Graceling

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They left well before daylight. Raffin and Bann saw them off, the two medicine makers bleary-eyed, Bann yawning endlessly. The morning was cold, and Katsa was wide awake, and quiet. For she was shy of her riding partner; and she felt strange about Raffin, so strange that she wished he wasn't there. If Raffin hadn't been there watching her go, then perhaps she'd have been able to pretend she wasn't leaving him. With Raffin there, there was no pretense, and she was unable to do anything about the strange painful water that rose into her eyes and throat, every time she looked at him.

They were impossible, these two men, for if one did not make her cry, the other did. What HeIda would make of it she could only imagine; and she hadn't liked saying good-bye to Helda either, or Oll. No, there was little to be happy of this morning, except that she was not, at least, leaving Po; and he was probably standing there beside his horse registering her every feeling on the matter. She gave him a withering look for good measure, and he raised his eyebrows and smiled and yawned. Well. And he'd better not ride as if he were half asleep, or she'd leave him in the dust. She was not in the mood to dawdle.

Raffin fussed back and forth between their horses, checking saddles, testing the holds of their stirrups. "I suppose I needn't worry about your safety," he said, "with the two of you riding together."

"We'll be safe." Katsa yanked at a strap that held a bag to her saddle. She tossed a bag over her horse's back to Po.

"You have the list of Council contacts in Sunder?" Raffin asked. "And the maps? You have food for the day? You have money?"

Katsa smiled up at him then, for he sounded as she imagined a mother would sound if her child were leaving forever. "Po's a prince of Lienid," she said. "Why do you think he rides such a big horse, if not to carry his bags of gold?"

Raffin's eyes laughed down at her. "Take this." He closed her hands over a small satchel. "It's a bag of medicines, in case you should need them. I've marked them so you'll know what each is for."

Po came forward then and held his hand out to Bann. "Thank you for all you've done." He took Raffin's hand. "You'll take care of my grandfather in my absence?"

"He'll be safe with us," Raffin said.

Po swung onto the back of his horse, and Katsa took Bann's hands and squeezed them. And then she stood before Raffin and looked up into his face.

"Well," Raffin said. "You'll let us know how you're faring, when you're able?"

"Of course," Katsa said.

He looked at his feet and cleared his throat. He rubbed his neck, and sighed. How she wished again that he weren't here. For the tears would spill onto her cheeks, and she couldn't stop them.

"Well," Raffin said. "And I'll see you again someday, my love."

She reached up for him then and wrapped her arms around his neck, and he lifted her up off the ground and hugged her tight. She breathed into the collar of his shirt and held on.

And then her feet were on the ground again. She turned away and climbed into her saddle. "We leave now," she said to Po. As their horses cantered out of the stable yard, she didn't look back.

Their route was rough and changeable, for their only certain plan was to follow whatever path seemed likely to bring them closer to the truth of the kidnapping. Their first destination was an inn, south of Murgon City, three days' ride from Randa City – an inn sitting along the route which they supposed the kidnappers had taken. Murgon's spies frequented the inn, as did merchants and travelers from the port cities of Sunder, often even from Monsea. It was as good a place to start as any, Po thought, and it didn't take them out of their way, if their ultimate destination was Monsea.

They didn't travel anonymously. Katsa's eyes identified her to anyone in the seven kingdoms who had ears to hear the stories. Po was conspicuously a Lienid and enough the subject of idle talk to be recognized by virtue of his own eyes and by the company he kept. The story of Katsa's hasty departure from Randa's court with the Lienid prince would spread. Any attempt to disguise themselves would be foolish; Katsa didn't even bother to change from the blue tunic and trousers that marked her as a member of Randa's family. Their purpose would be assumed, for it was well enough agreed that the Lienid searched for his missing grandfather, and it would now be supposed that the lady assisted him. Their inquiries, the route they chose, the very dinners they ate would be the stuff of gossip.

But still, they would be safe in their deception. For no one would know that Katsa and Po searched not for the grandfather but for the motive of his kidnapping. No one would know that Katsa and Po knew of Murgon's involvement and suspected Leck of Monsea. And no one could even guess how much Po could learn by asking the most mundane questions.

He rode well, and almost as fast as she would have liked. The trees of the southern forest flew past. The pounding of hooves comforted her and numbed her sense of the distance stretching between her and the people she'd left behind.

She was glad of Po's company. Their riding was companionable. But then when they stopped to stretch their legs and eat something, she was shy of him again, and didn't know how to be with him, or what to say.

"Sit with me, Katsa."

He sat on the trunk of a great fallen tree, and she glared at him from around her horse.

"Katsa," he said. "Dear Katsa, I won't bite. I'm not sensing your thoughts right now, except to know that I make you uncomfortable. Come and talk to me."

And so she came and sat beside him, but she didn't talk, and she didn't exactly look at him either, for she was afraid of becoming trapped in his eyes.

"Katsa," he said finally, when they had sat and chewed in silence for a number of minutes, "you'll get used to me, in time. We'll find the way to relate to each other. How can I help you with this? Should I tell you whenever I sense something with my Grace? So you can come to understand it?"

It didn't sound very appealing to her. She'd prefer to pretend that he sensed nothing. But he was right. They were together now, and the sooner she faced this, the better.

"Yes," she said.

"Very well then, I will. Do you have any questions for me? You have only to ask."

"I think," she said, "if you always know what I feel about you, then you should always tell me what you're feeling about me, as you feel it. Always."

"Hmm." He glanced at her sideways. "I'm not wild about that idea."

"Nor am I wild about you knowing my feelings, but I have no choice."

"Hmmm." He rubbed his head. "I suppose, in theory, it'd be fair."

"It would."

"Very well, let's see. I'm very sympathetic about your having left Raffin. I think you're brave to have defied Randa as you did with that Ellis fellow; I don't know if I could've gone through with it. I think you have more energy than anyone I've ever encountered, though I wonder if you aren't a bit hard on your horse. I find myself wondering why you haven't wanted to marry Giddon, and if it's because you've intended to marry Raffin, and if so, whether you're even more unhappy to have left him than I realized. I'm very pleased you've come with me. I'd like to see you defend yourself for real, fight someone to the death, for it would be a thrilling sight. I think my mother would take to you. My brothers, of course, would worship you. I think you're the most quarrelsome person I've ever met. And I really do worry about your horse."

He stopped then, broke a piece of bread, and chewed and swallowed. She stared at him, her eyes wide.

"That's all, for now," he said.

"You can't possibly have been thinking all those things, in that moment," she said, and then he laughed, and the sound was a comfort to her, and she fought against the gold and silver lights that shone in his eyes, and lost. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

"And now I'm wondering," he said, "how it is you don't realize your eyes ensnare me, just as mine do you. I can't explain it, Katsa, but you shouldn't let it embarrass you. For we're both overtaken by the same foolishness."

A flush rose into her neck, and she was doubly embarrassed, by his eyes and by his words. But there was relief for her, too. Because if he was also foolish, then her foolishness bothered her less.

"I thought you might be doing it on purpose," she said, "with your eyes. I thought it might be a part of your Grace, to trap me with your eyes and read my mind."

"It's not. It's nothing like that."

"Most people won't look into my eyes," she said. "Most people fear them."

"Yes. Most people don't look into my eyes for very long either. They're too strange."

She looked at his eyes then, leaned in and really studied them, as she hadn't had the courage to do before. "Your eyes are like lights. They don't seem quite natural."

He grinned. "My mother says when I opened my eyes on the day they settled, she almost dropped me, she was so startled."

"What color were they before?"

"Gray, like most Lienid. And yours?"

"I've no idea. No one's ever told me, and I don't think there's anyone left I could ask."

"Your eyes are beautiful," he said, and she felt warm suddenly, warm in the sun that dappled through the treetops and rested on them in patches. And as they climbed back into their saddles and returned to the forest road, she didn't feel exactly comfortable with him; but she felt at least that she could look him in the face now and not fear she was surrendering her entire soul.

The road led them around the outskirts of Murgon City and became wider and more traveled. Whenever Katsa and Po were seen, they were stared at. It would soon be known in the inns and houses around the city that the two fighters traveled south together along Murgon Road.

"Are you sure you don't want to stop in on King Murgon," Katsa said, "and ask him your questions? It would be much faster, wouldn't it?"

"He made it quite clear after the robbery that I was no longer welcome at his court. He suspects I know what was stolen."

"He's afraid of you."

"Yes, and he's the type to do something foolish. If we arrived at his court he'd probably mount an offensive, and we'd have to start hurting people. I'd prefer to avoid that, wouldn't you? If there's going to be an enormous mess, let it be at the court of the guilty king, not the king who's merely complicitous."

"We'll go to the inn."

"Yes," Po said. "We'll go to the inn."

The forest road narrowed again and grew quieter once they left Murgon City behind. They stopped before night fell. They set up camp some distance from the road, in a small clearing with a mossy floor, a cover of thick branches, and a trickle of water that seemed to please the horses.

"This is all a man needs," Po said. "I could live here, quite contented. What do you think, Katsa?"

"Are you hungry for meat? I'll catch us something."

"Even better," he said. "But it'll be dark in a few minutes. I wouldn't want you to get lost, even in the pitch dark."

Katsa smiled then and stepped across the stream. "It'll only take me a few minutes. And I never get lost, even in the pitch dark."

"You won't even take your bow? Are you planning to throttle a moose with your bare hands, then?"

"I've a knife in my boot," she said, and then wondered, for a moment, if she could throttle a moose with her bare hands. It seemed possible. But right now she only sought a rabbit or a bird, and her knife would serve as weapon. She slipped between the gnarled trees and into the damp silence of the forest. It was simply a matter of listening, remaining quiet, and making herself invisible.

When she came back minutes later with a great, fat, skinned rabbit, Po had built a fire. The flames cast orange light on the horses and on himself. "It was the least I could do," Po said, drily, "and I see you've already skinned that hare. I'm beginning to think I won't have much responsibility as we travel through the forest together."

"Does it bother you? You're welcome to do the hunting yourself. Perhaps I can stay by the fire and mend your socks, and scream if I hear any strange noises."

He smiled then. "Do you treat Giddon like this, when the two of you travel? I imagine he finds it quite humiliating."

"Poor Po. You may content yourself with reading my mind, if you wish to feel superior."

He laughed. "I know you're teasing me. And you should know I'm not easily humiliated. You may hunt for my food, and pound me every time we fight, and protect me when we're attacked, if you like. I'll thank you for it."

"But I'd never need to protect you, if we were attacked. And I doubt you need me to do your hunting, either."

"True. But you're better than I am, Katsa. And it doesn't humiliate me." He fed a branch to the fire. "It humbles me. But it doesn't humiliate me."

She sat quietly as night closed in and watched the blood drip from the hunk of meat she held on a stick over the fire. She listened to it sizzle as it hit the flames. She tried to separate in her mind the idea of being humbled from the idea of being humiliated, and she understood what Po meant. She wouldn't have thought to make the distinction. He was so clear with his thoughts, while hers were a constant storm that she could never make sense of and never control. She felt suddenly and sharply that Po was smarter than she, worlds smarter, and that she was a brute in comparison. An unthinking and unfeeling brute.

"Katsa."

She looked up. The flames danced in the silver and gold of his eyes and caught the hoops in his ears. His face was all light.

"Tell me," he said. "Whose idea was the Council?"

"It was mine."

"And who has decided what missions the Council carries out?"

"I have, ultimately."

"Who has planned each mission?"

"I have, with Raffin and Oll and the others."

He watched his meat cooking over the fire. He turned it, and shook it absently, so the juice fell spitting into the flames. He raised his eyes to her again.

"I don't see how you can compare us," he said, "and find yourself lacking in intelligence, or unthinking or unfeeling. I've had to spend my entire life hammering out the emotions of others, and myself, in my mind. If my mind is clearer, sometimes, than yours, it's because I've had more practice. That's the only difference between us."

He focused on his meat again. She watched him, listening.

"I wish you would remember the Council," he said. "I wish you would remember that when we met, you were rescuing my grandfather, for no other reason than that you didn't believe he deserved to be kidnapped."

He leaned into the fire then and added another branch to the flames. They sat quietly, huddled in the light, surrounded by darkness.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the morning, she woke before he did. She followed the dribble of water downstream, until she found a place where it formed something larger than a puddle but smaller than a pool. There she bathed as well as she could. She shivered, but she didn't mind the coldness of air and water; it woke her completely. When she tried to untie her hair and untangle it she met with the usual frustration. She yanked and tugged, but her fingers could not find a way through the knots. She tied it back up. She dried herself as best she could, and dressed. When she walked back into the clearing, he was awake, tying his bags together.

"Would you cut my hair off, if I asked you?"

He looked up, eyebrows raised. "You're not thinking of trying to disguise yourself?"

"No, it's not that. It's just that it drives me mad, and I've never wanted it, and I'd be so much more comfortable if I could have it all off."

"Hmm." He examined the great knot gathered at the nape of her neck. "It is rather wound together, like a bird's nest," he said, and at her glare, he laughed. "If you truly wanted me to, I could cut it off, but I don't imagine you'd be particularly pleased with the result. Why don't you wait until we've reached the inn and have the innkeeper's wife do it, or one of the women in town?"

Katsa sighed. "Very well. I can live with it for one more day."

Po disappeared down the path from which she'd come. She rolled up her blanket and began to carry their belongings to the horses.

The road grew narrower as they continued south, and the forest grew thicker and darker. Po led, despite Katsa's protests. He insisted that when she set the pace, they always started out reasonably, but without fail, before long they were racing along at breakneck speed. He was taking it upon himself to protect Katsa's horse from its rider.

"You say you're thinking of the horse," Katsa said, when they stopped once to water the horses at a stream that crossed the road. "But I think it's just that you can't keep up with me."

He laughed at that. "You're trying to bait me, and it won't work."

"By the way," Katsa said, "it occurs to me that we haven't practiced our fighting since I uncovered your deception and you agreed to stop lying to me."

"No, nor since you punched me in the jaw because you were angry with Randa."

She couldn't hold back her smile. "Fine," she said. "You'll lead. But what about our practices? Don't you want to continue them?"

"Of course," he said. "Tonight, perhaps, if it's still light when we stop."

They rode quietly. Katsa's mind wandered; and she found that when it wandered to anything to do with Po, she would check herself and proceed carefully. If she must think of him, then it would be nothing significant. He would gain nothing from his intrusions into her mind as they rode along this quiet forest path.

It occurred to her how susceptible he must be to intrusions. What if he were working out some complicated problem in his mind, concentrating very hard, and a great crowd of people approached? Or even a single person, who saw him and thought his eyes strange or admired his rings or wanted to buy his horse. Did he lose his concentration when other people filtered into his mind? How aggravating that would be.

And then she wondered: Could she get his attention, without saying a word? If she needed his help or wanted to stop, could she call to him in his mind? It must be possible; if a person within his range wanted to communicate with him, he must know it.

She looked at him, riding before her, his back straight and his arms steady; his white shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, as always. She looked at the trees then, and at her horse's ears, and at the ground before her. She cleared her mind of anything to do with Po. I'll hunt down a goose for dinner, she thought. The leaves on these trees are just beginning to change color. The weather is so lovely and cool.

And then, with all her might, she focused her attention on the back of Po's head and screamed his name, inside her mind. He pulled on his reins so hard that his horse screeched and staggered and almost sat down. Her own horse nearly collided with his. And he looked so startled and flabbergasted – and irritated – that she couldn't help it: She exploded with laughter.

"What in the name of Lienid is wrong with you? Are you trying to scare me out of my wits? Is it not enough to ruin your own horse, but you must ruin mine as well?"

She knew he was angry, but she couldn't stop laughing. "Forgive me, Po. I was only trying to get your attention."

"And I suppose it never occurs to you to start small. If I told you my roof needed rebuilding, you'd start by knocking down the house."

"Oh, Po," she said, "don't be angry." She stifled the laugh that rose into her throat. "Truly, Po, I had no idea it would startle you like that. I didn't think I could startle you. I didn't think your Grace allowed it."

She coughed, and forced her face into a mask of penitence, which wouldn't have fooled even the most incompetent of mind readers. But she hadn't meant it, truly she hadn't, and he must know that. And finally his hard mouth softened, and a flicker of a smile played across his face.

"Look at me," he said, unnecessarily, for the smile had already trapped her. "Now, say my name, in your mind, as if you wanted to get my attention – quietly. As quietly as you would if you were speaking it aloud."

She waited a moment, and then she thought it. Po.

He nodded. "That's all it takes."

"Well. That was easy."

"And you'll notice it caused no abuse to the horse."

"Very funny. Can we practice, while we're riding?"

And for the rest of the day she called to him on occasion, in her mind. Every time, he raised his hand, to show that he'd heard. Even when she whispered. So then she decided to stop calling to him, for it was clear that it worked, and she didn't want to badger him. He looked back at her then and nodded, and she knew that he had understood her. And she rode behind him with her eyes wide and tried to make some sense of their having had an entire conversation, of sorts, without saying a word.

They made camp beside a pond, surrounded by great Sunderan trees. As they unhooked their bags from the horses, Katsa was sure she saw a goose through the reeds, waddling around on the opposite shore. Po squinted.

"It does appear to be a goose," he said, "and I wouldn't mind a drumstick for dinner."

So Katsa set out, approaching the creature quietly. It didn't notice her. She decided to walk right up to it and break its neck, as the kitchen women did in the chicken houses of the castle. But as she snuck forward, the goose heard her and began to squawk and run for the water. She ran after the bird, and it spread its massive wings and took to the air. She leaped and wrapped her arms around its middle. She brought it down, straight into the pond, surprised by its size. And now she was wrestling in the water with an enormous, flapping, biting, splashing, kicking goose – but only for a moment. For her hands were around its neck, and its neck was snapped, before it could close its sharp beak around any part of her body.

She turned to the shore then, and was surprised to find Po standing there, gaping. She stood in the pond, the water streaming from her hair and clothing, and held the huge bird up by the neck for him to see. "I got it," she said.

He stared at her for a moment, his chest rising and falling, for he had run, apparently, at the sight of the underwater struggle. He rubbed his temples. "Katsa. What in Lienid are you doing?"

"What do you mean? I've caught us a goose."

"Why didn't you use your knife? You're standing in the pond. You're soaked through."

"It's only water," she said. "It was time I washed my clothing anyway."

"Katsa – "

"I wanted to see if I could do it," she said. "What if I'm ever traveling without weapons and I need to eat? It's good to know how to catch a goose without weapons."

"You could've stood at our camp and shot it, across the pond, if you wanted. I've seen your aim."

"But now I know I can do this," she said, simply.

He shook his head and held out a hand. "Come out of there, before you catch a chill. And give me that. I'll pluck it while you change into dry clothing."

"I never catch a chill," she said as she waded to shore.

He laughed then. "Oh, Katsa. I'm sure you don't." He took the goose from her hands. "Do you still have a fight in you? We can practice while your goose is cooking."

Fighting him was different, now that she knew his true advantages. It was a waste of her energy, she realized, to fake a blow. She could have no mental advantage over him; no amount of cleverness would serve her. Her only advantages were her speed and her ferocity. And now that she knew this, it became easy enough to adjust her strategy. She didn't waste time being creative. She only pummeled him as fast and as hard as she could. He might know where she aimed her next blow, but after a barrage of hits he simply couldn't keep up with her anymore; he couldn't move fast enough to block her. They struggled and wrestled as the light faded and the night moved in. Over and over again he surrendered and heaved himself back up to his feet, laughing and moaning.

"This is good practice for me," he said, "but I can't see what you have to gain from it. Other than the satisfaction of beating me to a pulp."

"We'll have to come up with some new drills," she said. "Something to challenge both of our Graces."

"Keep fighting me once the sky is dark. You'll find us more evenly matched then."

It was true. The night sky closed in around them, a black sky with no moon and no stars. Eventually Katsa could no longer see, could only make out his vaguest outline. Her blows, as she threw them, were approximate. He knew she couldn't see, and moved in ways that would confuse her. His defense became stronger. And his own strikes hit her squarely.

She stopped him. "It's that exact, your sense of my hands and feet?"

"Hands and feet, fingers and toes," he said. "You're so physical, Katsa. You've so much physical energy. I sense it constantly. Even your emotions seem physical sometimes."

She squinted at him and considered. "Could you fight a person blindfolded?"

"I never have – I could never have tried it, of course, without arousing suspicion. But yes, I could, though it would be easier on flat ground. My sense of the forest floor is too inconsistent."

She stared at him, a black shape against a blacker sky. "Wonderful," she said. "It's wonderful. I envy you. We must fight more often at night."

He laughed. "I won't complain. It'd be nice to be on the offensive every once in a while."

They fought just a bit longer, until they both tripped over a fallen branch, and Po landed on his back, half submerged in the pond. He came up spluttering.

"I think we've done enough barreling around in the dark," he said. "Shall we check on your goose?"

The goose sizzled over the fire. Katsa poked at it with her knife, and the meat fell away from the bone. "It's perfect," she said. "I'll cut you your drumstick." She glanced up at him, and in that moment he pulled his wet shirt over his head. She forced her mind blank. Blank as a new sheet of paper, blank as a starless sky. He came to the fire and crouched before it. He rubbed the water from his bare arms and flicked it into the flames. She stared at the goose and sliced his drumstick carefully and thought of the blankest expression on the blankest face she could possibly imagine. It was a chilly evening; she thought about that. The goose would be delicious, they must eat as much of it as possible, they must not waste it; she thought about that.

"I hope you're hungry," she said to him. "I don't want this goose to go to waste."

"I'm ravenous."

He was going to sit there shirtless, apparently, until the fire dried him. A mark on his arm caught her eye, and she took a breath and imagined a blank book full of page after empty page. But then a similar mark on his other arm drew her attention, and her curiosity got the better of her. She couldn't help herself she squinted at his arms. And it was all right, this was acceptable. For there was nothing wrong with being curious about the marks that seemed to be painted onto his skin. Dark, thick bands, like a ribbon wrapped around each arm, in the place where the muscles of his shoulder ended and the muscles of his arm began. The bands, one circling each arm, were decorated with intricate designs that she thought might be a number of different colors. It was hard to tell in the firelight.

"It's a Lienid ornamentation," he said, "like the rings in my ears."

"But what is it?" she asked. "Is it paint?"

"It's a kind of dye."

"And it doesn't wash away?"

"Not for many years."

He reached into one of his bags and pulled out a dry shirt. He slipped it down over his head, and Katsa thought of a great blank field of snow and breathed a small sigh of relief. She handed him his drumstick.

"The Lienid people are fond of decoration," he said.

"Do the women wear the markings?"

"No, only the men."

"Do the people?"

"Yes."

"But no one ever sees it," Katsa said. "Lienid clothing doesn't show a man's upper arms, does it?"

"No," Po said. "It doesn't. It's a decoration hardly anyone sees."

She caught a smile in his eyes that flashed at her in the light. "What? What are you grinning about?"

"It's meant to be attractive to my wife," he said.

Katsa nearly dropped her knife into the fire. "You have a wife?"

"Great seas, no! Honestly, Katsa. Don't you think I would have mentioned her?"

He was laughing now, and she snorted. "I never know what you'll choose to mention about yourself, Po."

"It's meant for the eyes of the wife I'm supposed to have," he said.

"Whom will you marry?"

He shrugged. "I hadn't pictured myself marrying anyone."

She moved to his side of the fire and sliced the other drumstick for herself. She went back and sat down. "Aren't you concerned about your castle and your land? About producing heirs?"

He shrugged again. "Not enough to attach me to a person I don't wish to be attached to. I'm content enough on my own."

Katsa was surprised. "I had thought of you as more of a social creature, when you're in your own land."

"When I'm in Lienid I do a decent job of folding myself into normal society, when I must. But it's an act, Katsa; it's always an act. It's a strain to hide my Grace, especially from my family. When I'm in my father's city there's a part of me that's simply waiting until I can travel again. Or return to my own castle, where I'm left alone."

This she could understand perfectly. "I suppose if you married, it could only be to a woman trustworthy enough to know the truth of your Grace."

He barked out a short laugh. "Yes. The woman I married would have to meet a number of rather impossible requirements." He threw the bone from his drumstick into the fire and cut another piece of meat from the goose. He blew on the meat, to cool it. "And what of you, Katsa? You've broken Giddon's heart with your departure, haven't you?"

His very name filled her with impatience. "Giddon. And can you really not see why I wouldn't wish to marry him?"

"I can see a thousand reasons why you wouldn't wish to marry him. But I don't know which is your reason."

"Even if I wished to marry, I wouldn't marry Giddon," Katsa said. "But I won't marry, not anyone. I'm surprised you hadn't heard that rumor. You were at Randa's court long enough."

"Oh, I heard it. But I also heard you were some kind of feckless thug and that Randa had you under his thumb. Neither of which turned out to be true."

She smiled then and threw her own bone into the fire. One of the horses whickered. Some small creature slipped into the pond, the water closing around it with a gulp. She suddenly felt warm and content, and full of good food.

"Raffin and I talked once about marrying," she said. "For he's not wild about the idea of marrying some noblewoman who thinks only of being rich or being queen. And of course, he must marry someone, he has no choice in the matter. And to marry me would be an easy solution. We get along, I wouldn't try to keep him from his experiments. He wouldn't expect me to entertain his guests, he wouldn't keep me from the Council." She thought of Raffin bending over his books and his flasks. He was probably working on some experiment right now, with Bann at his side. By the time she returned to court, perhaps he would be married to some lady or another. He married, and she not there for him to come to and talk of it; she not there to tell him her thoughts, if he wished to hear them, as he always did.

"In the end," she said, "it was out of the question. We laughed about it, for I couldn't even begin to consider it seriously. I wouldn't ever consent to be queen. And Raffin will require children, which I'd also never consent to. And I won't be so tied to another person. Not even Raffin." She squinted into the fire, and sighed over her cousin whose responsibilities were so heavy. "I hope he'll fall in love with some woman who'll make a happy queen and mother. That would be the best thing for him. Some woman who wants a whole roost of children."

