Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(59)

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.”