Fire (Graceling Realm #2)(20)
Author: Kristin Cashore

Fire decided to imagine that she was out for a gallop with her guard, and none of these other thousands existed. No river or road to her right, no King's City before her. To think this way was a comfort, and her body screamed for comfort.

WHEN THE FIRST stopped for its midday meal, Fire had no appetite. She sat in the grass, elbows on knees, holding her throbbing head in place.

'Lady,' the commander's voice said above her.

Fire assumed a placid expression and looked up. 'Yes, Lord Prince?'

'Are you in need of a healer, Lady?'

'No, Lord Prince. I was only thinking about something.'

He didn't believe her, she could see it in the sceptical set of his mouth; but he let it go. 'I've received an urgent summons from the south,' he said. 'I'll be on my way as soon as we've reached the king's court. I wondered if there was anything you wanted, Lady, that I could provide before I go.'

Fire tugged at a patch of grass and swallowed this disappointment. She could think of nothing she wanted, not that anyone could provide, except for the answer to a question. She asked it very quietly.

'Why are you kind to me?'

He paused, watching her hands that pulled at the grass. He crouched down to her eye level. 'Because I trust you.'

The world went very still around her, and she stared hard at the grass. The green of it was radiant in the sun's light.

'Why should you trust me?'

He glanced at the soldiers around them and shook his head. 'A conversation for another time.'

'I've thought of a thing you can do for me,' she said. 'I've thought of it in this very moment.'

'Go on.'

'You can take a guard when you go wandering at night.' And then, when his eyebrows shot up and she saw him formulating his refusal: 'Please, Lord Prince. There are people who'd like to kill you, and many others who'd die to prevent it. Show some respect to those who value your life so highly.'

He turned his face away from her, frowning. His voice was not pleased. 'Very well.'

That point settled, and sorry now, most likely, that he'd ever started the conversation, Brigan went back to his horse.

IN THE SADDLE again, Fire mulled over the commander's trust, prodding and pushing it around, like a candy in her mouth, trying to decide whether she believed it. It wasn't that she thought him likely to lie. It was only that she thought him unlikely to trust - not completely, anyway, not the way Brocker or Donal did, or Archer, on the days Archer decided to trust her.

The problem with Brigan was that he was so closed. When had she ever had to judge a person by words alone? She had no formula for understanding a person like him, for he was the only one she'd ever met.

THE WINGED RIVER was so named because before its waters reached their journey's end, they took flight. At the place where the river leapt off a great green cliff and plunged into the Winter Sea, King's City had grown, starting on the north bank and spreading outward and south across the river. Joining the older city with the younger were bridges, the building of which had sent more than one unfortunate engineer over the falls to his death. A canal of steep locks on the northern side connected the city with Cellar Harbour far below.

Passing through the city's outer walls with her escort of five thousand, Fire felt herself a gawkish country girl. So many people in this city, smells and noises, buildings painted bright colours, steeply roofed, crammed together, red wooden houses with green trim, purple and yellow, blue and orange. Fire had never seen a building before that was not made of stone. It hadn't occurred to her that houses could be any colour but grey.

People hung out of windows to watch the First Branch pass. Women in the street flirted with the soldiers, and threw flowers, so many flowers Fire couldn't believe the extravagance. These people tossed more flowers over Fire's head than she had seen in a lifetime.

A flower splatted against the chest of one of Brigan's top sword-fighters, riding to Fire's right. When Fire laughed at him, he beamed, and handed the flower to her. On this journey through the city streets Fire was surrounded not just by her guard but by Brigan's most proficient fighters, Brigan himself on her left. The commander wore the grey of his troops, and he'd positioned the standard-bearer some distance behind. It was all in an attempt to reduce the attention Fire drew, and Fire knew she wasn't playing her part in the charade. She should have been sitting gravely, her face bent to her hands, catching no one's eye. Instead she was laughing - laughing, and smiling, and numb to her aches and pains, and sparkling with the strangeness and the bustle of this place.

And then before too long - she couldn't have said if she sensed it or heard it first, but there was a change in their audience. A whisper seemed to work its way in among the cheers, and then a strange silence; a lull. She felt it: wonder, and admiration. And Fire understood that even with her hair covered, and even in her drab, dirty riding clothes, and even though this town hadn't seen her, possibly hadn't thought of her in seventeen years, her face and her eyes and her body had told them who she was. And her headscarf had confirmed it, for why else would she cover her hair? She became mindful of her animation that was only making her glow more brightly. She erased her smile and dropped her eyes.

Brigan signalled to his standard-bearer to come forward and ride beside them.

Fire spoke low. 'I sense no danger.'

'Nonetheless,' Brigan said grimly, 'if an archer leans out one of these windows, I want him to notice both of us. A man revenging himself on Cansrel isn't going to shoot you if he risks hitting me.'

She thought of joking about it. If her enemies were Brigan's friends and her friends were Brigan's enemies, the two of them could walk through the world arm in arm and never be hit by arrows again.