Po tilted his head at her. "Do you dislike children?"

"I've never disliked the children I've met. I've just never wanted them. I haven't wanted to mother them. I can't explain it."

She remembered Giddon then, who had assured her that this would change. As if he knew her heart, as if he had the slightest understanding of her heart. She threw another bone into the fire and hacked another piece of meat from the goose. She felt Po's eyes, and looked up at him, scowling.

"Why are you glaring at me," he asked, "when for all I can tell, you're not angry with me?"

She smiled. "I was only thinking Giddon would have found me a very vexing wife. I wonder if he would've understood when I planted a patch of seabane in the gardens. Or perhaps he would've thought me charmingly domestic."

Po looked puzzled. "What's seabane?"

"I don't know if you have another name for it in Lienid. It's a small purple flower. A woman who eats its leaves will not bear a child."

They wrapped themselves in their blankets and lay before the dying fire. Po yawned a great, deep yawn, but Katsa wasn't tired. A question occurred to her. But she didn't want to wake him, if he was falling asleep.

"What is it, Katsa? I'm awake."

She didn't know if she would ever get used to that.

"I was wondering whether I could wake you," she said, "by calling to you inside your mind when you're sleeping."

"I don't know," he said. "I don't sense things while I'm sleeping, but if I'm in danger or if someone approaches, I always wake. You may try it" – he yawned again – "if you must."

"I'll try it another night," she said, "when you're less tired."

"Aren't you ever tired, Katsa?"

"I'm sure I am," she said, though she couldn't bring a specific example to mind.

"Do you know the story of King Leck of Monsea?"

"I didn't know there was a story."

"There is," Po said, "a story from ages ago, and you should know it if we're to travel to his kingdom. I'll tell it to you, and perhaps you'll feel more tired."

He rolled onto his back. She lay on her side and watched the line of his profile in the light of the dying fire.

"The last King and Queen of Monsea were kind people. Not particularly great state minds," he said, "but they had good advisers, and they were kinder to their people than most today could even imagine, for a king and queen. But they were childless. It wasn't a good thing, Katsa, as it would be for you. They wanted a child desperately, so that they might have an heir – but also just because they wanted one, as I suppose most people do. And then one day, a boy came to their court. A handsome boy of about thirteen years, clever-looking, with a patch over one eye, for he'd lost an eye when he was younger. He didn't say where he came from, or who his parents were, or what had happened to his eye. He only came to court begging and telling stories in return for food and money."

"The servants took him in, for he told such wonderful stories – wild stories about a place beyond the seven kingdoms, where monsters come out of the sea and air, and armies burst out of holes in the mountains, and the people are different from anyone we've ever known. Eventually the king and queen learned of him and he was brought before them to tell his stories. The boy charmed them completely – charmed them from the first day. They pitied him, for his poverty and loneliness and his missing eye. They began to bring him into their presence for meals, or ask for him when they'd returned from long journeys, or call him to their rooms in the evenings. They treated him like a noble boy; he was educated, and taught to fight and ride. They treated him almost as if he were their own son. And when the boy was sixteen and the king and queen still didn't have a child of their own, the king did something extraordinary. He named the boy his heir."

"Even though they knew nothing of his past?"

"Even though they knew nothing of his past. And this is where the story truly becomes interesting, Katsa. For not a week after the king had named the boy his heir, the king and queen died of a sudden sickness. And their two closest advisers fell into despair and threw themselves into the river. Or so the story goes. I don't know that there were any witnesses."

Katsa propped herself on her elbow and stared at him.

"Do you think that strange?" he asked. "I've always thought it strange. But the Monsean people never questioned it, and all in my family who've met Leck tell me I'm foolish to wonder. They say Leck is utterly charming, even his eyepatch is charming. They say he grieved for the king and queen terribly and couldn't possibly have had anything to do with their deaths."

"I've never known this story," Katsa said. "I didn't even know Leck was missing an eye. Have you met him?"

"I haven't," Po said. "But I've always had a feeling I wouldn't take to him as others have. Despite his great reputation for kindness to the small and the powerless." He yawned and turned onto his side. "Well, and I suppose we'll both learn soon enough whether we take to him, if things go as I expect. Good night to you, Katsa. We may reach the inn tomorrow."

Katsa closed her eyes and listened to his breath grow steady and even. She considered the tale he'd told. It was hard to reconcile King Leck's pleasant reputation with this story. Still, perhaps he was innocent. Perhaps there was some logical explanation.

She wondered what reception they would receive at the inn, and whether they'd be lucky enough to cross paths with someone who held the information they sought. She listened to the sounds of the pond and the breeze in the grasses.

When she thought Po had fallen asleep, she said his name aloud once, quietly. He didn't stir. She thought his name once, quietly, like a whisper in her mind. Again, he didn't stir, and his breathing didn't change.

He was asleep.

Katsa exhaled, slowly.

She was the greatest fool in all the seven kingdoms.

Why, when she fought with him almost every day, when she knew every part of his body; why, when she'd sat on his stomach, and wrestled with him on the ground and could probably identify his arm hold faster than any wife would recognize the embrace of her own husband, had the sight of his arms and his shoulders so embarrassed her? She had seen a thousand shirtless men before, in the practice rooms or when traveling with Giddon and Oll. Raffin practically undressed in front of her, they were so used to each other. It was like his eyes. Unless they were fighting, Po's body had the same effect on her as his eyes.

His breathing changed, and she froze her thoughts. She listened as his breathing settled back into a rhythm.

It was not going to be simple with Po. Nothing with Po was going to be simple. But he was her friend, and so she would travel with him. She would help him uncover the kidnapper of his grandfather. And by all means, she would take care not to tumble him into any more ponds.

And now she must sleep. She turned her back to him and willed her mind to darkness.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The inn was a great, tall building made of solid lumber. The farther south one rode into Sunder, the heavier and thicker the wood of the trees, and the stronger and more imposing the houses and inns. Katsa had not spent much time in central Sunder; her uncle had sent her there two or three times, perhaps. But the wild forests and simple, sturdy little towns, too far from the borders to be involved in the nonsense of the kings, had always pleased Katsa. The walls of the inn felt like castle walls, but darker, and warmer.

They sat at a table, in a roomful of men sitting at tables – heavy, dark tables built from the same wood as the walls. It was the time of day when men of the town and travelers alike poured into the inn's great eating room and sat down, to talk and laugh over a cup of something strong to drink. The room had recovered from the hush that afflicted it when Po and Katsa first walked through the door. The men were noisy now, and jovial, and if they did peek at the royalty over their cups and around their chairs, well, at least they didn't stare outright.

Po sat back in his chair. His eyes flicked lazily around the room. He drank from his cup of cider, and his finger traced the wet ring it left on the table. He leaned his elbow on the table and propped his head in his hand. He yawned. He looked, Katsa thought, as if he only needed a lullaby and he would nod off to sleep. It was a good act.

His eyes flashed at her then, and with them a glimmer of a smile. "I don't think we'll stay long at this inn," he said, his voice low. "There are men in this room who've already taken an interest in us."

Po had informed the innkeeper that they would offer money for any information about the kidnapping of Grandfather Tealiff. Men – particularly Sunderan men, if men are like their king – would do a great deal for money. They would change allegiances. They would tell truths they had promised not to reveal. They would also make up stories, but it didn't matter, for Po could tell as much from a lie as he could from the truth.

Katsa sipped from her cup and looked out into the sea of men. The finery of the merchants stood out among the muted browns and oranges of the people of the town. Katsa was the only woman in the room, save a harried serving girl, the innkeeper's daughter, who ran among the tables with a tray full of cups and pitchers. She was small in stature, dark, and pretty, and a bit younger than Katsa. She caught no one's eye as she worked, and didn't smile, except to the occasional townsman old enough to be her father. She had brought Katsa and Po their drinks silently, with only a quick, shy glance at Po. Most of the men in the room showed her the proper respect; but Katsa didn't much like the smiles on the faces of the merchants whose table she served at the moment.

"How old is that girl, do you think?" Katsa asked. "Do you think she's married?"

Po watched the table of merchants and sipped from his drink. "Sixteen or seventeen, I'd guess. She's not married."

"How do you know?"

He paused. "I don't. It was a guess."

"It didn't sound like a guess."

He drank from his cup. His face was impassive. It hadn't been a guess, this she knew; and it occurred to her suddenly how he could know such a thing with such certainty. She took a moment to nurse her irritation on behalf of every girl who'd ever admired Po and thought her feelings private. "You're impossible," she said. "You're no better than those merchants. And besides, just because she has her eyes on you doesn't mean – "

"And that's not fair," Po protested. "I can't help what I know. My error was in revealing it to you. I'm not used to traveling with someone who knows my Grace; I spoke before thinking how unfair it would be, to the girl."

She rolled her eyes. "Spare me your confessions. If she's unmarried, I don't understand why her father sends her out to serve these men. I'm not certain she's safe among them."

"Her father stands at the bar, most of the time. No one would dare harm her."

"But he's not there always – he's not there now. And just because they don't assault her doesn't mean they respect her." Or that they would not seek her out later.

The girl circled the table of merchants, pouring cider into each cup. When one of the men reached for her arm, she recoiled. The merchants burst into laughter. The man reached out to her then and drew back, reached out and drew back, taunting her. His friends laughed harder. And then the man at the girl's other side grabbed her wrist and held on, and there was a great whoop from the men. She tried to pull away, but the laughing man wouldn't let go. Red with shame, she looked into none of their faces, only pulled at her arm. She was too much like a dumb, confused rabbit caught in a trap, and suddenly Katsa was standing. And Po was standing, too, and he had Katsa by the arm.

For an instant Katsa appreciated the strange symmetry; except that unlike the serving girl, she could break from Po's grip, and unlike the merchant, Po had good reason to hold her arm. And Katsa wouldn't break from the grip of his fingers, for she didn't need to. Her rise to her feet had been enough. The room froze into stillness. The man dropped the girl's arm. He stared at Katsa with a white face and an open mouth – fear, as familiar to Katsa as the feel of her own body. The girl stared, too, and caught her breath and pressed her hand to her chest.

"Sit down, Katsa." Po's voice was low. "It's over now. Sit down."

She did sit down. The room let out its breath. After a few moments, voices murmured, and then talked and laughed again. But Katsa wasn't sure that it was over. Perhaps it was over with this girl, and these merchants. But there would be a new group of merchants tomorrow. And these merchants would move on, and find themselves another girl.

Later that evening, as Katsa prepared for bed, two girls came to her room to cut her hair. "Is it too late, My Lady?" asked the elder, who carried scissors and a brush.

"No. The sooner I have it off, the better. Please, come in."

They were young, younger than the serving girl. The younger, a child of ten or eleven years, carried a broom and a dustpan. They sat Katsa down and moved around her shyly. They spoke little. Breathless around her, not quite frightened but near to it. The older girl untied Katsa's hair and began to work her fingers through the tangle. "Forgive me if I hurt you, My Lady."

"It won't hurt me," Katsa said. "And you needn't unravel the knots. I want you to cut it all off, as short as you can. As short as a man's."

The eyes of both girls widened. "I've cut the hair of many men," the older girl said.

"You may cut mine just as you've cut theirs," Katsa said. "The shorter you cut it, the happier I'll be."

The scissors snipped around Katsa's ears, and her head grew lighter and lighter. How odd to turn her neck and not feel the pull of hair, the heavy snarl swinging around behind her. The younger girl held the broom and swept the hair clippings away the instant they fell to the floor.

"Is it your sister I saw serving drinks in the eating room?" Katsa asked.

"Yes, My Lady."

"How old is she?"

"Sixteen, My Lady."

"And you?"

"I'm fourteen, and my sister eleven, My Lady."

Katsa watched the younger girl collecting hair with a broom taller than she was.

"Does anyone teach the girls of the inn to protect themselves?" she asked. "Do you carry a knife?"

"Our father protects us, and our brother," the girl said, simply.

The girls clipped and swept, and Katsa's hair fell away. She thrilled at the unfamiliar chill of air on her neck. And wondered if other girls in Sunder, and across the seven kingdoms, carried knives; or if they all looked to their fathers and brothers for every protection.

A knock woke her. She sat up. It came from the door that adjoined her room to Po's. She hadn't been asleep long, and it was midnight; and enough moonlight spilled through her window so that if it wasn't Po who knocked, and if it was an enemy, she could see well enough to beat the person senseless. All these thoughts swept through her mind in the instant she sat up.

"Katsa, it's only I," his voice called, through the keyhole. "It's a double lock. You must unlock it from your side."

She rolled out of bed. And where was the key?

"My key was hanging beside the door," he called, and she took a moment to glare in his general direction.

"I only guessed you were looking for the key. It wasn't my Grace, so you needn't get all huffy about it."

Katsa felt along the wall. Her fingers touched a key. "Doesn't it make you nervous to holler like that? Anyone could hear you. You could be revealing your precious Grace to a whole legion of my lovers."

His laughter came muffled through the door. "I would know if anyone heard my voice. And I'd also know if you were in there with a legion of lovers. Katsa – have you cut your hair?"

She snorted. "Wonderful. That's just wonderful. I've no privacy, and you sense even my hair." She turned the key in the lock and swung the door open. Po straightened, a candle in his hand.

"Great seas," he said.

"What do you want?"

He held his candle up to her face.

"Po, what do you want?"

"She did a far better job than I would have done."

"I'm going back to bed," Katsa said, and she reached for the door.

"All right, all right. The men, the merchants. The Sunderan men who were bothering that girl. I think they intend to come to us this night and speak to us."

"How do you know?"

"Their rooms are below us."

She shook her head, disbelieving. "No one in this inn has privacy."

"My sense of them is faint, Katsa. I cannot sense everyone down to the ends of their hair, as I do you."

She sighed. "What an honor, then, to be me. They're coming in the middle of the night?"

"Yes."

"Do they have information?"

"I believe they do."

"Do you trust them?"

"Not particularly. I think they'll come soon, Katsa. When they do I'll knock on your outer door."

Katsa nodded. "Very well. I'll be ready."

She stepped back into her room and pulled the door behind her. She lit a candle, splashed water on her face, and prepared herself for the arrival of the late-night merchants.

Six merchants had sat around the table in the eating room and laughed at the serving girl. When Po's knock brought her to the door, she found him standing in the hallway with all six, each carrying a candle that cast a dark light over a bearded face. They were tall, and broad-backed, all six of them, enormous next to her, and even the smallest taller and broader than Po. Quite a band of bullies. She followed them back to Po's room. "You're awake and dressed, My Lord Prince, My Lady," the biggest of the merchants said as they filed into Po's chamber. It was the man who'd first tried to grab the girl's arm, the one who'd first teased her. Katsa registered the mockery as he spoke their titles. He had no more respect for them than they had for him. The one who'd taken the girl's wrist stood beside him, and those two seemed to be the leaders of the group. They stood together, in the middle of the room, facing Po, while the other four faded into the background.

They were well spread out, these merchants. Katsa moved to the side door, the door that led to her room, and leaned against it with her arms crossed. She was steps from Po and the two leaders, and she could see the other four. It was more precaution than was necessary. But it didn't hurt for any of them to know she was watching.

"We've been receiving visitors throughout the night," Po said, an easy lie. "You're not the only travelers at the inn who have information about my grandfather."

"Be careful of the others, Lord Prince," said the biggest merchant. "Men will lie for money."

Po raised an eyebrow. "Thank you for your warning." He slouched against the table behind him and put his hands in his pockets. Katsa swallowed her smile. She rather enjoyed Po's cocky laziness.

"What information do you have for us?" Po asked.

"How much will you pay?" the man said.

"I'll pay whatever the information warrants."

"There are six of us," the man said.

"I'll give it to you in coins divisible by six," Po said, "if that's what you wish."

"I meant, Lord Prince, that it's not worth our time to divulge information if you'll not compensate us enough for six men."

Po chose that moment to yawn. When he spoke, his voice was calm, even friendly. "I won't haggle over a price when I don't know the breadth of your information. You'll be fairly compensated. If that doesn't satisfy you, you're free to leave."

The man rocked on his feet for a moment. He glanced sideways at his partner. His partner nodded, and the man cleared his throat.

"Very well," he said. "We have information that links the kidnapping to King Birn of Wester."

"How interesting," Po said, and the farce had begun. Po asked all the questions one would ask if one were conducting this interrogation seriously. What was the source of their information? Was the man trustworthy who had spoken of Birn? What was the motivation for the kidnapping? Had Birn the assistance of any other kingdoms? Was Grandfather Tealiff in Birn's dungeons? How were Birn's dungeons guarded?

"Well, Lady," Po said, with a glance in her direction, "we'll have to send word quickly, so that my brothers know to investigate the dungeons of Birn of Wester."

"You won't travel there yourselves?" The man was surprised. And disappointed, most likely, that he hadn't managed to send Po and Katsa on a futile mission.

"We go south, and east," Po said. "To Monsea, and King Leck."

"Leck was not responsible for the kidnapping," the man said.

"I never said he was."

"Leck is blameless. You waste your energies searching Monsea, when your grandfather is in Wester."

Po yawned again. He shifted his weight against the table and crossed his arms. He looked back at the man blandly. "We don't go to Monsea in search of my grandfather," he said. "It is a social visit. My father's sister is the Queen of Monsea. She's been most distressed by the kidnapping. We mean to call on her. Perhaps we can bring the comfort of your news to the Monsean court."

One of the merchants in the background cleared his throat. "A lot of sickness there," he said from his corner. "At the Monsean court."

Po's eyes moved to the man calmly. "Is that so?"

The man grunted. "I've family in Leck's service, distant family. Two little girls who worked in his shelter, cousins of some kind – well, they died a few months back."

"What do you mean, in his shelter?"

"Leck's animal shelter. He rescues animals, Lord Prince, you'll know that."

"Yes, of course," Po said. "But I didn't know about the shelter."

The man seemed to enjoy being the center of Po's attention. He glanced at his companions and lifted his chin. "Well, Lord Prince, he's got hundreds of them, dogs, squirrels, rabbits, bleeding from slashes on their backs and bellies."

Po narrowed his eyes. "Slashes on their backs and bellies," he repeated carefully.

"You know. As if they'd run into something sharp," the man said.

Po stared at him for a moment. "Of course. And any broken bones? Any sickness?"

The man considered. "I've never heard tell of any of that, Lord Prince. Just lots of cuts and slashes that take a wondrous long time to heal. He's got a staff of children who help him nurse the little creatures to recovery. They say he's very dedicated to his animals."

Po pursed his lips. He glanced at Katsa. "I see," he said. "And do you know what sickness the girls died of?"

The man shrugged. "Children are not very strong."

"We've moved to a different topic now," the biggest merchant said, interrupting. "We agreed to give you information about the kidnapping, not about this. We'll be wanting more money to compensate."

"And anyway, I'm suddenly dying of a sickness called boredom," his partner said.

"Oh," said the first, "perhaps you have a more amusing diversion in mind?"

"With different company," said the man in the corner.

They were laughing now, the six of them chuckling over a private joke Katsa had a feeling she understood. "Alas for protective fathers and locked bedroom doors," the partner said, very low to his friends, but not too low for Katsa's sensitive ears. She surged toward the men before the burst of laughter had even begun.

Po blocked her so fast that she knew he must have started imperceptibly first. "Stop," he said to her softly. "Think. Breathe."

The wave of impulsive anger swept over her, and she allowed his body to block her path to the merchant, to the two of them, to all six of them, for these men were all the same to her.

"You're the only man in seven kingdoms who can keep that wildcat on a leash," said one of the two men. She wasn't sure which one, for she was distracted by the effect the words had on Po's face.

"It's fortunate for us she has such a sensible keeper," the man continued. "And you're a lucky fellow yourself The wild ones are the most fun, if you can control them."

Po looked at her, but he didn't see her. His eyes snapped, silver ice and gold fire. The arm that blocked her stiffened, and his hand tightened into a fist. He inhaled, endlessly it seemed. He was furious; she saw this, and she thought he was going to strike the man who had spoken; and for a panicky moment she didn't know whether to stop him or help him.

Stop him. She would stop him, for he wasn't thinking. She took his forearms, and gripped them tightly. She thought his name into his head. Po. Stop. Think, she thought into his mind, just as he had said to her. Think. He began to breathe out, as slowly as he'd breathed in. His eyes refocused and he saw her.

He turned around and stood beside her. He faced the two men; it didn't even matter which of them had spoken.

"Get out." His voice was very quiet.

"We would have our payment – "

Po took a step toward the men, and they stepped back. He held his arms at his sides with a casual calmness that didn't fool anyone in the room. "Have you the slightest notion to whom you're speaking?" he asked."Do you imagine you'll receive a coin of my money, when you've spoken this way? You're lucky I let you go without knocking your teeth from your mouths."

"Are you sure we shouldn't?" Katsa said, looking into the eyes of each man, one after the other. "I'd like to do something to discourage them from touching the innkeeper's daughter."

"We won't," one of them gasped. "We won't touch anyone, I swear it."

"You'll be sorry if you do," she said. "Sorry for the rest of your short, wretched lives."

"We won't, My Lady. We won't." They backed to the door, their faces white, their smirks vanished now. "It was only a joke, My Lady, I swear it."

"Get out," Po said. "Your payment is that we won't kill you for your insults."

The men scrambled from the room. Po slammed the door behind them. Then he leaned his back against the door and slid down until he sat on the floor. He rubbed his face with his hands and heaved a deep sigh.

Katsa took a candle from the table and came to crouch before him. She tried to measure his tiredness and his anger, in the bend of his head and the hardness of his shoulders. He dropped his hands from his face and rested his head against the door. He watched her face for a moment.

"I truly thought I might hurt that man," he said, "very badly."

"I didn't know you were capable of such temper."

"Apparently I am."

"Po," Katsa said, as a thought occurred to her. "How did you know I intended to attack them? My intentions were toward them, not you."

"Yes, but my sense of your energy heightened suddenly, and I know you well enough to guess when you're likely to take a swing at someone." He half-smiled, tiredly. "No one could ever accuse you of being inconsistent."

She snorted. She sat on the floor before him and crossed her legs. "And now will you tell me what you learned from them?"

"Yes." He closed his eyes. "What I learned. To start with, other than that fellow in the corner, they barely spoke a true word. It was a game. They wanted to trick us into paying them for false information. To get back at us, for the incident in the eating room."

"They're small-minded," Katsa said.

"Very small-minded, but they've helped us, nonetheless. It's Leck, Katsa, I'm sure of it. The man lied when he said Leck was not responsible. And yet – and yet there was something else very strange that I could make no sense of" He shook his head and stared into his hands, thinking. "It's so odd, Katsa. I felt this strange... defensiveness rise in them."

"What do you mean, defensiveness?"

"As if they all truly believed Leck's innocence and wished to defend him to me."

"But you just said Leck is guilty."

"He is guilty, and these men know it. But they also believe him innocent."

"That makes utterly no sense."

He shook his head again. "I know. But I'm sure of what I sensed. I tell you, Katsa, when the man said that Leck was not responsible for the kidnapping, he was lying. But when he said, a moment later, 'Leck is blameless,' he meant it. He believed himself to be telling the truth." Po gazed up at the dark ceiling. "Are we supposed to conclude that Leck kidnapped my grandfather, but for some innocent reason? It simply cannot be."

Katsa couldn't comprehend the things Po had learned, any more than she could comprehend the manner in which he'd learned them. "None of this makes sense," she said, weakly.

He came down out of his thoughts for a moment and focused on her. "Katsa. I'm sorry. This must be overwhelming to you. I'm capable of sensing quite a lot, you see, from people who want to fool me but don't know to guard their thoughts and feelings."

She couldn't understand it. She gave up trying to make sense of the king who was both guilty and innocent. She watched Po as he became distracted by his thoughts again and stared again into his hands. The merchants hadn't known to guard their thoughts and feelings. If it was a thing that could be done, then she, at least, wanted to learn how to do it.

She felt his eyes and realized he was watching her. "You do keep some things from me," he said.

She started, then focused on blankness for a moment.

"Or you have," he continued, "since you've learned of my Grace. I mean, I've felt you keeping things from me – you're doing it now – and I can tell you it works, because my Grace shows me nothing. I'm always a bit relieved when it works, Katsa. Truly, I don't wish to take your secrets from you." He sat up straight, his face lit with an idea. "You know, you could always knock me unconscious. I wouldn't stop you."

Katsa laughed then. "I wouldn't. I've promised you I won't hit you, except in our practices."

"But it's self-defense, in this case."

"It is not."

"It is," he insisted, and she laughed again at his earnestness.

"I'd rather strengthen my mind against you," she said, "than knock you out every time I have a thought I don't want you to know."

"Yes, well, and I'd prefer that also, believe me. But I grant you permission to knock me out, if ever you need to."

"I wish you wouldn't. You know how impulsive I am."

"I don't care."

"If you grant me permission, I'll probably do it, Po. I'll probably – "

He held up his hand. "It's an equalizer. When we fight, you hold your Grace back. I can't hold my Grace back. So you must have the right to defend yourself."

She didn't like it. But she could not miss his point. And she could not miss his willingness, his dear willingness, to give over his Grace for her. "You will always have a headache," she warned.

"Perhaps Raffin included his salve for headaches among the medicines. I should like to change my hair, now that you've changed yours. Blue would suit me, don't you think?"

She was laughing again, and she swore to herself that she wouldn't hit him; she wouldn't, unless she were entirely desperate. And then the candle on the floor beside them dimmed and died. Their conversation had gotten entirely off track. They were leaving for Monsea early in the morning, most likely, and it was the middle of the night and everyone in the inn and the town slept. Yet here they were, sitting on the floor, laughing in the dark.

