Graceling

"Bitterblue," she said. "Bitterblue. You must stay alert. I'll carry you, but only because we have to move fast. You've got to stay awake. If I think you're falling asleep, I'll put you down and make you walk. Do you understand? I'll make you walk, Princess, no matter how hard it is for you."

"I'm tired," the child whispered, and Katsa grabbed her shoulders and shook them.

"I don't care if you're tired. You'll do what I tell you. You'll put every ounce of strength into staying awake. Do you understand?"

"I don't want to die," Bitterblue said, and a tear seeped from her eye and froze on her eyelash. Katsa knelt and held the cold little bundle of girl close.

"You won't die," Katsa said. "I won't let you die." But it would take more than her own will to keep Bitterblue alive, and so she reached into her cloak and pulled out the water flask. "Drink this," she said, "all of it."

"It's cold," Bitterblue said.

"It will help to keep you alive. Quickly, before it freezes."

The child drank, and Katsa made a split-second decision. She threw the bow onto the ground. She pulled the bags and the quiver over her head and dropped them beside the bow. Then she took off the wolf furs she wore over her shoulders, the furs she'd allowed herself to keep and wear only after the child was covered in several layers of fur from head to toe. The wind found the rips in Katsa's bloodstained coat, and the cold knifed at her stomach, at the remaining wounds in her breast and her shoulder; but soon she would be ru

"You've lost your mind," Bitterblue said, and Katsa almost smiled, because if the girl could form insulting opinions, then at least she was somewhat lucid.

"I'm about to engage in some very serious exercise," Katsa said. "I wouldn't want to overheat. Now, give me that flask, child." Katsa bent down and filled the flask with snow. Then she fastened it closed, and buried it inside Bitterblue's coats. "You'll have to carry it," she said, "if it's not to freeze."

The wind came from all directions, but Katsa thought it blew most fiercely from the west and into their faces. So she would carry the child on her back. She hung everything else across her front and pulled the straps of the girl's halter over her shoulders. She stood under the weight of the child, and straightened. She took a few cautious steps in the snowshoes. "Ball up your fists," she said to the girl, "and put them in my armpits. Put your face against the fur around my neck. Pay attention to your feet. If you start to think you can't feel them, tell me. Do you understand, Bitterblue?"

"I understand," the girl said.

"All right then," Katsa said. "We're off."

She ran.

She adjusted quickly to the snowshoes and to the precariously balanced loads on her back and her front. The girl weighed practically nothing, and the snowshoes worked well enough once she mastered the knack of ru

She ran, and at first she thought the pounding of her feet and legs created some warmth; and then the incessant thud, thud, thud became a biting ache, and then a dull one; and finally, she could no longer feel the pounding at all, but forced it to continue, forward, upward, closer to the peaks that always seemed the same distance away.

The clouds gathered again and pummeled her with snow. The wind shrieked, and she ran blindly. Over and over, she yelled to Bitterblue. She asked the girl questions, meaningless questions about Monsea, about Leck City, about her mother. And always the same questions about whether she could feel her hands, whether she could move her toes, whether she felt dizzy or numb. She didn't know if Bitterblue understood her questions. She didn't know what it was Bitterblue yelled back. But Bitterblue did yell; and if Bitterblue was yelling, then Bitterblue was awake. Katsa squeezed her arms over the child's hands. She reached back and grasped the child's boots every once in a while, doing what she could to rub her toes. And she ran, and kept ru

Eventually, she was conscious of only two things: the girl's voice, which continued in her ear, and the slope before them that she had to keep ru

When the great red sun sank from the sky and began to dip behind the horizon, Katsa registered it dully. If she saw the sunset, it must mean the snow no longer fell. Yes, now that she considered the question, she could see that it had stopped snowing, though she couldn't remember when. But sunset meant the day was ending. Night was coming; and night was always colder than day.

Katsa kept ru

She could see a horizon that lay far below her.

She was watching the sun sink behind a horizon that lay far below her.

She didn't know when the view had changed. She didn't know at what point she had passed over the top and begun to descend. But she had done it. She couldn't see the black peaks anymore, and so they must be behind her. What she could see was the other side of the mountain; and forests, endless forests; and the sun bringing the day to a close as she ran, the child living and breathing on her back, down into Sunder. And not too far ahead of her, the end of this snowy slope, and the begi

She noticed the shivering then, the violent shivering, and panic consumed her, racked her dull mind awake. The child must not sicken now, not now that they were so close to safety. She reached back and grabbed Bitterblue's boots. She screamed her name. But then she heard Bitterblue's voice, crying something in her ear; and she felt the girl's arms snake around her front and hold her tight. The line below her breasts where Bitterblue's arms encircled her felt different suddenly. Warm, oddly warm. Katsa heard her own teeth chattering. She realized that it was not the girl who shivered. It was herself.

She found herself laughing, though nothing was fu

By the time they reached the trees, Bitterblue was whimpering from numbness and cold. But when Katsa collapsed to her knees, the girl unwound herself from the halter. She fumbled to remove the wolf furs from her own back and wrapped them around Katsa's body. Then she knelt before Katsa and tugged at the straps of the snowshoes with her chapped, bleeding fingers. Katsa roused herself and helped with the straps. She crawled out of the snowshoes and flung off the bags, the quiver, the halter, and the bow.