Fire - Kristin Cashore [59]
When she’d first come through the door of this office with six of her guard the king had greeted her glumly. ‘You entered my mind before you entered this room, Lady.’
‘Yes, Lord King,’ she said, startled into honesty before him and his men.
‘I’m glad of it,’ Nash said, ‘and I give you leave. Around you I cannot bear my behaviour.’
He sat at his desk, staring at the emerald ring on his finger. While they waited for the prisoner to be brought before them, the room turned to a mental battlefield. Nash was keenly aware of her physical presence; he struggled not to look at her. He was just as keenly aware of her presence inside his mind, and here was the problem, for he clung to her there, perversely, to savour the excitement of her where he could. And it did not work both ways. He could not ignore her and cling to her simultaneously.
He was too weak and too strong in all the wrong places. The harder she took hold of his consciousness the harder he pulled at her to keep taking, so that her control turned somehow into his control and his taking. And so she fought off his mental suckers, but that was no good either. It was too much like letting him go, and leaving his body to his mind’s volatility.
She could not find the right way to hold him. She sensed him slipping away. And he became more and more agitated, and finally his eyes slid to her face; he stood, and began pacing. And then the prisoner arrived, and her answers to Nash’s questions only added to his frustration.
‘I’m sorry if I’m no help to you, Lord King,’ she said now. ‘There are limits to my perception, especially with a stranger.’
‘We know you’ve caught trespassers on your own property, Lady,’ one of the king’s men said, ‘who had a distinct feeling to their minds. Is this man like those men?’
‘No, sir, he isn’t. Those men had a kind of mental blankness. This man thinks for himself.’
Nash stopped before her and frowned. ‘Take control of his mind,’ he said. ‘Compel him to tell us the name of his master.’
The prisoner was exhausted, nursing an injured arm, frightened of the lady monster, and Fire knew she could do what the king commanded easily enough. She gripped Nash’s consciousness as tightly as she could. ‘I’m sorry, Lord King. I only take control of people’s minds for the sake of self-defence.’
Nash struck her across the face, hard. The blow threw her onto her back. She was scrambling to her feet practically before she’d hit the rug, ready to run, or fight, or do whatever she needed to do to protect herself from him, no matter who he was, but all six of her guards surrounded her now and pulled her out of the king’s reach. In the corner of her vision she saw blood on her cheekbone. A tear ran into the blood, and her cheek smarted terribly. He’d cut her with the great square emerald of his ring.
I hate bullies, she thought at him furiously.
The king was crouched on the floor, his head in his hands, his men beside him, confused, whispering to each other. He raised his eyes to Fire. She sensed his mind, clear now, and understanding what he’d done. His face was broken with shame.
Her fury dropped away as quickly as it had come. She was sorry for him.
She sent him a firm message. This is the last time I’ll ever appear before you, until you’ve learned to guard yourself against me.
She turned to the door without waiting for a dismissal.
FIRE WONDERED IF a bruise and a square-shaped cut on her cheek might make her ugly. In her bathing room, too curious to stop herself, she held a mirror to her face.
One glance and Fire shoved the mirror under a stack of towels, her question answered. Mirrors were useless, irritating devices. She should have