Fire - Kristin Cashore [73]
He was flustered. He looked away from her. ‘I don’t wish to influence you. If you stay, I’ll be terribly pleased. You’ll be such invaluable help. But I’ll also be sorry for what we would ask of you, truly sorry.’
It was a rare outburst - rare because he wasn’t one for outbursts, and rare because it wasn’t likely to occur to anyone else to be sorry. Rather at a loss, Fire gripped her bow tightly and said, ‘Taking someone’s mind and changing it is a trespass. A violence. Can I ever use such a thing without overstepping my right? How will I know if I’m going too far? I’m capable of so many horrors.’
Brigan took a minute to think, staring intently into his hands. He tugged at the edge of his bandage. ‘I understand you,’ he said, speaking quietly. ‘I know what it’s like to be capable of horrors. I’m training twenty-five thousand soldiers for a bloodbath. And there are things I’ve done I wish I’d never had to do. There are things I’ll do in future.’ He glanced at her, then looked back into his hands. ‘No doubt this is presumptuous, Lady. But for whatever it’s worth, if you’d like, I could promise to tell you if I ever believed you to be overstepping the rights of your power. And whether or not you choose to accept that promise, I’d very much like to ask you to do the same for me.’
Fire swallowed, hardly believing that he was entrusting her with so much. She whispered, ‘You honour me. I accept your promise, and I give you my own in return.’
The lights in the city houses were dimming one by one. And part of avoiding thoughts about something was not encouraging opportunities for that something to make itself felt.
‘Thank you for the fiddle,’ she said. ‘I play it every day.’
And she left him, and walked with her guard back to her rooms.
IT WAS IN the great hall the next morning that she came to understand what had to be done.
The walls of this cavernous room were made of mirrors. Passing through, on sudden impulse, Fire looked at herself.
She caught her breath and kept looking, until she was beyond that first staggering moment of disbelief. She crossed her arms and squared her feet, and looked, and looked. She remembered a thing that made her angry. She’d told Clara her intention never to have children; and Clara had told her of a medicine that would make her very sick, but only for two or three days. After she recovered, she’d never have to worry again about the chance of becoming pregnant, no matter how many men she took to her bed. The medicine would make her permanently unable to bear children. One of the most useful discoveries of King Arn and Lady Ella.
It made Fire so angry, the thought of such a medicine, a violence done to herself to stop her from creating anything like herself. And what was the purpose of these eyes, this impossible face, the softness and the curves of this body, the strength of this mind; what was the point, if none of the men who desired her were to give her any babies, and all it ever brought her was grief ? What was the purpose of a woman monster?
It came out in a whisper. ‘What am I for?’
‘Excuse me, Lady?’ Musa said.
Fire shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ She took a step closer and pulled off her headscarf. Her hair slid down, shimmering. One of her guards gasped.
She was fully as beautiful as Cansrel. Indeed, she was very like him.
Behind her Brigan entered the great hall suddenly and stopped. In the mirror their eyes met, and held. It was clear he was in the middle of a thought or a conversation - one that her appearance had interrupted completely.
It was so rarely he held her eyes. All the feeling she’d been trying to batter away threatened to trickle back.
And then Garan caught up with Brigan, speaking sharply. Nash’s voice behind Garan, and then Nash himself appeared, saw her, and stopped cold beside his brothers. In a panic Fire grabbed at her hair to collect it, steeling herself against whatever stupid way the king intended to behave.
But it was all right, they were safe, for Nash was trying