Frozen

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.”

43

THE 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.”

Part the Fifth

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

44

“OKAY,” 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