Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(36)
Author: Kristin Cashore

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.”

“Wel , 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.”

“Wel , 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’l only talk louder. He’l yel and you’l 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’l end up confused again and we’l 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.”

“Wil 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 fil ed 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 hol ow 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’l 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 fel ow never took his eyes from the ground. “Princess Bitterblue,” the man cal ed. “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 stillthey’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.

“Al right,” she said final y. “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 fol ow. 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 final y. “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 val ey. She would’ve known to go west, away from the val eys. Is there any harm in fol owing 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 cal ed 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 hol ow of grasses and ferns, Po stopped and held up his hand. “I recognize this place. This is it.”

“Is she here?”