Fire - Kristin Cashore [127]
‘You’ve lost your mind,’ he said, touching his hand to a cut on his neck, staring incredulously at the blood that came off on his fingers. ‘Take hold of yourself! I didn’t come after you all this way to fight you. I’m trying to rescue you!’
‘Your lies don’t work on me,’ she cried, her throat coarse and painful from smoke and dehydration. ‘You killed Archer.’
‘Jod killed Archer.’
‘Jod is your tool!’
‘Oh, be reasonable,’ he said, his voice rising with impatience. ‘You of all people should understand it. Archer was too strong-minded. It’s quite a kingdom for the strong-minded you’ve got here, isn’t it, the very toddlers taught to guard their minds against monsters?’
‘You’re not a monster.’
‘It amounts to the same thing. You know perfectly well how many people I’ve had to kill.’
‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I’m not like you.’
‘Perhaps you’re not, but you do understand it. Your father was like me.’
Fire stared at this boy, his sooty face, his thatch of filthy hair, his torn and bloodstained coat, oversized, as if he’d taken it from one of his own victims, from a body he’d found unburned on Cutter’s grounds. The feeling of his mind bumped against hers, simmering with strangeness, taunting her with its unreachability.
Whatever he was, he was not a monster. But it amounted to the same thing. Was this what she had killed Cansrel for, so that a creature like this could rise to power in his place?
‘What are you?’ she whispered.
He smiled. Even in his dirty face it was a disarming smile, the delighted smile of a little boy who is proud of himself.
‘I’m what is known as a Graceling,’ he said. ‘My name used to be Immiker. Now it is Leck. I come from a kingdom you’ve not heard of. There are no monsters there, but there are people with eyes of two colours who have powers, all different kinds of powers, everything you could think of, weaving, dancing, swordplay, and mental powers too. And none of the Gracelings are as powerful as I.’
‘Your lies don’t work on me,’ Fire said automatically, feeling around for her horse, who appeared at her side for her to lean against.
‘I’m not making it up,’ he said. ‘This kingdom does exist. Seven kingdoms, actually, and not a single monster to trouble the people. Which, of course, means that few of them have learned to strengthen their minds as people must here in the Dells. Dellians are far more strong-minded as a people, and far more vexing.’
‘If Dellians vex you,’ she whispered, ‘go back where you came from.’
He shrugged, smiling. ‘I don’t know how to go back. There are tunnels, but I’ve never found them. And even if I did, I don’t want to. There’s so much potential here - so many advances in medicine, and engineering, and art. And so much gorgeousness - the monsters, the plants - do you appreciate how unusual the plants are here, how marvellous the medicines? My place is here in the Dells. And,’ he said with a touch of contempt, ‘don’t imagine it contents me to control Cutter’s vulgar smuggling operation here at the kingdom’s edges. It’s King’s City I want, with its glass ceilings and its hospitals and its beautiful bridges all lit up at night. It’s the king I want, whoever that may be at the other side of the war.’
‘Are you working with Mydogg? Whose side are you on?’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘I don’t care which one wins. Why should I get involved when they’re doing me a favour by destroying each other? But you, don’t you see the place I’ve made for you in my plans? You must know it was my idea to capture you - I controlled all the spies and masterminded the kidnapping, and I was never going to allow Cutter to sell you, or breed you. I want to be your partner, not your master.’
How weary Fire was of