Malak pays him no attention, lowering the sled to the ground and quickly setting about releasing the straps that tie Asha onto it.
I suppose he already ascertained that she’s breathing because the first thing he does is pull the mittens off her hands. The cloth wrapping becomes visible, pulled aside a little but securely fastened.
Kalith hovers nearby, but his concern sounds forced. “She’s alive?”
Malak ignores him, holding each of her hands, turning them slowly back and forth. His fingers brush the wrapping before he checks her fingertips and then his hands brush over her palms and up to the rope burns around her wrists.
His back is still to me, but the time he takes with her hands tells me he’s studying them.
He slowly pulls the mittens back on and rises to his feet, pausing there, his head tilted before he swings to me.
Finally, I can see his face.
I imprint his features on my mind: dark-blue eyes, a square jaw, pale skin, high cheekbones, expressionless lips. It’s impossible to know what he’s thinking, as his face is like a mask.
The face of the man who ended my father.
He approaches me at a slow pace, then kneels beside me and rests his hands in his lap, palms up, as if to keep the threat of his metal in full view.
“I’m going to ask you questions, Boy, and you would be wise to answer them truthfully.” His focus shifts to Thoren where he lies behind me. “Fail to tell me the truth andthatboy will die, do you understand?”
I fight my fear.
My numbness is wearing off and with it comes a heightened awareness of the warmth beneath my chest where my blood must be pooling. The thread Malak shot through me could have done catastrophic damage already.
If so, I will choose to use my deep light like my father did.
With it, I will kill Malak.
I grit my teeth and nod. “Ask your questions.”
Chapter 19
Malak studies me for a moment, the fingers of his left hand twitching, the black rings on them catching the light.
“The cloth around Asha’s hands is what we call ‘linen’,” he says. “It’s an Einherjar weave, far looser than the weave our machines produce, which means the cloth belongs to you.”
He hasn’t asked me a question yet, so I wait, my caution rising.
“Why did you wrap her hands?”
I choose my response carefully and keep my explanations short. “She was freezing. Her fingers were blue. The cloths were warm. We didn’t want the black rot to set in.”
“We?”
“My family.”
His focus flickers to my father and then to Thoren. “But surely, she was freezing because you snatched her from our city and dragged her out into the snow. Why try to undo what you had already done?”
I can’t keep the rage from my voice. “She wasfreezingbecause she was waist-deep in snow when I found her in that pit?—”
“Youfound her.”
“I did.”
“What was she wearing?”
I pause.Why would it matter?“A silver dress.”
