Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(71)

“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.”