Graceling Realm: Fire. Part 34

'Of course, Mila, please.'

In her arms Mila carried Liv, who was asleep, smelling like lavender, and making soft breathing noises. 'Lady,' Mila said. 'You once told me I may ask you for anything.'

'Yes,' Fire said, looking at the girl, surprised.

'I'd like to ask your advice.'

'Well, you shall have it, for whatever it's worth.'

Mila dropped her face to Liv's pale, fuzzy hair for a moment. She almost seemed afraid to speak. 'Lady,' she said. 'Do you think that in his treatment of women, the king is a man like Lord Archer?'

'Goodness,' Fire said, 'no. I can't see the king being careless with a woman's feelings. It seems fairer to compare him to his brothers.'

'Do you think,' Mila began, and then sat suddenly on the bed, trembling. 'Do you think a soldier girl from the southern Great Greys, sixteen years old with a baby, would be mad to consider-'

Mila stopped, her face buried against her child. And Fire felt the rise of her own clamouring happiness, like warm music ringing in the s.p.a.ces inside her. 'The two of you seem very fond of each other's company,' she said carefully, trying not to give her feelings away.

'Yes,' Mila said. 'We were together during the war, Lady, on the northern front, when I was a.s.sisting Lord Brocker. And I found myself going to him a very great deal, when he was recovering from his injury and I was preparing for my own laying in. And when Liv was born, he visited me just as faithfully, despite all his duties. He helped me to name her.'

'And has he said anything to you?'

Mila focused on the fringe of the blanket in her arms, from which suddenly protruded a fat little foot that flexed itself. 'He's said that he'd like to spend more time in my company, Lady. As much time as I'm willing to allow him.'

Still holding back on her smile, Fire spoke gently. 'I do think it's a very large question, Mila, and one you needn't rush to answer. You might do as he asks, and simply spend more time with him, and see how that feels. Ask him a million questions, if you have them. But no, I don't think it's mad. The royal family is . . . very flexible.'

Mila nodded, her face drawn in thought, seeming to consider Fire's words quite seriously. After a moment, she pa.s.sed Liv into Fire's arms. 'Would you like to visit with her for a bit, Lady?'

Scrunched against the pillows of her old bed, Archer's baby sighing and yawning against her, for a short span of time Fire was shatteringly happy.

THE LANDSCAPE BEHIND what had been Archer's house was a vastness of grey rock. They waited until sunset streaked the sky with red.

They had no body to burn. But Archer had had longbows tall as he, and crossbows, short bows, bows from his childhood that he had grown out of, but kept. Brocker was not wasteful, nor did he want to destroy all of Archer's things. But he came out of the house with a bow that Archer had strongly favoured and another that had been a childhood gift of Aliss's, and asked Fire to lay them on top of the kindling.

Fire did as she was asked, and then lay something of her own beside the bows. It was a thing she had kept in the bottom of her bags for well over a year now: the bridge of her ruined fiddle. For she had lit a blazing fire for Archer once before, but she had never even lit a candle for Cansrel.

She understood now that while it had been wrong to kill Cansrel, it had also been right. The boy with the strange eyes had helped her to see the rightness of it. The boy who'd killed Archer. Some people had too much power and too much cruelty to live. Some people were too terrible, no matter if you loved them; no matter that you had to make yourself terrible too, in order to stop them. Some things just had to be done.

I forgive myself, thought Fire. Today, I forgive myself.

Brigan and Roen set the pyre alight and all in the party came to stand before it. There was a song played in the Dells to mourn the loss of a life. Fire took her fiddle and bow from Musa's waiting hands.

It was a haunting tune, unresigned, a cry of heartache for all in the world that fell apart. As ash rose black against the brilliant sky, Fire's fiddle cried out for the dead, and for the living who stay behind and say goodbye.