"We leave for Monsea tomorrow, then?" she said. "We'll fall asleep on our horses."

"I'll fall asleep on my horse. You'll ride as if you've slept for days – as if it's a race between us to see who reaches Monsea first."

"And what will we find when we get there? A king who's innocent of the things of which he's guilty?"

He rubbed his head. "I've always thought it strange that my mother and father have no suspicions about Leck, even knowing his story. And now these men seem to think him blameless in the kidnapping, even knowing he's not."

"Can he be so kind in the rest of his life that everyone forgives his crimes, or fails to see them?"

He sat for a moment, quietly. "I've wondered... it occurs to me recently... that he could be Graced. That he could have a Grace that changes the way people think of him. Are there such Graces? I don't even know."

It had never occurred to her. But he could be Graced. With one eye missing, he could be Graced and no one would ever know. No one would even suspect, for who could suspect a Grace that controlled suspicions?

"He could have the Grace of fooling people," Po said. "The Grace of confusing people with lies, lies that spread from kingdom to kingdom. Imagine it, Katsa – people carrying his lies in their own mouths, and spreading them to believing ears; absurd lies, erasing logic and truth, all the way to Lienid. Can you imagine the power of a person who had such a Grace? He could create whatever reputation for himself he wished. He could take whatever he wanted and no one would ever hold him responsible."

Katsa thought of the boy who was named heir, and the king and queen who died shortly thereafter. The advisers who supposedly jumped into the river together. And a whole kingdom of mourners who never thought to question the boy who had no family, no past, no Monsean blood flowing through his veins – but who had become king. "But his kindness," Katsa said urgently. "The animals. That man spoke of the animals he restores to health."

"And that's the other thing," Po said. "That man truly believed in Leck's philanthropy. But am I the only person who finds it a bit odd that there should be so many slashed-up dogs and squirrels in Monsea that need rescuing? Are the trees and the rocks made of broken glass?"

"But he's a kind man if he cares for them."

Po peered at Katsa strangely. "You're defending him, too, in the face of logic that tells you not to, just like my parents and just like those merchants. He's got hundreds of animals with bizarre cuts that don't heal, Katsa, and children in his employ dying of mysterious illnesses, and you're not the slightest bit suspicious."

He was right. Katsa saw it; and the truth in all its gruesomeness trickled into her mind. She began to have a conception of a power that spread like a bad feeling, like a sickness itself, seizing all minds that it touched.

Could there be a Grace more dangerous than one that replaced sight with a fog of falseness?

Katsa shuddered. For she would be in the presence of this king soon enough. She wasn't certain what defense even she could raise against a man who could fool her into believing his innocent reputation.

Her eyes traced Po's silhouette, dark against the black door. His white shirt was the only part of him truly visible, a luminous gray in the darkness. She wished, suddenly, that she could see him better. He stood and pulled her to her feet. He pulled her to the window and looked down into her face. The moonlight caught a glimmer in his silver eye, and a gleam in the gold of his ear. She didn't know why she had felt so anxious or why the lines of his nose and his mouth, or the concern in his eyes, should comfort her.

"What is it?" he asked. "What's bothering you?"

"If Leck has this Grace, as you suspect..." she began. "Yes?"

"... how will I protect myself from him?"

He considered her seriously. "Well. And that's easy," he said. "My Grace will protect me from him. And I'll protect you. You'll be safe with me, Katsa."

In her bed, thoughts swirled like a windstorm in her mind; but she ordered herself to sleep. In an instant, the storm quieted. She slept under a blanket of calm.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

There were two ways to get to Leck City from the inn or from any point in Sunder. One was to travel south to one of the Sunderan ports and sail southeast to Monport, the westernmost port city of the Monsean peninsula, where a road led north to Leck City, across flat land just east of Monsea's highest peaks. This route was traveled by merchants who carried goods, and most parties containing women, children, or the elderly.

The other way was shorter but more difficult. It led southeast through a Sunderan forest that grew thicker and wilder and rose to meet the mountains that formed Monsea's border with Sunder and Estill. The path became too rocky and uneven for horses. Those who crossed the mountain pass did so on foot. An inn on either side of the pass bought or kept the horses of those who approached the mountains and sold or returned them to those who came from the mountains. This was the route Katsa and Po would take.

Leck City was the walk of a day or so beyond the mountain pass, less if they purchased new horses. The walk to the city wound through valleys grown lush with the water that flowed down from the mountaintops. It was a landscape of rivers and streams, similar to that of inland Lienid, Po told Katsa – or so the Monsean queen had written – which made it a landscape unlike anything Katsa had ever seen.

As they rode, Katsa couldn't content herself with imagining the strange landscapes ahead. For when she'd awakened to morning in the Sunderan inn, the windstorm of the night before had returned to her mind.

Po's Grace would protect Po from Leck. And Po would protect her.

With Po, Katsa would be safe.

He'd said it simply, as if it were nothing. But it wasn't nothing for Katsa to rely on someone else's protection. She'd never done such a thing in her life.

And besides, wouldn't it be easier for her to kill Leck immediately, before he said a word or raised a finger? Or gag him, immobilize him, find some way to disempower him completely? Maintain control and ensure her own defense? Katsa didn't need protection. There would be a solution; there would be a way for her to protect herself from Leck, if indeed he had the power they suspected. She only needed to think of it.

Late in the morning the skies began to drip. By afternoon the drizzle had turned to rain, a cold, relentless rain that beat down and hid the forest road from their sight. Finally they stopped, soaked to the skin, to see what they could do about shelter before night fell. The tangle of trees on either side of the road provided some cover. They tethered the horses under an enormous pine that smelled of the sap dripping from its branches with the rainwater. "It's as dry a place as we're likely to find," Po said. "A fire will be impossible, but at least we won't sleep in the rain."

"A fire is never impossible," Katsa said. "I'll build it, and you find us something to cook on it."

So Po set out into the trees with his bow, somewhat skeptically, and Katsa set to work building a fire. It wasn't easy, with the world around her soaked right through. But the pine tree had protected some of the needles nestled closely to its trunk, and she uncovered some leaves and a stick or two that were not quite waterlogged. With the strike of her knife, a number of gentle breaths, and whatever protection her own open arms could give, a flame began to lick its way through the damp little tower of kindling. It warmed her face as she leaned into it. It pleased her. She'd always had a way with fires. With Oll and Giddon the fire had always been her responsibility.

Further evidence, of course, that she didn't need to rely on anyone for her survival.

She left the flicker of light, and scrambled to find it more food. When Po came back, dripping, to their camp, she was grateful for the fat rabbit in his hand.

"My Grace is definitely still growing," he said, wiping water from his face. "Since we entered this forest I've noticed a greater sensitivity to animals. This rabbit was hiding in the hollow of a tree, and it seems to me I shouldn't have known he was there – " He stopped at the sight of her small, smoky fire. He watched as she breathed into it and fed it with her collection of twigs and branches. "Katsa, how did you manage it? You're a wonder."

She laughed at that. He crouched beside her. "It's good to hear you laugh," he said. "You've been so quiet today. You know, I'm quite cold, though I didn't realize it until I felt the heat of these flames."

Po warmed himself, saw to their dinner, and chatted. Katsa began to open their bags and hang blankets and clothing from the lowest branches of the pine, to dry them as best they could. When the meat of the rabbit was propped sizzling above the flames, Po joined her. He unrolled their maps and held a soggy corner near the fire. He opened Raffin's packet of medicines and inspected them, setting the labeled envelopes onto rocks to dry.

It was comfortable, their camp, with the drops plopping down from above and the warmth of the fire, and the smell of burning wood and cooking meat. Po's patter of conversation was comfortable. Katsa kept the fire alive and smiled at his talk. She fell asleep that night, in a blanket partly dried, secure in the certainty that she could survive anywhere, on her own.

She woke in the middle of the night in a panic, certain that Po had gone and that she was alone. But it must have been the tail end of a dream, snagging into her consciousness as it departed, for she could hear his breath through the even fall of rain. When she turned over and sat up, she could make out his form on the ground beside her. She reached out and touched his shoulder. Just to make sure. He had not left her; he was here, and they were traveling together through the Sunderan forest, to the Monsean border. She lay down again, and watched the outline of his sleeping body in the darkness.

She would accept his protection after all, if truly she needed it. She was not too proud to be helped by this friend. He'd helped her in a thousand ways already.

And she would protect him as fiercely, if it were ever his need – if a fight ever became too much for him or if he needed shelter, or food, or a fire in the rain. Or anything she could provide. She would protect him from everything.

That was settled then. She closed her eyes and slipped into sleep.

Katsa didn't know what was wrong with her when she woke the next morning. She couldn't explain the fury she felt toward him. There was no explanation; and perhaps he knew that, because he asked for none. He only commented that the rain had stopped, watched her as she rolled her blanket, deliberately not looking at him, and carried his things to the horses. As they rode, still she did not look at him. And though he couldn't have missed the force of her fury, he made no comment.

She wasn't angry that there was a person who could provide her with help and protection. That would be arrogance, and she saw that arrogance was foolishness; she should strive for humility – and there was another way he'd helped her. He'd gotten her thinking about humility. But it wasn't that. It was that she hadn't asked for a person whom she trusted, whom she would do so much for, whom she would give herself over to. She hadn't asked for a person whose absence, if she woke in the middle of the night, would distress her – not because of the protection he would then fail to give, but simply because she wished his company. She hadn't asked for a person whose company she wished.

Katsa couldn't bear her own inanity. She drew herself into a shell of sullenness and chased away every thought that entered her mind.

When they stopped to rest the horses beside a pond swollen with rainwater, he leaned against a tree and ate a piece of bread. He watched her, calmly, silently. She didn't look at him, but she was aware of his eyes on her, always on her. Nothing was more infuriating than the way he leaned against the tree, and ate bread, and watched her with those gleaming eyes.

"What are you staring at?" she finally demanded.

"This pond is full of fish," he said, "and frogs. Catfish, hundreds of them. Don't you think it's funny I should know that with such clarity?"

She would hit him, for his calmness, and his latest ability to count frogs and catfish he couldn't see. She clenched her fists and turned, forced herself to walk away. Off the road, into the trees, past the trees, and then she was running through the forest, startling birds into flight. She ran past streams and patches of fern, and hills covered with moss. She shot into a clearing with a waterfall that fell over rocks and plummeted into a pool. She yanked off her boots, pulled off her clothing, and leaped into the water. She screamed at the cold that surrounded her body all at once, and her nose and mouth filled with water. She surfaced, coughed and snorted, teeth chattering. She laughed at the coldness and scrambled to shore.

And now, standing in the dirt, the cold raising every hair of her body on end, she was calm.

It was when she returned to him, chilled and clearheaded, that it happened. He sat against the tree, his knees bent and his head in his hands. His shoulders slumped. Tired, unhappy. Something tender caught in her breath at the sight of him. And then he raised his eyes and looked at her, and she saw what she had not seen before. She gasped.

His eyes were beautiful. His face was beautiful to her in every way, and his shoulders and hands. And his arms that hung over his knees, and his chest that was not moving, because he held his breath as he watched her. And the heart in his chest. This friend. How had she not seen this before? How had she not seen him? She was blind. And then tears choked her eyes, for she had not asked for this. She had not asked for this beautiful man before her, with something hopeful in his eyes that she did not want.

He stood, and her legs shook. She put her hand out to her horse to steady herself.

"I don't want this," she said.

"Katsa. I hadn't planned for it either."

She gripped the edges of her saddle to keep herself from sitting down on the ground between the feet of her horse.

"You... you have a way of upending my plans," he said, and she cried out and sank to her knees, then heaved herself up furiously before he could come to her, and help her, and touch her.

"Get on your horse," she said, "right now. We're riding."

She mounted and took off, without even waiting to be sure he followed. They rode, and she allowed only one thought to enter her mind, over and over. I don't want a husband. I don't want a husband. She matched it to the rhythm of her horse's hooves. And if he knew her thought, all the better.

When they stopped for the night she did not speak to him, but she couldn't pretend he wasn't there. She felt every move he made, without seeing it. She felt his eyes watching her across the fire he built. It was like this every night, and this was how it would continue to be. He would sit there gleaming in the light of the fire, and she unable to look at him, because he glowed, and he was beautiful, and she couldn't stand it.

"Please, Katsa," he finally said. "At least talk to me."

She swung around to face him. "What is there to talk about? You know how I feel, and what I think about it."

"And what I feel? Doesn't that matter?"

His voice was small, so unexpectedly small, in the face of her bitterness that it shamed her. She sat down across from him. "Po. Forgive me. Of course it matters. You may tell me anything you feel."

He seemed suddenly not to know what to say. He looked into his lap and played with his rings; he took a breath and rubbed his head; and when he raised his face to her again she felt that his eyes were naked, that she could see right through them into the lights of his soul. She knew what he was going to say.

"I know you don't want this, Katsa. But I can't help myself. The moment you came barreling into my life I was lost. I'm afraid to tell you what I wish for, for fear you'll... oh, I don't know, throw me into the fire. Or more likely, refuse me. Or worst of all, despise me," he said, his voice breaking and his eyes dropping from her face. His face dropping into his hands. "I love you," he said. "You're more dear to my heart than I ever knew anyone could be. And I've made you cry; and there I'll stop."

She was crying, but not because of his words. It was because of a certainty she refused to consider while she sat before him. She stood. "I need to go."

He jumped up. "No, Katsa, please."

"I won't go far, Po. I just need to think, without you in my head."

"I'm afraid if you leave you won't come back."

"Po." This assurance, at least, she could give him. "I'll come back."

He looked at her for a moment. "I know you mean that now. But I'm afraid once you've gone off to think, you'll decide the solution is to leave me."

"I won't."

"I can't know that."

"No," Katsa said, "you can't. But I need to think on my own, and I refuse to knock you out, so you have to let me go. And once I'm gone you'll just have to trust me, as any person without your Grace would have to do. And as I have to do always, with you."

He looked at her with those naked, unhappy eyes again. Then he took a breath and sat down. "Put a good ten minutes between us," he said, "if you want privacy."

Ten minutes was a far greater range than she'd understood his Grace to encompass; but that was an argument for another time. She felt his eyes on her back as she passed through the trees. She groped forward, hands and feet, in search of darkness, distance, and solitude.

Alone in the forest, Katsa sat on a stump and cried. She cried like a person whose heart is broken and wondered how, when two people loved each other, there could be such a broken heart.

She couldn't have him, and there was no mistaking it. She could never be his wife. She could not steal herself back from Randa only to give herself away again – belong to another person, be answerable to another person, build her very being around another person. No matter how she loved him.

Katsa sat in the darkness of the Sunderan forest and understood three truths. She loved Po. She wanted Po. And she could never be anyone's but her own.

After a while, she began to thread her way back to the fire.

Nothing had changed in her feeling, and she wasn't tired. But Po would suffer if he didn't sleep; and she knew he wouldn't sleep until she had returned.

He was lying on his back, wide awake, staring up at a half-moon. She went to him and sat before him. He watched her with soft eyes and didn't say anything. She looked back at him, and opened up her feelings to him, so that he would understand what she felt, what she wanted, and what she couldn't do. He sat up. He watched her face for a long time.

"You know I'd never expect you to change who you are, if you were my wife," he finally said.

"It would change me to be your wife," she said.

He watched her eyes. "Yes. I understand you."

A log fell into the fire. They sat quietly. His voice, when he spoke, was hesitant.

"It strikes me that heartbreak isn't the only alternative to marriage," he said.

"What do you mean?"

He ducked his head for a moment. He raised his eyes to her again. "I'll give myself to you however you'll take me," he said, so simply that Katsa found she wasn't embarrassed. She watched his face.

"And where would that lead?"

"I don't know But I trust you."

She watched his eyes.

He offered himself to her. He trusted her. As she trusted him.

She hadn't considered this possibility, when she'd sat alone in the forest crying. She hadn't even thought of it. And his offer hung suspended before her now, for her to reach out and claim; and that which had seemed clear and simple and heartbreaking was confused and complicated again. But also touched with hope.

Could she be his lover and still belong to herself?

That was the question; and she didn't know the answer. "I need to think," she said.

"Think here," he said, "please. I'm so tired, Katsa. I'll fall right asleep."

She nodded. "All right. I'll stay."

He reached up, and wiped away a tear that sat on her cheek. She felt the touch of his fingertip in the base of her spine, and fought against it, against allowing him to know of it. He lay down. She stood and moved to a tree outside the light of their fire. She sat against it and watched Po's silhouette, waiting for him to fall asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The notion of having a lover was to Katsa something like discovering a limb she'd never noticed before. An extra arm or toe. It was unfamiliar, and she poked and prodded it, as she would have prodded an alien toe unexpectedly her own.

That the lover would be Po reduced her confusion somewhat. It was by thinking of Po, and not of the notion of a lover, that Katsa became comfortable enough to consider what it would mean to lie in his bed but not be his wife.

It took more than the thinking of one night. They moved through the Sunderan forest, and they talked and rested and made camp as before. But their silences were perhaps a bit less easy than they had been; and Katsa broke off occasionally, to keep her own company and think in solitude. They did not practice fighting, for Katsa was shy of his touch. And he didn't press it upon her. He pressed nothing upon her, even conversation, even his gaze.

They moved as quickly as the road allowed. But the farther they traveled, the more the road resembled a trail at best, winding through overgrown gullies and around trees the size of which Katsa had never seen. Trees with trunks as wide as the horses were long, and branches that groaned far above them. They had to duck sometimes to avoid curtains of vines hanging from the branches. The land rose as they moved east, and streams crisscrossed the forest floor.

Their route at least provided some distraction for Po. He couldn't stop looking around, his eyes wide. "It's wild, this forest. Have you ever seen anything like this? It's gorgeous."

Gorgeous, and full of animals fattening themselves for winter. Easy hunting, and easy finding shelter. But Katsa felt palpably that the horses were moving as slowly as her mind. "I think we would move faster on our feet," she said.

"You'll miss the horses when we have to give them up."

"And when will that be?"

"It looks possibly ten days away on the map."

"I'll prefer traveling by foot."

"You never tire," Po said, "do you?"

"I do, if I haven't slept for a long time. Or if I'm carrying something very heavy. I felt tired when I carried your grandfather up a flight of stairs."

He glanced at her, eyebrows high. "You carried my grandfather up a flight of stairs?"

"Yes, at Randa's castle."

"After a day and a night of hard riding?"

"Yes."

His laugh burst out, but she didn't see the joke. "I had to do it, Po. If I hadn't, the mission would've failed."

"He weighs as much as you, and half as much again."

"Well, and I was tired by the time I got to the top. You wouldn't have been so tired."

"I'm bigger than he is, Katsa. I'm stronger. And I would have been tired, had I spent the night on my horse."

"I had to do it. I had no choice."

"Your Grace is more than fighting," he said.

She didn't respond to that, and after a moment's puzzlement, she forgot it. Her mind returned to the matter at hand. As it couldn't help but do, with Po always before her.

What WAS the difference between a husband and a lover?

If she took Po as her husband, she would be making promises about a future she couldn't yet see. For once she became his wife, she would be his wife forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers.

If Po were her lover, would she feel captured, cornered into a sense of forever? Or would she still have the freedom that sprang from herself?

They were lying on opposite sides of a dying fire one night when a new worry occurred to her. What if she took more from Po than she could give to him?

"Po?"

She heard him turn onto his side. "Yes?"

"How will you feel if I'm forever leaving? If one day I give myself to you and the next I take myself away – with no promises to return?"

"Katsa, a man would be a fool to try to keep you in a cage"

"But that doesn't tell me how you'll feel, always to be subject to my whim."

"It isn't your whim. It's the need of your heart. You forget that I'm in a unique position to understand you, Katsa. Whenever you pull away from me I'll know it's not for lack of love. Or if it is, I'll know that, too; and I'll know it's right for you to go."

"But you're not answering my question. How will you feel?"

There was a pause. "I don't know. I'll probably feel a lot of things. But only one of the things will be unhappiness; and unhappiness I'm willing to risk."

Katsa stared up into the treetops. "Are you sure of that?"

He sighed. "I'm certain."

He was willing to risk unhappiness. And there was the crux of the matter. She couldn't know where this would lead, and to proceed was to risk all kinds of unhappiness.

The fire gasped and died. She was frightened. For as their camp turned to darkness, she also found herself choosing risk.

The next day Katsa would have given anything for a clear, straight path, for hard riding and thundering hooves to drown out all feeling. Instead the road wound back and forth, up rises and into gullies, and she didn't know how she kept herself from screaming. Nightfall led them into a hollow where water trickled into a low, still pool. Moss covered the trees and the ground. Moss hung from the vines that hung from the trees, and dripped into the pool that shone green like the floor of Randa's courtyard.

"You seem a bit edgy" Po said. "Why don't you hunt? I'll build a fire."

She allowed the first few animals she stumbled across to escape. She thought that if she plunged deeper into the forest and took more time, she might wear down some of her jitters. But when she returned to camp much later with a fox in hand, nothing had changed. He sat calmly before the fire, and she thought she might burst apart. She threw their meat onto the ground beside the flames. She sat on a rock and dropped her head into her hands.

She knew what it was rattling around inside her. It was fear, plain and cold.

She turned to him. "I understand why we shouldn't fight each other when one of us is angry. But is there harm in fighting when one of us is frightened?"

He looked into the fire and considered her question evenly. He looked into her face. "I think it depends on what you hope to gain by fighting."

"I think it'll calm me. I think it'll make me comfortable with – with you being near." She rubbed her forehead, sighing. "It'll return me to myself "

He watched her. "It does seem to have that effect on you."

"Will you fight me now, Po?"

He watched her for a moment longer and then moved away from the fire and motioned for her to follow. She walked after him, dazed, her mind buzzing so crazily it was numb, and when they faced each other she found herself staring at him dumbly. She shook her head to clear it, but it did no good.

"Hit me," she said.

He paused for a fraction of a second. Then he swung at her face with one fist and she flashed her arm upward to block him. The explosion of arm on arm woke her from her stupor. She would fight him, and she would beat him. He hadn't beaten her yet, and he wouldn't beat her tonight. No matter the darkness, and no matter the whirlwind in her mind, for now that they fought, the whirlwind had vanished. Katsa's mind was clear.

She hit hard and fast, with hand, elbow, knee, foot. He hit hard, too, but it was as if every blow focused some energy inside her. Every tree they slammed into, every root they tripped over, centered her. She fell into the comfort of fighting with Po, and the fight was ferocious.

When she wrestled him to the ground and he pushed her face away, she called out. "Wait. Blood. I taste blood."

He stopped struggling. "Where? Not your mouth?"

"I think it's your hand," she said.

He sat up and she crouched beside him. She took his hand and squinted into his palm. "Is it bleeding? Can you tell?"

"It's nothing. It was the edge of your boot."

"We shouldn't be fighting in boots."

"We can't fight barefoot in the forest, Katsa. Truly, it's nothing."

"Nonetheless – "

"There's blood on your mouth," he said, in a funny, distracted sort of voice that made plain how little he cared about his injured hand. He raised a finger and almost touched her lip; and then dropped his finger, as if he realized suddenly that he was doing something he shouldn't. He cleared his throat and looked away from her.

And she felt it then, how near he was. She felt his hand and his wrist, warm under her fingers. He was here, right here, breathing before her; she was touching him; and she felt the risk, as if it were water splashing cold on her skin. She knew that this was the moment to choose. She knew her choice.

He turned his eyes back to her, and in them she saw that he understood. She climbed into his arms. They clung to each other, and she was crying, as much from relief to be holding him as from the fear of what she did. He rocked her in his lap and hugged her, and whispered her name over and over, until finally her tears stopped.

She wiped her face on his shirt. She wrapped her arms around his neck. She felt warm in his arms, and calm, and safe and brave. And then she was laughing, laughing at how nice it felt, how good his body felt against hers. He grinned at her, a wicked, gleaming grin that made her warm everywhere. And then his lips touched her throat and nuzzled her neck. She gasped. His mouth found hers. She turned to fire.

Some time later, as she lay with him in the moss, clinging to him, hypnotized by something his lips did to her throat, she remembered his bleeding hand. "Later," he growled, and then she remembered the blood on her mouth, but that only brought his mouth to hers again, tasting, seeking, and his hands fumbling at her clothing, and her hands fumbling at his. And the warmth of his skin, as their bodies explored each other. And after all, they knew each other's bodies as well as any lovers; but this touch was so different, straining toward instead of against.

"Po," she said once, when one clear thought pierced her mind.

"It's in the medicines," he whispered. "There is seabane in the medicines," and his hands, and his mouth, and his body returned her to mindlessness. He made her drunk, this man made her drunk; and every time his eyes flashed into hers she could not breathe.

She expected the pain, when it came. But she gasped at its sharpness; it was not like any pain she had felt before. He kissed her and slowed and would have stopped. But she laughed, and said that this one time she would consent to hurt, and bleed, at his touch. He smiled into her neck and kissed her again and she moved with him through the pain. The pain became a warmth that grew. Grew, and stopped her breath. And took her breath and her pain and her mind away from her body, so that there was nothing but her body and his body and the light and fire they made together.

They lay afterward, warmed by each other and by the heat of the fire. She touched his nose and his mouth. She played with the hoops in his ears. He held her and kissed her, and his eyes flickered into hers.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She laughed. "I have not lost myself. And you?"

He smiled. "I'm very happy."

She traced the line of his jaw to his ear and down to his shoulder. She touched the markings that ringed his arms. "And Raffin thought we'd end this way, too," she said. "Apparently, I'm the only one who didn't see it coming."

"Raffin will make a very good king," Po said, and she laughed again, and rested her head in the crook of his arm.

"Let's pick up the pace tomorrow," she said, thinking of men who were not good kings.

"Yes, all right. Are you in pain still?"

"No."

