Graceling

  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.