Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(21)
Author: Kristin Cashore

If she truly decided to?

He was right. If her purpose were to hurt him, to break his arm or his neck, she didn’t think it would take her very long.

“When we fight,” he said, “you go to great pains to win without hurting me. That you usual y can is a mark of your phenomenal skil . I’ve never hurt you once, and believe me, I’ve tried.”

“It’s a front,” she said. “The fighting is only a front.”

“Yes. My mother seized on it the instant it became clear that I shared the skil of my brothers, and that my Grace magnified that skil .”

“Why didn’t you know I would strike you,” she said, “in Murgon’s courtyard?”

“I did know,” he said, “but only in the last instant, and I didn’t react quickly enough. Until that first strike, I didn’t realize your speed. I’d never encountered the like of it before.”

The mortar was cracking in the frame of the window. She pulled out a small chunk and rolled it between her fingers.

“Does your Grace make mistakes? Or are you always right?”

He breathed; it almost sounded like a laugh. “It’s not always exact. And it’s always changing. I’m stillgrowing into it. My sense of the physical is pretty reliable, as long as I’m not in an enormous crowd. I know where people are and what they’re doing. But what they feel toward me – there’s never been a time when I thought someone was lying and they weren’t. Or a time when I thought someone intended to hit me and they didn’t. But there are times when I’m not sure – when I have a sense of something but I’m not sure. Other people’s feelings can be very… complicated, and difficult to understand.”

She hadn’t thought of that, that a person might be difficult to understand, even to a mind reader.

“I’m more sure of things now than I used to be,” he said. “When I was a child I was rarely sure. These enormous waves of energy and feeling and thought were always crashing into me, and most of the time I was drowning in them.

For one thing, it’s taken me a long time to learn to distinguish between thoughts that matter and thoughts that don’t.

Thoughts that are just thoughts, fleeting, and thoughts that carry some kind of relevant intent. I’ve gotten much better at that, but my Grace stil gives me things I’ve no idea what to do with.”

It sounded ridiculous to her, thoroughly ridiculous. And she had thought her own Grace overwhelming. Alongside his, it seemed quite straightforward.

“It’s hard to get a handle on it sometimes,” he said, “my Grace.”

She turned sideways for a moment. “Did you say that because I thought it?”

“No. I said it because I thought it.”

She turned back to the window. “I thought it, too,” she said. “Or something like it.”

“Wel ,” he said. “I imagine it’s a feeling you would understand.”

She sighed again. There were things about this she could understand, though she didn’t want to. “How close do you have to be to someone, physical y, for your Grace to sense them?”

“It differs. And it’s changed over time.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it’s someone I know well,” he said, “my range is broad. For strangers, I need to be closer. I knew when you neared the castle today; I knew when you burst into the courtyard and leaped out of your saddle, and I felt your anger strong and clear as you flew up to Raffin’s rooms. My range for you is… broader than most.”

It was darker outside now than it was in her dining room. She saw him, suddenly, in the reflection of the window.

He was leaning back against the table, as she had pictured him before. His face, his shoulders, his arms sagged.

Everything about him sagged. He was unhappy. He was looking down at his feet, but as she watched him he raised his eyes, and met hers in the glass. She felt the tears again, suddenly, and she grasped at something to say.

“Do you sense the presence of animals and plants? Rocks and dirt?”

“I’m leaving,” he said, “tomorrow.”

“Do you know when an animal is near?”

“Wil you turn around,” he said, “so I can see you while we speak?”

“Can you read my mind more easily when I’m facing you?”

“No. I’d just like to see you, Katsa. That’s all.”

His voice was soft, and sorry. He was sorry about all of this, sorry for his Grace. His Grace that was not his fault and that would have driven her away had he told her of it at the beginning.

She turned to face him.

“I didn’t used to sense animals and plants or landscapes,” he said, “but lately that’s been changing. Sometimes I’ll get a fuzzy sense of something that isn’t human. If something moves, I might sense it. It’s erratic.”

Katsa watched his face.

“I’m going to Sunder,” he said.

Katsa folded her arms across her stomach and said nothing.

“When Murgon questioned me after your rescue, it became obvious to me the object you’d taken was my grandfather. It became just as obvious Murgon had been keeping him for someone else. But I couldn’t tell who, not without asking questions that would’ve given away what I knew.”

She listened vaguely. She was tired, overwhelmed by too many things in the present to focus on the details of the kidnapping.

