"And that's the other thing," Po said. "That man truly believed in Leck's philanthropy. But am I the only person who finds it a bit odd that there should be so many slashed-up dogs and squirrels in Monsea that need rescuing? Are the trees and the rocks made of broken glass?"
"But he's a kind man if he cares for them."
Po peered at Katsa strangely. "You're defending him, too, in the face of logic that tells you not to, just like my parents and just like those merchants. He's got hundreds of animals with bizarre cuts that don't heal, Katsa, and children in his employ dying of mysterious illnesses, and you're not the slightest bit suspicious."
He was right. Katsa saw it; and the truth in all its gruesomeness trickled into her mind. She began to have a conception of a power that spread like a bad feeling, like a sickness itself, seizing all minds that it touched.
Could there be a Grace more dangerous than one that replaced sight with a fog of falseness?
Katsa shuddered. For she would be in the presence of this king soon enough. She wasn't certain what defense even she could raise against a man who could fool her into believing his innocent reputation.
Her eyes traced Po's silhouette, dark against the black door. His white shirt was the only part of him truly visible, a luminous gray in the darkness. She wished, suddenly, that she could see him better. He stood and pulled her to her feet. He pulled her to the window and looked down into her face. The moonlight caught a glimmer in his silver eye, and a gleam in the gold of his ear. She didn't know why she had felt so anxious or why the lines of his nose and his mouth, or the concern in his eyes, should comfort her.
"What is it?" he asked. "What's bothering you?"
"If Leck has this Grace, as you suspect..." she began.
"Yes?"
"...how will I protect myself from him?"
He considered her seriously. "Well. And that's easy," he said. "My Grace will protect me from him. And I'll protect you. You'll be safe with me, Katsa."
IN HER BED, thoughts swirled like a windstorm in her mind; but she ordered herself to sleep. In an instant, the storm quieted. She slept under a blanket of calm.
Chapter Nineteen
THERE WERE two ways to get to Leck City from the inn or from any point in Sunder. One was to travel south to one of the Sunderan ports and sail southeast to Monport, the westernmost port city of the Monsean peninsula, where a road led north to Leck City, across flat land just east of Monsea's highest peaks. This route was traveled by merchants who carried goods, and most parties containing women, children, or the elderly.
The other way was shorter but more difficult. It led southeast through a Sunderan forest that grew thicker and wilder and rose to meet the mountains that formed Monsea's border with Sunder and Estill. The path became too rocky and uneven for horses. Those who crossed the mountain pass did so on foot. An inn on either side of the pass bought or kept the horses of those who approached the mountains and sold or returned them to those who came from the mountains. This was the route Katsa and Po would take.
Leck City was the walk of a day or so beyond the mountain pass, less if they purchased new horses. The walk to the city wound through valleys grown lush with the water that flowed down from the mountaintops. It was a landscape of rivers and streams, similar to that of inland Lienid, Po told Katsa—or so the Monsean queen had written—which made it a landscape unlike anything Katsa had ever seen.
As they rode, Katsa couldn't content herself with imagining the strange landscapes ahead. For when she'd awakened to morning in the Sunderan inn, the windstorm of the night before had returned to her mind.
Po's Grace would protect Po from Leck. And Po would protect her.
With Po, Katsa would be safe.
He'd said it simply, as if it were nothing. But it wasn't nothing for Katsa to rely on someone else's protection. She'd never done such a thing in her life.
And besides, wouldn't it be easier for her to kill Leck immediately, before he said a word or raised a finger? Or gag him, immobilize him, find some way to disempower him completely? Maintain control and ensure her own defense? Katsa didn't need protection. There would be a solution; there would be a way for her to protect herself from Leck, if indeed he had the power they suspected. She only needed to think of it.
LATE IN THE morning the skies began to drip. By afternoon the drizzle had turned to rain, a cold, relentless rain that beat down and hid the forest road from their sight. Finally they stopped, soaked to the skin, to see what they could do about shelter before night fell. The tangle of trees on either side of the road provided some cover. They tethered the horses under an enormous pine that smelled of the sap dripping from its branches with the rainwater. "It's as dry a place as we're likely to find," Po said. "A fire will be impossible, but at least we won't sleep in the rain."
"A fire is never impossible," Katsa said. "I'll build it, and you find us something to cook on it."
So Po set out into the trees with his bow, somewhat skeptically, and Katsa set to work building a fire. It wasn't easy, with the world around her soaked right through. But the pine tree had protected some of the needles nestled closely to its trunk, and she uncovered some leaves and a stick or two that were not quite waterlogged. With the strike of her knife, a number of gentle breaths, and whatever protection her own open arms could give, a flame began to lick its way through the damp little tower of kindling. It warmed her face as she leaned into it. It pleased her. She'd always had a way with fires. With Oll and Giddon the fire had always been her responsibility.
Further evidence, of course, that she didn't need to rely on anyone for her survival.
She left the flicker of light, and scrambled to find it more food. When Po came back, dripping, to their camp, she was grateful for the fat rabbit in his hand.
"My Grace is definitely still growing," he said, wiping water from his face. "Since we entered this forest I've noticed a greater sensitivity to animals. This rabbit was hiding in the hollow of a tree, and it seems to me I shouldn't have known he was there—" He stopped at the sight of her small, smoky fire. He watched as she breathed into it and fed it with her collection of twigs and branches. "Katsa, how did you manage it? You're a wonder."
