Fire by Kristin Cashore Page B

calm, to soothe the bottomless appetite, and then she would begin to push at its nature with all her strength, to shape thoughts there that Cansrel would never have on his own. Pity for a trapped animal. Respect for a woman. Contentment. It required all her strength. A mind slippery and cruel resists change.
    Cansrel never said so, but Fire believed his favourite drug was to have her in his mind, manhandling him into contentment. He was used to thrills, but contentment was a novelty, a state Cansrel seemed never to achieve except by her help. Warmth and softness two things that rarely touched him. He never, ever refused Fire when she asked permission to enter. He trusted her, for he knew that she used her power for good and never to harm.
    He only forgot to take into consideration the broken line separating good from harm.

    TODAY THERE WAS no entering Archer’s mind. He was shutting Fire out. Not that it particularly mattered, for she never entered Archer’s mind to alter it, only to test the waters, and she had no interest in the nature of his waters today. She was not going to apologise and she was not going to capitulate to the fight he wanted to have. Not that she would have to stretch far to find something to accuse him of. Condescension. Imperiousness. Obstinacy.
    They sat at a square table with Roen and a number of Roen’s spies discussing Fire’s trespassing archer, the men the archer had shot, and the fellow Fire had sensed in the king’s rooms yesterday.
    ‘There are plenty of spies out there and plenty of archers,’ Roen’s spymaster said, ‘though perhaps few as skilled as your mysterious archer seems to be. Lord Gentian and Lord Mydogg have built up whole squadrons of archers. And some of the kingdom’s finest archers are in the employ of animal smugglers.’
    Yes, Fire remembered that. The smuggler Cutter had bragged of his archers. It was how he caught his merchandise, with darts tipped with sleeping poison.
    ‘The Pikkians also have decent archers,’ another of Roen’s men said. ‘And I know we like to think of them as clannish and simple, interested in nothing but boat-building, deep sea fishing, and the occasional sack of our border towns - but they follow our politics. They’re not stupid, and they’re not on the king’s side. It’s our taxes and our trade regulations that have kept them poor these thirty years.’
    ‘Mydogg’s sister Murgda has just married a Pikkian,’ Roen said,
    ‘a naval explorer of the eastern seas. And we have reason to believe that lately Mydogg has been recruiting Pikkians into his Dellian army. And having some success at it.’
    Fire was startled; this was news, and not of the happy variety. ‘How big has Mydogg’s army grown?’
    ‘It’s still not as big as the King’s Army,’ Roen said firmly. ‘Mydogg has said to my face that he has twenty-five thousand soldiers at the underside, but our spies to his holding in the northeast put the count at only twenty thousand or so. Brigan has twenty thousand patrolling in the four branches alone, and an additional five thousand in the auxiliaries.’
    ‘And Gentian?’
    ‘We’re not certain. Our best guess is ten thousand or so, all living in caves below the Winged River near his estate.’
    ‘Numbers aside,’ the spymaster said, ‘everyone has archers and spies. Your archer could be working for anyone. If you’ll leave the arrow and bolt with us we may be able to eliminate some possibilities or at least determine where his gear comes from. But I’ll be honest with you: I wouldn’t hold out too much hope. You haven’t given us much to go on.’
    ‘The man who was killed in your cages,’ Roen said. ‘The one you call the poacher. He gave you no hint of his purpose? Even you, Fire?’
    ‘His mind was blank,’ Fire said. ‘No evil intent, no honourable intent. He had the feel of a simpleton, someone’s tool.’
    ‘And the man in the king’s rooms yesterday,’ Roen said. ‘Did he have that