Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(59)
Author: Kristin Cashore

She tilted her head back and considered his stormy expression. “This is very good,” she said. “This is some excel ent self-pity.”

And then the rumble of his laughter again, and a kind of helpless heartache in his face that caused her to reach for him, take him into her arms, and kiss his neck, his snow-covered shoulder, his finger not wearing its ring, and every place that she could find. He touched her face gently. He touched her lips and kissed her. He rested his forehead against hers.

“I would never hold you here,” he said. “But if you can bear this – if you can bear me behaving like this – I don’t really want you to leave.”

“I’ll not go,” Katsa said, “for a long time. I’ll not go until you want me to; or until you’re ready to go yourself ”

———

He had quite a talent for playing a part. Katsa saw this now, because she saw the transformation now, whenever they were alone and he stopped pretending. To his brother and his cousin he presented strength, steadiness, health. His shoulders were straight, his stride even. When he couldn’t hide his unhappiness, he played it as moodiness. When he couldn’t find the energy to direct his eyes to their faces and pretend to see them, he played it as inattention. He was strong, cheerful – strangely distracted, perhaps, but healing well from grave injury. It was an impressive act – and for the most part, it seemed to satisfy them. Enough, at least, that they never had reason to suspect the truth of his Grace, which was ultimately all he was trying to hide.

When he and Katsa were alone, hunting, col ecting water, or sitting together in the cabin, the disguise quietly fel from him. Weariness pulled at his face, his body, his voice. He put his hand out occasional y, to a tree or a rock, to steady himself.

His eyes focused, or pretended to focus, on nothing, ever. And Katsa began to understand that while some of his sorry state was attributable to plain unhappiness, an even larger part of it stemmed from his Grace itself. For he was stillgrowing into it; and now that he no longer had vision to anchor his perception of the world, he was constantly overwhelmed.

One day beside the pool, during a rare break between snowstorms, she watched him notch an arrow calmly to his bow and aim at something she couldn’t see. A ledge of rock? A tree stump? He cocked his head as if he were listening.

He released the arrow, and it sliced through the cold and thwacked into a patch of snow. “What – ” Katsa started to say, and then stopped when a spot of blood well ed to the surface and colored the snow around the arrow’s shaft.

“A rabbit,” he said. “A big one.”

He started forward toward his buried kill , but had taken little more than a step when a flock of geese swooped down from overhead. He put his hand to his temple and fel to one knee.

Katsa strung two arrows and shot two geese. Then she hauled Po up. “Po, what – ”

“The geese. They took me by surprise.”

She shook her head. “You could sense animals before, but the sense of them never knocked you down.”

He snorted with laughter, and then his laughter fizzled into a sigh. “Katsa. Try to imagine how things are now My Grace shows me every detail of the mountain above me, and the drop to the forest below me. I feel the movement of every fish in the pool and every bird in the trees. The ice is growing back over our water hole. Snow is forming fast in the clouds, Katsa. In a moment I expect it’ll be snowing again.” He turned his face toward her now, urgently. “Skye and Bitterblue are in the cabin. Bitterblue’s anxious about me, she doesn’t think I eat enough. And you’re here, too, of course – your every movement, your body, your clothing, your every worry coursing through me. The sighted can focus their eyes. I can’t focus my Grace. I can’t turn this off. How exactly, when I’m aware of everything above, below, before, behind, and beyond me, am I supposed to keep my mind on the ground beneath my feet?”

He trudged away from her toward the red patch of blood. He yanked tiredly at the arrow in the snow. It came away in his hand, and lifted with it a large, white, bloody rabbit. He plodded back to her, rabbit in hand. They stood there, considering each other; and then flakes of snow began to fall. Katsa could not help herself – she smiled, at the fulfil ment of his prediction. A moment later Po smiled too, grudgingly; and when they turned to climb the rocks, he took her sleeve. “The snow’s disorienting,” he said.

They set out across the slope, and he steadied himself against her as they climbed.

———

She was getting used to the new way Po had of considering her, now that he couldn’t see her. He didn’t look at her, of course. She supposed she would never feel the intensity of his gaze again; she would never again be caught in his eyes. It was something she tried not to think about. It made her stupidly, foolishly sad.

But Po’s new way with her was also intense. It was a kind of attentiveness in his face, a concentration in his body, directed toward her. When it happened she could feel the stillness of his face and body, attuned to her. She thought that it happened more and more as the days passed. As if he were reconnecting with her, slowly, and pul ing her back into his thoughts. He touched her easily now, too, as he’d done before his accident – kissed her hands if she was nearby, or touched her face when she stood before him. And Katsa wondered if it was true, or just her imagination, that he was paying them, all of them, more attention – truer attention. As if perhaps he was less overwhelmed by his Grace. Or less absorbed with himself.