"Why do you suppose it happens that way? Why does a woman feel that pain?"

She had no answer to that. Women felt it, that was all she knew. "Let me clean your hand," she said.

"I'll clean you first."

She shivered as he left her to go to the fire, and find water and cloths. He leaned into the light, and brightness and shadows moved across his body. He was beautiful. She admired him, and he flashed a grin at her. Almost as beautiful as you are conceited, she thought at him, and he laughed out loud.

It struck her that this should feel strange, to be lying here, watching him, teasing him. To have done what they'd done, and be what they'd become. But instead it felt natural and comfortable. Inevitable. And only the smallest bit terrifying.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They had entire conversations in which she didn't say a word. For Po could sense when Katsa desired to talk to him, and if there was a thing she wanted him to know, his Grace could capture that thing. It seemed a useful ability for them to practice. And Katsa found that the more comfortable she grew with opening her mind to him, the more practiced she became with closing it as well. It was never entirely satisfying, closing her mind, because whenever she closed her feelings from him she must also close them from herself. But it was something.

They found it was easier for him to pick up her thoughts than it was for her to formulate them. She thought things to him word by word at first, as if she were speaking, but silently. Do you want to stop and rest? Shall I catch us some dinner? I've run out of water "Of course I understand you when you're that precise," he said. "But you don't need to try so hard. I can understand images, too, or feelings, or thoughts in unformed sentences."

This was also hard for her at first. She was afraid of being misunderstood, and she formulated her images as carefully as she'd formulated her words. Fish roasting over their fire. A stream. The herbs, the seabane, that she must eat with dinner.

"If you only open a thought to me, Katsa, I'll see it – no matter how you think it. If you intend me to know it, I will."

But what did it mean to open a thought to him? To intend for him to know it? She tried simply reaching out to his mind whenever she wanted him to know something. Po. And then leaving it to him to collect the essence of the thought.

It seemed to work. She practiced constantly, both communicating with him and closing him out. Slowly, the tightness of her mind loosened.

Beside the fire one night, protected from the rain by a shelter of branches she'd built, she asked to see his rings. He placed his hands into hers. She counted. Six plain gold rings, of varying widths, on his right hand. On his left, one plain gold; one thin with an inlaid gray stone running through the middle; one wide and heavy with a sharp, glittery white stone – this the one that must have scratched her that night beside the archery range; and one plain and gold like the first, but engraved all around with a design she recognized, from the markings on his arms. It was this ring that made her wonder if the rings had meaning.

"Yes," he said. "Every ring worn by a Lienid means something. This with the engraving is the ring of the king's seventh son. It's the ring of my castle and my princehood. My inheritance."

Do your brothers have a different ring, and markings on their arms that are different from yours?

"They do."

She fingered the great, heavy ring with the jagged white stone. This is the ring of a king.

"Yes, this ring is for my father. And this," he said, fingering the small one with the gray line running through the middle, "for my mother. This plain one for my grandfather."

Was he never king?

"His older brother was king. When his brother died, he would've been king, had he wished it. But his son, my father, was young and strong and ambitious. My grandfather was old and unwell and content to pass the kingship to his son."

And what of your father's mother, and your mother's father and mother? Do you wear rings for them?

"No. They're dead. I never knew them."

She took his right hand. And these? You don't have enough fingers for the rings on this hand.

"These are for my brothers," he said. "One for each. The thickest for the oldest and the thinnest for the youngest."

Does this mean that your brothers all wear an even thinner ring, for you?

"That's right, and my mother and grandfather, too, and my father."

Why should yours be the smallest, just because you're the youngest?

"That's the way it is, Katsa. But the ring they wear for me is different from the others. It has a tiny inlaid gold stone, and a silver."

For your eyes.

"Yes."

It's a special ring, for your Grace?

"The Lienid honor the Graced."

Well, and that was a novel idea. She hadn't known that anyone honored the Graced. You don't wear rings for your brothers' wives, or their children?

He smiled. "No, thankfully. But I would wear one for my own wife, and if I had children, I'd wear a ring for each. My mother has four brothers, four sisters, seven sons, two parents, and a husband. She wears nineteen rings."

And that is absurd. How can she use her fingers?

He shrugged. "I've no difficulty using mine." He raised her hands to his mouth then and kissed her knuckles.

You wouldn't catch me wearing that many rings.

He laughed, turned her hands over, and kissed her palms and her wrists. "I wouldn't catch you doing anything you didn't want to do."

And here was what was rapidly becoming her favorite aspect of Po's Grace: He knew, without her telling him, the things she did want to do. He dropped to his knees before her now, with a smile that looked like mischief. His hand grazed her side and then pulled her closer. His lips brushed her neck. She caught her breath, forgot whatever retort she'd been about to form, and enjoyed the gold chill of his rings on her face and her body and every place that he touched.

"You believe Leck cuts those animals up himself," she said to him one day while they were riding. "Don't you?"

He glanced back at her. "I realize it's a disgusting accusation. But yes, that's what I believe. And I also wonder about the sickness that man spoke of "

"You think he's killing people off."

Po shrugged and didn't answer.

Katsa said, "Do you think Queen Ashen closed herself away from him because she figured out that he's Graced?"

"I've wondered about that, too."

"But how could she have figured it out? Shouldn't she be completely under his spell?"

"I've no idea. Perhaps he went too far with his abuses and she had a moment of mental clarity." He raised a branch that hung in their path, and ducked under it. "Perhaps his Grace only works to a point."

Or perhaps there was no Grace. Perhaps it was no more than a ridiculous notion they'd come up with in a desperate attempt to explain unexplainable circumstances.

But a king and queen had died, and no one had called foul. A king had kidnapped a grandfather, and no one suspected him.

A one-eyed king.

It was a Grace. Or if it was not, it was something unnatural.

The path grew thinner and more overgrown, and they walked with the horses more than they rode. And now all the trees seemed to change color at once, the leaves orange and yellow and crimson, and purple and brown. Only a day or two to go before they reached the inn that would take their horses. And then the steep climb into the mountains, with their belongings on their backs. There would be snow in the mountains, Po said, and there would not be many travelers. They would need to move cautiously and watch for storms.

"But you're not worried, are you, Katsa?"

"Not particularly."

"Because you never get cold, and you can bring down a bear with your hands and build us a fire in a blizzard, using icicles for kindling."

She would not humor him by laughing, but she couldn't suppress a smile. They had encamped for the evening. She was fishing, and when she fished he always teased her, for she didn't fish with a line, as he would have. She fished by removing her boots, rolling up the legs of her trousers, and wading into the water. She'd then snatch up any fish that came within range of her grasp and throw it to Po, who sat on shore laughing at her, scaling and gutting their dinner, and keeping her company.

"It's not many people whose hands are faster than a fish," he said.

Katsa snatched at a silver pink glimmer that flashed past her ankles, then tossed the fish to Po. "It's not many people who know that a horse has a stone caught in its hoof even when the horse shows no signs of it, either. I may be able to kill my dinner as easily as I kill men, but at least I'm not conversing with the horses."

"I don't converse with the horses. I've only started to know if they want us to stop. And once we've stopped, it's usually easy enough to find what's wrong."

"Well, regardless, it seems to me that you're not in a position to marvel at the strangeness of my Grace."

Po leaned back on his elbows and grinned. "I don't think your Grace is strange. But I think it's not what you think it is."

She grabbed at a dark flash in the water and threw a fish to him. "What is it, then?"

"Now, that I don't know. But a killing Grace can't account for all the things you can do. The way you never tire. Or suffer from the cold, or from hunger."

"I tire."

"Other things, too. The knack you have with fire in a rainstorm."

"I'm just more patient than other people."

Po snorted. "Yes. Patience has always struck me as one of your defining characteristics."

He dodged the fish that flew at his head, and sat back again, laughing. "Your eyes are bright as you stand in that water, with the sun setting before you," he said. "You're beautiful."

Stop it. "And you're a fool."

"Come out of there, wildcat. We've enough fish."

She waded to shore. Meeting her at the edge of the water, he pulled her up onto the moss. Together they gathered up the fish and walked to the fire.

"I tire," Katsa said. "And I feel cold and hunger."

"All right, if you say so. But just compare yourself to other people."

Compare herself to other people.

She sat down and dried her feet.

"Shall we fight tonight?" he asked.

She nodded, absently.

He set the fish above the flames and hummed and washed his hands, and flashed his light at her from across the fire. She sat – and thought to herself about what she found when she compared herself to other people.

She did feel cold, sometimes. But she didn't suffer from it as other people did. And she felt hunger sometimes; but she could go long with little food, and hunger did not make her weak. She couldn't remember ever feeling weak, exactly, for any reason. Nor could she remember ever having been ill. She thought back and was certain. She'd never even had a cough.

She stared into the fire. They were a bit unusual, these things. She could see that. And she knew there was more.

She fought and rode and ran and tumbled, but her skin rarely bruised or broke. She'd never broken a bone. And she didn't suffer from pain the way other people did. Even when Po hit her very hard, the pain was easily manageable. If she was being honest, she'd have to admit that she didn't quite understand what other people meant when they complained of pain.

She didn't tire as other people did. She didn't need much sleep. Most nights she made herself sleep, only because she knew she should.

"Po?"

He looked up from the fire.

"Can you tell yourself to go to sleep?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, can you lie down and make yourself fall asleep? Whenever you want, instantly?"

He squinted at her. "No. I've never heard of such a thing."

"Hmm."

He studied her for a moment longer, and then seemed to decide to let her be. She barely noticed him. It had never occurred to her before that the control she had over her sleep might be unusual. And it wasn't just that she could command herself to sleep. She could command herself to sleep for a specific amount of time. And whenever she woke, she always knew exactly what time it was. At every moment of the day, in fact, she always knew the time.

Just as she always knew exactly where she was and what direction she was facing.

"Which way is north?" she asked Po.

He looked up again and considered the light. He pointed in a direction that was loosely north, but not exactly. How did she know that with such certainty?

She never got lost. She never had trouble building a fire, or shelter. She hunted so easily. Her vision and her hearing were better than those of anyone she'd ever known.

She stood abruptly. She strode the few steps back to the pond and stared into it without seeing it.

The physical needs that limited other people did not limit her. The things from which other people suffered did not touch her. She knew instinctively how to live and thrive in the wilderness.

And she could kill anyone. At the slightest threat to her survival.

Katsa sat on the ground suddenly.

Could her Grace be survival?

The instant she asked it, she denied it. She was just a killer, had always been just a killer. She'd killed a cousin, in plain view of Randa's court – a man who wouldn't have hurt her, not really. She'd murdered him, without a thought, without hesitation – just as she'd very nearly murdered her uncle.

But she hadn't murdered her uncle. She'd found a way to avoid it and stay alive.

And she hadn't meant for that cousin to die. She'd been a child, her Grace unformed. She hadn't lashed out to kill him; she'd only lashed out to protect herself, to protect herself from his touch. She'd forgotten this, somewhere along the line, when the people of the court had begun to shy away from her and Randa had begun to use her skill for his own purposes, and call her his child killer.

Her Grace was not killing. Her Grace was survival.

She laughed then. For it was almost like saying her Grace was life; and of course, that was ridiculous.

She stood again and turned back to the fire. Po watched her approach. He didn't ask what she was thinking, he didn't intrude; he would wait until she wanted to tell him. She looked at him measuring her from across the flames. He was plainly curious.

"I've been comparing myself to other people," she said.

"I see," he said, cautiously.

She peeled back the skin of one of the roasting fish and sliced off a piece. She chewed on it and thought.

"Po."

He looked up at her.

"If you learned that my Grace wasn't killing," she said, "but survival..."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Would it surprise you?"

He pursed his lips. "No. It makes much more sense to me."

"But – it's like saying my Grace is life."

"Yes."

"It's absurd."

"Is it? I don't think so. And it's not just your own life," he said. "You've saved many lives with your Grace."

She shook her head. "Not as many as I've hurt."

"Possibly. But you have the rest of your life to tip the balance. You'll live long."

The rest of her life to tip the balance.

Katsa peeled the flesh of another fish away from its bones. She broke the flaky meat apart and ate it, and thought about that, smiling.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The trees gave way suddenly, and the mountains came upon them all at once; and with the mountains, the town that would take their horses. The buildings were made of stone or of heavy Sunderan wood, but it was the town's backdrop that stopped Katsa's breath. She'd seen the hills of Estill, but she'd never seen mountains. She'd never seen silver trees that climbed straight up into the sky, and rock and snow that climbed even higher, to peaks impossibly high that shone gold in the sun.

"It reminds me of home," Po said.

"Lienid is like this?"

"Parts of Lienid. My father's city stands near mountains like these."

"Well," Katsa said. "It reminds me of nothing, for I've never seen anything like it. I almost can't believe I'm seeing it now."

There was no camping and no hunting for them that night. Their meal was cooked for them and served by the rough, friendly wife of the innkeeper, who seemed unconcerned with their eyes and wanted to know everything they'd seen on their journey, and everyone they'd passed. They ate in a room warm from the fire in a great stone fireplace. Hot stew, hot vegetables, hot bread, and the entire eating room to themselves. Chairs to sit on, and a table, and plates and spoons. Their baths afterwards warm; their bed warm, and softer than Katsa had remembered a bed could be. It was luxury, and they enjoyed it, for they knew it was the last such comfort they were likely to experience for some time.

They left before sunlight broke over the peaks, with provisions wrapped by the innkeeper's wife, and cold water from the inn's well. They carried most of their belongings, all that they had not left behind with the horses. One bow and one quiver, on Katsa's back, as she was the better shot. Neither of their swords, though both carried dagger and knife. Their bedrolls, little clothing, coins, the medicines, the maps, the list of Council contacts.

The sky they climbed toward turned purple, then orange and pink. The mountain path bore the signs of the crossings of others – fires gone cold, boot impressions in the dirt. In some places huts had been built for the use of travelers, empty of furniture but with crude, functional fireplaces. Built by the combined efforts of Sunder, Estill, and Monsea, in a time long ago when the kingdoms worked together for the safe passage of travelers across their borders.

"A roof and four walls can save you, in a blizzard in the mountains," Po said.

"Were you ever caught in the mountains during a blizzard?"

"I was once, with my brother Silvern. We were out climbing, and a storm surprised us. We found the hut of a woodsman – if we hadn't, we'd likely be dead. We were trapped for four days. For four days we ate nothing but the bread and apples we'd brought along, and the snow. Our mother almost gave us up for lost."

"Which brother is Silvern?"

"My father's fifth son."

"It's a shame you hadn't the animal sense then that you have now. You could've gone out and unearthed a mole, or a squirrel."

"And lost myself on the way back to the hut," he said. "Either that, or returned to a brother who'd think it was awfully suspicious that I'd managed to hunt in a blizzard."

They climbed over dirt and grass that gave way at times to rock, climbed always with the mountain peaks rising before them. It felt good to be out of the forest, to climb, to move fast. The vast, empty sky glinted its sun onto her face and filled her lungs with air. She was content.

"Why have you never trusted your brothers with your Grace?"

"My mother forbade me when I was a child, absolutely forbade me to tell them. I hated to keep it from them – particularly Silvern, and Skye, who's closest in age to me. But now I know my brothers as men, and I see my mother was right."

"Why? Aren't they to be trusted?"

"They are, with most things. But they're all made of ambition, Katsa, every one of them, constantly playing off each other to gain favor with my father. As things stand now, I'm no threat to them – because I'm the youngest and have no ambition. And they respect me, for they know it would take all six of them together to beat me in a fight. But if they knew the truth of my Grace they'd try to use me. They wouldn't be able to help themselves."

"But you wouldn't let them."

"No, but then they'd resent me, and I'm not sure one of them wouldn't give in to the temptation to tell his wife or his advisers. And my father would learn... It would all fall apart."

They stopped at a trickle of water. Katsa drank some and washed her face. "Your mother had foresight."

"Above all, she feared my father learning of it." He lowered his flask into the water. "He's not an unkind father. But it's hard to be king. Men will trick power away from a king, however they can. I would've been too useful to him. He couldn't have resisted using me – he simply couldn't. And that was the greatest thing my mother feared."

"Did he never want to use you as a fighter?"

"Certainly, and I've helped him. Not as you've helped Randa – my father isn't the bully Randa is. But it was my mind that my mother feared him using. She wanted my mind to be my own, and not his."

It didn't seem right to Katsa that a mother should have to protect her child from its father. But she didn't know much of mothers and fathers. She hadn't had a mother or a father to protect her from Randa's use. Perhaps rather than fathers, it was kings that were the danger.

"Your grandfather agreed that no one should know the truth of your Grace?"

"My grandfather agreed."

"Would your father be very angry, if he learned the truth now?"

"He'd be furious, with me, my mother, and my grandfather. They'd all be furious. And rightfully so; it's a huge deception we've pulled off, Katsa."

"You had to."

"Nonetheless. It would not be easily forgiven."

Katsa pulled herself onto a jumble of stones and stopped to look around. They seemed no closer to the tops of the peaks that rose before them. It was only by looking back, to the forest far below, that she knew they'd climbed; that, and the drop in temperature. She shifted her bags and stepped back onto the trail.

And then the thought of queens protecting children from kings registered more deeply in her mind.

Po. Leck has a daughter.

"Yes, Bitterblue. She's ten."

Bitterblue could have a role in this strange affair. IfLeck was trying to hurt her, it would explain Queen Ashen hiding away with her.

Po stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her anxiously. "If he cuts up animals for pleasure, I hate to think what he would want with his own daughter."

The question hung in the air between them, eerie and horrible. Katsa thought suddenly of the two dead little girls.

"Let's hope you're wrong," Po said, his hand to his stomach as if he felt ill.

"Let's move faster," Katsa said, "just in case I'm right."

They set off almost at a run. They followed the path upward, through the mountains that separated them from Monsea and whatever truth it contained.

They woke the next morning on the floor of a dusty hut to a dead fire and a winter cold that seeped through the crack under the door. The frozen stars melted as Katsa and Po climbed, and light spread across the horizon. The path grew steeper and more rocky. The pace of their climb pushed away the chill and the stiffness that Katsa didn't feel but that Po complained of.

"I've been thinking about how we should approach Leck's court," Po said. He climbed from one rock to another and jumped to a third.

"What were you thinking?"

"Well, I'd like to be more certain of our suspicions before meeting him."

"Should we find an inn outside the court, and stay there our first night?"

"That's my thought."

"But we shouldn't waste any time."

"No. If we can't learn anything helpful in one night, then perhaps we should go ahead and present ourselves to the court." They climbed, and Katsa wondered what that would be like – whether they would pose as friends to the court and infiltrate it gradually, or whether they would enter on the offensive and instigate an enormous fight. She pictured Leck as a smirking, insincere man standing at the end of a velvet carpet, his single eye narrowed and clever. She imagined herself shooting an arrow into his heart, so that he crumpled to his knees, bled all over his carpet, and died at the feet of his stewards. At Po's command, her strike. It would have to be at Po's command, for until they knew the truth of his Grace, she couldn't trust her own judgment. Po? That's true, isn't it?

He took a moment to gather her thoughts. "I've some ideas about that as well," he said. "Once we're in Monsea, would you consent to do what I say, and only what I say? Just until I have a sense of Leck's power? Would you ever consent to that?"

"Of course I would, Po, in this case."

"And you must expect me to behave strangely. I'll have to pretend I'm Graced with fighting, no more, and that I believe every word he says."

"And I'll practice my archery, and my knife throwing," Katsa said. "For I've a feeling that when all is asked and revealed, King Leck will find himself on the end of my blade."

Po shook his head and did not smile. "I've a feeling it's not going to be that easy."

The third day of their crossing was the windiest, and the coldest. The mountain pass led them between two peaks that were hidden, sometimes, behind cyclones of snow. Their boots crunched through patches of snow; and flakes drifted onto their shoulders from the thin blue sky and melted into Katsa's hair.

"I like winter in the mountains," she said, but Po laughed.

"This isn't winter in the mountains. This is autumn in the mountains, and a mild autumn at that. Winter is ferocious."

"I think I should like that, too," she said, and Po laughed again.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised. You'd thrive on the challenge of it."

The weather held, so that Katsa's declaration could not be put to the test. They moved as fast as the terrain would permit. For all his marveling at Katsa's energy, Po was strong and quick. He teased her for the pace she set, but he didn't complain; and if he stopped sometimes for food and water, Katsa was grateful, for it reminded her to eat and drink as well. And it gave her an excuse to turn around and stare behind them, at the mountains that stretched from east to west, at the whole world she could see – for she was so high that she felt she could see the whole world.

And then suddenly, they reached the top of the pass. Before them the mountains plunged into a forest of pines. Green valleys stretched beyond, broken by streams and farmhouses and tiny dots that Katsa guessed were cows. And a line, a river, that thinned into the distance and led to a miniature white city at the edge of their sight. Leck City.

"I can barely see it," Po said, "but I trust your vision."

"I see buildings," Katsa said, "and a dark wall around a white castle. And look, see the farmhouses in the valley? Surely you can make those out. And the cows, do you see the cows?"

"Yes, I can see them, now that you mention it. It's gorgeous, Katsa. Have you ever seen a sight so gorgeous?"

She laughed at his happiness. For a moment, as they looked down on Monsea, the world was beautiful and without worry.

The downhill scramble was more treacherous than the uphill climb. Po complained that his toes were liable to burst through the front of his boots; and then he complained that he wished they would, for they ached from the constant downhill beat of his feet. And then Katsa noticed that he stopped complaining altogether and sank into a preoccupation.

"Po. We're moving fast."

"Yes." He shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted down at the fields of Monsea. "I only hope it's fast enough."

They camped that night beside a stream that ran with melting snow. She sat on a rock and watched his eyes that glimmered with worry. He glanced at her and smiled suddenly. "Would you like something sweet to eat with this rabbit?"

"Of course," she said, "but it makes little difference what I want, if all we have is rabbit."

He stood then and turned away into the scrub.

Where are you going?

He didn't answer. His boots scraped on rock as he disappeared into blackness.

She stood. "Po!"

"Don't worry your heart, Katsa." His voice came from a distance. "I'm only finding what you want."

"If you think I'm just going to sit here – "

"Sit down. You'll ruin my surprise."

She sat, but she let him know what she thought of him and his surprise, rattling around in the dark and breaking his ankles on the rocks most likely, so she'd have to carry him the rest of the way down the mountain. A few minutes passed, and she heard him returning. He stepped into the light and came to her, his hand cupped before him. When he knelt before her, she saw a little mound of berries in his palm. She looked into the shadows of his face.

"Winterberries?" she asked.

"Winterberries."

She took one from his hand and bit into it. It popped with a cold sweetness. She swallowed the soft flesh and watched his face, confused. "Your Grace showed them to you, these winterberries."

"'Yes."

"Po. This is new, isn't it? That you should sense a plant with such clarity. It's not as if it were moving or thinking or about to crash down on top of you."

He sat back on his heels. He tilted his head. "The world is filling in around me," he said, "piece by piece. The fuzziness is clearing. To be honest, it's a bit disorienting. I'm ever so slightly dizzy."

Katsa stared at him. There was nothing to say in response to this; his Grace was showing him winterberries, and he was ever so slightly dizzy. Tomorrow he would be able to tell her about a landslide on the other side of the world, and they would both faint.

She sighed and touched the gold in his ear. "If you put your feet into the stream, the snow water will soothe your toes, and I'll rub the warmth back into them when you're done."

"And if I'm cold in places other than my toes? Will you warm me there, too?"

His voice was a grin, and she laughed into his face. But then he took her chin in his hand and looked into her eyes, seriously. "Katsa. When we get closer to Leck, you must do whatever I tell you to. Do you promise?"

"I promise."

"You must, Katsa. You must swear it."

"Po. I've promised it before, and I'll promise it again, and swear it, too. I'll do what you say."

He watched her eyes, and then he nodded. He emptied the last few berries into her hand and bent down to his boots.

"My toes are such a misery, I'm not sure it's wise to release them. They may revolt and run off into the mountains and refuse to return."

She ate another winterberry. "I expect I'm more than a match for your toes."

The next day there were no more jokes from Po, about his toes or anything else. He hardly spoke, and the farther they moved down the path that led to King Leck, the more anxious he seemed to become. His mood was contagious. Katsa was uneasy.

"You'll do what I say, when the time comes?" he asked her once.

She opened her mouth to give voice to a surge of irritation at the question she'd already answered and must now answer again. But at the sight of him trudging down the path beside her, tense and worried, she lost hold of her anger.

"I'll do what you say, Po."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"Katsa."

His voice woke her. She opened her eyes and knew it to be about three hours before dawn.

"What is it?"

"I can't sleep."

She sat up. "Too worried?"

"Yes."

"Well, I assume you didn't wake me just for my company."

"You don't need the sleep; and if I'm going to be awake we may as well be moving."

And she was up, and her blanket rolled, and her quiver and bow and bags on her back in an instant. A path, sloping downhill, ran through the trees. The forest was black. Po took her arm and led her as best he could, stumbling over stones and resting his hand on trees she couldn't see to steady their passage.

When a cold, gritty light finally brought shadow and shape to their path, they moved faster, practically ran. Snow began to fall, and the trail, wider and flatter, glowed a pale blue. The inn that would sell them horses was beyond the forest, hours away by foot. As they hurried on, Katsa found herself looking forward to the rest for her feet and her lungs that the horses would bring. She opened the thought to Po.

"It takes this," he said, "to tire you. Running, in the dark, on no sleep, and no food, after days of climbing in the mountains." He didn't smile, and he wasn't teasing. "I'm glad. Whatever it is we're running toward, we're likely to need your energy, and your stamina."

That reminded her. She reached into a bag on her back. "Eat," she said. "We must both eat, or we'll be good for nothing."

