Fire by Kristin Cashore Page A

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.
     
    S HEWAS 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 horse. And I hope you’ll tell me someday, Fire, why you did it.’
    With a swirl of skirts and a click of the latch, Roen was gone. Fire closed her eyes and considered the question.
    She’d done it because she’d had to. An apology for the life of her father, who’d created a world of lawlessness where towns like Grey Haven fell under the attack of looters. And she’d done it to show Roen’s son that she was on his side. And also to keep him alive.
     
    FIRE WAS ASLEEP in her room that night when all fifty men clattered back from Grey Haven. The prince and the king wasted no time, departing south immediately with the Third. When Fire woke the next morning they were gone.

    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
     
     
    C ANSREL HAD ALWAYS let Fire into his mind to practise changing his thoughts. He’d encouraged it, as part of her training. She went, but every time it was like a waking nightmare.
    She’d heard tales of fishermen who grappled for their lives with water monsters in the Winter Sea. Cansrel’s mind was like an eel monster, cold, slick, and voracious. Whenever she reached for it she felt clammy coils wrapping around her and pulling her under. She struggled madly, first simply to take hold of it; then to transform it into something soft and warm. A kitten. A baby.
    The warming of Cansrel’s mind took enormous burning energy. Then