Fire - Kristin Cashore [42]
When Brocker had asked her, in her fourteenth year, just how much power she had over Cansrel’s mind when she was inside it, Archer had been the one to defend her. ‘Where’s your heart, Father? The man is her father. Don’t make her relationship with him more difficult than it already is.’
‘I’m only asking questions,’ Brocker had responded. ‘Does she have the power to shift his attitudes? Could she change his ambitions permanently?’
‘Anyone can see these are not idle questions.’
‘They’re necessary questions,’ Brocker had said, ‘though I wish they were not.’
‘I don’t care. Leave her be,’ Archer had said, so passionately that Brocker had let her be, at least for the moment.
Fire supposed she would miss Archer defending her on this trip. Not because she wanted his defence, but simply because it was what Archer did when he was near.
She unearthed her saddlebags from a pile at the bottom of her closet and began to fold underclothing and riding gear into them. There was no point in bothering with dresses. No one ever noticed what she wore, and after three weeks in her bags they would be unwearable anyway.
‘You’ll desert your students?’ Archer said finally, leaning over his knees, watching her pack. ‘Just like that?’
She turned her back to him on the pretense of searching for her fiddle, and smiled. He had never been quite so concerned for her students before.
‘You didn’t take long to decide,’ he added.
She spoke simply; to her it was obvious. ‘I’ve never seen King’s City.’
‘It’s not so wonderful as all that.’
It was a thing she’d like to determine for herself. She dug through the piles on her bed and said nothing.
‘It’ll be more dangerous than any place you’ve ever been,’ he said.
‘Your father took you away from that place because you weren’t safe there.’
She set her fiddle case beside her saddlebags. ‘Shall I choose a life of bleakness, then, Archer, just to stay alive? I won’t hide in a room with the doors and windows shut. That is not a life.’
He ran his finger against the ridge of a feather in the quiver beside him. He glowered at the floor, chin on fist. ‘You’ll fall in love with the king.’
She sat on the edge of the bed facing him, and grinned. ‘I couldn’t fall in love with the king. He’s weak-minded and he drinks too much wine.’
He caught her eye. ‘And? I’m jealous-minded and I sleep with too many women.’
Fire’s smile grew. ‘Luckily for you, I loved you long before you became either of those things.’
‘But you don’t love me as much as I love you,’ he said. ‘Which is what’s made me this way.’
This was harsh, coming from a friend she would lose her life for. And harsh that he would say such a thing right when she was about to leave for so long. She stood and turned her back to him. Love doesn’t measure that way, she thought to him. And you may blame me for your feelings, but it isn’t fair to blame me for how you’ve chosen to behave.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You’re right. Forgive me, Fire.’
And she forgave him again, easily, because she knew that his anger usually fizzled as quickly as it came, and behind it his heart was full to bursting. But she stopped at forgiveness. She could guess what Archer wanted, here in her bedroom before she departed, and she wasn’t going to give it to him.
It had been easy once, taking Archer into her bed; not so long ago it had been simple. And then, somehow, the balance had tipped between them. The marriage proposals, the lovesickness. More and more, the simplest thing was to say no.
She would answer him gently. She turned to him and held out her hand. He stood and came to her.
‘I must change into riding clothes and pull a few more things together, ’ she said. ‘We’ll say our goodbyes now. You must go down and tell the prince I’m coming.’
He stared at his shoes and then into her face, understanding her. He tugged at her headscarf until it slid away and her hair fell around her shoulders. He collected her hair in one hand, bent his face to it, kissed it. He pulled Fire to him and kissed her neck and her