It was midmorning, and the snow still drifted down, when they neared the place where the forest stopped abruptly and the fields began. Po turned to her suddenly, alarm screaming in every feature of his face. He began to run headlong down the path through the trees, toward the edge of the forest. And then Katsa heard it – men's voices raised, yelling, and the thunder of hooves, coming closer. She ran after Po and broke through the trees several paces behind him. A woman staggered across the fields toward them, a small woman with arms raised, her face a mask of terror. Dark hair and gold hoops in her ears. A black dress, and gold on the fingers she stretched out to Po. And behind her an army of men on galloping horses, led by one man with streaming robes and an eyepatch, and a raised bow, and a notched arrow that flew from the bow and struck the woman square in the back. The woman jerked and stumbled. She fell on her face in the snow.

Po stopped cold. He ran back to Katsa, yelling, "Shoot him! Shoot him!" but she had already swung the bow from her back and reached for an arrow. She pulled the string and took aim. And then the horses stopped. The man with the eyepatch screamed out, and Katsa froze.

"Oh, what an accident!" he cried.

His voice was a choke, a sob. So full of desperate pain that Katsa gasped, and tears rose to her eyes.

"What a terrible, terrible accident!" the man screamed. "My wife! My beloved wife!"

Katsa stared at the crumpled body of the woman, black dress and flung arms, white snow stained red. The man's sobs carried to her across the fields. It was an accident. A terrible, tragic accident. Katsa lowered her bow.

"No! Shoot him!"

Katsa gaped at Po, shocked at his words, at the wildness in his eyes. "But, it was an accident," she said.

"You promised to do what I said."

"Yes, but I'm not going to shoot a grieving man whose wife has had such an accident – "

His voice was angry now, as she'd never heard it. "Give me the bow," he hissed, so strange and rough, so unlike himself.

"Give it to me."

"No! You're not yourself!"

He clutched his hair then and looked behind him desperately, at the man who watched them, his one eye cocked toward them, his gaze cool, measuring. Po and the man stared at each other for just a moment. Some flicker of recognition stirred inside Katsa, but then it was gone. Po turned back to her, calm now. Desperately, urgently calm.

"Will you do something else, then?" he said. "Something much smaller, that will hurt no one?"

"Yes, if it will hurt no one."

"Will you run with me now, back into the forest? And if he starts to speak, will you cover your ears?"

What an odd request, but she felt that same strange flicker of recognition; and she agreed, without knowing why. "Yes."

"Quickly, Katsa."

In an instant they turned and ran, and when she heard voices she clapped her hands to her ears. But she could still hear words barked here and there, and what she heard confused her. And then Po's voice, yelling at her to keep running; yelling at her, she thought vaguely, to drown out the other voices. She half heard a muffled clatter of hooves growing behind them. The clatter turned into a thunder. And then she saw the arrows striking the trees around them.

The arrows made her angry. We could kill these men, all of them, she thought to Po. We should fight. But he kept yelling at her to run, and his hand tightened on her shoulder and pushed her forward, and she had that sense again that all was not right, that none of this was normal, and that in this madness, she should trust Po.

They raced around trees and clambered up slopes, rushing in whatever direction Po chose. The arrows dropped off as they moved deeper into the forest, for the woods slowed the horses and confused the men. Still they kept running. They came to a part of the forest so thickly wooded that the snow had caught in the branches of the trees and never reached the ground. Our footprints, Katsa thought. He's taken us here so they can't trace our footprints. She clung to that thought, because it was the only piece of this senselessness she understood.

Finally, Po pulled her hands from her ears. They ran more, until they came to a great, wide tree with brown needles, the ground littered with dead branches that had fallen from its trunk. "There's a hollow place, up high," Po said. "There's an opening in the trunk. Can you climb it? If I go first, can you follow?"

"Of course. Here," she said, making a cup with her hands. He put one foot into her palms and jumped, and she lifted him up as high as she could into the tree. She made handholds and footholds of the rough places in the trunk and hustled up after him. "Avoid that branch," he called down to her. "And this one: A breeze would knock it down." She used the limbs he used; he climbed and she followed. He disappeared, and a moment later his arms reached out of a great hole above her. He pulled her inside the tree, into the hollowed-out space he'd sensed from the ground. They sat in the dark, breathing heavily, their legs entwined in their tree cave.

"We'll be safe here, for now," Po said. "As long as they don't come after us with dogs."

But why were they hiding? Now that they sat still, the strangeness of all that had happened began to pierce Katsa's mind, like the arrows the horsemen had shot at their backs. Why were they hiding, why weren't they fighting? Why were they afraid? That woman had been afraid, too. That woman who looked like a Lienid. Ashen. The wife of Leck was a Lienid, and her name was Ashen – and yes, that made sense, because that grief-stricken man had called her his wife. That man with the eyepatch and the bow in his hands was Leck.

But wasn't it Leck's arrow that had struck Ashen? Katsa couldn't quite recall; and when she tried to watch that moment again in her mind, a fog and falling snow blocked her sight.

Po might remember. But Po had been so strange, too, telling her to shoot Leck as he grieved over his wife. And then telling her to cover her ears. Why cover her ears?

That thing that she couldn't quite grasp flickered again in her mind. She reached for it and it disappeared. And then she was angry, at her thick-headedness, her stupidity. She couldn't make sense of all this, because she was too unintelligent.

She looked at Po, who leaned against the wall of the tree and stared straight ahead at nothing. The sight of him upset her even more, for his face seemed thin, his mouth tight. He was tired, worn out, most likely hungry. He'd said something about dogs, and she knew his eyes well enough to recognize the shadows of worry that sat within them.

Po. Please tell me what's wrong.

"Katsa." He sighed her name. He rubbed his forehead and then looked into her face. "Do you remember our conversations about King Leck, Katsa? What we said about him, before we saw him today?"

She stared at him and remembered they'd said something; but she couldn't remember what it was.

"About his eyes, Katsa. Something he's hiding."

"He's..." It came to her suddenly. "He's Graced."

"Yes. Do you remember what his Grace is?"

And then it began to trickle back to her, piece by piece, from some part of her mind she hadn't been able to reach before. She saw it again clearly. Ashen, terrified, fleeing from her husband and his army; Leck shooting Ashen in the back; Leck crying out in pretended grief, his words fogging Katsa's mind, transforming the murder her eyes had seen into a tragic accident she couldn't remember. Po screaming at her to shoot Leck; and she refusing.

She couldn't look him in the face, for shame overwhelmed her.

"It's not your fault," he said.

"I swore to you I'd do what you said. I swore it, Po."

"Katsa. No one could've kept that promise. If I'd known how powerful Leck was, if I'd had the slightest idea – I never should have brought you here."

"You didn't bring me here. We came together."

"Well, and now we're both in great danger." He stiffened. "Wait," he whispered. He seemed to be listening to something, but Katsa could hear nothing. "They're searching the forest," he said after a minute. "That one turned away. I don't think they have dogs."

"But why are we hiding from them?"

"Katsa – "

"What do you mean, we're in great danger? Why aren't we fighting these butchers, why..." She dropped her face into her hands. "I'm so confused. I'm hopelessly stupid."

"You're not stupid. It's Leck's Grace that takes away your own thought, and it's my Grace that sees so much more than a person should. You're confused because Leck confused you deliberately with his words, and because I haven't told you yet what I know."

"Then tell me. Tell me what you know."

"Well, Ashen is dead – that, I don't have to tell you. She's dead because she tried to escape Leck with Bitterblue. Here we see her punishment for protecting her child." She heard his bitterness and remembered that Ashen was not a stranger to him, that he had seen a member of his family murdered today. "I believe you were right about Bitterblue," he said. "I'm almost sure, from what Ashen wanted as she ran toward me."

"What did she want?"

"She wanted me to find Bitterblue, and protect her. I... I don't know what it is Leck wants with her, exactly. But I think Bitterblue's in the forest, hiding, like us."

"We must find her before they do."

"Yes, but there's more you need to know, Katsa. We're in particular danger, you and I. Leck saw us, he recognized us. Leck saw us..."

He broke off, but it didn't matter. She understood, suddenly, what Leck had seen. He'd seen them run away when they shouldn't have had the slightest idea of their danger. He'd seen her put her hands over her ears when they shouldn't have known the power of his words.

"He doesn't – he doesn't know how much of the truth I know," Po said. "But he knows his Grace doesn't work on me. I'm a threat to him and he wants me dead. And you he wants alive."

Katsa's eyes snapped to his face. "But they were shooting at us – "

"I heard the command, Katsa. The arrows were meant for me."

"We should have fought," Katsa said. "We could've taken those soldiers. We must find him now and kill him."

"No, Katsa. You know you can't be in his presence."

"I can cover my ears somehow."

"You can't block out all sound, and he'll only talk louder. He'll yell and you'll hear him – your hearing is too good – and his words are no less dangerous if they're muffled. Even the words of his soldiers are dangerous. Katsa, you'll end up confused again and we'll have to run – "

"I won't let him do that to me again, Po – "

"Katsa." There was a tired certainty in his voice, and she didn't want to hear what he was going to say. "It only took him a few words," he said, "and he had you. A few words erased everything you'd seen. He wants you, Katsa, he wants your Grace. And I can't protect you."

She hated the truth of his words, for he was right. Leck could do what he wanted with her. He could make a monster of her, if that was his wish. "Where is he now?"

"I don't know; not nearby. But he's probably in the forest, looking for us or for Bitterblue."

"Will it be difficult to avoid him?"

"I don't think so. My Grace will tell me if he's near, and we can run and hide."

A sick feeling stopped her breath. What if he tried to turn her against Po?

She took her dagger from her belt and held it out to him. He looked back at her with quiet eyes, understanding. "It won't come to that," he said.

"Good," she said. "Take it anyway."

He set his mouth but didn't argue. He took the dagger and slid it into his own belt. She pulled the knife from her boot and passed it to him. She handed him the bow and helped him fasten the quiver of arrows onto his back.

"There's not much we can do about my hands and feet," she said, "but at least I'm unarmed. You'd stand a chance against me, Po, if you had a blade in each hand and I had none."

"It won't come to that."

No, it probably wouldn't. But if it did, there was no harm in being prepared. She watched his face, his eyes, which dimly glowed. His tired eyes, his dear eyes. He'd be better able to defend himself if her hands were bound. She wondered, should they bind her hands?

"And now you've crossed into the realm of the absurd," he said.

She grinned. "We should try it, though, in our fights."

A smile twitched in the corner of his mouth. "I could agree to that, sometime, when all of this is behind us."

"Now," she said, "let's find your cousin."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It was not easy for her to walk helplessly through the forest, Po deciding where to go and knowing when and where to hide, freezing in his tracks at the sense of things she couldn't see or hear. His Grace was invaluable, she knew that. But Katsa had never felt so much like a child.

"She became hopeful when she saw me," Po said, speaking quickly as they rushed through the trees. "Ashen did. At the sight of me her heart filled with hope, for Bitterblue."

This hope was what directed their steps now. Ashen had hoped so hard for Po to find Bitterblue that she'd left him with a sense of a place she believed Bitterblue to be, a particular spot both she and the child knew from the rides they took together. It was south of the mountain-pass road, in a hollow with a stream.

"I know a bit of how it looks," Po said. "But I don't know exactly where it is, and I don't know if she would've stayed there once she realized the entire army was searching for her."

"At least we know where to start," Katsa said. "She can't have gone too far."

They raced through the forest. The snow had stopped, and water dripped from pine needles and rushed through the streams. They passed patches of mud trampled with the feet of the soldiers who sought them.

"If she's left great footprints like these, they'll have found her by now," Katsa said.

"Let's hope she inherited some of her father's cunning."

More than once a soldier came uncomfortably near, and Po altered their path in order to skirt around him. One time while avoiding one soldier they nearly ran into another. They scrambled up a tree, and Po readied an arrow, but the fellow never took his eyes from the ground. "Princess Bitterblue," the man called. "Come now, Princess. Your father is very worried for you."

The soldier wandered away, but it was a number of minutes before Katsa was able to climb down. She'd heard the man's words, even with her hands over her ears. She'd fought against them, but still they'd clouded her mind. She sat in the tree, shuddering, while Po grasped her chin, looked into her eyes, and talked her through her confusion.

"All right," she said finally. "My mind is clear."

They clambered down. They moved quickly and left as little trace as possible of their own passage.

Near the entrance to the forest, things became tricky. The soldiers were everywhere, gathered in groups, moving in every direction. She and Po ran for short bursts when Po decided it was safe, and then hid.

Once, Po grabbed her arm and jerked her backward, and they raced back the way they'd come. They found a great mossy rock and hunched behind it, Po's hands clapped over her ears, his eyes glowing with a fierce concentration. Wedged between the rock and Po, his heart beating fast against her body, she knew this time they hid from more than mere soldiers. They waited, it seemed interminably. Then Po took her wrist and motioned for her to follow. They crept away by a different route, one that widened the distance between them and the Monsean king.

When they were as close to the entrance to the forest as Po deemed safe, they turned south, as they hoped Bitterblue had done. When a stream bubbled across their path Po stopped. He crouched down and clutched his head. Katsa stood beside him and watched and listened, waiting for him to sense something from the forest or from the memory of Ashen's hope.

"There's nothing," he said finally. "I can't tell if this is the right stream."

Katsa crouched beside him. "If the soldiers haven't found her yet," she said, "then she left no obvious trace, even in all this snow and mud. She must have had the presence of mind to walk through a stream, Po. Every stream in this forest flows from mountain to valley. She would've known to go west, away from the valleys. Is there any harm in following this stream west? If we don't stumble upon her, we can continue south and search the next stream."

"This seems a bit hopeless," Po said, but he stood, turned with her, and followed the water west. When Katsa found a tangle of long, dark hair snagged on a branch that snapped against her stomach, she called Po's name in his mind. She held the tangle of hair up for him to see. She tucked it into her sleeve and enjoyed the slightly more hopeful expression on his face.

When the stream curved sharply and entered a little hollow of grasses and ferns, Po stopped and held up his hand. "I recognize this place. This is it."

"Is she here?"

He stood for a moment. "No. But let's continue up the stream. Quickly. I fear there may be soldiers on our tail."

Only minutes later he turned to her, relief in the lines of his tired face. "I feel her now." He stepped out of the stream and Katsa followed. He wove his way through the trees until he came to a fallen tree trunk stretched across the forest floor. He measured the trunk with his eyes. He walked to one end, crouched down, and looked inside.

"Bitterblue," he said into the trunk. "I'm your cousin Po, the son of Ror. We've come to protect you."

There was no response. Po spoke quietly, and gently. "We're not going to hurt you, cousin. We're here to help you. Are you hungry? We have food."

Still there was no response from the fallen tree. Po stood and turned to Katsa. He spoke in a low voice. "She's afraid of me. You must try."

Katsa snorted. "You think she'll be less afraid of me?"

"She's afraid of me because I'm a man. Take care. She has a knife, and she's willing to use it."

"Good for her." Katsa knelt before the hollow end of the trunk and looked inside. She could just make out the girl, huddled tight, her breath short, panicked. Her hands clutching a knife.

"Princess Bitterblue," she said. "I'm the Lady Katsa, from the Middluns. I've come with Po to help you. You must trust us, Bitterblue. We're both Graced fighters. We can keep you safe."

"Tell her we know about Leck's Grace," Po whispered.

"We know your father is after you," Katsa said into the darkness. "We know he's Graced. We can keep you safe, Bitterblue."

Katsa waited for some sign from the girl, but there was nothing. She looked up at Po and shrugged her shoulders. "Do you think we could break the tree apart?" she asked. But then from inside the trunk came a small, shaky voice.

"Where is my mother?"

Katsa's eyes snapped up to Po's. They searched each other's faces, uncertain; and then Po sighed, and nodded. Katsa turned back to the trunk. "Your mother is dead, Bitterblue."

She waited for sobbing, screams. But instead there was a pause, and then the voice came again. Even smaller now.

"The king killed her?"

"Yes," Katsa said.

There was another silence inside the tree. Katsa waited.

"Soldiers are coming," Po muttered above her. "They're minutes away."

She didn't want to fight these soldiers who carried Leck's poison in their mouths; and they might not have to, if they could only get this child to come out.

"I can see that knife, Princess Bitterblue," she said. "Do you know how to use it? Even a small girl can do a lot of damage with a knife. I could teach you."

Po crouched down and touched her shoulder. "Thank you, Katsa," he breathed, and then he was up again, stalking a few paces into the trees, looking around and listening for anything his Grace could tell him. And she understood why he thanked her, for the child was crawling her way out of the trunk. Her face appeared from the dimness, then her hands and shoulders. Her eyes gray and her hair dark, like her mother's. Her eyes big, her face wet with tears, and her teeth chattering. Her fingers gripped tightly around a knife that was longer than her forearm.

She spilled out of the tree trunk and Katsa caught her and felt her cheeks and forehead. The child was shaking with cold. Her skirts were wet and clung to her legs; her boots were soaked through. She wore no coat or muffler, no gloves.

"Great hills, you're frozen stiff," Katsa said. She yanked off her own coat and pulled it down over the child's head. She tried to pull Bitterblue's arms through the sleeves, but the girl wouldn't loosen her grip on the knife. "Let it go for a minute, child. Just a second. Hurry, there are soldiers coming." She pried the knife from the girl's fingers and fastened the coat into place. She handed the knife back. "Can you walk, Bitterblue?" The girl didn't answer, but swayed, her eyes unfocused.

"We can carry her," Po said, suddenly at Katsa's side. "We must go."

"Wait," Katsa said. "She's too cold."

"Now. This instant, Katsa."

"Give me your coat."

Po tore off his bags, his quiver and bow. He tore off his coat and threw it to Katsa. She tugged the coat over Bitterblue's head, wrestled with the fingers around the knife again. She pulled the hood over the girl's ears and fastened it tight. Bitterblue looked like a potato sack, a small, shivering potato sack with empty eyes and a knife. Po tipped the girl over his shoulder and they gathered their things. "All right," Katsa said. "Let's go."

They ran south, stepping on pine needles and rock whenever they could, leaving as little sign of their passage as possible. But the ground was too wet, and the soldiers were quick on their mounts. Their trail was too easy to follow, and before long Katsa heard branches breaking and the thud of horses' hooves.

Po? How many of them?

"Fifteen," he said, "at least."

She breathed through her panic. What if their words confuse me?

His voice was low. "I wish I could fight them alone, Katsa, and out of your hearing. But it would mean us separating, and right now there are soldiers on every side of us. I won't risk your being found when I'm not there."

Katsa snorted. Nor will I allow you to fight fifteen men alone.

"We must kill as many of them as possible," Po said, "before they're close enough for conversation. And hope that once they're under attack they're not very talkative. Let's find a place to hide the girl. If they don't see her they're less likely to speak of her."

They tucked the child behind rocks and weeds, inside a niche at the base of a tree. "Don't make a sound, Princess," Katsa said. "And lend me your knife. I'll kill one of your father's men with it." She took the knife from the girl's uncomprehending fingers.

Po, Katsa thought, her mind racing. Give me the knives and the daggers. I'll kill on first sight.

Po pulled two daggers from his belt and a knife from each boot and tossed them to her, one by one. She collected the blades together; he readied the bow and cocked an arrow. They crouched behind a rock and waited, but there wasn't long to wait. The men came through the trees, moving quickly on their horses, their eyes skimming the ground for tracks. Katsa counted seventeen men. I'll go right, she thought grimly to Po. You go left. And with that she stood and hurled a knife, and another and another; Po's arrow flew, and he reached for another. Katsa's knives and daggers were embedded in the chests of five men, and Po had killed two, before the soldiers even comprehended the ambush.

The bodies of the dead slumped from their horses to the ground, and the bodies of the living jumped after them, pulling swords from sheaths, yelling, screaming unintelligibly, a mindful one or two drawing arrows. Katsa ran toward the men; Po continued shooting. The first came at her with wild eyes and a screeching mouth, swinging his sword so erratically that it was no trouble for Katsa to dodge the blade, kick another rushing man in the head, pull the first man's dagger from his belt, and stab them both in the neck. She kept the dagger, grabbed a sword, and came out swinging. She knocked another man's sword from his hands and ran hers through his stomach. She whirled on two men who came from behind and killed them both with her dagger while she fought off a third with her sword. She hurled the dagger into the chest of a soldier on a horse who aimed an arrow at Po.

And suddenly only one man was left, his breath ragged and his eyes wide with fear. That man backed away and began to run. In a flash Katsa pulled a knife from another man's chest and ran after him; but then she heard the smooth release of an arrow, and the man cried out and fell, and lay still.

Katsa looked down at her bloodstained tunic and trousers. She wiped her face, and blood came off onto her sleeve. All around her lay murdered men, men who hadn't known any better, whose minds were no weaker than her own. Katsa was sick and discouraged, and furious with the king who'd made this bloodbath necessary.

"Let's make sure they're dead," she said, "and get them on the horses. We must send them back, to put Leck off our trail."

They were dead, every one of them. Katsa pulled arrows and blades from chests and backs and tried not to look at their faces. She cleaned the knives and daggers and handed them back to Po. She carried Bitterblue's knife back to her and found the girl standing, arms crossed against the cold, eyes alert now, lucid. Katsa glanced down at her bloody clothing. She found herself hoping the child hadn't witnessed the massacre of men.

"I feel warmer," Bitterblue said.

"Good. How much of that fight did you see?"

"They didn't have much of a chance, did they?" It was her only answer. "Where are we going now?"

"I'm not sure. We need to find a safe place to hide, where we can eat and sleep. We need to talk about what happens next."

"You'll have to kill the king," she said, "if you ever want him to stop chasing us."

Katsa looked at this child, who barely came up to her chest. Po's sleeves hanging almost to the girl's knees; her eyes and her nose big under her hood, too big for her little face. Her voice a squeak. But a calmness in her manner of speaking, a certainty as she recommended her father's murder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

They kept two horses for themselves. Bitterblue rode with Katsa. They wound their way back to the stream to clean themselves of the blood of the soldiers. Then they turned west. They walked the horses through the stream, moving toward the mountains, until the land around them grew rocky enough to hide hoofprints. There, they struck out south along the base of the mountains and began their search for a suitable place to hide for the night. A place they could defend; a place far enough from Leck for safety, but not so far that they couldn't reach Leck, to kill him.

For of course, Bitterblue was right. Leck had to die. Katsa knew it, but she didn't like to think of it. For she was a killer, and the murder should be hers; but it was plain that Po would have to be the one to do it. Po kill a king guarded by an army of soldiers. By himself, and without her help.

You mustn't go near his castle, she thought to Po as they rode. You'd never be able to get close enough to him. You're far too conspicuous. They would ambush you.

The horses picked their way through the rocks. Po didn't acknowledge her thoughts, didn't even look at her, but she knew he'd heard.

You'd do best to sneak up on him in the forest while he's searching for the child, and shoot him. From as far away as possible.

Po rode before them, his back straight. His arms steady, despite his tiredness and the cold and his lack of a coat.

And then run away as fast as you can.

He slowed then and came beside them. He looked into her face, and something strong in his silver and gold eyes comforted and reassured her. Po was neither weak nor defenseless. He had his Grace and his strength. He reached for her hand. When she gave it to him, he kissed it. He rode ahead, and they continued on.

Bitterblue sat quietly before her. She had stiffened when Po came near; but if she thought their silent exchange odd, she said nothing.

They came to a place where the land dropped away to the left and formed a deep gully with a lake that shone far below them. To the right the path rose to a cliff that overhung the lake.

"If we cross over to the far side of that cliff and hide there," Katsa said, "anyone coming after us will either have to cross the cliff as we did or climb up from the gully. They'll be easily seen."

"I had the same thought," Po said. "Let's see what's there." And so they climbed. The cliff path sloped rather unnervingly toward the drop, but it was a wide path, and the horses clung to its top edge. Pebbles slid from under their hooves and rolled down the slope, clattering over the edge and plummeting down into the lake, but the travelers were safe.

On the far side they found little more than rock and scrub and a few scraggly trees growing from crevices. A shallow, hard cave with its back to the gully and the cliff path seemed the best choice for their camp. "It won't make for a soft bed," Po said, "but it'll hide our fire. Are you hungry, cousin?"

The girl sat on a rock, quietly, her hands gripping her knife. She hadn't complained of hunger, or of anything else, for that matter. But now she watched with big eyes as Po unwrapped what little food they had, some meat from the night before, and one small apple carried all the way from the inn at the Sunderan foot of the mountains. Bitterblue's eyes watched the food, and she barely seemed to be breathing. She was ravenous, anyone could see that.

"When did you last eat?" Po asked, as he set the food before her.

"Some berries, this morning."

"And before that?"

"Yesterday. Yesterday morning."

"Slowly," Po said, as Bitterblue took the meat in her hands and tore a great piece off with her teeth. "Slowly, or you'll be sick."

"I'll climb down to the gully and find us some meat," Katsa said. "The sun will set soon. I'll take a knife, Po, if you'll keep a lookout for me."

Po slid a knife from his boot and tossed it to her. "If you hear the sound of an owl hooting, run. Two hoots, run south. Three hoots, run back up here to the camp."

She nodded. "Agreed."

"Try the rushes to the south of the lake," he said. "And pick up a few pebbles on your way down. I think I may have seen some quail."

Katsa snorted but said nothing. She glanced at the girl, who saw only the food in her hands. Then she turned, worked her way around boulders, and began to forge a path down into the gully.

When Katsa returned to camp with a stringful of quail, plucked and gutted, the sun was sinking behind the mountains. Po was piling branches near the back of the cave. Bitterblue lay nearby, wrapped in a blanket.

"I gather she hasn't slept much in the last few days," Po said.

"She'll be all right now that her clothes are dry. We'll keep her warm and fed."

"She's a calm little thing, isn't she? Small for ten years old. She helped me gather wood, until she was practically collapsing from exhaustion. I told her to sleep until we had more food. She's got her fingers wrapped around that knife. And she's still scared of me – I get the feeling she's not used to men showing her kindness."

