““Archer stared at the floor, tapping the end of his bow against the hard wood. Thinking. “I’m going to Queen Roen’s fortress,” he said. Fire glanced at him sharply. “Why?” “I need to beg more soldiers of her, and I want the information of her spies. She might have thoughts about whether these strangers have anything to do with Mydogg or Gentian. I want to know what’s going on in my forest, Fire, and I want this archer.” “I’m going with you,” Fire said. “No,” Archer said flatly. “I am.” “No. You can’t defend yourself. You can’t even ride.” “It’s only a day’s journey. Wait a week. Let me rest, and then I’ll go with you.” Archer held up a hand and turned away from her. “You’re wasting your breath. Why would I ever allow such a thing?” Because Roen is always unaccountably kind to me when I visit her northern fortress, Fire wanted to say. Because Roen knew my mother. Because Roen is a strong-minded woman, and there’s something consoling in the regard of a woman. Roen never desires me, or if she ever does, it’s not the same. “Because,” she said out loud, “Roen and her spies will have questions for me about what happened when the poacher shot me, and what little I managed to sense from his mind. And because,” she added, as Archer moved to object, “you are neither my husband nor my father; I am a woman of seventeen, I have my own horses and my own money, and I decide for myself where I go and when. This is not yours to forbid.””
