Fire - Kristin Cashore [33]
Fire hobbled down the hallway on the arm of the girl, happy to have saved someone’s life if it meant that now she had a person to keep her from flopping onto the floor. Every step brought her closer to her strange quarry. ‘Wait,’ she whispered finally, leaning against the wall. ‘Whose rooms are behind this wall?’
‘The king’s, Lady Fire.’
Fire knew with utter certainty then that a man was in the king’s compartments who should not be. Haste, fear of discovery, panic: it all came to her.
A confrontation was beyond her current strength even to consider; and then down the hall, in his own room, she sensed Archer. She grasped the servant girl’s arm. ‘Run to Queen Roen and tell her a man is in the king’s rooms who has no place there,’ she said.
‘Yes, Lady. Thank you, Lady,’ the girl said, and scampered away. Fire continued down the hallway alone.
When she reached Archer’s room she leaned in his doorway. He stood at the window and stared into the covered courtyard, his back to her. She tapped on his mind.
His shoulders stiffened. He spun around and stalked toward her, not once looking at her. He brushed past her and stormed on down the hall. The surprise of it made her dizzy.
It was for the best. She was not in a state to face him, if he was as angry as that.
She went into his room and sat on a chair, just for a moment, to still her throbbing head.
IT TOOK HER ages to get to the stables, despite a number of helping hands; and when she saw Small she couldn’t stop herself. She began to cry.
‘Now, don’t fret, Lady Fire,’ Roen’s animal healer said. ‘It’s all superficial wounds. He’ll be right as a rainbow in a week’s time.’
Right as a rainbow, with his entire back half stitched together and bandaged and his head hanging low. He was happy to see her, even though it was her doing. He pressed himself against the stall door, and when she went inside he pressed himself against her.
‘I reckon he’s been worrying about you,’ the healer said. ‘He’s perked up now you’re here.’
I’m sorry, Fire thought to him, her arms around his neck as best she could. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
She guessed that the fifty men would remain in the Little Greys until the Third Branch arrived and drove the raptor monsters high again. The stables would be quiet until then.
And so Fire stayed with Small, leaning against him, collecting his spit in her hair and using her mind to ease his own sense of his stinging pain.
SHEWAS CURLED up on a fresh bed of hay in the corner of Small’s stall when Roen arrived.
‘Lady,’ Roen said, standing outside the stall door, her eyes soft. ‘Don’t move,’ she said as Fire tried to sit up. ‘The healer told me you should rest, and I suppose resting in here is the best we can hope for. Can I bring you anything?’
‘Food?’
Roen nodded. ‘Anything else?’
‘Archer?’
Roen cleared her throat. ‘I’ll send Archer to you once I’m convinced he won’t say something insufferable.’
Fire swallowed. ‘He’s never been this angry with me before.’
Roen bent her face and considered her hands on the stall door. Then she came in and crouched before Fire. Just once she reached out and smoothed Fire’s hair. She held a bit of it in her fingers, contemplating it carefully, very still on her knees in the hay, as if she were trying to work out the meaning of something. ‘Beautiful girl,’ she said. ‘You did a good thing today, whatever Archer thinks. Next time, mention it to someone beforehand so we’re better prepared.’
‘Archer never would have let me do it.’
‘No. But I would have.’
For a moment their eyes met. Fire understood that Roen meant what she said. She swallowed. ‘Any word from Grey Haven?’
‘No, but the Third has been spotted from the lookout, so we may see our fifty men back as soon as this evening.’ Roen brushed off her lap and rose to her feet, all business again. ‘Incidentally, we found no one in the king’s rooms. And if you insist on doting on your horse in this manner I suppose the least we can do is bring you pillows and blankets. Get some sleep in here, will you? Both of you, girl and