Graceling

"Firewood," Katsa said. "Firewood."

The girl sniffled and nodded and stumbled around under the trees, collecting what she could find. The wood she brought back to Katsa was damp with snow. Katsa's fingers were slow and clumsy with her dagger, unsteady with the shivering that racked her body. She had never in her life had difficulty starting a fire before, never once in her life. She concentrated fiercely, and on her tenth or eleventh try, a flame sparked and caught a dry corner of wood. Katsa fed pine needles to the flame and nursed it, directed it, and willed it not to die, until it licked at the edges of the branches she'd assembled. It grew and smoked and crackled. They had fire.

Katsa crouched, shivering, and watched the flames, ignoring fiercely the stabbings of pain they brought to her fingers and the throbbing in her feet. "No," she whispered, when Bitterblue stood and moved away to find more firewood. "Warm yourself first. Stay here and warm yourself first."

Katsa built up the fire, slowly, and as she leaned over it, and as it grew, her shivering quieted. She looked at the girl, who sat on the ground, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her eyes closed, her face resting on her knees. Her cheeks streaked with tears. Alive.

"What a fool I am," Katsa whispered. "What a fool I am." She forced herself to her feet and pushed herself from tree to tree to collect more wood. Her bones ached, her hands and feet screamed with pain. Maybe it was for the best that she'd been so foolish, for if she'd known how hard this would be, perhaps she wouldn't have done it.

She returned to their campsite and built the fire up more. Tonight the fire would be enormous; tonight they would have a fire all of Sunder could see. She shuffled over to the child and took her hands. She inspected the girl's fingers. "You can feel them?" she asked. "You can move them?"

Bitterblue nodded. Katsa yanked at the bags, and groped inside them until she found the medicines. She massaged Raffin's healing ointment into the girl's cracked, bleeding hands. "Let me see your feet now, Princess." She rubbed warmth into the girl's toes and buttoned her back into her boots.

"You've made it across Grella's Pass," she said to Bitterblue, "all in one piece. You're a strong girl."

Bitterblue wrapped her arms around Katsa. She kissed Katsa's cheek and held on to her tightly. If Katsa had had enough energy for astonishment, she would have been astonished. Instead, she hugged the girl back numbly.

Katsa and Bitterblue held on to each other, and their bodies crawled their ways back to warmth. When Katsa lay down that night before the roaring fire, the child curled in her arms, not even the pain in her hands and feet could have kept her awake.

PART THREE:

The Shifting World

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The i

The i

A merchant stood now in the yard of the i

"He's likely to be Monsean," Bitterblue whispered, "come up from the ports and making his way through Sunder. His cart is very full. If he'd come from one of the other kingdoms, wouldn't he have sold more of whatever he's carrying by now? Excepting Lienid, of course – but he doesn't have the look of a Lienid, does he?"

Katsa rifled through her maps. "It hardly matters. Even if we determine he's from Nander or Wester, we don't know who else is at the i

"The story may not have reached this far. We're some distance from the ports and the mountain pass, and this place is isolated."

"True," Katsa said, "but we don't want to provide them with a story, either, to spread up to the mountain pass or down to the ports. The less Leck knows about where we've been, the better."

"But in that case, no i

"Unless you're pla

Katsa glanced up to see the girl, bareheaded and shivering, scuttling from barn to i

Katsa counted the scattered trees that stood between their hiding place and the basket of eggs. She glanced at the frozen remains of the vegetable garden. Then she shuffled through the maps again and grabbed hold of the list of Council contacts in Sunder. She flattened the page onto her lap.

"I know where we are," Katsa said. "There's a town not far from here, perhaps two days' walk. According to Raffin, a storekeeper there is friendly to the Council. I think we might go there safely."

"Just because he's friendly to the Council doesn't mean he'll be able to see through whatever story Leck's spreading."

"True," Katsa said. "But we need clothing and information. And you need a hot bath. If we could get to Lienid without encountering anyone, we would; but it's impossible. If we must trust someone, I'd prefer it to be a Council sympathizer."

Bitterblue scowled. "You need a hot bath as much as I do."

Katsa gri

"Where..." Bitterblue began, but Katsa was already flying from tree to tree, hiding behind one massive trunk and then another, peeking out to watch the windows and doors of the i