She laughed at that. He crouched beside her. "It's good to hear you laugh," he said. "You've been so quiet today. You know, I'm quite cold, though I didn't realize it until I felt the heat of these flames."
Po warmed himself, saw to their dinner, and chatted. Katsa began to open their bags and hang blankets and clothing from the lowest branches of the pine, to dry them as best they could. When the meat of the rabbit was propped sizzling above the flames, Po joined her. He unrolled their maps and held a soggy corner near the fire. He opened Raffin's packet of medicines and inspected them, setting the labeled envelopes onto rocks to dry.
It was comfortable, their camp, with the drops plopping down from above and the warmth of the fire, and the smell of burning wood and cooking meat. Po's patter of conversation was comfortable. Katsa kept the fire alive and smiled at his talk. She fell asleep that night, in a blanket partly dried, secure in the certainty that she could survive anywhere, on her own.
SHE WOKE in the middle of the night in a panic, certain that Po had gone and that she was alone. But it must have been the tail end of a dream, snagging into her consciousness as it departed, for she could hear his breath through the even fall of rain. When she turned over and sat up, she could make out his form on the ground beside her. She reached out and touched his shoulder. Just to make sure. He had not left her; he was here, and they were traveling together through the Sunderan forest, to the Monsean border. She lay down again, and watched the outline of his sleeping body in the darkness.
She would accept his protection after all, if truly she needed it. She was not too proud to be helped by this friend. He'd helped her in a thousand ways already.
And she would protect him as fiercely, if it were ever his need—i f a fight ever became too much for him or if he needed shelter, or food,
or a fire in the rain. Or anything she could provide. She would protect him from everything.
That was settled then. She closed her eyes and slipped into sleep.
KATSA DIDN'T KNOW what was wrong with her when she woke the next morning. She couldn't explain the fury she felt toward him. There was no explanation; and perhaps he knew that, because he asked for none. He only commented that the rain had stopped, watched her as she rolled her blanket, deliberately not looking at him, and carried his things to the horses. As they rode, still she did not look at him. And though he couldn't have missed the force of her fury, he made no comment.
She wasn't angry that there was a person who could provide her with help and protection. That would be arrogance, and she saw that arrogance was foolishness; she should strive for humility—and there was another way he'd helped her. 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."
She was crying, but not because of his words. It was because of a certainty she refused to consider while she sat before him. She stood. "I need to go."
He jumped up. "No, Katsa, please."
"I won't go far, Po. I just need to think, without you in my head."
"I'm afraid if you leave you won't come back."
"Po." This assurance, at least, she could give him. "I'll come back."
He looked at her for a moment. "I know you mean that now. But I'm afraid once you've gone off to think, you'll decide the solution is to leave me."
"I won't."
"I can't know that."
"No," Katsa said, "you can't. But I need to think on my own, and I refuse to knock you out, so you have to let me go. And once I'm gone you'll just have to trust me, as any person without your Grace would have to do. And as I have to do always, with you."
He looked at her with those naked, unhappy eyes again. Then he took a breath and sat down. "Put a good ten minutes between us," he said, "if you want privacy."
Ten minutes was a far greater range than she'd understood his Grace to encompass; but that was an argument for another time. She felt his eyes on her back as she passed through the trees. She groped forward, hands and feet, in search of darkness, distance, and solitude.
ALONE IN the forest, Katsa sat on a stump and cried. She cried like a person whose heart is broken and wondered how, when two people loved each other, there could be such a broken heart.
She couldn't have him, and there was no mistaking it. She could never be his wife. She could not steal herself back from Randa only to give herself away again—belong to another person, be answerable to another person, build her very being around another person. No matter how she loved him.
Katsa sat in the darkness of the Sunderan forest and understood three truths. She loved Po. She wanted Po. And she could never be anyone's but her own.
After a while, she began to thread her way back to the fire.
Nothing had changed in her feeling, and she wasn't tired. But Po would suffer if he didn't sleep; and she knew he wouldn't sleep
until she had returned.
HE WAS LYING on his back, wide awake, staring up at a half-moon. She went to him and sat before him. He watched her with soft eyes and didn't say anything. She looked back at him, and opened up her feelings to him, so that he would understand what she felt, what she wanted, and what she couldn't do. He sat up. He watched her face for a long time.
"You know I'd never expect you to change who you are, if you were my wife," he finally said.
"It would change me to be your wife," she said.
He watched her eyes. "Yes. I understand you."
A log fell into the fire. They sat quietly. His voice, when he spoke, was hesitant.
"It strikes me that heartbreak isn't the only alternative to marriage," he said.
"What do you mean?"
He ducked his head for a moment. He raised his eyes to her again. "I'll give myself to you however you'll take me," he said, so simply that Katsa found she wasn't embarrassed. She watched his face.
"And where would that lead?"
"I don't know. But I trust you."
She watched his eyes.
He offered himself to her. He trusted her. As she trusted him.
She hadn't considered this possibility, when she'd sat alone in the forest crying. She hadn't even thought of it. And his offer hung suspended before her now, for her to reach out and claim; and that which had seemed clear and simple and heartbreaking was confused and complicated again. But also touched with hope.
Could she be his lover and still belong to herself?
That was the question; and she didn't know the answer.
"I need to think," she said.
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