shuddered at these quiet words addressed to her. Ferdinand must have blurted it out spontaneously, not wanting to hurt her at all, but everything stirred inside her.
“As unusual as those burned at the fires of the Inquisition?” She even laughed, short and bitter. The laughter echoed dryly through the leaves. “I can burn anyone myself, and you can see that. Are you afraid of me?”
She looked directly into his eyes, even in the darkness they were dazzling blue and clear. What an open look for a man who has to hide his political games. Does he look at everyone or just at her? Involuntarily she thought about it. Just one effort and she could read all his thoughts. Even an open book is not as accessible and easy to read as the human mind had become to her. And yet she was in no hurry to look into his mind. Perhaps it was because she herself was frightened to discover such insincerity?
“I admire you,” he leaned so close to her that he must have felt the heat of the fire emanating from the ball in her hands. His brow furrowed painfully, but he tried not to suppress the look of pain. Rhianon noticed the beads of sweat protruding on his smooth forehead. He wasn’t just hot around her, he felt threatened, but he didn’t pull away.
“You could be adored.”
“In spite of the fire?” She looked at him feignedly – innocently, and meanwhile the ball of fire above her palms began to grow in size and even hotter. Just as easily she could squeeze the solar core in her fist, just as she had once held in her hands the heart of Dennitsa, once in love, but still like a red-hot fire. What is it to her to crush the soul of a mortal king? It is a simple game, not an effort. Only she didn’t want to hurt Ferdinand at all. She felt that he was already hurting – his whole life before he met her.
“The women in Vinor are afraid of fire themselves,” he frowned. “I tried to tame the Inquisition. But my father always said it was necessary. It is necessary to keep the people in fear, and the unholy are far beyond the borders of the kingdoms. For this there is religion and its monstrous spawn: dogmas, rites, witch trials.”
“And yet in the king’s palaces the astrologers take refuge. They’re as important to you as your advisers.” Oh, how easy it was to read his mind. Ferdinand didn’t even catch her at it, didn’t ask her how she knew that. But he tried to justify himself.
“They are useful, the Inquisition almost not. The fires of the mortal martyrs don’t shut the magical creatures out of the forest…” he paused and looked expressively at her.
Rhianon understood and nodded. Meanwhile, the fireball in her hands had grown to the size of a child’s ball. If she hurled it forward, the flame would be enough to burn down a house or start a forest fire.
The fire was hot, but it didn’t burn her palms. Ferdinand, on the other hand, felt hot, almost to the point of pain. Let him know what it was like to be in a furnace. Rhianon grinned wryly.
“I am fire,” she whispered confidentially. “The element of fire is in me. Sometimes I think so. But I’m not going to turn innocent people into martyrs, only my enemies.”
“I’ve seen how those diabolical creatures, the dragons, react to you.”
She nodded.
“You don’t think I could burn them more, do you?”
He only shrugged.
“Maybe there’s something different about you.”
“Not looking for a halo over my head or hooves and a tail under my dress. I don’t have a martyr’s crown or devil’s horns under my hair. And I hope I never will.”
“So who are you?”
Now she shrugged her shoulders. To confess would be to break the fragile trust that had developed between them.
“Better tell me about the Inquisition. How long ago it appeared. Is it as long ago as religion itself. Or much later, people began to notice that there were those among them who tried to summon spirits at a time when faith and God should ward them off. Even in villages there are illiterate maidens who learn and draw witchcraft symbols on the road to summon and tame evil spirits, and then set them on the villagers. How to fight such witches, if not by lynching and bonfires? The Inquisition absolves others of guilt by exterminating witches or abusing their duties by dragging to the stake those who are in the clergy’s desire.”
“Sometimes,” he admitted honestly, “but…”
“But I would be executed for such speeches in Vinor,” she chuckled shortly. “It’s a simple power mechanism, to execute all those who displease you before they revolt against you. If I were the ruler of an earthly country, I could easily decide everything without executioners, without sentences, without advisers, with just one fire.”
She lowered her palms, and the fireball hung in the air, shining like the sun. Now it would explode with a million glittering sparks, or fly to ignite a dry fallen tree, her choice. Rhianon stared at the fire and wondered what she should do with it. Ferdinand beside her held his breath.
“I try to be fair,” he whispered softly, but it did not sound very convincing.
“There can be no justice where you want to keep power,” Rhianon remembered Manfred, and all the traitors in Loretta. If she hadn’t been so soft and weak and prone to justice, she could have defeated them all. All it took was a little cunning, to seduce Conrad, to get him to kill his father, and then to condemn him himself. A thousand cunning plans could have been devised, and she had simply decided to escape. Nothing more elaborate than that occurred to her. It was a pity…
No, there was nothing to be sorry about. She had met Madael, after all. If things had gone differently, she wouldn’t have recognized him. She’d come to know Dennitsa himself, and the consequences didn’t matter. Fire and eternity united. It was worth everything.
“I really try to make sure that at least others don’t break the laws.”
“Your established laws, and are they all just,” she interrupted defiantly. She wasn’t at all afraid that he might want to blow her head off, or at least intimidate her with his power. She was sure he wouldn’t do that.
When you hold someone in your arms, like this ball of fire that now hung in the darkness in front of her, you don’t worry about anything anymore. Tame fire is your element; there can be no rebellion in it. The ghost of the School of Witchcraft knew what he taught her. All you need is to know how to control fire, and it will not frighten you.
“I want justice, Rhianon, I want no unhappy people in my realm.”
“And I don’t want outside threats either. It is not only from men, but also from the evil of the forests. For this you are even ready to conclude a new political marriage, this time not with a mortal princess, but with a fairy queen out of the woods? You believe that an alliance with her would make the borders secure and the wicked obedient.”
Rhianon saw the blush on his cheeks. It pleased her. It was nice to see someone’s embarrassment.
Now she even understood why Orpheus so often joked and mocked others, he liked to feel like a winner. The joker is always on top, and the one who believes the joke is his plaything. That’s how jesters rule over kings. She laughed involuntarily. If Orpheus appeared to her now, she would not allow him any more such liberties. She must hold him in her hands.
“Don’t take everything so seriously. You, the ruler, are responsible for the people, for the nobles and for your own head. Just one conspiracy you didn’t watch out, and it’ll be off your shoulders. One mistake, one oversight, one failure to follow through, and you are no longer a king. Politics is a perpetual balance, life is black and white, there is no wholly white and wholly black even in heaven. God is also a ruler, sometimes very cruel, and the Devil is only his servant. The devil does evil only when he does God’s will, not when he wants to. We humans, ordinary and crowned alike, resort to belief in God