“Look at me,” he said to her once, on one of the rare occasions when they had the cabin to themselves. “Katsa, do I seem to be looking at you?”

They were working with their knives before the fire, shaving the bark from the branches of a tree to make arrows.

She turned to him and met his eyes, ful on, gleaming directly into hers. She caught her breath and set her knife down, flushed with heat; and wondered, briefly, how long it would be before the others returned. And then Po’s failed attempt to keep from grinning snapped her out of her daze.

“Dear wildcat. That was more of an answer than I reckoned for.”

She snorted. “I see your self-esteem remains intact. And just what were you hoping to achieve?”

He smiled. His hands returned to their work, and his eyes emptied again. “I need to know how to make people think, conclusively, that I’m looking at them. I need to know how to look at Bitterblue so she stops thinking there’s something strange about my eyes.”

“Oh. Of course. well, that ought to do it. How do you manage it?”

“Wel , I know where your eyes are. It’s mostly just a matter of direction, and then sensing your reaction.”

“Do it again.”

Her purpose was scientific this time. His eyes rose to hers, and she ignored the rush of heat. Yes, it did seem as if he saw her – although now that she studied his gaze, she could tell that there were small indications otherwise.

“Tel me,” he said.

She considered him. “The light of your eyes is strange enough, and distracting enough, that I doubt anyone would notice. But you don’t seem quite… focused. You’re looking at me, but it’s as if your mind is elsewhere. You understand?

”

He nodded. “Bitterblue picks up on that.”

“Narrow your eyes a bit,” Katsa said. “Bring your eyebrows down, as if you were thinking. Yes – that’s pretty convincing, Po. No one you direct that gaze toward will ever suspect a thing.”

“Thank you, Katsa. Can I practice it with you, now and then? Without fear of you throwing me onto my back and forcing me out of my clothes?”

Katsa cackled at that and threw the shaft of an arrow at him. He caught it, neatly, and laughed; and she thought for a moment that he looked genuinely happy. And then, of course, he registered her thought, and a shadow settled across his face. He withdrew into his work. She glanced at his hands, at his finger stillmissing its ring. She took a breath and reached for another branch.

“How much does Bitterblue know?” she asked.

“Only that I’m keeping something from her. She knows my Grace is more than I’ve said. She’s known it from the beginning.”

“And your sight?”

“I don’t think it’s even occurred to her.” Po smoothed the edge of a shaft with his knife and swept a pile of bark shavings into the fire. “I’ll look her in the eyes more often,” he said; and then he withdrew again into silence.

———

Po and Sicye teased Bitterblue endlessly about her entourage. It wasn’t just the guards. Ror was taking the royal position of his sister’s daughter very seriously. Soldiers were always arriving, leading horses piled high with supplies, especial y as the winter storms began to wind down.

Vegetables, breads, fruits; blankets, clothing, dresses for the queen; and always letters from Ror, asking Bitterblue’s opinion on this or that matter, updating her on the plans for the coronation, and inquiring after the health of the various members of her party, particularly Po.

“I’m going to ask Ror to send me a sword,” Bitterblue said one day at breakfast. “Katsa, will you teach me to use it?

”

Skye’s face lit up. “Oh, do, Katsa. I haven’t seen you fight yet, and I was beginning to think I never would.”

“And you imagine I’ll make for an exciting opponent?” Bitterblue asked him.

“Of course not. But she’l have to stage a sword fight with a few of the soldiers, won’t she, to show you how it’s done? There must be a decent fighter or two among them.”

“I’m not going to stage a sword fight with unarmored soldiers,” Katsa said.

“What about a hand fight?” Skye sat back and folded his arms, a cockiness in his face that Katsa thought must be a family trait. “I’m not such a bad hand fighter myself.”

Po exploded with laughter. “Oh, fight him, Katsa. Please fight him. I can’t imagine a more entertaining diversion.”

“Oh, it’s that funny, is it?”

“Katsa could pound you into the ground before you even raised a finger.”

Skye was unabashed. “Yes, exactly – that’s what I want to see. I want to see you destroy someone, Katsa. Would you destroy Po for me?”

Katsa was smiling. “Po isn’t easy to destroy.”

Po hooked his feet to the legs of the table and rocked his chair backward. “I imagine I am these days.”

“Returning to the question at hand,” Bitterblue said, rather sternly. “I should like to learn to use a sword.”

“Yes,” Katsa said. “Wel then, send word to Ror.”