“I’m beginning to think it’s something to do with Monsea,” he said. “We’ve ruled out the Middluns, Wester, Nander, Estil , Sunder – and you’l remember, I’ve been to most of those courts. I know I was not lied to, except in Sunder.

Lienid is not responsible, I’m sure of it.”

She’d lost her fury, somewhere, as they’d talked. She didn’t feel it anymore. She wished she did, because she preferred it to the emptiness that had settled in its place. She was sorry for everything that had changed now with Po.

Sorry to see it all go.

“Katsa,” he said. “I need you to listen to me.”

She blinked and worked her mind back to the words he had spoken.

“But King Leck of Monsea is a kind man,” she said. “He would have no reason.”

“He might,” he said, “though I don’t know what it is. Something isn’t right, Katsa. Some impressions I got from Murgon that I dismissed at the time, perhaps I dismissed them in error. And my father’s sister, Queen Ashen, she wouldn’t behave as you told me. She’s so stoical, she is strong.

She wouldn’t have hysterics and lock herself and her child away from her husband. I swear to you, if you knew her…”

He stopped, his brow furrowed. He kicked the floor. “I’ve a feeling Monsea has something to do with it. I don’t know if it’s my Grace, or just instinct. Anyway, I’m going back to Sunder, to see what I can learn of it. Grandfather’s doing better, but for his own sake I want him to stay hidden until I get to the bottom of this.”

That was it, then. He was going to Sunder, to get to the bottom of it. And it was good that he was going, for she didn’t want him in her head.

But neither did she want him to go. And he must know that, since she had thought it. And now, did he know that she knew that he knew, since she had thought that, too?

This was absurd, it was impossible. Being with him was impossible.

But stillshe didn’t want him to go.

“I hoped you would come with me,” he said, and she stared at him, openmouthed. “We’d make a good team. I don’t even know where I’m going, for sure. But I hoped you would consider coming. If you’re stillmy friend.”

She couldn’t think what to say. “Doesn’t your Grace tell you if I’m your friend?”

“Do you know, yourself?”

She tried to think, but there was nothing in her mind. She knew only that she was numb and sad and completely without any clarity of feeling.

“I can’t know your feelings,” he said, “if you don’t know them yourself ”

He looked to the door suddenly; and then there was a knock, and a steward burst in without waiting for Katsa’s response. At the sight of his pale, tight face, it all came flooding back to her. Randa. Randa wanted to see her, most likely wanted to kill her. Before this confusion with Po, she had disobeyed Randa.

“The king orders you to come before him at once, My Lady,” the steward said. “Forgive me, My Lady. He says that if you don’t, he’l send his entire guard to fetch you.”

“Very well,” Katsa said. “Tel him I’ll go to him immediately.”

“Thank you, My Lady.” The steward turned and scampered away.

Katsa scowled after him. “His entire guard. What does he think they could do to me? I should’ve told the steward to send them, just for the amusement of it.” She looked around the room. “I wonder if I should take a knife.”

Po watched her with narrowed eyes. “What have you done? What’s this about?”

“I’ve disobeyed him. He sent me to torture some poor, innocent lord, and I decided I wouldn’t. Do you think I should take a knife?” She walked across to her weapons room.

He followed her. “To do what? What do you think will happen at this meeting?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Oh, Po, if he angers me, I fear I’ll want to kill him. And what if he threatens me and gives me no choice?” She threw herself into a chair and dropped her head down on the Council table. How could she go to Randa now, of all times, when there was a whirlwind in her head? She would lose herself at the sound of his voice. She would do something dreadful.

Po slid into the chair next to her and sat sideways, facing her. “Katsa,” he said. “Listen to me. You’re the most powerful person I’ve ever met.

You can do whatever you want, whatever you want in the world. No one can make you do anything, and your uncle can’t touch you. The instant you walk into his presence, you have all the power. If you wish not to hurt him, Katsa, then you have only to choose not to.”

“But what will I do?”

“You’l figure it out,” Po said. “You only have to go in knowing what you won’t do. You won’t hurt him, you won’t let him hurt you. You’l figure the rest out as you go along.” She sighed into the table. She didn’t think much of his plan.

“It’s the only possible plan, Katsa. You have the power to do whatever you want.”

She sat up and turned to him. “You keep saying that, but it’s not true,” she said. “I don’t have the power to stop you from sensing my thoughts.”