In the third chapter of\u00c2\u00a0Cold Fire<\/i>, I fucked it all up. I fucked it all up so badly. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0The Circle Opens<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For pyrophobia, ableism, and pedophilia. (I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know Bennat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s age, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clearly an adult, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m warning for this<\/b>.)<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know how to talk about anything else. I mean, first of all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so\u00c2\u00a0embarrassed<\/i>. LOOK WHAT I JUST WROTE IN THE LAST REVIEW. LOOK WHAT I COMMITTED TO VIDEO AND CAN NOW NEVER TAKE BACK. How? How do I even address this entire chapter after that\u00c2\u00a0thing<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0has now overshadowed it all?<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll try.<\/p>\n
Camoc Oakborn<\/b><\/p>\n
I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s telling that out of every character in this chapter, the one who got most of my suspicion was Camoc. Understandably, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a strange one. Abrasive to Daja at first, then shockingly sweet to her once he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spoken with her for a few minutes, he is ultimately a bewildering person. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready to trust him, though I\u00c2\u00a0did<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0understand his hesitance to take on Nia as a student. Look, Daja is biased when it comes to Nia because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gotten a chance to get relatively close to her. So Camoc\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insistence that rich children \u00e2\u20ac\u201c specifically, the child of the Bancoran family \u00e2\u20ac\u201c aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worth the investment stings her. She can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fathom that, though in his perspective, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0exactly<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0what happens.<\/p>\n
Personally, Nia doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem the type to me, but I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know her well. My gut is that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll want to learn and that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll respond to this type of environment. But I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that the kindness we see from Camoc in the second half of his conversation with Daja will show up with Nia, at least not for a long time. And, as Daja points out, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know if Nia will\u00c2\u00a0want<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0to work with Camoc in the first place. What if she hates him on sight, too?<\/p>\n
The Fire<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sitting here, re-reading portions of it, and I just want to lie down for hours and contemplate the utter wrongness of myself. When everyone in the crowd realized that someone else was still inside the building, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doubt that Bennat and Daja would find a way to rescue the woman. I expected Daja to use her magic to clear a path, to control the fire to give them access to the person trapped inside that building. And then this line struck me down, especially after Daja\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interaction with Camoc:<\/p>\n
Speaking to this man as she would speak to one of her Winding Circle teachers, Daja said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think I can get her.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
His reaction made her heart pound. He grabbed a bucket of water from one person, a blanket from another, and soaked the blanket thoroughly. Briskly he rolled it into a small bundle. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are you ready?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he asked.<\/p>\n
Daja nodded, mute with admiration. No going on about her youth, no refusal: he accepted her on her own terms. How many adults did that?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. I so totally believed that this man is what Daja needed in her life. Not that Frostpine or anyone else was\u00c2\u00a0lacking<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0or anything like that! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just that I appreciated his instant respect for her. He understood that she possessed a power great enough to be recognized as a mage the council, and he stood aside when he knew she could help more than he could do. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think he could have made it in and out of that house as quickly as Daja did.<\/p>\n
And what a\u00c2\u00a0scene<\/i>, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all! I kept expecting the worse: that the roof would collapse. That she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d leave the blind woman behind. That the blind woman would\u00c2\u00a0die<\/i>. That the cage of birds would all perish. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help it! The entire scene in that house is built to freak us out, you know? Daja had already been hurt by flames in her last book, so who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to say she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be gravely injured here? Hell, and once she realized this fire was set intentionally, I figured that all bets were off.<\/p>\n
But I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I was distracted and not seeing the forest for the trees. I was far more focused on the reaction of the crowd to what Daja had just done. Which, for the record, was spectacular. She jumped into a burning building, climbed to the third story, rescued a woman and her birds, and then:<\/p>\n
Ben waved some women forward. They wept as they took the wet blanket off Gruzha and wrapped her in a dry one, patting her head, face, and arms as if they couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe she was real. As they did they backed away from Daja, taking the blind girl with them. Daja held out the birds\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 cage, reclaiming the silvery protective shield she had put on it. The finches began to chatter in tiny voices as a woman carefully took the cage.<\/p>\n
Daja looked down. Her shirt and breeches, overcome by more fire than they were spelled against, were crumbling on her body. Firefighters and those in the crowd back away, just as Gruzha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friends had.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No thanks. No appreciation. As I mentioned before, Daja does not fit into this world, no matter what she does. That includes DRAMATICALLY SAVING SOMEONE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S LIFE. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still strange to all of them, and no amount of bravery or heroism will change that image in their heads. Bennat was the\u00c2\u00a0only<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0person aside from Serge to show any sort of interest or appreciation for Daja and what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done. So when Pierce switched the point of view to him, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I thought I was getting. More of his perspective on Daja\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heroism:<\/p>\n
As much as it burned him to see her go where he could not, it had been wonderful to see her in action. To watch the fire bend and reshape itself to her liking. She had gone up the steps and through the flame-wreathed door as she might walk into her own house. Flames slide from her clothes, her hair, her skin. In that moment alone she was a beauty and a terror, this stocky, brown-skinned girl with her calm, thoughtful eyes and her fistfuls of thin braids.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 okay. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little intense, but hey, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right. Daja is terrifyingly intimidating when she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at work, and I was thankful he was able to recognize this, right up to the point that I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thankful at all.<\/p>\n
He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done such a fine job of shaping this fire, starting on both sides of the basement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What.<\/p>\n
He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d left an escape path clear in case anyone remained inside, because he did try to cover all possibilities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT.<\/p>\n
He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d honestly thought he was being overcareful, that no one was there when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d lit the wicks in their lamps of oil.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT THE FUCK.<\/p>\n
Nobody was supposed to die, particularly not some blind shopgirl, but the firefighters had to be tested. They had to prove themselves, not on some tame fire, in a building that was scheduled for destruction, but on a real fire with lives and property to worry them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
THIS ISN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T HAPPENING. I honestly thought I misread this because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 who reveals something like this\u00c2\u00a0in the third chapter???<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0OH GODS, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n
They ought to flinch from a goddess like her. They weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit to kiss her bare feet as she stood there in the icy mud, offering the birdcage to anyone who would take it.<\/p>\n
Why was she here, in Kugisko, now? Had she come for him, to make him her servant, or her priest?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too much, or so I thought:<\/p>\n
He would have to see. He would have to find out if she was worth his service. She might not even\u00c2\u00a0be<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0a goddess, just another self-satisfied mage. And wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it funny, at his age, to fall in a kind of love with a teenaged girl barefoot in the mud, her clothes blackened and crumbling, her dark skin gleaming with sweat? Whatever she was, he would love her until they died.<\/p>\n
I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even fathom how fucked up this is. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t begin to tear this apart and examine how complicated and messy and scary this is. THIS IS THE THIRD CHAPTER, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL!!! HOW IS THIS HAPPENING SO EARLY???<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-pltBzV4_KE<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– Please help book\/finalize the Mark Does Stuff European Tour!<\/a>
\n– I am now on Patreon<\/a><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>.
\n– The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K., and Ireland. Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be the remainder of\u00c2\u00a0The Legend of Korra<\/i>, series 8 of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, and Kings<\/i>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the third chapter of\u00c2\u00a0Cold Fire, I fucked it all up. I fucked it all up so badly. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0The Circle Opens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[497,477,490],"tags":[482,250],"class_list":["post-3405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cold-fire","category-emelan","category-the-circle-opens","tag-mark-reads-emelan","tag-tamora-pierce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}