Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(47)

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.