Fire - Kristin Cashore [29]
Instantly the king kneeled at her feet, gracious, gentlemanly, black eyes swimming with penitence. ‘Forgive me, Lady, for my insult to your person. Go safely to your bed.’
She hurried away before anyone saw the absurd spectacle of the king on his knees before her. She was ashamed of herself. And newly anxious for the state of the Dells, now that she’d made the acquaintance of its king.
SHE WAS ALMOSt to her room when Brigan loomed out of the shadows, and this time Fire was at her wit’s end.
She didn’t even need to reach for his mind to know that it was closed to her control, a walled fortress with not a single crack. Against Brigan she had nothing but her small strength, and words.
He pushed her against the wall as Nash had done. He took both her wrists in one hand and yanked her arms above her head, so roughly that water sprang to her eyes from the pain of her injured arm. He crushed her with his body so she could not move. His face was a snarling mask of hatred.
‘Show the slightest interest in befriending the king,’ he said, ‘and I will kill you.’
His superior display of strength was humiliating, and he was hurting her more even than he knew. She had no breath for speech. How like your brother you are, she thought hotly into his face. Only less romantic.
His grip on her wrists tightened. ‘Lying monster-eater.’
She gasped at the pain. You’re a bit of a disappointment, aren’t you? People talk about you as if you’re something special, but there’s nothing special about a man who pushes a defenceless woman around and calls her names. It’s plain ordinary.
He bared his teeth. ‘I’m to believe that you’re defenceless?’
I am against you.
‘But not against this kingdom.’
I don’t stand in opposition to this kingdom. At least, she added, no more so than you, Brigandell.
He looked as if she’d slapped him. The snarl left his face and his eyes were weary suddenly, and confused. He dropped her wrists and stepped back a hair, enough that she could push herself away from him and from the wall, turn her back to him, and cradle her left arm with her right hand. She was shaking. The shoulder of her dress was sticky; he’d made her wound bleed. And he’d hurt her, and she was angry, more than ever before.
She didn’t know where her breath came from, but she let her words loose as they came. ‘I can see that you studied the example of your father before deciding the man you wanted to become,’ she hissed at him. ‘The Dells are in fine hands, aren’t they? You and your brother both - you can go to the raptors.’
‘Your father was the ruin of my father and of the Dells,’ he spat back. ‘My only regret is that your father didn’t die on my sword. I despise him for killing himself and denying me the pleasure. I envy the monster that ripped out his throat.’
At that she turned to face him. For the first time she looked at him, really looked at him. He breathed quickly, clenching and unclenching his fists. His eyes were clear and very light grey and flashed with something that went beyond anger, something desperate. He was little more than average in height and build. He had his mother’s fine mouth, but besides that and those pale crystal eyes, he was not handsome. He stared at her, strung so tight he looked like he might snap, and suddenly to her he seemed young, and overburdened, and at the furthest edge of exhaustion.
‘I didn’t know you were wounded,’ he added, eyeing the blood on her dress; and confusing her, because he actually sounded sorry about it. She didn’t want his apologies. She wanted to hate him, because he was hateful.
‘You’re inhuman. You do nothing but hurt people,’ she said, because it was the worst thing she could think of to say. ‘You’re the monster, not I.’
She turned and left him.
SHE WENT TO Archer’s room first, to clean the seeping blood and re-bandage her arm. Then she crept into her own room, where Archer still slept. She undressed and pulled on his shirt, which she found lying on the floor. He would like that she chose to wear it, and it would never occur to him that she only wanted