"Po, I'm beginning to think I don't want to know what this is all about. I can make no sense of it. I can't factor your grandfather into it at all."

Po shook his head and looked at the girl, who was huddled on the ground in her blankets and coats. "I'm not sure how much any of this has to do with sanity or sense. But we'll keep her safe, and we'll kill Leck. And eventually we'll learn whatever truth there is to know of it."

"She'll make for an awfully young queen."

"Yes, I've thought of that, too. But there's no helping it."

They sat quietly and waited for the darkness that would mask the smoke of their fire. Po pulled another shirt over the one he already wore. She watched his face, his familiar features, his eyes, which caught the pink light of the day's end. She bit her lip against her worry, for she knew it would not be helpful to him.

"How will you do it?" she asked.

"As you said, most likely. We'll talk about it when Bitterblue wakes. I expect she'll be able to help."

Help to plot the murder of her father. Yes, she probably would help, if she could. For such was the madness that rode the air of this kingdom as they sat in their rocky camp at the edge of the Monsean mountains.

The light of the fire, or its crackle, or the smell of the meat sizzling above it woke Bitterblue. She came to sit with them by the flames, her blanket around her shoulders and her knife in hand.

"I'll teach you how to use that knife," Katsa told her, "when you're feeling better. How to defend yourself, how to maim a man. We can use Po as a model."

The child's eyes flicked to Katsa's shyly, and then she looked into her lap.

"Wonderful," Po said. "It's quite boring really, the way you beat me to death with your hands and feet, Katsa. It'll be refreshing to have you coming at me with a knife."

Bitterblue glanced at Katsa again. "Are you the better fighter?"

"Yes," Katsa said.

"Far better," Po said. "There's no comparison."

"But Po has other advantages," Katsa said. "He's stronger. He sees better in the dark."

"But in a fight," Po said, "always bet on the lady, Bitterblue. Even in the dark."

They sat quietly, waiting for the quail to roast. Bitterblue shivered and pulled her blanket more tightly around her shoulders.

"I would like to have a Grace," she said, "that allowed me to protect myself."

Katsa held her breath and forced herself to wait patiently and not ask questions.

After a moment, Bitterblue said, "The king wants me."

"What for?" Katsa asked, because she could not prevent herself.

Bitterblue didn't answer this. She bent her chin to her chest and brought her arms in close to her sides, making herself very small. "He has a Grace," she said. "My mother told me so. She told me he can manipulate people's minds with his words, so that they believe whatever he says. Even if they hear it from someone else's mouth; even if it's a rumor he started that's spread far beyond him. His power weakens as it spreads, but it does not disappear." She stared unhappily at the knife in her hands. "She told me he's the wrong kind of man to have been born with a Grace like this. He makes toys of small and weak people. He likes to cause pain."

Po dropped his hand to Katsa's thigh, which was the only thing that kept her from shooting to her feet with rage.

"My mother has suspected all of this," Bitterblue continued, "from time to time, ever since she first knew him. But he's always been able to confuse her into forgetting about it. Until a few months back, when he began to take a particular interest in me."

She stopped speaking and took a few small breaths. Her eyes settled on Katsa's, flickering with something uncomfortable. "I can't say what he wants me for, exactly. He's always been... fond of the company of girls. And he has some strange habits my mother and I came to understand. He cuts animals, with knives. He tortures them and keeps them alive for a long time, then he kills them." She cleared her throat. "I don't think it's only animals he does this to."

Kindness to children and helpless creatures, Katsa thought, fighting back tears of fury. Her whole life she'd believed Leck's reputation for beneficence. Did he convince his victims, too, that he was doing them a kindness, even while he cut them with his knives?

"He told my mother he wanted to start spending time with me alone," Bitterblue said. "He said it was time he got to know his daughter better. He was so angry when she refused. He hit her. He tried to use his Grace on me, tried to get me to go to his cages with him, but whenever I saw the bruises on my mother's face I remembered the truth. It cleared my mind, just barely – enough that I knew to refuse."

Then Po had been right. The deaths at Leck's court began to make even more sense to Katsa. Leck probably arranged for many people to die – people whose use had become more trouble than it was worth, because he'd hurt them so grievously that they'd begun to comprehend the truth.

"So then he kidnapped Grandfather," Bitterblue said, "because he knew there was no one my mother loved more. He told my mother he was going to torture Grandfather, unless she agreed to hand me over. He told her he was going to bring him to Monsea and kill him in our sight. We hoped it was all just his usual lies. But then we got letters from Lienid and knew Grandfather was really missing."

"Grandfather was neither tortured nor killed," Po said. "He's safe now."

"He could have just taken me," Bitterblue said, her voice breaking with sudden shrillness. "He has an entire army that would never defy him. But he didn't. He has this... sick patience. It didn't interest him to force us. He wanted to hear us say yes."

Because it was more satisfying to him that way, Katsa thought.

"My mother barricaded us inside her rooms," Bitterblue said. "The king ignored us for a while. He had food and drink brought to us, and water and fresh linen. But he would talk to us through the door sometimes. He would try to persuade my mother to send me out. He would confuse me sometimes. Sometimes he would confuse her. He would come up with the most convincing reasons why I should come out, and we had to keep reminding ourselves of the truth. It was very frightening."

A tear ran down her face now, and she kept talking, quickly, as if she could no longer contain her story. "He began to send animals in to us, mice all cut up, dogs and cats, still alive, crying and bleeding. It was horrible. And then one day the girl who brought our food had cuts on her face, three lines on each cheek, bleeding freely. And other injuries, too, that we couldn't see. She wasn't walking well. When we asked her what happened, she said she couldn't remember. She was a girl my age."

She stopped for a moment, choked with tears. She wiped her face on her shoulder. "That's when my mother decided we had to escape. We tied sheets and blankets together and dropped out through the windows. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it, for fear. But my mother talked me through it, all the way down." She stared into the flames. "My mother killed a guard, with a knife. We ran for the mountains. We hoped the king would assume we'd taken the Port Road to the sea. But on the second morning we saw them coming after us, across the fields. My mother twisted her ankle in some foxhole. She couldn't run. She sent me ahead, to hide in the forest."

The girl breathed furiously, wiped her face again, clenched her hands into fists. Through some massive force of will, she stopped the fall of her tears. She grasped the knife that lay in her lap and spoke bitterly. "If I were trained in archery. Or if I could use a knife. Perhaps I could have killed my father when this whole thing started."

"By some accounts, it's too late," Po said. "But I'll kill him tomorrow, before he does anything more."

Bitterblue's eyes darted to his. "Why you? Why not her, if she's the better fighter?"

"Leck's Grace doesn't work on me," Po said. "It works on Katsa. This we learned today, when we met him in the fields. I must be the one to kill him, for he can't manipulate me or confuse me as he can Katsa."

He offered Bitterblue one of the quail, skewered on a stick. She took it and watched him closely. "It's true that his Grace lost some of its power over me," she said, "when he hurt my mother. And it lost some of its power over my mother when he threatened me. But why does it not work on you?"

"I can't say," Po said. "He's hurt a lot of people. There may be many for whom his Grace is weak – but none likely to admit it, for fear of his vengeance."

Bitterblue narrowed her eyes. "How did he hurt you?"

"He kidnapped my grandfather," Po said. "He murdered my aunt before my eyes. He threatens my cousin."

Bitterblue seemed satisfied by this; or, at least, she turned to her food and ate ravenously for a number of minutes. She glanced at him occasionally, at his hands as he tended the fire.

"My mother wore a lot of rings, like you," she said. "You look like my mother, excepting your eyes. And you sound like her, when you talk." She took a deep breath and stared at the food in her hands. "He'll be camping in the forest tonight, and he'll be looking for me again tomorrow. I don't know how you'll find him."

"We found you," Po said, "didn't we?"

Her eyes flashed up into his and then back to her food. "He'll have his personal guard with him. They are all Graced. I'll tell you what you'll be facing."

It was a simple enough plan. Po would set out early, before first light, with food, a horse, the bow, the quiver, one dagger, and two knives. He would work his way back into the forest and hide his horse. He would find the king – however long that took. He would come no closer to the king than the distance of the flight of an arrow. He would aim, and he would fire. He would ensure that the king was dead. And then he would run, as fast as he could, back to his horse and to the camp.

A simple plan, and Katsa grew more and more uneasy as they talked it through, for both she and Po knew that it would never play out so simply. The king had an inner guard, made up of five Graced sword fighters. These men were little threat to Po; they always stood beside the king, and Po expected never to step within their range. It was the king's outer guard that Po must be prepared to encounter. These were ten men who would be positioned in a broad circle around Leck, some distance from him and from each other, but surrounding the king as he moved through the forest. They were all Graced, some fighters, a couple crack shots with a bow. One Graced with speed on foot; one enormously strong; one who climbed trees and jumped from branch to branch like a squirrel. One with extraordinary sight and hearing.

"You will know that one by his red beard," Bitterblue said. "But if you're close enough to see him, then he's most certainly spotted you already. Once you're spotted they'll raise the alarm."

"Po," Katsa said. "Let me come with you as far as the outer circle. There are too many of them, and you may need help."

"No," Po said.

"I would only fight them and then leave."

"No, Katsa."

"You'll never – "

"Katsa." His voice was sharp. She crossed her arms and glared into the fire. She took a breath and swallowed hard.

"Very well," she said. "Go to sleep now, Po, and I'll keep watch."

Po nodded. "Wake me in a couple of hours and I'll take over."

"No," she said. "You need your sleep if you're to do this thing. I'll keep watch tonight. I'm not tired, Po," she said as he started to protest. "You know I'm not. Let me do this."

And so Po dropped off to sleep, huddled in a blanket beside Bitterblue. Katsa sat in the dark and went over the plan in her mind.

If Po didn't return to their camp above the gully by sunset, then Katsa and Bitterblue must flee without him. For if he didn't return, it might mean the king was not dead. If the king was not dead, then nothing would protect Bitterblue from him, except distance.

Leave Po behind, in this forest of soldiers. It was unimaginable to Katsa, and as she sat on a rock in the cold and the dark, she wouldn't let herself think it. She watched for the slightest movement, listened for the smallest sound. And refused to think about all that could happen tomorrow in the forest.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Po woke in the early morning cold and gathered his things together quietly. He pulled Katsa close and held her against him. "I'll come back," he said; and then he was gone. She sat guard, as she had done all night, and watched the path he had taken. She held her thoughts in check.

She wore a ring on a string around her neck, a ring that Po had given her before he'd climbed onto the back of his horse and clattered across the cliff path. It was cold against the skin of her breast, and she fingered it as she waited for the sun to rise. It was the ring with the engravings that matched the markings on his arms. The ring of Po's castle, and his princehood. If Po didn't return today, then Katsa must take Bitterblue south to the sea. She must arrange passage somehow on a ship to Lienid's western coast, and Po's castle. No Lienid would detain her or question her, if she wore Po's ring. They would know that she acted on Po's instructions; they would welcome and assist her. And Bitterblue might be kept safe in Po's castle while Katsa thought and planned and waited to hear something of Po.

When light came and Bitterblue awoke, she and Katsa led the horse down to the lake to drink and graze. They collected wood, in case they stayed in this camp again that night. They ate winterberries from a clump of bushes beside the water. Katsa caught and gutted fish for their dinner. When they climbed back up to the rock camp, the sun had not even topped the sky.

Katsa thought of doing some exercises, or of teaching Bitterblue to use her knife. But she didn't want to attract attention with the noise it would make. Nor did she want to miss the slightest glimpse or sound of an approaching enemy, or of Po. There was nothing to do but sit still and wait. Katsa's muscles screamed their impatience.

By early afternoon she was pacing back and forth across the camp, utterly stir-crazy. She paced, fists clenched; and Bitterblue sat against the boulders in the sun, knife in hand, watching her.

"Aren't you tired?" Bitterblue asked. "When did you last sleep?"

"I don't need as much sleep as other people," Katsa said.

Bitterblue's eyes followed her as she marched back and forth. "I'm tired," Bitterblue said.

Katsa stopped and crouched before the girl. She felt Bitterblue's hands and forehead. "Are you cold, or hot? Are you hungry?"

Bitterblue shook her head. "I'm only tired."

And of course she was tired, her eyes big and her face tight. Any person in this situation would be tired. "Sleep," Katsa said. "It's safe for you to sleep, and it's best for you to keep up your strength."

Not that the child would need her strength for flight that night, for doubtless at any moment, Po would come scrambling over the cliff path on his horse.

The sun crawled behind the western mountaintops and turned their rocky camp orange, and still Po did not come. Katsa's mind was frozen into place. Surely he would materialize in the next few minutes; but just in case he did not, she woke Bitterblue. She pulled their belongings together and removed all trace of their fire. She scattered their firewood. She saddled the horse and strapped their bags to the fine Monsean saddle.

Then she sat and stared at the cliff path that shone yellow and orange in the falling light.

The sun was setting, and he hadn't come.

She couldn't help the thought, then, that shouldered its way into her mind – that wouldn't be held back any longer, no matter how hard she pushed at it. Po could be in the forest, injured, the king could be murdered and all could be safe, and Po could be somewhere, needing her help, and she not able to give it because of the chance the king was alive. He could even be near, just beyond the cliff path, limping, stumbling toward them. Needing them, needing her; and she, in a matter of minutes, mounting her horse and galloping it in the opposite direction.

They would go then, because they must. But they would backtrack just a bit, on the chance that he was near. Katsa glanced quickly around the rock camp to be sure they'd left no sign of their presence. "Well then, Princess," she said, "we'd better be going." She avoided Bitterblue's eyes and lifted her into the saddle. She untied the horse's reins and handed them to the child. And that's when she heard the pebbles bouncing along the cliff path.

She raced back to the path. The horse was coming across the ledge along the top of the cliff, stumbling across, its head hanging. Too close, just a little too close to the drop. And Po lying on the horse's back, unmoving; and an arrow, an arrow in his shoulder. His shirt soaked with blood. And how many arrows in the horse's neck and side she didn't try to count, for suddenly pebbles were spraying over the cliff edge. The horse was slipping, and the whole path was sliding under its panicked hooves. She screamed Po's name inside her mind, and ran. He raised his head, and his eyes flashed into hers. The horse shrieked and struggled madly for ground to stand on, but she couldn't reach him in time. Over the edge the horse tumbled, over the edge, and she screamed again, aloud this time; and he was gone below her, falling through the yellow light.

The horse twisted and turned in the air. Po smashed face-first into the water and the horse crashed in after him, and stones flew up helter-skelter from Katsa's feet as she tore down the trail to the gully, feeling nothing as her shins bashed against rocks and branches whipped across her face. She knew only that Po was in that water and that she must get him out. There was the barest ripple on the surface of the water to direct her dive. She threw her boots into the rushes and plunged. In the shock of the lake's icy water, she saw the place where mud and bubbles rose and where a great brown form sank and another, smaller form struggled. He struggled, which meant he was alive. She kicked closer and saw what he struggled with. His boot was caught in a stirrup. The stirrup buckled to the saddle, and the horse sinking fast. His struggles were clumsy, and the water around his shoulder and his head flowed red with his blood. Katsa grabbed his belt and felt around until she found a knife. She whipped the blade out and sawed at the stirrup. The leather broke, and the stirrup sank with the horse. Katsa wrapped her arm around Po and kicked fiercely upward. They burst to the surface.

She lugged his dead weight to shore, for now he was unconscious; but as she pushed him into the rushes at the edge of the lake he became suddenly, violently conscious. He gasped and coughed and vomited lake water, over and over again. He wasn't going to drown, then; but that didn't mean he wouldn't bleed to death. "The other horse," Katsa shouted to Bitterblue, who hovered anxiously nearby. "The horse has the medicines," she shouted, and the girl slipped and scrambled back up to the camp.

Katsa dragged Po up to dry ground and sat him there. The cold and the wet – that could also kill him. He must stop bleeding, and he must be warm and dry. Oh, how she wished for Raffin at this moment. "Po," she said. "Po, what happened?" No response. Po. Po. His eyes flashed open, but they were vague, unfocused. He didn't see her. He vomited.

"All right. You sit still. This is going to hurt," she said, but when she pulled the arrow from his shoulder he didn't even seem to notice. His arms flopped lifelessly as she peeled his shirts from his back, and he vomited again.

Bitterblue came clattering down the trail with the horse. "I need your help," Katsa said, and for a good while Bitterblue was Katsa's assistant, tearing open bags to find clothing that could be used to dry him or stanch his bleeding, rifling through the medicines for the ointment that cleaned wounds, soaking bloody cloths in the lake.

"Can you hear me, Po?" Katsa asked as she tore a shirt to make a bandage. "Can you hear me? What happened with the king?"

He looked up at her dimly as she bandaged his shoulder.

"Po," she said, over and over. "The king. You must tell me if the king is alive." But he was useless, and senseless – no better than unconscious. She peeled off his boots and his trousers and dried him as best she could. She dressed him in new trousers and rubbed his arms and legs to warm them. She took his coat back from Bitterblue, pulled it over his head, and pushed his rubbery arms through the sleeves. He vomited again.

It was the force of his head hitting the water. This Katsa knew: that a man vomited if struck hard enough in the head, that he became forgetful and confused. His head would clear, in time. But they didn't have time, not if the king was alive. And so she knelt before him and grasped his chin. She ignored his wincing, pained eyes. She thought into his mind. Po. I need to know if the king is alive. I am not going to stop bothering you until you tell me if the king is alive.

He looked at her then, rubbed his eyes, and squinted at her, hard. "The king," he said thickly. "The king. My arrow. The king is alive."

Katsa's heart sank. For now they must flee, all three of them, with Po in this state and with only one horse. In the dark and the cold, with little food, and without Po's Grace to warn them of their pursuers.

Her Grace would have to serve.

She handed Po her flask. "Drink this," she said, "all of it. Bitterblue," she said, "help me pull these wet things together. It's a good thing you slept today, for I need you to be strong tonight."

Po seemed to understand when it was time for him to mount the horse. He didn't contribute to the effort, but he didn't fight it, either. Both Katsa and Bitterblue pushed him up into the saddle with all their might, and though he almost pitched headlong over the animal and fell to the ground on the other side, some unfocused understanding caused him to grasp Katsa's arm and steady himself. "You behind him," Katsa said to Bitterblue, "so that you can see him. Pinch him if he starts to fall off, and call me if you need help. The horse will be moving quickly, as quickly as I can run."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

In the dark on the side of a mountain, no one can move quickly who doesn't have some particular Grace to do so. They moved, and Katsa did not break her ankles stepping blindly before the horse, as others would have, but they didn't move quickly. Katsa barely breathed, so hard was she listening behind them. Their pursuers would be on horseback, and there would be many of them, and they would carry torches. If Leck had sent a party in the right direction, then there would be little to stop them from succeeding in their search.

Katsa was doubtful that even on flat land they could have moved much faster, so unwell was Po. He clung to the horse's mane, eyes closed, concentrating fiercely on not falling off. He winced at every movement. And he was still bleeding.

"Let me tie you to the horse," Katsa said to him once when she'd stopped at a stream to fill the flasks. "Then you'd be able to rest."

He took a moment to process her words. He hunched forward and sighed into the horse's mane. "I don't want to rest," he said. "I want to be able to tell you if he's coming."

So they weren't completely without his Grace; but he was completely without his reason, to make such a comment while Bitterblue sat directly behind him, quiet, intent, and missing nothing of what was said. Careful, she thought to him. Bitterblue.

"I'll tie you both to the horse," she said aloud, "and then each of you can choose whether or not to rest."

Rest, she thought to him, as she wound a rope around his legs. You're no good to us if you bleed to death.

"I'll not bleed to death," he said aloud, and Katsa avoided Bitterblue's eyes, determining not to talk to Po inside her mind again until his reason had returned.

They continued south slowly. Katsa tripped and stumbled over rocks, and over the roots of stubborn mountain trees that clung to cracks in the earth. As the night wore on, her stumbling increased, and it occurred to her that she was tired. She sent her mind back along the past few nights, and counted. It was her second night without sleep, and the night before that they'd slept only a few hours. She would have to sleep, then, sometime soon; but for now she wouldn't think of it. There was no use considering the impossible.

Several hours before dawn she began to think of the fish she had caught earlier, the fish scaled and gutted, and wrapped and bound with the bags to the horse. Once light came they wouldn't be able to risk even the smallest fire. They'd eaten very little that day, and they had very little food for the next. If they stopped now for just a few minutes, she could cook the fish. She wouldn't have to think of food again, until the next nightfall.

But even this was risky, for the light of a fire could attract attention in this darkness.

Po whispered her name then, and she stopped the horse and walked back to him.

"There's a cave," he whispered, "a few steps to the southeast." His hand swayed in the air and then rested on her shoulder. "Stay here beside me. I'll lead us there."

He directed her footsteps over stones and around boulders. If she'd been less tired, Katsa would have taken a moment to appreciate the clarity with which his Grace showed him the landscape. But now they were at the entrance to Po's cave, and there was too much else to consume her mind. She must wake Bitterblue, untie her, and help her down. She must get Po from the horse and onto the ground. She must find wood to build a fire, then get the fish cooking. She must dress Po's shoulder again, because it still bled freely no matter how tightly she bound it.

"Sleep while the fish cooks," he said, as she wound clean strips of cloth around his arm and chest to stanch the flow of blood. "Katsa. Get some sleep. I'll wake you if we need you."

"You're the one who needs sleep," she said.

He caught her arm then as she knelt before him. "Katsa. Sleep for a quarter of an hour. No one is near. You won't get another chance to sleep tonight."

She sat on her heels and looked at him. Shirtless, colorless, squinting from pain. Bruises darkening his face. He dropped her arm and sighed. "I'm dizzy," he said. "I'm sure I look like death, Katsa, but I'm not going to bleed to death and I'm not going to die of dizziness. Sleep, for a few minutes."

Bitterblue came forward. "He's right," she said. "You should sleep. I'll take care of him." She picked up his coat and helped him into it, moving his bandaged shoulder gently, carefully. Surely, Katsa thought, they could manage without her, for a few minutes. Surely they would all do better if she got some small sleep.

So she lay down before the fire and instructed herself to sleep for only a quarter of an hour. When she woke, Po and Bitterblue had barely moved. She felt better.

They ate quietly and fast. Po leaned back against the cave wall, eyes closed. He claimed to have little appetite, but Katsa had no sympathy. She sat before him and fed him pieces of fish until she was satisfied that he'd eaten enough.

Katsa was suffocating the fire with her boots, and Bitterblue was binding together the remaining fish, when he spoke.

"It's good you weren't there, Katsa," he said. "For today I listened to Leck prattle on for hours about his love for his kidnapped daughter. About how his heart would be broken until he found her."

Katsa went to sit before him. Bitterblue shuffled closer so that she could hear his whispered words.

"I got through the outer guard easily," Po said. "I came within sight of him, finally, in the early afternoon. His inner guard surrounded him so closely that I couldn't get a shot at him. I waited forever. I followed them. They never once heard me; but they never once moved away from the king."

"He was expecting you," Katsa said. "They were there for you."

He nodded, then winced.

"Tell us later, Po," Katsa said. "Rest for now."

"It's a short story," he said. "I finally decided my only option was to take out one of his guards. So I shot one. But the instant he fell, of course, the king jumped for cover. I shot again, and my arrow grazed Leck's neck, but only barely. It was a job meant for you, Katsa. You'd have hit him squarely. I couldn't do it."

"Well," Katsa said. I would never have found him in the first place. And even if I had, I would never have killed him. You know that. It was a job meant for neither of us.

"After that, of course, his inner guard was after me," Po said, "and then his outer guard, and his soldiers, too, once they'd heard the alarm. It – it was a bloodbath. I must have killed a dozen men. It was all I could do to get away, and then I rode north, to throw them off the track." He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes, then opened them again. He squinted at Katsa. "Leck has a bowman who's nearly as good as you, Katsa. You saw what he did to the horse."

And he would have done the same to you, she thought to him. If it weren't for your newfound ability to sense arrows as they fly toward you.

He smiled, ever so slightly. Then he squinted at Bitterblue.

"You've begun to trust me," he said.

"You tried to kill the king," Bitterblue said, simply.

"All right," Katsa said, "enough talking."

She returned to the fire, and smothered it. They pushed Po up into the saddle again, and again she tied her charges to the horse. And in her mind, over and over, she warned Po, implored Po, to stop announcing aloud every little thing his Grace revealed to him.

In the light of day they moved faster, but the movement was hard on Po. He didn't complain once about the bouncing of the horse. But his breath was short and his eyes flashed with a kind of wildness, and Katsa could recognize pain as easily as she recognized fear. She saw the pain in his face, and in the tightness of the muscles of his arms and his neck whenever she dressed his shoulder.

"Which hurts more?" she asked him in the early morning. "Your shoulder or your head?"

"My head."

A person with an aching head shouldn't be riding an animal whose every step reverberated like an axe to his skull; but walking was out of the question. He had no balance. He was forever dizzy and nauseated. He was forever rubbing his eyes; they bothered him. At least the bleeding of his shoulder had slowed to a dribble. And talking no longer confused him; he seemed to remember, finally, to hide his Grace from his cousin. "We're not moving fast enough," he said several times that day. Katsa, too, chafed at their pace. But until his head improved, she wasn't going to run the horse over the rocky hills. Bitterblue was more of a help than Katsa could have hoped. She seemed to consider Po her special charge. Whenever they stopped, she helped him settle onto a rock. She brought him food and water. If Katsa stepped away for a minute to chase a rabbit, when she returned Bitterblue was cleaning Po's shoulder and wrapping it in clean bandages. Katsa became accustomed to the sight of Po swaying above his little cousin, his hand resting on her shoulder.

