Fire - Kristin Cashore [135]
‘He certainly at least suspected it,’ Fire said, realising as the story opened in words between them, just how many parts of it she didn’t know. It both hurt and soothed her, like the salve the healers spread on her raw hands, to try to fill in the missing parts. She would never know how it had felt for him to be shot by his own father. Whether things would have gone differently if she’d paid more attention, if she’d fought harder to keep him from going. If years ago she’d found a way to stop him loving her so much; if Archer, no matter the strength of his mind or the depth of his affection, had ever been entirely immune to her monster beauty.
‘I suppose we’ll also never know what Jod was truly like,’ Clara said, when Fire, quietly, had conveyed all of these thoughts. ‘We know he was a criminal, of course,’ she continued robustly, ‘and a vicious lowlife, fit to die, even if he is my child’s grandfather.’ She snorted, saying as an aside, ‘What a pair of grandfathers this child has. But what I mean is, we’ll never know if Jod would’ve killed his own son if he’d been in control of his own mind instead of under the power of that horrible boy you dropped into the mountain, and good riddance. I hope that one died in terrible agony impaled upon a jagged bit of rock.’
Clara was an oddly comforting person for Fire to be with in these days. Pregnant, she was even more stunning than she had been before. Almost five months in, her hair was thicker and glossier, her skin glowing; an extra vitality fueled her usual determination. She was completely alive, which was painful sometimes for Fire to stand beside. But Clara was also angry at all the right things and fiercely honest. And she was carrying Archer’s child in her body.
‘Lord Brocker is also your child’s grandfather,’ Fire said mildly. ‘And there are two grandmothers you needn’t be ashamed of.’
‘And anyway,’ Clara said, ‘if we’re to be judged by our parents and grandparents, then we all may as well impale ourselves upon jagged bits of rock.’
Yes, Fire thought to herself grimly. That wasn’t far from true.
When she was alone she couldn’t avoid thoughts of home, memories. On the roof, visiting the mare, she fought off thinking of Small, who was far away in King’s City, most certainly wondering why she had gone away and if she was ever coming back.
At night, when she struggled with sleep, Cansrel and Archer kept changing places in her nightmares. Cansrel, his throat torn apart, was suddenly Archer, staring at her just as balefully as Cansrel always had. Or sometimes she was luring Archer, rather than Cansrel, to his death, or luring them together, or sometimes Cansrel was killing Archer, or raping Archer’s mother, and maybe Archer found him and killed him. Whatever happened, whichever dead man died again in her dreams, she woke to the same pitiless grief.
NEWS CAME FROM the northern front that Brigan was sending Nash down to Fort Flood and Brocker and Roen would follow him.
Garan was indignant.
‘I can understand sending Nash here to take his place,’ he said. ‘But why is he having done with his entire strategising team? He’ll be sending us the Third and Fourth next, and taking Mydogg’s army on all by himself.’
‘It must be becoming too dangerous there for anyone who isn’t a soldier,’ Clara said.
‘If it’s dangerous, he should tell us.’
‘He has told us, Garan. What do you think he means when he says even in camp a night’s rest is rare? Do you imagine Mydogg’s soldiers are keeping ours out late with drinking games and dancing? And did you read the latest report? A soldier of the Third attacked his own company the other day, killed three of his fellow soldiers before he himself was killed. Mydogg had promised to pay a fortune to his family if he turned traitor.’
Working in the healing room, Fire could not fail to learn the things that happened in battle and in war. And she understood that despite the torn-up bodies the medics brought in from the tunnels every