Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(76)

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.”