Kristin Cashore - Fire

Fire

Fire

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

PART ONE - Monsters

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PART TWO - Spies

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

PART THREE - A Graceling

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

PART FOUR - The Dells

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

Fire

Also by Kristin Cashore

Graceling

Fire

Fire

KRISTIN CASHORE

Orion

www.orionbooks.co.uk

Fire

Copyright Kristin Cashore 2009

Map by Jeffery C. Matthison

All rights reserved

The right of Kristin Cashore to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 2009

by Gollancz

An imprint of the Orion Publishing Group

Orion House, 5 Upper St Martins Lane,

London WC2H 9EA

An Hachette UK Company

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eISBN : 978 0 5750 8675 3

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by Deltatype Ltd, Birkenhead, Merseyside

Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham, Kent

The Orion Publishing Groups policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

www.orionbooks.co.uk

Fire

For my little sister Catherine, the (Corinthian) pillar of my heart

Fire

Fire

Dellian Lament

While I was looking the other way your fire went out

Left me with cinders to kick into dust

What a waste of the wonder you were

In my living fire I will keep your scorn and mine

In my living fire I will keep your heartache and mine

At the disgrace of a waste of a life

Fire

PROLOGUE

LARCH OFTEN THOUGHT that if it had not been for his newborn son, he never would have survived his wife Mikras death. It was half that the infant boy needed a breathing, functioning father who got out of bed in the mornings and slogged through the day; and it was half the child himself. Such a good-natured baby, so calm. His gurgles and coos so musical, and his eyes deep brown like the eyes of his dead mother.

Larch was a game warden on the riverside estate of a minor lord in the south-eastern kingdom of Monsea. When Larch returned to his quarters after a day in the saddle, he took the baby from the arms of the nursemaid almost jealously. Dirty, stinking of sweat and horses, he cradled the boy against his chest, sat in his wifes old rocker, and closed his eyes. Sometimes he cried, tears painting clean stripes down a grimy face, but always quietly, so that he would not miss the sounds the child made. The baby watched him. The babys eyes soothed him. The nursemaid said it was unusual for a baby so young to have such focused eyes. Its not something to be happy about, she warned, a child with strange eyes.

Larch couldnt find it within himself to worry. The nursemaid worried enough for two. Every morning she examined the babys eyes, as was the unspoken custom of all new parents in the seven kingdoms, and every morning she breathed more easily once shed confirmed that nothing had changed. For the infant who fell asleep with both eyes the same colour and woke with eyes of two different colours was a Graceling; and in Monsea, as in most of the kingdoms, Graceling babies immediately became the property of the king. Their families rarely saw them again.

When the first anniversary of the birth of Larchs son had come and gone with no change to the boys brown eyes, the nursemaid still did not leave off her muttering. Shed heard tales of Graceling eyes that took more than a year to settle, and Graceling or not, the child was not normal. A year out of his mothers womb and already Immiker could say his own name. He spoke in simple sentences at fifteen months; he left his babyish pronunciation behind at a year and a half. At the beginning of her time with Larch the nursemaid had hoped her care would gain her a husband and a strong, healthy son. Now she found the baby who conversed like a miniature adult while he drank at her breast, who made an eloquent announcement whenever his underwrappings needed to be changed, positively creepy. She resigned her post.

Larch was happy to see the sour woman go. He constructed a carrier so that the child could hang against his chest while he worked. He refused to ride on cold or rainy days; he refused to gallop his horse. He worked shorter hours and took breaks to feed Immiker, nap him, clean his messes. The baby chattered constantly, asked for the names of plants and animals, made up nonsense poems that Larch strained to hear, for the poems always made Larch laugh.

Birdies love treetops to whirl themselves through, for inside of their heads they are birds, the boy sang, absent-mindedly, patting his hand on his fathers arm. Then, a minute later: Father?

Yes, son?

You love the things that I love you to do, for inside of your head are my words.

Larch was utterly happy. He couldnt remember why his wifes death had saddened him so. He saw now that it was better this way, he and the boy alone in the world. He began to avoid the people of the estate, for their tiresome company bored him, and he didnt see why they should deserve to share in the delight of his sons company.

One morning when Immiker was three years old Larch opened his eyes to find his son lying awake beside him, staring at him. The boys right eye was grey. His left eye was red. Larch shot up, terrified and heartbroken. Theyll take you, he said to his son. Theyll take you away from me.

Immiker blinked calmly. They wont, because youll come up with a plan to stop them.

To withhold a Graceling from the king was royal theft, punishable by imprisonment and fines Larch could never pay, but still Larch was seized by a compulsion to do what the boy said. They would have to ride east, into the rocky border mountains where hardly anyone lived, and find a patch of stone or scrub that could serve as a hiding place. As a game warden, Larch could track, hunt, build fires, and make a home for Immiker that no one would find.

IMMIKER WAS REMARKABLY calm about their flight. He knew what a Graceling was. Larch supposed the nursemaid had told him; or perhaps Larch himself had explained it and then forgotten hed done so. Larch was growing forgetful. He sensed parts of his memory closing up on him, like dark rooms behind doors he could no longer open. Larch attributed it to his age, for neither he nor his wife had been young when shed died birthing their son.

Ive wondered sometimes if your Grace has anything to do with speaking, Larch said as they rode the hills east, leaving the river and their old home behind.

It doesnt, Immiker said.

Of course it doesnt, Larch said, unable to fathom why hed ever thought it did. Thats all right, son, youre young yet. Well watch out for it. Well hope its something useful.