smaller craft. The slaves would have to climb down to the Ear’s ferry. Nat looked over the edge at the small metal boat as it bucked violently in the rough waters. This was not going to be an easy transfer.

She was right.

Hands bound, the first slave to attempt the ladder stumbled midway and then plunged headfirst into the dark waters. It took the two scavengers to pull him out and one nearly fell in. The Ear’s men called up to the
Titan
: “Unshackle them for the climb. If we don’t free their hands, we’ll lose half the slaves to the ocean.”

Wes nodded to Nat.
This is our chance.
He’d counted on a little improvisation to get through this, but now he knew exactly what to do. It was just as he’d hoped.

One of the brutes walked up to Nat, who was next in line, and removed her cuffs. As he turned the key, the slaver looked down at the ferryboat. “I’ll throw these shackles to you. As soon as she gets down there, we don’t want to leave these slaves unshack—”

He never finished the sentence. Hands still cuffed, Wes rammed the guard from behind, and the pirate tumbled off the deck, almost smashing into the motorboat as he plunged into the water.

The remaining slavers focused on Wes, drawing out their knives.

“Nat!” Wes yelled. “Now!”