But an eerie sound rose now from the silence. 'Fire,' a woman called from an upstairs window. A cluster of barefoot children in a doorway echoed the call. 'Fire. Fire!' And other voices joined in, and the cry swelled, until suddenly the people were singing out the word, chanting it, some in veneration, some almost in accusation - some with no reason at all except that they were caught up in the captive and mindless fervour of a crowd. Fire rode toward the walls of Nash's palace, stunned, confounded, by the music of her own name.

THE FAÇADE OF the king's palace was black, this Fire had heard. But the knowledge didn't prepare her for the beauty or the luminosity of the stone. It was a black that shifted depending on the angle from which it was viewed, and that shimmered, and reflected the light of other things, so that Fire's first impression was of changing panels of black and grey and silver, and blue reflected from the eastern sky, and orange and red from the setting sun.

Fire's eyes had been starved for the colours of King's City, and she hadn't even known it. How her father must have shone in this place.

The five thousand soldiers veered off as Fire, her guard, and Brigan approached the ramp to the gates.

Spears were raised and the doors swung in. The horses passed through a black stone gatehouse and emerged into a white courtyard dazzling with the reflection of the sunset on quartz walls, and the sky pink behind flashing glass roofs. Fire craned her neck and gaped at the walls and roofs. A steward approached them and gaped at Fire.

'Eyes on me, Welkley,' Brigan said, swinging down from his horse.

Welkley, short, thin, impeccably dressed and groomed, cleared his throat and turned to Brigan. 'Forgive me, Lord Prince. I've sent someone to the offices to alert Princess Clara of your arrival.'

'And Hanna?'

'In the green house, Lord Prince.'

Brigan nodded and held a hand up to Fire. 'Lady Fire, this is the king's first steward, Welkley.'

Fire knew this was her cue to dismount and give her hand to Welkley, but when she moved, a spasm of pain radiated outward from the small of her back. She caught her breath, gritted her teeth, pulled her leg over her saddle and tipped, leaving it to Brigan's instincts to keep her from landing on her backside before the king's first steward. He caught her coolly and propped her on her feet, his face impassive, as if it were routine for her to launch herself at him every time she dismounted; and scowled at the white marble floor while she presented her hand to Welkley.

A woman entered the courtyard then that Fire could not fail to sense, a force of nature. Fire turned to locate her and saw a head of bouncy brown hair, sparkling eyes, a sparkling smile, and a handsome and ample figure. She was tall, nearly as tall as Brigan. She threw her arms around him, laughing, and kissed his nose. 'This is a treat,' she said. And then, to Fire, 'I'm Clara. And now I understand Nash; you're more stunning even than Cansrel.'

Fire couldn't find words to respond to this, and Brigan's eyes, suddenly, were pained. But Clara simply laughed again and patted Brigan's face. 'So serious,' she said. 'Go on, little brother. I'll take care of the lady.'

Brigan nodded. 'Lady Fire, I'll find you before I take my leave. Musa,' he said, turning to Fire's guard, who stood quietly with the horses. 'Go with the lady, all of you, wherever Princess Clara takes her.

Clara, see that a healer visits her, today. A woman.' He kissed Clara's cheek hurriedly. 'In case I don't see you again.' He spun away and practically ran through one of the arched doorways leading into the palace.

'He always has a fire under his tail, Brigan,' Clara said. 'Come, Lady, I'll show you your rooms. You'll like them, they overlook the green house. The fellow who tends the green house gardens? Trust me, Lady, you'd let him stake your tomatoes.'

Fire was speechless with astonishment. The princess grabbed the lady's arm and pulled her toward the palace.

FIRE'S SITTING ROOM did indeed overlook a curious wooden house tucked into the back grounds of the palace. The house was small, painted a deep green, and surrounded by lush gardens and trees so that it seemed to blend in, as if it had sprouted from the ground like the growing things around it.

The famous gardener was nowhere in sight, but as Fire watched from her window, the door to the house opened. A young, chestnut-haired woman in a pale yellow dress stepped outside and passed through the orchard to the palace.

'It's Roen's house, technically,' Clara said, standing at Fire's shoulder. 'She had it built because she believed the king's queen should have a place to retreat to. She lived there fully after she broke with Nax. She's given it to Brigan's use, for the moment, until Nash chooses a queen.'

And so that young woman must be associated with Brigan. Interesting, indeed, and a very pretty view, until Fire moved to her bedchamber windows and encountered a sight she appreciated even more: the stables. She stretched her mind and found Small, and was immensely comforted to know he would be near enough for her to feel.

Her rooms were too large, but comfortable, the windows open and fitted with wire screens; a consideration someone had taken for her specially, she suspected, so she could pass her window with her hair uncovered and not have to worry about raptor monsters or an invasion of monster bugs.

It occurred to her then that perhaps these had been Cansrel's rooms, or Cansrel's screens. Just as quickly she dismissed the possibility. Cansrel would have had more rooms, and larger, closer to the king, overlooking one of the white inner courtyards, with a balcony outside each tall window, as she'd seen when she first entered the courtyard.