"I am."
"No. You can't defend yourself. You can't even ride."
"It's only a day's journey. Wait a week. Let me rest, and then I'll go with you."
Archer held up a hand and turned away from her. "You're wasting your breath. Why would I ever allow such a thing?"
Because Roen is always unaccountably kind to me when I visit her northern fortress, Fire wanted to say. Because Roen knew my mother. Because Roen is a strong-minded woman, and there's something consoling in the regard of a woman. Roen never desires me, or if she ever does, it's not the same.
"Because," she said out loud, "Roen and her spies will have questions for me about what happened when the poacher shot me, and what little I managed to sense from his mind. And because," she added, as Archer moved to object, "you are neither my husband nor my father; I am a woman of seventeen, I have my own horses and my own money, and I decide for myself where I go and when. This is not yours to forbid."
Archer slammed the end of his bow against the floor, but Lord Brocker was chuckling. "Don't argue with her, boy. If it's information you're after, you're a fool not to take the monster at your disposal."
"The roads are dangerous," Archer said, practically spitting.
"It's dangerous here," Brocker retorted. "Isn't she safest with your bow to defend her?"
"She's safest inside, in a room with the door closed and locked."
Brocker turned his chair toward the exit. "She has precious few friends, Archer. It would be cruel for you to rush off to Roen and leave her behind."
Fire found that she was holding the kitten close, cradling him against her breast, as if she were shielding him from something. From the way it felt to have her movements, her feelings, even, debated by two prickly men. She had the sudden mad wish that this little green-haired creature in her arms were her own baby, to hold and adore and to deliver her from people who did not understand her. Foolish, she thought to herself furiously. Don't even think it. What does the world need with another mind-stealing baby?
Lord Brocker grasped Archer's hand and looked into his eyes, steadying his son, calming him. Then Brocker rolled to the exit and closed the door on their quarrel.
Archer watched Fire, his face uncertain. And Fire sighed, finally forgiving her stubborn friend and the stubborn father who'd adopted him. Their arguments, however they squashed her, were drawn from the wells of two very large hearts.
She dropped the kitten to the floor and stood, taking Archer's hand as his father had done. Archer looked down at their joined hands soberly. He brought her fingers to his mouth, kissed her knuckles, and made a show of inspecting her hand, as if he'd never seen it before.
"I'll pack my things," Fire said. "Just tell me when we're leaving."
She stretched onto her toes to kiss his cheek, but he intercepted her and began to kiss her mouth, gently. She let him, for just a moment. Then she extricated herself and left the room.
Chapter Four
Fire's horse was named Small, and he was another of Cansrel's gifts. She had chosen him over all the other horses because his coat was dun and drab and because of the quiet way he'd followed her back and forth, the pasture fence between them, the day she'd gone to one of Cutter's shows to choose.
The other horses had either ignored her or become jumpy and agitated around her, pushing against each other and snapping. Small had kept on the outside of the bunch of them, where he was safe from their jostling. He'd trotted along beside Fire, stopping when she stopped, blinking at her hopefully; and whenever she'd walked away from the fence he had stood waiting for her until she came back.
"Small, his name is," Cutter had said, "because his brain's the size of a pea. Can't teach him anything. He's no beauty, either."
Cutter was Cansrel's horse dealer and his favourite monster smuggler. He lived in the western Great Greys and, once a year, carted his merchandise all over the kingdom in large caravans, showing his wares and selling them. Fire did not like him. He was not kind to his animals. And his mouth was wide and loose and his eyes were always settling on her in a way that felt proprietary and disgusting, a way that made her want to curl up into a ball to cover herself.
He was also wrong about Small. Fire knew the look of stupid eyes and the feel of a fatuous mind, in animals and in men, and she had sensed none of this with Small. What she had sensed was the way the gelding trembled and balked whenever Cutter came near, and the way the trembling stopped when Fire touched him, and whispered her greetings. Fire was used to being wanted for her beauty, but she was not used to being needed for her gentleness.
When Cutter and Cansrel had walked away for a moment, Small had strained his neck over the fence and rested his chin on her shoulder. She'd scratched him behind the ears, and he'd made small blissful noises and breathed spit onto her hair. She had laughed, and a door in her heart had opened. Apparently there was such a thing as love at first sight; or love at first spit, anyway.
Cutter had told her she was daft, and Cansrel had tried to talk her into a stunning black mare that suited her own flamboyant beauty. But it was Small she'd wanted, and Small that Cutter had delivered three days later. Shaking, terrified, because Cutter in his inhumanity had stuck the horse into a wagon along with a mountain lion monster Cansrel had purchased, with nothing but what amounted to a shaky arrangement of wooden slats separating them. Small had come out of the wagon rearing and screaming, and Cutter had stung him with his whip and called him a coward.
Fire had run to the horse, choked with indignation, and put all the passionate calm feeling she could into soothing his mind; and she'd told Cutter furiously, in the kind of words she never used, just what she thought of his way with his goods.
Cutter had laughed and told her she was doubly pleasing when she was angry – which had, of course, been a grave mistake on his part, for anyone with a modicum of intelligence would have known better than to treat Lady Fire with disrespect in the very presence of her father. Fire had pulled Small quickly to the side, because she'd known what was coming. First Cansrel had caused Cutter to grovel, and apologise, and weep. Then he'd caused him to believe himself to be in agonising pain from imaginary injuries. Finally he'd switched to the real thing, kicking Cutter calmly in the groin, repeatedly, until Cansrel was satisfied he understood.
Small, in the meantime, had gone quiet at Fire's first touch, and had done everything, from that first moment, that she had ever asked.
Today as she stood at Small's side, dressed warmly against the dawn, Archer came to her and offered his hand. She shook her head and grabbed the pommel one-handed. She pulled herself up, catching her breath against the pain.
She'd had only seven days of rest, and her arm, uncomfortable now, would be aching by the end of this ride. But she was determined not to be treated like an invalid. She sent a swelling of serenity to Small, a gentle plea for him to ride smoothly for her today. It was another reason Small and she were well-suited to each other. He had a warm, receptive mind.
"Give my regards to the lady queen," Lord Brocker said from his chair in the middle of the footpath. "Tell her, if the day ever comes when she has a moment of peace, to come visit an old friend."
"We shall," Archer said, pulling on his gloves. He reached behind his head to touch the fletchings of the arrows on his back, as he always did before mounting his horse – as if he had ever once in his life forgotten his quiver – and then swung himself into his own saddle. He waved the guards forward, and Fire behind them. He fell into place behind Fire, and they were off.
They rode with eight soldiers. It was more than Archer would have taken had he gone alone, but not many more. No one in the Dells travelled with fewer than six others, unless he was desperate or suicidal or had some perverse reason for wanting to be attacked by footpads. And the disadvantage of Fire's presence, as an injured rider and a popular target, was nearly negated by her ability to sense both the proximity and the attitude of the minds of approaching strangers.