Fire - Kristin Cashore [152]
‘Well, I can’t imagine that this is what you want!’
He said, ‘The moment I began to love you was the moment when you saw your fiddle smashed on the ground, and you turned away from me and cried against your horse. Your sadness is one of the things that makes you beautiful to me. Don’t you see that? I understand it. It makes my own sadness less frightening.’
‘Oh,’ she said, not following every word, but comprehending the feeling, and knowing all at once the difference between Brigan and the people who built her a bridge. She rested her face against his shirt. ‘I understand your sadness, too.’
‘I know you do,’ he said. ‘I thank you for it.’
‘Sometimes,’ she whispered, ‘there’s too much sadness. It crushes me.’
‘Is it crushing you now?’
She paused, unable to speak, feeling the press of Archer against her heart. Yes.
‘Then come here,’ he said, a bit redundantly, as he had already pulled her with him into an armchair and curled her up in his arms. ‘Tell me what I can do to help you feel better.’
Fire looked into his quiet eyes, touched his dear, familiar face, and considered the question. Well. I always like it when you kiss me.
‘Do you?’
You’re good at it.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘That’s lucky, because I’ll always be kissing you.’
EPILOGUE
FLAME WAS THE way in the Dells to send the bodies of the dead where their souls had gone, and to remember that all things came to nothingness, except the world.
They travelled north to Brocker’s estate for the ceremony, because it was appropriate that it take place there and because to hold it anywhere else would be an inconvenience to Brocker, who must, of course, be present. They scheduled it for the end of summer, before the fall rains, so that Mila could attend with her newborn daughter, Liv, and Clara with her son, Aran.
Not everyone could make the journey, though practically everyone did, even Hanna, and Garan and Sayre, and quite a colossal royal guard. Nash stayed behind in the city, for someone needed to run things. Brigan promised to make every reasonable effort to attend and came tearing onto Fire’s land the night before with a contingent of the army. It was all of fifteen minutes before he and Garan were quarreling over the plausibility of devoting some of the kingdom’s resources to westward exploration. If through the mountains existed a land with people called Gracelings who were like that boy, Brigan said, then it would only be sensible to take a peaceful, unobtrusive interest in them - namely, to spy - before the Gracelings decided to take an unpeaceful interest in the Dells. Garan didn’t want to spend the money.
Brocker, who took Brigan’s side of the argument, was utterly pleased with the growing family that had descended upon him, and he talked, and so did Roen, of moving back to King’s City, and leaving his estate - of which Brigan was now heir - to be handled by Donal, who had always handled Fire’s capably. The siblings had been told, quietly, of Brigan’s true parentage. Hanna spent time shyly with the grandfather she had only just heard of. She liked the big wheels of his chair.
Clara teased Brigan that on the one hand, he was no technical relation to her at all, but on the other, he was doubly the uncle of her son, for, in the loosest sense, Clara was Brigan’s sister and the baby’s father had been Brigan’s brother. ‘That’s how I prefer to think of it, anyway,’ Clara said.
Fire smiled at all of this, and held the babies whenever anyone would let her, which turned out to be fairly often. She had a monster knack with babies. When they cried, she usually knew what was ailing them.
FIRE WAS SITTING in the bedroom of her stone house, thinking of all the things that had happened in that room.
From the doorway, Mila broke into her reverie. ‘Lady? May I come in?’
‘Of course, Mila, please.’
In her arms Mila carried Liv, who was asleep, smelling like lavender, and making soft breathing noises. ‘Lady,’ Mila said. ‘You once told me I may ask you for anything.’
‘Yes,’ Fire said, looking