And of course, the north was where Brigan had gone, because Brigan always went wherever things were going most badly. Fire supposed he needed to be there in order to give rousing speeches and lead the charge into the fray, or whatever it was commanders did in wartime. She resented his competence at something so tragic and senseless. She wished he, or somebody, would throw down his sword and say, "Enough! This is a silly way to decide who's in charge!" And it seemed to her, as the beds in the healing room filled and emptied and filled, that these battles didn't leave much to be in charge of. The kingdom was already broken, and this war was tearing the broken pieces smaller.

Cansrel would have liked it. Meaningless destruction was to his taste. The boy probably would've liked it too.

Archer would have reserved his judgment – reserved it from her, at least, knowing her scathing opinion. And whatever his opinion, he would have gone out and fought bravely for the Dells.

As Brigan and Nash were doing.

When Nash's front guard clattered through the gate, Fire was ashamed to find herself running up to the roof, stumbling, uncontrolled.

Beautiful horse, she cried out to her companion. Beautiful horse, I can't bear this. I can bear Archer and Cansrel if I must, but I cannot bear this too. Make him go away. Why must my friends be soldiers?

Some time later, when Nash came to the roof to find her, she didn't kneel, like her own guard and the roof guard did. She kept her back turned to Nash and her eyes on the horse, her shoulders hunched as if to protect herself from his presence.

"Lady Fire," he said.

Lord King. I mean no disrespect, but I beg you to go away.

"Certainly, Lady, if you wish it," he said mildly. "But first I've promised to deliver about a hundred messages from the northern front and the city – from my mother, your grandmother, Hanna, Brocker, and Mila, for starters."

Fire imagined a message from Brocker: I blame you for the death of my son. A message from Tess: You've ruined your beautiful hands with your carelessness, haven't you, Lady Granddaughter? A message from Hanna: You left me here alone.

Very well, she thought to Nash. Tell me your messages, if you must.

"Well," Nash said, somewhat bemused, "they send their love, of course. And their heartbreak over Archer, and their relief that you're alive. And Hanna specifically asked me to tell you that Blotchy is recovering. Lady – " He stopped. "Fire," he said. "Why will you talk to my sister and my brothers but not to me?"

She snapped at him. If Brigan said we talked he was being disingenuous.

Nash paused. "He didn't. I suppose I assumed. But surely you've been talking to Clara and Garan."

Clara and Garan aren't soldiers. They aren't going to die, she thought to him, realising as she conveyed it that this reasoning was flawed, for Garan could die of his illness, and Clara of childbirth. And Tess of old age, and Brocker and Roen of an attack on their travelling party, and Hanna could be thrown from a horse.

"Fire – "

Please, Nash, please. Don't make me talk about reasons, please, just let me be alone. Please!

He was stung by this. He turned to go. Then he stopped and turned back. "Just one more thing. Your horse is in the stables."

Fire looked across the rocks at the grey horse stamping her hooves at the snow, and didn't understand. She sent her confusion to Nash.

"Didn't you tell Brigan you wanted your horse?" he asked.

Fire spun around, looking straight at him for the first time. He struck a handsome figure and fierce, a tiny new scar running into his lip, his cloak hanging over armour of mail and leather. She said, "You don't mean Small?"

"Of course," he said, "Small. Anyway, Brigan thought you wanted him. He's downstairs."

Fire ran.

She had cried so often and so much since she'd found Archer's body, cried at the slightest thing, always silent tears rolling down her face. The way she began to cry when she saw Small, plain and quiet with his hair in his eyes, pressing against his stall door to reach her, was different. She thought she might choke from the violence of these sobs, or rip something inside her.

Musa was alarmed, and came into the stall with her, rubbing her back as she clung to Small's neck and gasped. Neel produced handkerchiefs. It was no use. She couldn't stop crying.

It's my fault, she said to Small over and over. Oh Small, it's my fault. I was supposed to be the one to die, not Archer. Archer was never supposed to die.

After a long time, she cried herself to a place where she understood that it was not her fault. And then she cried more, from the simple grief of knowing that he was gone.

She woke, not from a nightmare, but to something – something comforting. The sensation of being wrapped in warm blankets and sleeping against a warm breathing back that belonged to Small.

Musa and several other guards were having a murmured conversation with someone outside the stall. Fire's bleary mind groped its way toward them. The someone was the king.

Her panic was gone, replaced with an odd, peaceful emptiness. She pushed herself up and ran her bandaged hand lightly along Small's wonderful barrel body, swerving to touch the places where his fur grew crooked around raptor monster scars. His mind snoozed gently, and the hay near his face moved with his breath. He was a dark lump in the torchlight. He was perfect.

She touched Nash's mind. He came to the stall door and leaned over it, looking at her. Hesitation, and love, obvious on his face and in his feeling.

"You're smiling," he said.

Naturally, tears were the response to these words. Angry with herself, she tried to stop them, but they squeezed out nonetheless.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He came into the stall and crouched down in the space between Small's head and chest. He stroked Small's neck, considering her.

"I understand you've been crying a great deal," he said.

"Yes," she said, defeated.

"You must be tired and sore from it."

"Yes."

"And your hands. Are they still very painful?"

There was something comforting about this calm interrogation. "They're a bit better than they were."

He nodded gravely and continued to stroke Small's neck. He was dressed as before, except now he carried his helmet under one arm. He seemed older in the darkness and the orange light. He was older, ten years older, than herself. Almost all of her friends were older; even Brigan, the youngest sibling, was almost five years her senior. But she didn't think it was the difference in years that made her feel like such a child, surrounded by adults.

"Why are you still here?" she asked. "Shouldn't you be in a cave somewhere inspiring people?"

"I should," he said, shouldering her sarcasm lightly, "and I came here for my horse so that I might ride out to the camps. But now I'm talking to you instead."

Fire traced a long, thin scar on Small's back. She thought about her tendency lately to communicate more easily with horses and dying strangers than with the people she had thought she loved.

"It's not reasonable to love people who are only going to die," she said.

Nash thought about that for a moment, stroking Small's neck with great deliberation, as if the fate of the Dells depended on that smooth, careful movement.

"I have two responses to that," he said finally. "First, everyone's going to die. Second, love is stupid. It has nothing to do with reason. You love whomever you love. Against all reason I loved my father." He looked at her keenly. "Did you love yours?"

"Yes," she whispered.

He stroked Small's nose. "I love you," he said, "even knowing you'll never have me. And I love my brother, more than I ever realised before you came along. You can't help whom you love, Lady. Nor can you know what it's liable to cause you to do."