Fire - Kristin Cashore [121]
They wanted her alive then, and relatively healthy. Which was only natural, if she was a monster and they were monster smugglers.
She began to experiment.
She entered the mind of one of the men - Sammit, to start - and popped his fog, and observed as his own thoughts trickled back in. She waited - it wasn’t long - for the boy to remind the men that she was not to be trusted, that he was their guardian and friend. The words brought the fog blistering, and then bulging, right back into Sammit’s mind - the words, spoken in that voice that didn’t seem to hurt Sammit’s head the way it hurt hers.
This was strange to Fire at first, that his power should be in his words and his voice, rather than in his mind. But the more she considered it, the more she supposed it wasn’t entirely strange. She could control with parts of her body too. She could control some people with her face alone, or with her face and a suggestion made in a certain tone of voice - a voice of pretended promises. Or with her hair. Her power was in all of those things. Perhaps it was not so different from his.
And his power was contagious. If the boy spoke words to the fellow on his left and that fellow repeated the words to Sammit, the fog passed from the fellow to Sammit. It explained why the archer had been able to infect her guards.
The boy never let more than a few minutes pass between reminders to the men that Fire was their enemy and he their friend. Which suggested to Fire that he couldn’t see into their minds like she could, and know for himself if he still controlled them. This was her next experiment. She took hold of Sammit again and popped his fog, and moulded his thoughts so that he knew the boy was manipulating him. She made Sammit angry at the boy. She caused him to contemplate revenge, immediate and violent.
And the boy didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t even glance at Sammit sidelong. Minutes passed before he repeated his litany that erased Sammit’s anger and returned Sammit to forgetfulness and fog.
The boy could not read minds. His control was impressive, but it was blind.
Which left Fire with a great deal of choice over what she could do with these men without him knowing. And without her having to worry about them resisting, for the boy’s fog emptied the men so nicely of their own inclinations that might otherwise have got in her way.
AT NIGHT THE boy wanted her drugged with something mild to keep her from turning on him while he slept. Fire consented to this. She only made sure to occupy a corner of Sammit’s mind, so that whenever Sammit reached for the mixture that the archer was to dip his darts in, he pulled out an antiseptic salve instead of a sleeping potion.
In their winter camps under white, leafless trees, while the others slept or stood watch, she pretended to sleep, and planned. She understood from the talk of the men and from a few quiet, well-placed questions that Hanna had been released unharmed, and that Fire had been drugged for almost two weeks while the boat pushed west against the current of the river. That this slow passage had not been their intention - that they’d had horses when they’d reached King’s City, and meant to return the way they’d come, pounding west across the flat land north of the river; but that as they were fleeing the palace grounds with Fire tossed over someone’s shoulder, Fire’s guard had set upon them and chased them toward the river and away from their mounts. They’d stumbled upon a boat moored under one of the city bridges, and seized it in desperation. Two men with them had been killed.
It was as frustrating to her as it was to them, the crawling pace of their journey across black rock and white snow. It was almost too much to be borne, these days away from the city and the war, and the things she was