By the time the sun began to set, Katsa felt the fatigue of the last few days and the last few sleepless nights. Po and Bitterblue were asleep on the horse's back. Perhaps if Po rested now, he would be able to stand some sort of watch later and give her some few hours' sleep. The horse, too, needed rest. They couldn't stop for the whole night, not when they traveled at this pace. But a few hours. A few hours' rest might be possible.

When he woke again in the moon's pale light, he called her back to him. He helped her find a hollow in a ring of rocks that would hide the light of a fire. "We're not moving fast enough," he said again, and she shrugged, for there was little to be done about it. She woke Bitterblue, untied her, and slid her down from the horse. Po slid himself down, carefully.

"Katsa," he said. "Come here, my Katsa."

He reached for her, and she came to him. He wrapped his arms around her. His hurt shoulder slow and stiff, but his unhurt arm strong and warm. He held her tight, and she held him steady. She rested her face in the hollow of his neck, and a great sigh rose within her. She was so tired, and he was so unwell. They weren't moving fast enough. But at least they could stand with their arms around each other, and she could feel his warmth against her face.

"There's something we need to do," he said, "and you're not going to like it."

"What is it?" she murmured into his neck.

"We – " He took a breath and stopped. "You need to leave me lpehind."

"What?" She pulled away from him. He swayed, but grabbed at the horse to steady himself. She glared at him, and then stormed after Bitterblue, who was collecting branches for the fire. Let him cope for himself. Let him make his own way to the campfire if he was going to make such absurd statements.

But he didn't move. He just stood beside the horse, his arm clutching the animal's back, waiting for someone to help him; and tears rose to her eyes at the sight of Po's helplessness. She went back to him. Forgive me, Po. She gave him her shoulder and led him across the rocky ground to the place where they would make their fire. She sat him down and crouched before him. She felt his face; his forehead burned. She listened to his breath and heard pain in its shortness.

"Katsa," he said. "Look at me. I can't even walk. The most important thing right now is speed, and I'm holding you back. I'm no more than a burden."

"That's not true. We need your Grace."

"I can tell you they're seeking you," he said, "and I can promise you they'll continue to seek you, as long as you're in Monsea. I can tell you they're likely to find your trail, and I can tell you that once they do, the king will be on your heels. You don't need me with you, to repeat that over and over."

"I need you to keep my mind straight."

"I can't keep your mind straight. The only way for you to keep your mind straight is to run from those who would confuse you. Running is the only hope for the child."

Bitterblue came beside them then, with an armload of sticks and branches. "Thank you, Princess," Katsa said to her. "Here, bring the rabbit I caught. I'll build the fire." She would think about the fire, and she would pay Po no attention.

"If you left me behind," Po said, "you could ride fast. Faster than an army of soldiers."

Katsa ignored him. She piled twigs together and focused on the flame growing between her hands.

"He will catch up with us, Katsa, if we continue at this pace. And you won't be able to defend either of us from him."

Katsa added more twigs to her fire and blew on the flames, gently. She piled sticks on top of the twigs.

"You have to leave me behind," Po said. "You're risking Bitterblue's safety otherwise."

Katsa shot up to her feet, her fists angry and hard, suddenly beyond any pretense of calmness. "And I'm risking yours if I leave you. I'm not going to leave you on this mountain, to find your own food and build your own shelter and defend yourself when Leck comes along, when you... you can't even walk, Po. What are you going to do, crawl away from his soldiers? Your head will feel better soon. You'll get your balance back and we'll move faster."

He squinted up at her then and sighed. He looked into his hands. He turned his rings around on his fingers.

"I won't get my balance back for some time, I think," he said, and something strange in his voice stopped her.

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't matter, Katsa. Even if I woke up tomorrow completely healed, you'd have to leave me behind. We've only one horse. Unless you and Bitterblue ride the horse fast, you'll be overtaken."

"I'll not leave you behind."

"Katsa. This isn't about you or me. This is about Bitterblue."

She sat down suddenly, the strength knocked out of her legs. For it was about Bitterblue. They'd come all this way for Bitterblue, and she was Bitterblue's only hope. She swallowed. She made her face expressionless, for the child must not know how much it hurt her to rank Bitterblue's safety above Po's.

And then she knew suddenly that she was going to cry. She held her breath steady and didn't look at him. "I'd thought to get a few hours of sleep," she said.

"Yes," he said. "Sleep for a bit, love."

She wished that his voice was not so soft and kind. She wrapped herself in a blanket and lay beside the fire with her back to him. She commanded herself to sleep. A tear trickled over the bridge of her nose and down into her ear, but she commanded herself again.

She slept.

When she woke, Bitterblue slept on the ground beside her. Po sat on a rock before the crackling fire and looked into his hands. Katsa sat with him. The meat was cooked, and she ate it gratefully, for if she ate she did not have to talk, and if she talked she knew she would cry.

"We could get another horse," she finally managed to say. She stared at the fire, and tried not to look at the lights that glowed in his face.

"Here, at the base of the mountains, Katsa?"

All right then. There was no other horse.

"Even if we could," he said, "it would be ages before I could ride fast enough. My head won't heal while I'm rattling around on a horse. It's best for me, too, Katsa, if you leave me behind. I'll recover faster."

"And how will you defend yourself? How will you eat?"

"I'll hide. We'll find a place, early tomorrow, for me to hide. Come, Katsa, you know I hide better than anyone you've ever known, or heard of." She heard a smile in his voice. "Come, my wildcat. Come here."

There was no helping her tears. For they would leave Po behind, to fend for himself and keep himself alive by hiding, though he couldn't even walk unassisted. She knelt before him, and he took her into the crook of his uninjured arm. She cried into his shoulder like a child. Ashamed of herself, for it was only a parting, and Bitterblue had not wept like this even over a death. "Don't be ashamed," Po whispered. "Your sadness is dear to me. Don't be frightened. I won't die, Katsa. I won't die, and we'll meet again."

When bitterblue woke, Katsa was packing their belongings.

Bitterblue watched Katsa's face for a moment. Then she watched Po, who stared into the fire.

"We're leaving you, then," she said to Po.

He looked up at the child and nodded.

"Here?"

"No, cousin. When morning comes we'll search for a hiding place."

Bitterblue kicked at the ground. She crossed her arms and considered Po. "What will you do in your hiding place?"

"I'll hide," Po said, "and recover my strength."

"And when you're strong again?"

"I'll join you in Lienid, or wherever you are, and we'll plan the death of King Leck."

The girl considered Po for a moment longer. She nodded. "We'll look for you, cousin."

Katsa glanced up to see the slightest smile on Po's face, at the child's words. Then Bitterblue turned away to help Katsa with the medicines.

The child's teeth chattered as she knelt beside Katsa. She had no coat, and the blanket she wore as they traveled was threadbare. The girl carried their packages to the horse, brought water to Po, and shivered.

Why had Katsa not saved the hides of the rabbits she'd killed?

She would have to do something. She would have to find Bitterblue something warmer to wear. For this child's protection was her charge, and she must think of everything. Her care of Bitterblue must be worthy of Po's sacrifice.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

In the pink of dawn they stumbled upon a small cabin with little to offer except its shell; an abandoned cabin, perhaps once the lair of some Monsean hermit. It stood in a hollow more grassy than rocky, with a tree or two and a patch of weeds that looked as if it might once have served as a garden. Broken shutters and a cold fireplace. A blanket of dust on the rough wooden floor, on the table and the bed, on the cabinet that leaned on three lopsided legs with its door hanging open crookedly.

"This is where I'll hide," Po said.

"This is a place to live, Po," Katsa said. "It's not a place to hide. It's far too obvious; no one will pass it without going inside."

"But I could stay here, Katsa, and hide someplace nearby if I hear them coming."

And what hiding place had he sensed nearby? "Po – "

"I wonder if there's a pond anywhere near?" he said. "Come with me, ladies. I'm sure I hear water running."

There was no sound of water that Katsa could hear, which meant that Po could hear none, either. She sighed. "Yes," she said. "I think I hear it, too."

They moved across the grasses behind the cabin. Po leaned against Katsa, and Bitterblue led the horse. Soon Katsa actually did hear water, and when they topped a brownish rise and the grass gave way to boulders, she saw it. Three great streams clambered down from the rocks above, joined together, and poured over a ledge into a deep pool. Here and there at its edges the pool overflowed, and a number of streams trickled downward and eastward toward the Monsean forest.

Very well, Katsa thought to him. And where's the hiding place?

"There's a waterfall like this in the mountains near my brother Skye's castle," Po said. "We were swimming one day, and we found a tunnel underwater that led to a cave."

Katsa knew where this was going, and Bitterblue's puzzled look – no, it would be more accurate to call it her suspicious look – suggested that Po had already said more than enough. Katsa sat Po down. She pulled off one of her boots. "If there's a hiding place in this pool, Po, I'll find it for you." She pulled off her other boot. "But just because a hiding place exists doesn't mean it'll do you any good. You can't get from the cabin to this pool on your own."

"I can," he said, "to save my life."

"What will you do? Crawl?"

"There's no shame in crawling when one can't walk. And swimming requires less balance."

She glared at him, and he looked calmly back, the slightest hint of amusement on his face. And why shouldn't he be amused? For she was about to plunge into near-freezing water to search for a tunnel that he already knew existed, and explore a cave of which he already knew the exact size, shape, and location.

"I'm taking my clothes off," she said, "so look away, Lord Prince." For she could at least spare her clothing; and if this entire episode was a performance for Bitterblue, then they might as well also pretend Po was in no position to see her with her clothes off. Though Katsa didn't suppose Bitterblue was any more fooled by that pretense than by the others. She stood beside the horse and kept her own counsel; and her eyes were big and childlike, but they were not unseeing.

Katsa sighed. She pulled off her coat. Point me in the right direction, Po.

She followed his gaze to the base of the waterfall. She threw her trousers onto the rocks beside her coat and boots. She clenched her teeth against the cold and stepped into the pool. Its bottom sloped steeply, and with a yelp she was submerged. She dived.

The rocks of the pool floor shone green far below her, and silver fish flashed in the light. She was surprised by the depth of this water hole. She kicked toward the waterfall. Her vision was all but useless in the cascade of bubbles at its base, but she felt along the rocks with her hands and found, in the dark below the pouring water, a cavity that must be Po's tunnel. She smiled, despite herself. She would never have found this secret place on her own; likely not a single person had ever done what she was about to do. She shot to the surface for a breath of air, then dived back down and pulled herself through the opening.

It was dark in this tunnel, black, and the water was even colder than the water in the pool. She could see nothing. She kicked forward through the tunnel and counted steadily. Rocks scratched her arms, and she felt in front of her with her hands to avoid cracking her head against anything unexpected. It was narrow, but not dangerously so. Po would have no trouble, if he were well enough to swim.

As her count neared the number thirty, the passageway widened, and then the tunnel walls disappeared all around. She shot upward, hoping to break through the surface, for she didn't know where to find the air of this black cave if it wasn't straight above. She was conscious now of her sense of direction, at which Po had always marveled. If she lost the tunnel in this darkness, and if she couldn't find an opening to the surface, it was over for Katsa. But Katsa knew exactly where the tunnel was, behind her and below her. She knew how far she'd gone, and in what direction; she knew up and down, east and west. The darkness wouldn't claim her.

And of course, Po would never have sent her into this cave if it were a place she could not endure. Her shoulder hit rock, and she heard a muffled slap that sounded like surface water on shore. She kicked forward toward the sound, and then her head burst above water, and she was breathing. She felt around and found the rock whose underside she'd struck. It jutted above the surface and felt flat and mossy on top. She pulled herself onto it, teeth chattering.

It was blacker in this cave than any night she had ever known. There was not a flash on the water, not even a thinner blackness to give shape to the space around her. She stretched her arms but touched nothing. She had no sense of the height of the ceiling or the depth of these walls. She thought she heard water slapping against rock for some distance, but she couldn't be sure without exploring. And she wouldn't explore, because they hadn't the time.

So this was Po's cave. He would be safe enough here, if he could get himself here, for no one who didn't share his Grace could ever find him in this cold, black hole under the mountain.

Katsa slipped back into the icy water and dived for the tunnel.

She came ashore with a pair of wriggling fish in her hands. "I found your cave," she said. "It'll be easy enough for you to manage, if by some wonder of medicine and healing you're able to swim. The tunnel is just below the fall of water. And here's your dinner." She threw the fish onto the rocks and dried herself with a cloth Bitterblue brought to her. She dressed. She held out her hand for Po's knife, and he tossed it to her. She beheaded the fish and cut them open. She threw the entrails back into the pond.

"You must go now," Po said. "There's no point in delay."

"There's some point in delay," Katsa said. "What'll you eat after these fish are gone?"

"I'll manage."

Katsa snorted. "You'll manage? You don't even have a bow, and even if you did I'd like to see your aim right now. We'll not leave until you've plenty of food and firewood."

"Katsa, honestly. You must go, you simply must – "

"The horse needs the rest of a morning," Katsa said. "From now on it will ride hard. And – and – " She refused, simply refused, to give in to the panic that rattled around inside her. And winter's coming, and you can make me leave you here, but you can't make me leave you here to starve to death.

Po rubbed his eyes. He sighed.

"You'll need a lot of firewood. I'll get started," Bitterblue said, and Po laughed outright.

"I'm outnumbered," he said. "Very well, Katsa. Do what you must. But before morning passes, you'll be on your way."

The morning was a whirlwind. The faster Katsa moved, the less she could think, and so she moved as fast as her feet and her fingers were capable of. She caught him two rabbits, which he could cook with the fish that night and store safely for a number of days. She cursed the weather. It was cold enough for Po to be uncomfortable during the day, when he couldn't risk a fire. But it wasn't cold enough for freezing meat; nor did they have salt to treat it. She couldn't kill him meat now to last the winter, or even to last him a number of weeks. And in a number of weeks the hunting would become difficult for even those hunters who walked steadily on their feet and carried a bow.

"Have you ever made a bow?" she asked him.

"Never."

"I'll find you the wood," she said, "before we leave. And you'll have the hides of these rabbits to reinforce the stave, and for the string. I'll explain to you how it's done."

She cursed herself for the feathers she'd discarded from all of the birds she'd killed. But when her rushed passage over the rocks disturbed a roost of quail, she swept stones up from the ground and managed to knock the majority of them down. They would be Bitterblue's dinner and her own, and Po would have the feathers for arrows.

When she found a young tree with strong, flexible limbs, she chose a curved piece for the bow and some long, straight branches for arrows. And then she had a thought. She cut more branches and split them apart. She began to weave a sort of basket, square, with sides, top, and bottom about the length of her arm. She wove it tightly, with small openings between the slats. When she came back to the pool where Po still sat and Bitterblue still scrambled for firewood, she carried the basket on one shoulder, and the quail and the branches under her other arm. She cut a couple of lengths of rope and tied them to the edges of her basket. She lowered the basket into the pool, just deep enough that it couldn't be seen, and tied the ropes to the base of a bush on shore. Then she pulled off her boots, her coat, and her trousers, and prepared herself once more for the icy shock of the water.

She dived. She hung suspended under the water, and waited, and waited. When a fish flashed nearby, she grabbed.

She swam to the basket and slid back the slats. She squeezed the wriggling fish inside and fastened the slats again. She dived back down, snatched another fish, swam to shore, and deposited the squirming body into the basket. She caught fish for Po; so many fish that by the time she was done, the basket swarmed with their crowded bodies.

"You may have to feed them," she said, once she'd returned to shore and dressed. "But they should last you some time."

"And now you must go," Po said.

"I want to make you crutches first."

"No," Po said. "You'll go now."

"I want – "

"Katsa, do you think I want you to go? If I'm telling you to go it's because you must."

She looked into his face, and then looked away. "We need to divide our belongings," she said.

"Bitterblue and I have done that."

"I must dress your shoulder one last time."

"The child has already done so."

"Your water flask – "

"It's full."

Bitterblue came over the top of the rise then and joined them. "The cabin is bursting with firewood," she said.

"It's time for you to go," Po said, and he leaned forward, balanced himself, and stood. Katsa bit back her protests and gave him her shoulder. Bitterblue untied the horse, and they made their way back to the cabin.

Your balance is better, Katsa thought to him. Come with us.

"Cousin," Po said, "don't let her run the horse ragged. And be sure she sleeps and eats every once in a while. She'll try to give all the food to you."

"As you have done," Bitterblue said, and Po smiled.

"I've tried to give you most of the food," he said. "Katsa will try to give you all of it."

They stopped at the entrance to the cabin, and Po leaned back against the door frame. Come with us, Katsa thought as she stood before him.

"They'll be on your tail," Po said. "You must not let them get close enough to talk to you. Think about disguising yourself. You're dirty and bedraggled, but any fool would recognize either of you. Katsa, I don't know what you can do about your eyes, but you must do something."

Come with us.

"Bitterblue, you must help Katsa if she's confused by any words she hears. You must help each other. Don't trust any Monsean, do you understand? You mustn't trust anyone who may have been touched by Leck's Grace. And don't for a moment think you can defeat him, Katsa. Your only safety is in escaping him. Do you understand?"

Come with us.

"Katsa." His voice was rough, yet gentle. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I understand," she said, and when a tear trickled down her cheek, he reached out and wiped it away with one finger.

He studied her face for a moment, and then he turned to Bitterblue. He bent down on one knee and took her hands. "Farewell, cousin," he said.

"Farewell," the child said gravely.

He stood again, gingerly, and leaned back against the door frame. He closed his eyes and sighed. He opened his eyes and looked into Katsa's face. His mouth twitched into the slightest grin. "You've always intended to leave me, Katsa."

She choked on a sob. "How can you joke? You know this isn't what I meant."

"Oh, Katsa. Wildcat." He touched her face. He smiled, so that it hurt her to look at him, and she was sure she couldn't leave him alone. He pulled her close and kissed her, and he whispered something into her ear. She held on to him so hard that his shoulder must have ached, but he did not complain.

Katsa didn't look back as they rode away. But she gripped Bitterblue tightly; and she called out to him, his name bursting inside her so painfully that for a long while, she could feel nothing else.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

They followed the edges of the Monsean mountains and pushed the poor horse south. They ran occasionally over open land, but more often than not their progress was slowed by cliffs, crevices, and waterfalls – places where there was no footing whatsoever for the horse. There, Katsa needed to dismount, backtrack, and lead the beast to lower ground. And then the hair would stand on the back of her neck and every sound would stop her breath; she couldn't breathe freely until they'd climbed again. For the lower land gave way to the forest, and Katsa knew the forest must be swarming with Leck's army.

The army would comb the forest, the Port Road, and the land between. They would comb the mountain pass at the border of Sunder and Estill. They would make camp in Monport and watch the ships that came and went, searching any ship likely to be hiding the kidnapped daughter of the king. No. As the day turned to evening, Katsa knew she was fooling herself. They would search every ship, suspicious or not. They would search every building in the port city. They would comb the coastline east of Monport, and west to the mountains, and search every ship that chanced to approach the Monsean shore. They would tear the Lienid ships apart.

And within a day or two, Katsa and Bitterblue would be sharing the base of the Monsean peaks with hordes of Leck's soldiers. For there were only two paths out of Monsea: the sea, and the mountain pass on the Sunderan-Estillan border. If the fugitives weren't found on the Port Road or in the forest, if the fugitives had not appeared on the mountain pass, in Monport, or aboard a ship, then Leck would know they were in the mountains, trapped by forest and sea, with the peaks that formed the border of Monsea and Sunder at their back.

When night fell, Katsa built a small fire against a wall of rock. "Are you tired?" she asked Bitterblue.

"Yes, but not terribly," the child said. "I'm learning to sleep on the horse."

"You'll have to sleep on the horse again tonight," Katsa said, "for we must keep moving. Tell me, Princess. What do you know of this mountain range?"

"The range that divides us from Sunder? Very little. I don't think anyone knows much about these mountains. Not many people have gone into them, except up north, of course, at the pass."

"Hmm." Katsa dug through her bags and unearthed the roll of maps. She flattened them in her lap and flipped through them. Clearly, Raffin had taken Po at his word when Po said he wasn't sure where they were going. She thumbed past maps of Nander and Wester, maps of Drowden City and Birn City. A map of Sunder, and another of Murgon City. Numerous maps of various parts of Monsea. She pulled a curling page out of the pile, laid it on the ground beside the fire, and dropped stones onto its edges to hold it flat. Then she sat back on her heels and studied the princess, who stood guard over the roasting quail.

There were people in all seven kingdoms with gray eyes and dark hair; Bitterblue's coloring was not unusual. But even in the dim glow of the fire, she stood out. Her straight nose, and the quiet line of her mouth. Or was it the thickness of her hair, or the way the hair swept itself back from her forehead? Katsa couldn't quite decide what it was, but she knew that even without hoops in her ears or rings on her fingers, the child had something of the Lienid in her appearance. Something that went beyond her dark hair and light eyes.

In a kingdom searching desperately for the ten-year-old child of a Lienid mother, Bitterblue would be very difficult to disguise. Even once they did the obvious: Cut her hair, change her clothes, and turn her into a boy.

And the child's companion was no less of a problem. Katsa didn't make as convincing a boy in daylight as she did in the dark. And she would have to cover her green eye somehow. A feminine boy with one very bright blue eye, an eyepatch, and a Lienidish child charge would attract more attention in daylight than they could possibly weather. And they couldn't afford to travel only at night. And even if they made it as far as Monport without being seen, once they were seen they would be recognized instantly. They would be apprehended, and she would have to kill people. She would have to commandeer a boat, or steal one, she who didn't know the first thing about boats. Leck would hear of it and know exactly where to find them.

Her eyes dropped from the princess to the map on the ground before her. It was a map of the Sunderan-Monsean border, the impassable Monsean peaks. If Po were here he would suspect what she was thinking. She could imagine the monstrous argument they would be having.

She imagined the argument, because it helped her to come to her decision.

When they'd eaten their dinner she rolled up the maps and fastened their belongings to the saddle. "Up you go, Bitterblue. We can't waste this night. We must move on."

"Po warned you not to run the horse ragged," Bitterblue said.

"The horse is about to enjoy a very thorough rest. We're heading into the mountains, and once we get a bit higher we'll be setting him free."

"Into the mountains," Bitterblue said. "What do you mean, into the mountains?"

Katsa scattered the remains of their fire. She dug a hole with her dagger to hide the bones of their dinner. "There's no safety for us in Monsea. We're going to cross the mountains into Sunder."

Bitterblue stood still beside the horse and stared at her. "Cross the mountains? These mountains, here?"

"Yes. The mountain pass at the northern border will be guarded. We must find our own passageway, here."

"Even in summer, no one crosses these mountains," the girl said. "It's almost winter. We have no warmer clothes. We have no tools, only your dagger and my knife. It's not possible. We'll never survive."

Katsa had a response to that, though she knew none of the particulars. She lifted the girl into the saddle and swung onto the horse behind her. She turned the animal west.

She said, "I will keep you alive."

They didn't really have only one dagger and one knife to bring them over the Monsean peaks into Sunder. They had the dagger and the knife; a length of rope; a needle and some cord; the maps; a fraction of the medicines; most of the gold; a small amount of extra clothing; the ratty blanket Bitterblue wore; two saddlebags; one saddle; and one bridle. And they had anything that Katsa could capture, kill, or construct with her own two hands as they climbed. This, first and foremost, should include the fur of some beast, to protect the child from the nagging cold they encountered here and the dangerous cold that awaited them – and that Katsa wouldn't dwell on, because when she dwelled she began to doubt herself.

She would make a bow, and possibly snowshoes – like the ones she'd worn once or twice in the winter forests outside Randa City. She thought she remembered how the snowshoes looked, and how they worked.

When the sky behind them began to lighten and color, Katsa pulled the child down from the horse. They slept for an hour or so, huddled together in a mossy crevice of rock. The sun rose around them. Katsa woke to the sound of the girl's teeth chattering. She must wake Bitterblue, and they must get moving; and before the day was out, she must have a solution to the cold that gave this girl no rest.

Bitterblue blinked at the light.

"We're higher," she said. "We've climbed in the night." Katsa handed the child what was left of yesterday's dinner. "Yes."

"You still have it in your head for us to cross the mountains."

"It's the only place in Monsea Leck won't search for us."

"Because he knows we'd be mad to try it."

There was something petulant in the child's tone, the first hint of complaint from the girl since Katsa and Po had found her in the forest. Well, she had a right. She was tired and cold; her mother was dead. Katsa spread the map of the Monsean peaks across her lap and said nothing.

"There are bears in the mountains," Bitterblue said. "The bears are asleep until spring," Katsa said.

"There are other animals. Wolves. Mountain lions. Animals you've not seen in the Middluns. And snow you've not seen. You don't know what these mountains are like."

Between two mountain peaks on Katsa's map was a path that seemed likely to be the least complicated route into Sunder. Grella's Pass, according to the scrawled words, and presumably the only route through the peaks that had been traveled by another.

Katsa rolled up her maps and slipped them into a saddlebag. She hoisted the girl back up into the saddle. "Who is Grella?" she asked.

Bitterblue snorted and said nothing. Katsa swung onto the horse behind the child. They rode for a number of minutes before Bitterblue spoke.

"Grella was a famous Monsean mountain explorer," she said. "He died in the pass that bears his name."

"Was he Graced?"

"No. He wasn't Graced like you. But he was mad like you."

The sting of the remark didn't touch Katsa. There was no reason for Bitterblue to believe that a who'd only recently seen her first mountain could guide them through Grella's Pass. Katsa herself wasn't sure of it. She knew only that when she weighed the danger of the King of Monsea against the danger of bears, wolves, blizzards, and ice, she found with utter certainty her Grace to be better equipped to face the mountains.

