Graceling

And Po did grow stronger. He continued to lose at wrestling, but each time his defeat took longer, and still longer. His balance, his control, improved. The battles became increasingly amusing, partly because the brothers were so evenly matched and partly because as the snow melted the yard turned into a morass of mud. Of course they liked nothing better than to smear the mud in each other's faces. If it weren't for Po's eyes, most days the brothers would have been indistinguishable.

The day came when one of the mud-covered princes pi

Katsa leaned on her sword and laughed. "It took you half an hour to pin your brother, and you think you're ready for me?"

"Come mud wrestle with me. I'll flatten you like a spider."

Katsa turned back to the exercise she was teaching Bitterblue. "When you can beat Skye easily, then I'll mud wrestle with you."

She spoke sternly, but she couldn't hide from him her pleasure. Nor could he hide his own. He comforted his poor moaning brother, who recognized, from his vantage point on the ground, the begi

Katsa found him changed as an opponent – less because of the sight he'd lost than because of the sensitivity he'd gained with his growing Grace. When they fought now he could sense not just her body and her intention but the force of her blows before they struck, the direction of her momentum. Her balance and imbalance, and how to capitalize on it. He was not back to full strength yet, and sometimes his own balance still tricked him. But there were times now when he caught her by surprise, something neither of them was used to.

He was going to be as good a fighter as he'd been before, if not better. And this was important. The fights made Po happy.

Bitterblue did not stay long past the start of spring. Skye followed her sometime thereafter, summoned by his father to Leck City to assist with the imminent coronation. And finally Katsa and Po made the journey themselves to the city that was soon to assume Bitterblue's name. Po bore the traveling well, a bit like a child who's never traveled before and finds every experience fascinating, if slightly overwhelming. And indeed, when it came to traveling with his new way of perceiving the world, Po was an infant.

In their room in Bitterblue's castle, on the morning of the great event, Katsa suffered herself to put on a dress. Po, in the meantime, lay on the bed, gri

"Katsa, only you would consider the collapse of the ceiling a good joke."

There was a knock at the entrance to their room then, and Po actually began to giggle. "You've been in the cider," Katsa said accusingly as she went to the door. "You're drunk."

And then she swung the door open and almost sat down on the floor in astonishment, because before her in the hallway stood Raffin.

He was muddy and smelled like horses. "Did we get here in time for the food?" he asked. "The invitation said something about pie, and I'm starving."

Katsa burst into laughter, and then into tears, and once she started hugging him she couldn't stop. Behind Raffin stood Ba

"And you're one to speak of sending word," Raffin said. "For months we didn't hear a thing from you – until one day Po's brother appeared at our court with the wildest story any of us had ever heard."

Katsa sniffled and wrapped her arms around her cousin again. "But you understand, don't you?" she said to his chest. "We didn't want to get you mixed up in it."

Raffin kissed the top of her head. "Of course we understand."

"Is Randa with you?"

"He didn't care to come."

"Is the Council well?"

"It's moving along swimmingly. Must we stand here clogging the hallway? I wasn't joking about starving to death. You're looking well, Po." Raffin peered doubtfully at Katsa's short hair. "Helda's sent you a hairbrush, Kat. Much use it'll be."

"I'll cherish it," Katsa said. "Now come inside."

Like any event requiring formal clothing, the crowning ceremony was tedious, but Bitterblue endured it with the appropriate gravity and poise. The rim of the great golden crown was padded with some thick purple material, to keep it from sliding down to rest on her nose. It looked, Katsa thought, as if it weighed as much as the girl herself did.

Katsa didn't mind the tedium, for Raffin was on one side of her and Ba

"Yes, all right," Ror was left saying, repeatedly and with increasing volume. "Truly, it's all right." The interruption grew to something rather large and intrusive, causing a coronation attendant to stumble in his litany of the Monsean rulers across time. Bitterblue smiled softly at the attendant, and nodded for him to continue. After that, word passed through the crowd that the young queen was kindhearted, and not one to punish small mistakes.

"And how is Giddon?" Katsa murmured to Raffin once things had settled down. She was feeling kindly toward her old suitor because she was happy and surrounded by friends.

Behind her, Oll cleared his throat. "He gets a bit mopey whenever your name is mentioned, Lady. I won't pretend I don't know why."

Raffin spoke quietly. "Randa keeps trying to marry him off, and Giddon keeps refusing. He spends more time than he used to on his own estate. But he gives himself completely to the work of the Council. He's an invaluable ally, Kat. I dare say he wouldn't object to seeing you someday. If you wanted to visit us at court, you know, we'd find a way of sneaking you in without Randa knowing. If you wished it. You haven't told us your plans."

Katsa smiled quietly. "I'll go back to the mountains with Po after this." It was all she said of her plans, because for the moment it was all she knew.

She tilted her head and rested it against her cousin's tall shoulder. The coronation passed in a blur of contentment.