Then in her rooms, she found the guards who were stationed there in a peculiar state. "A man came to the door, Lady," Musa said, "but he made no sense. He said he was from the king and he'd come to examine the view from your windows, but I didn't recognise him as a king's man and I didn't trust what he wanted. I didn't let him in."
Fire was rather astonished. "The view from my windows? Why on earth?"
"He didn't feel right, Lady," Neel said. "There was something funny about him. Nothing he said made any sense."
"He felt well enough to me," another guard said gruffly. "The king will not be pleased that we disobeyed."
"No," Musa said to her soldiers. "Enough of this argument. Neel is right, the man had a bad feeling to him."
"He made me dizzy," Mila said.
"He was an honourable man," another said, "and I don't believe we have the authority to turn the king's men away."
Fire stood in her doorway, her hand on the door frame to steady herself. She was certain as she listened to the disagreement between her guards – her guards, who never argued in front of their lady, and never talked back to their captain – that something was wrong. It wasn't just that they argued, or that this visitor sounded a suspicious fellow. Neel had said the man hadn't felt right; well, a number of her guards at this moment didn't feel right. They were much more open to her than usual, and a fog hovered in their minds. The most affected were the guards who argued now with Musa.
And she knew through some instinct, monster or human, that if they spoke of this man as honourable, they were reading him wrong. She knew with a certainty that she couldn't explain that Musa had been right to turn the man away.
"What did he look like, this fellow?"
A few of the guard scratched their heads and grumbled that they couldn't remember; and Fire could almost reach out and touch the fog of their minds. But Musa's mind was clear. "He was tall, Lady, taller than the king, and thin, wasted. He had white hair and dark eyes and he was not well. His colour was off, he was grey-like, and he had marks on his skin. A rash."
"A rash?"
"He wore plain clothing, and he had a positive armament of bows on his back – crossbow, short bow, a truly gorgeous longbow. He had a full quiver and a knife, but no sword."
"The arrows in his quiver. What were they made of ?"
Musa pursed her lips. "I didn't notice."
"A white wood," Neel said.
And so the foggy-headed archer had come to her rooms to see her views. And had left a number of her guards with puzzled expressions, and foggy heads.
Fire walked to the foggiest guard, the first who'd raised an argument, a fellow named Edler who was normally quite amiable. She put her hand to his forehead. "Edler. Does your head hurt?"
It took Edler a moment to process his answer. "It doesn't exactly hurt, Lady, but I don't feel quite like myself."
Fire considered how to word this. "May I have your permission to try to clear the discomfort?"
"Certainly, Lady, if you wish."
Fire entered Edler's consciousness easily, as she had the poacher's. She played around with his fog, touched it and twisted it, trying to decide what exactly it was. It seemed like a balloon that was filling his mind with emptiness, pushing his own intelligence to the edges.
Fire jabbed the balloon hard and it popped, and fizzled. Edler's own thoughts rushed forward and fell into place; and he rubbed his head with both hands. "It does feel better, Lady. I can picture that man clearly. I don't think he was the king's man."
"He wasn't the king's man," Fire said. "The king wouldn't send a sickly fellow armed with a longbow to my rooms to admire my views."
Edler sighed. "Rocks, but I'm tired."
Fire moved on to her next foggy guard, and thought to herself that here was a thing more ominous than anything she'd uncovered yet in the questioning rooms.
On her bed later she found a letter from Archer. Once the summer harvest was through, he intended to visit. It was a happiness, but it did not lighten the state of things.
She had thought herself the only person in the Dells capable of altering minds.
Chapter Eighteen
The year Fire spent training her father to experience things that didn't exist was also, thankfully, the year her relationship with Archer found a new happiness.
Cansrel hadn't minded experiencing non-existent things, for it was a time when existing things depressed him. Nax had been his conduit to all pleasures, and Nax was gone. Brigan grew more influential and had escaped another attack uninjured. It was some relief for Cansrel to feel sun on his skin in the midst of weeks of drizzle, or taste monster meat when it was not being served. There was solace in the touch of his daughter's mind – now that she knew better than to turn flames into flowers.
On her side of things, Fire's body suffered; she lost her appetite, grew thin, had attacks of dizziness, got cramps in her neck and shoulders that made playing music painful and brought on splitting headaches. She avoided contemplation of the thing she was thinking of doing. She was certain that if she looked at it straight on she'd lose control of herself.
Archer was not, in fact, the only person that year to bring her comfort. A young woman named Liddy, sweet and hazel-eyed, was the maid of Fire's bedrooms. She came upon Fire one spring day curled on the bed, fighting off a whirling panic. Liddy liked her mild young lady, and was sorry at her distress. She sat beside Fire and stroked her hair, at Fire's forehead and behind her ears, against her neck, and down to the small of her back. The touch was kindly meant, and the deepest and tenderest comfort in the world. Fire found herself resting her head in Liddy's lap while Liddy continued stroking. It was a gift, offered unjealously, and Fire accepted it.
That day, from that moment, something quiet grew between them. An alliance. They brushed each other's hair sometimes, helped each other dress and undress. They stole time together, whispering, like little girls who've discovered a soul mate.
Some things could not happen in Cansrel's proximity without Cansrel knowing; monsters knew things. Cansrel began to complain about Liddy. He did not like her, he did not like the time they spent together. Finally he lost patience and arranged a marriage for Liddy, sending her away to an estate beyond the town.
Fire was breathless, astounded, and heartbroken. Certainly she was glad that he'd merely sent Liddy away, not killed her or taken her into his own bed to teach her a lesson. But still, it was a bitter and selfish cruelty. It did not make her merciful.
Perhaps her lonesomeness after Liddy prepared her for Archer, though Liddy and Archer were manifestly different.
During that spring and into the summer she turned fifteen, Archer knew what mad thing Fire was contemplating. He knew why she couldn't eat and why her body suffered. It tormented him, took him out of his mind with fear for her. He fought with her about it; he fought with Brocker, who was also worried but who nonetheless refused to interfere. Over and over he begged Fire to release herself from the entire endeavour. Over and over Fire refused.
One August night during a frantic whispered battle under a tree outside her house, he kissed her. She stiffened, startled, and then knew, as his hands reached for her and he kissed her again, that she wanted this, she needed Archer, her body needed this wildness that was also comfort. She burrowed herself against him; she brought him inside and upstairs. And that was that; child companions became lovers. They found a place where they could agree, a release from the anxiety and unhappiness that threatened to overwhelm them. After making love with her friend, Fire often found herself wanting to eat. Kissing her and laughing, Archer would feed her in her own bed with food he carried in through the window.