So Katsa said nothing, and she didn't change her mind. When the wind picked up and Katsa felt Bitterblue shivering, she drew the child close, and covered her hands with her own. The horse stumbled its way upward, and Katsa thought about their saddle. If she took it apart and soaked it and beat it, its leather would soften. It would make a rough coat for Bitterblue, or perhaps trousers. There was no reason to waste it, if it could be made to provide warmth; and very soon the horse would need it no longer.

They climbed blindly, even during the day, never knowing what they might encounter next, for the hills and trees rose before them and hid the higher terrain from their view. Katsa caught squirrels and fish and mice for their meals, and rabbits, if they were lucky. Beside their fire every night, she stretched and dried the pelts of their dinners. She rubbed fish oils and fat into the hides. She pieced together the pelts, experimenting with them and persisting until she'd made the child a rough fur hood, with ends that wrapped around her neck like a scarf.

"It smells funny," Bitterblue said, "but it's warm."

That was all Katsa needed to hear.

The terrain grew rougher, and the brush wilder and more desperate looking. At night as the fire burned and Bitterblue slept, Katsa heard rustles around their camp that she hadn't heard before. Rustles that made the horse nervous; and howls sometimes, not so far away, that woke the child and brought her, shivering, to Katsa's side, admitting to nightmares. About strange howling monsters and sometimes her mother, she said, not seeming to want to elaborate. Katsa didn't prod.

It was on one of these nights when the sound of the wolves drove the child to Katsa that Katsa set down the stick she was whittling into an arrow and put her arm around the girl. She rubbed warmth into Bitterblue's chapped hands. And then she told the child, because it was on her own mind, about Katsa's cousin Raffin, who loved the art of medicine and would be ten times the king his father was; and about Helda, who had befriended Katsa when no one else would and thought of nothing but marrying her off to some lord; and about the Council, and the night Katsa and Oll and Giddon had rescued Bitterblue's grandfather and Katsa had scuffled with a stranger in Murgon's gardens and left him lying unconscious on the ground – a stranger who'd turned out to be Po.

Bitterblue laughed at that, and Katsa told her how she and Po had become friends, and how Raffin had nursed Bitterblue's grandfather back to health; and how Katsa and Po had gone to Sunder to unravel the truth behind the kidnapping and followed the clues into Monsea and to the mountains, the forest, and the girl.

"You aren't really like the person in the stories," Bitterblue said. "The stories I heard before I met you."

Katsa braced herself against the flood of memories that never seemed to lose their freshness and always made her ashamed. "The stories are true," she said. "I am that person."

"But how can you be? You wouldn't break an innocent man's arm, or cut off his fingers."

"I did those things for my uncle," Katsa said, "at a time when he had power over me."

And Katsa felt certain again that they were doing the right thing, to climb toward Grella's Pass, to the only place Leck wouldn't follow. Because Katsa couldn't protect Bitterblue unless her power remained her own. Her arm tightened around the girl. "You should know that my Grace isn't just fighting, child. My Grace is survival. I'll bring you through these mountains."

The child didn't answer, but she put her head on Katsa's lap, curled her arm onto Katsa's leg, and burrowed against her. She fell asleep like that, to the howl of the wolves, and Katsa decided not to pick up her whittling again. They dozed together before the fire; and then Katsa woke and lifted the girl onto the horse. She took the reins and led the beast upward through the Monsean night.

The day came when the terrain grew impossible for the horse. Katsa didn't want to kill the animal, but she forced herself to consider it. There was leather to be gotten from him. And if he were left alive, he would wander the hills and give the soldiers who found him a clue to the fugitives' location. On the other hand, if Katsa killed the horse, she couldn't possibly dispose of his entire body. They would have to leave the carcass on the mountainside for the scavengers; and if soldiers found it, its bones picked clean, it would serve as a much more definite marker of their location and direction than a horse wandering free. Katsa decided with some relief that the horse must live. They removed his bags, his saddle, and his bridle. They wished him well and sent him on his way.

They climbed with their own hands and feet, Katsa helping Bitterblue up the steepest slopes, and lifting her onto rocks too big for her to climb. Thankfully, on the day she'd slid down the walls of her castle clinging to knotted sheets, Bitterblue had worn good boots. But she tripped now over her ratty dress. Finally, Katsa cut the skirts away and fashioned them into a crude pair of trousers. The girl's passage after that was faster and less frustrating.

The saddle leather was stiffer than Katsa had anticipated. She fought with it at night while Bitterblue slept, and finally decided to cut the girl four makeshift leggings, one for each lower leg and one for each upper leg, with straps to tie them in place over the trousers. They looked rather comical, but they gave her some protection from the cold and the damp. For more and more often now, as they trudged upward, snow drifted from the sky.

Food became scarce. Katsa let no animal go to waste; if something moved, she brought it down. She ate little and gave most of their food to Bitterblue, who gobbled down whatever she was given.

In the light of each morning, Katsa removed the girl's boots and checked her feet for blisters. She inspected the girl's hands to make sure that her fingers weren't frostbitten. She rubbed ointment into Bitterblue's cracked skin. She handed Bitterblue the water flask every time they stopped to rest. And Katsa stopped them often for these rests, for she began to suspect that this child would collapse before admitting she was tired.

Katsa was not tired. She felt the strength of her arms and legs and the quickness of her blade. She felt most acutely the slowness of their pace. At times she wanted to hoist the child over her shoulder and run up the mountainside at full tilt. But Katsa suspected that eventually on this mountain she would need every bit of her strength; and so she must not exhaust herself now. She curbed her impatience as best she could, and focused her energies on providing for the child.

The mountain lion was a gift, really, coming as it did at the beginning of the first true snowstorm they encountered.

The storm had been building all afternoon. The clouds knitted together. The snowflakes swelled and sharpened. Katsa made camp at the first possible place, a deep crevice in the mountain sheltered by a rocky overhang. Bitterblue went off to collect kindling, and Katsa set out, her dagger in her belt, to find them some dinner.

She struck a path upward, over the sheet of rock that formed the roof of their shelter. She headed into one of the clumps of trees that grew skyward on this mountain, roots clinging more to rock than to soil. Her senses were alert for any movement.

What she saw first was the slightest flicker, in the corner of her eye. A brown flicker up high in a tree, a flicker that curled and lifted, different somehow from the way a tree branch moved; and the limb of a tree that swung in an odd way – bounced, really, not as a wind would move it, but as if something heavy weighed it down.

Her body moved faster than her mind, recognizing predator and comprehending itself as prey. Instantly her dagger was in her hand. The great cat plunged, screeching, and she hurled the blade into its stomach. As she dropped and rolled away, its claws tore into her shoulder. Then the cat was upon her, great heavy paws slamming her shoulders against the ground and pinning her to her back. It came snarling at her, claws swiping and teeth bared, so fast that it was all she could do to keep her chest and neck from being ripped apart. She wrestled with its hopelessly strong forearms and swung her head away as its teeth came crashing together right where her face had just been. It slashed her breast savagely. When its teeth lunged for her throat Katsa grabbed its neck and screamed, pushed its snapping jaws away from her face. The animal reared above her and raked her arms with its claws. She saw a flash of something in its stomach, and remembered the dagger. Its teeth descended again and Katsa swung out, smashing its nose with her fist. It recoiled for the merest second, stunned, and in that second she reached desperately for the dagger. The cat lunged again, and Katsa thrust the dagger into its throat.

The cat made one horrible hissing, bubbling noise. Then it collapsed onto Katsa's chest, and its claws slid away from her skin. The mountain was quiet, and the lion was dead.

Katsa heaved the cat away. She propped herself onto her right elbow and wiped the animal's hot blood out of her eyes. She tested her left shoulder and winced at the pain. She choked back an enormous surge of irritation that she should now have an injury that might slow them down; and she tore open her coat and sighed, disgusted, at the gashes in her breast that stung almost as badly as those in her shoulder. And other rips and tears, she realized now, as each movement uncovered a new sting. Smaller cuts, on her neck and across her stomach and arms; deeper cuts in her thighs, where the cat had pinned her with its hind feet.

Well, there was no reason to lie around feeling sorry for herself. The snow was falling harder now. This fight had brought her injury and inconvenience, but it had also brought food that would last them a good long time, and fur for a coat that Bitterblue very much needed.

Katsa heaved herself to her feet. She considered the great lion that lay dead and bloody before her. Its tail – that's what she'd seen lifting and curling in that tree. The first clue that had saved her life. From head to tail the cat was longer than her height, and she guessed it weighed a good deal more than she did. Its neck was thick and powerful, its shoulders and back heavily muscled. Its teeth were as long as her fingers, and its claws longer. It occurred to her that she had not done so badly in this fight, despite what Bitterblue would think when she saw her. This was not an animal she would have chosen to fight in hand-to-hand combat. This animal could have killed her.

She realized then how long she had left Bitterblue alone, and a gust of wind blew thickening snow into her face. She pulled the dagger from the cat's throat, wiped it on the ground, and slipped it into her belt. She rolled the cat onto its back and grasped one of its forelegs in each hand. She gritted her teeth against the ache in her shoulder, and dragged the cat down to their cave.

Bitterblue ran up from the camp when she saw Katsa corning. Her eyes widened. She made an unintelligible noise that sounded like choking.

"I'm all right, child," Katsa said. "It only scratched me."

"You're covered in blood."

"Mostly the cat's blood."

The girl shook her head and pulled at the rips in Katsa's coat. "Great seas," she said, when she saw the gashes in Katsa's breast. "Great seas," she whispered again, at the sight of Katsa's shoulder, arms, and stomach. "We'll have to sew some of these cuts closed. Let's clean you up. I'll get the medicines."

That night their camp was crowded, but the fire warmed their small space, and cooked their cat steaks, and dried the tawny pelt that would soon become Bitterblue's coat. Bitterblue supervised the cooking of the meat; they would carry the extra frozen as they climbed.

The snow fell harder now. The wind gusted snowflakes into their fire, where they hissed and died. If this storm lasted, they'd be comfortable enough here. Food, water, a roof, and warmth; they had all they needed. Katsa shifted so that the fire's heat would touch her and dry the tattered clothing she'd put on again after washing because she had nothing else to wear.

She was working on the great bow she'd been making for the past few days. She bent the stave, and tested its strength. She cut a length of cord for the string. She bound the string tightly to one end of the stave and pulled on it, hard, to stretch it to the other end. She groaned at the ache in her shoulder, and the soreness of her leg where the bow pressed into one of her cuts. "If this is what it's like to be injured, I'll never understand why Po loves so much to fight me. Not if this is how he feels afterwards."

"I don't understand much of what either of you do," the girl said.

Katsa stood and pulled experimentally at the string. She reached for one of the arrows she'd whittled. She notched the arrow and fired a test shot through the falling snow into a tree outside their cave. The arrow hit the tree with a thud and embedded itself deeply. "Not bad," Katsa said. "It will serve." She marched out into the snow and yanked the arrow from the tree. She came back, sat down, and set herself to whittling more arrows. "I must say I'd trade a cat steak for a single carrot. Or a potato. Can you imagine what a luxury it's going to be to eat a meal in an inn, once we're in Sunder, Princess?"

Bitterblue only watched her, and chewed on the cat meat. She didn't respond. The wind moaned, and the carpet of snow that formed outside their cave grew thicker. Katsa fired another test arrow into the tree and tramped out into the storm to retrieve it. When she stamped back again and knocked her boots against the walls to shake off the snow, she noticed that Bitterblue's eyes still watched her.

"What is it, child?"

Bitterblue shook her head. She chewed a piece of meat and swallowed. She pulled a steak out of the fire and passed it to Katsa. "You're not acting particularly injured."

Katsa shrugged. She bit into the cat meat and wrinkled her nose.

"I've been fantasizing about bread, myself," Bitterblue said.

Katsa laughed. They sat together companionably, the child and the lion killer, listening to the wind that drove the snow outside their mountain cave.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The girl was exhausted. Warmer now in the hide of the cat, but exhausted. It was the never-ending upward trudge, and the stones that slid under her feet, pulling her back when she tried to go forward. It was the steep slope of rock that she couldn't climb unless Katsa pushed her from behind; and it was the hopeless knowledge that at the top of this slope was another just as steep, or another river of stones that would slide down while she tried to climb up. It was the snow that soaked her boots and the wind that worked its way under the edges of her clothing. And it was the wolves and cats that always appeared so suddenly, spitting and roaring, tearing toward them across rock. Katsa was quick with her bow. The creatures were always dead before they were within range, sometimes before Bitterblue was even aware of their presence. But Katsa saw how long it took Bitterblue's breath to calm and grow even again after each yowling attack, and she knew that the girl's tiredness stemmed not only from physical exertion, but from fear.

Katsa almost couldn't bear to slow their pace even more. But she did it, because she had to. "It's no use if our rescue kills him," Oll had said the night they'd rescued Grandfather Tealiff. If Bitterblue collapsed in these mountains, the responsibility would be Katsa's.

It snowed hard now, almost constantly, and so now when it snowed, they kept moving. Katsa wrapped Bitterblue's hands in furs, and her face, so that only her eyes were exposed. She knew from the map that there were no trees in Grella's Pass. Before they reached that high, windy pathway between the peaks, the trees would end. And so she began to construct snowshoes, so that she wouldn't find herself needing them in a place with no wood to make them. She planned to make only one pair. She didn't know what terrain they would find in the pass. But she had an idea of the wind and the cold. It wouldn't be the place to move slowly, unless they wanted to freeze to death. She guessed she would be carrying the child.

At night Bitterblue sank immediately into an exhausted sleep, whimpering sometimes, as if she were having bad dreams. Katsa watched over her, and kept the fire alive. She pieced together slats of wood, and tried not to think of Po. Tried and usually failed.

Her wounds were healing well. The smallest ones barely showed anymore, and even the largest had stopped losing blood after a few hours. They were no more than an irritation, though the bags she carried pulled on the cuts and the half-constructed snowshoes banged against them. Her shoulder and her breast protested a bit every time her hand flew to the quiver on her back, the quiver she'd fashioned with a bit of saddle leather. She would have scars on her shoulder and her breast, possibly on her thighs. But they would be the only marks the cat left on her body.

She would make some sort of halter next, when she was done with the snowshoes. In anticipation of carrying the child. Some arrangement of straps and ties, made from the horse's gear, so that if she must carry Bitterblue, her arms would be free to use the bow. And perhaps a coat for herself, now that Bitterblue was warmer. A coat, from the next wolf or mountain lion they encountered.

And every night, with the fire stoked and her work done, and thoughts of Po so close she couldn't escape them, she curled up against Bitterblue and gave herself a few hours' sleep.

When Katsa found that she was shivering herself to sleep at night, wrapping her own head and neck with furs, and stamping the numbness out of her feet, she thought they must be nearing Grella's Pass. It couldn't be much farther. Because Grella's Pass would be even colder than this; and Katsa didn't believe the world could get much colder.

She became frightened for the child's fingers and toes, and the skin of her face. She stopped often to massage Bitterblue's fingers and her feet. The child wasn't talking, and climbed numbly, wearily; but her mind was present. She nodded and shook her head in response to Katsa's questions. She wrapped her arms around Katsa whenever Katsa lifted her or carried her. She cried, with relief, when their nightly fire warmed her. She cried from pain when Katsa woke her to the cold mornings.

They had to be close to Grella's Pass. They had to, because Katsa wasn't sure how much more of this the child could endure.

An ice storm erupted one morning as they trudged upward through trees and scrub. For the better part of the morning they were blind, heads bent into the wind, bodies battered by snow and ice. Katsa kept her arm around the child, as she always did during the storms, and followed her strong sense of direction upward and westward. And noticed, after some time, that the path grew less steep, and that she was no longer tripping over tree roots or mountain scrub. Her feet felt heavy, as if the snow had deepened and she must push her way through it.

When the storm lifted, as abruptly as it had begun, the landscape had changed. They stood at the base of a long, even, snow-covered slope, clear of vegetation, the wind catching ice crystals on its surface and dancing them up into the sky. Some distance ahead, two black crags towered to the left and right. The slope rose to pass between them.

The whiteness was blinding, the sky so close and so searingly blue that Bitterblue held her hand up to block her eyes. Grella's Pass: No animals to fend off, no boulders or scrub to navigate. Only a simple rising length of clean snow for them to walk across, right over the mountain range and down into Sunder.

It almost looked peaceful.

A warning began to buzz, and then clamor, in Katsa's mind. She watched the swirls of snow that whipped along the pass's surface. For one thing, it would be a greater distance than it looked. For another, there would be no shelter from the wind. Nor would it be as smooth as it seemed from here, with the sun shining on it directly. And if it stormed, or rather, when it stormed, it would be weather befitting these mountaintops, where no living thing survived, and all that had any hope of lasting was rock or ice.

Katsa wiped away the snow that clung to the girl's furs. She broke pieces of ice from the wrapping around Bitterblue's face. She unslung the snowshoes from her back and stepped into them, wrapped the straps around her feet and ankles, and bound them tightly. She untangled the halter she'd constructed, and helped the child into it, one weary leg at a time. Bitterblue didn't protest or ask for an explanation. She moved sluggishly. Katsa bent down, grabbed her chin, and looked into her eyes.

"Bitterblue," she said. "Bitterblue. You must stay alert. I'll carry you, but only because we have to move fast. You've got to stay awake. If I think you're falling asleep, I'll put you down and make you walk. Do you understand? I'll make you walk, Princess, no matter how hard it is for you."

"I'm tired," the child whispered, and Katsa grabbed her shoulders and shook them.

"I don't care if you're tired. You'll do what I tell you. You'll put every ounce of strength into staying awake. Do you understand?"

"I don't want to die," Bitterblue said, and a tear seeped from her eye and froze on her eyelash. Katsa knelt and held the cold little bundle of girl close.

"You won't die," Katsa said. "I won't let you die." But it would take more than her own will to keep Bitterblue alive, and so she reached into her cloak and pulled out the water flask. "Drink this," she said, "all of it."

"It's cold," Bitterblue said.

"It will help to keep you alive. Quickly, before it freezes."

The child drank, and Katsa made a split-second decision. She threw the bow onto the ground. She pulled the bags and the quiver over her head and dropped them beside the bow. Then she took off the wolf furs she wore over her shoulders, the furs she'd allowed herself to keep and wear only after the child was covered in several layers of fur from head to toe. The wind found the rips in Katsa's bloodstained coat, and the cold knifed at her stomach, at the remaining wounds in her breast and her shoulder; but soon she would be running, she told herself, and the movement would warm her. The furs that covered her neck and head would be enough. She wrapped the great wolf hides around the child, like a blanket.

"You've lost your mind," Bitterblue said, and Katsa almost smiled, because if the girl could form insulting opinions, then at least she was somewhat lucid.

"I'm about to engage in some very serious exercise," Katsa said. "I wouldn't want to overheat. Now, give me that flask, child." Katsa bent down and filled the flask with snow. Then she fastened it closed, and buried it inside Bitterblue's coats. "You'll have to carry it," she said, "if it's not to freeze."

The wind came from all directions, but Katsa thought it blew most fiercely from the west and into their faces. So she would carry the child on her back. She hung everything else across her front and pulled the straps of the girl's halter over her shoulders. She stood under the weight of the child, and straightened. She took a few cautious steps in the snowshoes. "Ball up your fists," she said to the girl, "and put them in my armpits. Put your face against the fur around my neck. Pay attention to your feet. If you start to think you can't feel them, tell me. Do you understand, Bitterblue?"

"I understand," the girl said.

"All right then," Katsa said. "We're off."

She ran.

She adjusted quickly to the snowshoes and to the precariously balanced loads on her back and her front. The girl weighed practically nothing, and the snowshoes worked well enough once she mastered the knack of running with legs slightly splayed. She couldn't believe the coldness of this passageway over the mountains. She couldn't believe wind could blow so hard and so insistently, without ever easing. Every breath of this air was a blade gouging into her lungs. Her arms, her legs, her torso, especially her hands – every part of her that was not covered with fur burned with cold, as if she had thrown herself into a fire.

She ran, and at first she thought the pounding of her feet and legs created some warmth; and then the incessant thud, thud, thud became a biting ache, and then a dull one; and finally, she could no longer feel the pounding at all, but forced it to continue, forward, upward, closer to the peaks that always seemed the same distance away.

The clouds gathered again and pummeled her with snow. The wind shrieked, and she ran blindly. Over and over, she yelled to Bitterblue. She asked the girl questions, meaningless questions about Monsea, about Leck City, about her mother. And always the same questions about whether she could feel her hands, whether she could move her toes, whether she felt dizzy or numb. She didn't know if Bitterblue understood her questions. She didn't know what it was Bitterblue yelled back. But Bitterblue did yell; and if Bitterblue was yelling, then Bitterblue was awake. Katsa squeezed her arms over the child's hands. She reached back and grasped the child's boots every once in a while, doing what she could to rub her toes. And she ran, and kept running, even when it felt like the wind was pushing her backward. Even when her own questions began to make less and less sense, and her fingers couldn't rub and her arms couldn't squeeze anymore.

Eventually, she was conscious of only two things: the girl's voice, which continued in her ear, and the slope before them that she had to keep running up.

When the great red sun sank from the sky and began to dip behind the horizon, Katsa registered it dully. If she saw the sunset, it must mean the snow no longer fell. Yes, now that she considered the question, she could see that it had stopped snowing, though she couldn't remember when. But sunset meant the day was ending. Night was coming; and night was always colder than day.

Katsa kept running, because soon it would be even colder. Her legs moved; the child spoke now and again; she could not feel anything except the coldness stabbing her lungs with each breath. And then something else began to register in the fog of her mind.

She could see a horizon that lay far below her.

She was watching the sun sink behind a horizon that lay far below her.

She didn't know when the view had changed. She didn't know at what point she had passed over the top and begun to descend. But she had done it. She couldn't see the black peaks anymore, and so they must be behind her. What she could see was the other side of the mountain; and forests, endless forests; and the sun bringing the day to a close as she ran, the child living and breathing on her back, down into Sunder. And not too far ahead of her, the end of this snowy slope, and the beginning of trees and scrub, and a downhill climb that would be so much easier for the child than the uphill climb had been.

She noticed the shivering then, the violent shivering, and panic consumed her, racked her dull mind awake. The child must not sicken now, not now that they were so close to safety. She reached back and grabbed Bitterblue's boots. She screamed her name. But then she heard Bitterblue's voice, crying something in her ear; and she felt the girl's arms snake around her front and hold her tight. The line below her breasts where Bitterblue's arms encircled her felt different suddenly. Warm, oddly warm. Katsa heard her own teeth chattering. She realized that it was not the girl who shivered. It was herself.

She found herself laughing, though nothing was funny. If she couldn't even keep herself alive, there was no hope for the child. She shouldn't have let this happen; she'd been mad to bring them into Sunder this way. She thought of her hands and held them up to her face. She opened her fingers, forced them to open, and cursed herself when she saw her white fingertips. She shoved her fists into her armpits. She willed her mind to think clearly, lucidly. She was cold, too cold. She must get them to the place where the trees started, so that they could have firewood, and protection from the wind. She must start a fire. Get to that place, and start a fire. And keep the child alive. Those were her needs, those were her ends, and she would keep those thoughts in her head as she ran.

By the time they reached the trees, Bitterblue was whimpering from numbness and cold. But when Katsa collapsed to her knees, the girl unwound herself from the halter. She fumbled to remove the wolf furs from her own back and wrapped them around Katsa's body. Then she knelt before Katsa and tugged at the straps of the snowshoes with her chapped, bleeding fingers. Katsa roused herself and helped with the straps. She crawled out of the snowshoes and flung off the bags, the quiver, the halter, and the bow.

"Firewood," Katsa said. "Firewood."

The girl sniffled and nodded and stumbled around under the trees, collecting what she could find. The wood she brought back to Katsa was damp with snow. Katsa's fingers were slow and clumsy with her dagger, unsteady with the shivering that racked her body. She had never in her life had difficulty starting a fire before, never once in her life. She concentrated fiercely, and on her tenth or eleventh try, a flame sparked and caught a dry corner of wood. Katsa fed pine needles to the flame and nursed it, directed it, and willed it not to die, until it licked at the edges of the branches she'd assembled. It grew and smoked and crackled. They had fire.

Katsa crouched, shivering, and watched the flames, ignoring fiercely the stabbings of pain they brought to her fingers and the throbbing in her feet. "No," she whispered, when Bitterblue stood and moved away to find more firewood. "Warm yourself first. Stay here and warm yourself first."

Katsa built up the fire, slowly, and as she leaned over it, and as it grew, her shivering quieted. She looked at the girl, who sat on the ground, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her eyes closed, her face resting on her knees. Her cheeks streaked with tears. Alive.

"What a fool I am," Katsa whispered. "What a fool I am." She forced herself to her feet and pushed herself from tree to tree to collect more wood. Her bones ached, her hands and feet screamed with pain. Maybe it was for the best that she'd been so foolish, for if she'd known how hard this would be, perhaps she wouldn't have done it.

She returned to their campsite and built the fire up more. Tonight the fire would be enormous; tonight they would have a fire all of Sunder could see. She shuffled over to the child and took her hands. She inspected the girl's fingers. "You can feel them?" she asked. "You can move them?"

Bitterblue nodded. Katsa yanked at the bags, and groped inside them until she found the medicines. She massaged Raffin's healing ointment into the girl's cracked, bleeding hands. "Let me see your feet now, Princess." She rubbed warmth into the girl's toes and buttoned her back into her boots.

"You've made it across Grella's Pass," she said to Bitterblue, "all in one piece. You're a strong girl."

Bitterblue wrapped her arms around Katsa. She kissed Katsa's cheek and held on to her tightly. If Katsa had had enough energy for astonishment, she would have been astonished. Instead, she hugged the girl back numbly.

Katsa and Bitterblue held on to each other, and their bodies crawled their ways back to warmth. When Katsa lay down that night before the roaring fire, the child curled in her arms, not even the pain in her hands and feet could have kept her awake.