Jolene
By Laura Schiller
Based on the Seven Kingdoms Trilogy
Copyright: Kristin Cashore
"Your smile is like a breath of spring
/your voice is soft like summer rain
and I cannot compete with you, Jolene.
(…) I'm begging of you, please don't take my man.
(…) Please don't take him even though you can."
- "Jolene", by Dolly Parton
It does not take long for Mila to realize that Lord Archer talks in his sleep.
"Fire, don't go," he murmurs, tossing on his pillow, his face gleaming with sweat in the light of the moon. "Please don't … I can't … " He trails off into incoherence, frustrated or frightened or simply unhappy, not even feeling Mila's tears as she holds him close.
She knew going into this that Archer and Lady Fire were once lovers, and childhood friends before that, but still her fifteen-year-old self had dared to hope that one day, she would be first in his heart. Now she understands just how foolish she has been.
Part of her longs to throw herself at the Lady's feet, beg her to release Archer from the spell of her monster beauty. You could have your choice of men, she'd argue, but I can never love again. He's the only one for me. And Fire would smile, and Archer's eyes would be opened, and no woman but Mila would ever haunt his dreams again.
However, naïve as she is, even she knows better than that. Archer is under no one's spell but his own heartbreak, and the only one who can free him is himself.
"Shh, my love," she whispers, stroking his forehead, willing the lie to come true: "It will be all right."
And even though he cannot hear her, he smiles.