Fire - Kristin Cashore [61]
Garan, in addition to being guarded, was rather unfriendly. He seemed to make a point of not asking Fire the usual civil questions, such as how her trip had been, if she liked her rooms, and whether her face was in much pain from being punched by his brother. He appraised the damage to her cheek blandly. ‘Brigan can’t hear about this until he’s done with what he’s doing,’ he said, his voice low enough that Fire’s guard, hovering in the background, could not hear.
‘Agreed,’ Clara said. ‘We can’t have him rushing back to spank the king.’
‘Musa will report it to him,’ Fire said.
‘Her reports go through me,’ Clara said. ‘I’ll handle it.’
With ink-stained fingers Garan shuffled through some papers and slid a single page across the table to Clara. While Clara read it he reached into a pocket and glanced at a watch. He spoke over his shoulder to the child.
‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘don’t pretend to me that you don’t know the time.’
The child gave a great gloomy sigh, wrestled the shoe from the piebald puppy, put the shoe on, and moped out the door. The puppy waited a moment, and then trotted after its - lady? Yes, Fire decided that at the king’s court, long dark hair probably trumped boyish clothes, and made her a lady. Five years old, possibly, or six, and presumably Garan’s. Garan was not married, but that did not make him childless. Fire tried to ignore her own involuntary flash of resentment at the majority of humanity who had children as a matter of course.
‘Hmm,’ Clara said, frowning at the document before her. ‘I don’t know what to make of this.’
‘We’ll discuss it later,’ Garan said. His eyes slid to Fire’s face and she met his gaze curiously. His eyebrows snapped down, making him fierce, and oddly like Brigan.
‘So, Lady Fire,’ he said, addressing her directly for the first time. ‘Are you going to do what the king’s asked, and use your mental power to question our prisoners?’
‘No, Lord Prince. I only use my mental power in self-defence.’
‘Very noble of you,’ Garan said, sounding exactly like he didn’t mean it, so that she was perplexed, and looked back at him calmly, and said nothing.
‘It would be self-defence,’ Clara put in distractedly, frowning still at the paper before her. ‘The self-defence of this kingdom. Not that I don’t understand your resistance to humouring Nash when he’s been such a boor, Lady, but we need you.’
‘Do we? I find myself undecided on the matter,’ Garan said. He dipped his pen into an inkwell. He blotted carefully, and scribbled a few sentences onto the paper before him. Without looking at Fire he opened a feeling to her, coolly and with perfect control. She felt it keenly. Suspicion. Garan did not trust her, and he wanted her to know it.
THAT EVENING, WHEN Fire sensed the king’s approach, she locked the entrance to her rooms. He made no objection to this, resigned, seemingly, to holding a conversation with her through the oak of her sitting room door. It was not a very private conversation, on her side at least, for her on-duty guards could recede only so far into her rooms. Before the king spoke, she warned him that he was overheard.
His mind was open and troubled, but clear. ‘If you’ll bear with me, Lady, I’ve only two things to say.’
‘Go on, Lord King,’ Fire said quietly, her forehead resting against the door.
‘The first is an apology, for my entire self.’
Fire closed her eyes. ‘It’s not your entire self that needs to apologise. Only the part that wants to be taken by my power.’
‘I can’t change that part, Lady.’
‘You can. If you’re too strong for me to control, then you’re strong enough to control yourself.’
‘I can’t, Lady, I swear to it.’
You don’t want to, she corrected him silently. You don’t want to give up the feeling of me, and that is your problem.
‘You’re a very strange monster,’ he said, almost whispering.
‘Monsters are supposed to want to overwhelm men.’
And what could