And so Po dropped off to sleep, huddled in a blanket beside Bitterblue. Katsa sat in the dark and went over the plan in her mind.

If Po didn’t return to their camp above the gully by sunset, then Katsa and Bitterblue must flee without him. For if he didn’t return, it might mean the king was not dead. If the king was not dead, then nothing would protect Bitterblue from him, except distance.

Leave Po behind, in this forest of soldiers. It was unimaginable to Katsa, and as she sat on a rock in the cold and the dark, she wouldn’t let herself think it. She watched for the slightest movement, listened for the smallest sound. And refused to think about all that could happen tomorrow in the forest.

Chapter Twenty-six

PO WOKE in the early morning cold and gathered his things together quietly. He pulled Katsa close and held her against him. “I’ll come back,” he said; and then he was gone. She sat guard, as she had done all night, and watched the path he had taken. She held her thoughts in check.

She wore a ring on a string around her neck, a ring that Po had given her before he’d climbed onto the back of his horse and clattered across the cliff path. It was cold against the skin of her breast, and she fingered it as she waited for the sun to rise. It was the ring with the engravings that matched the markings on his arms. The ring of Po’s castle, and his princehood. If Po didn’t return today, then Katsa must take Bitterblue south to the sea. She must arrange passage somehow on a ship to Lienid’s western coast, and Po’s castle. No Lienid would detain her or question her, if she wore Po’s ring. They would know that she acted on Po’s instructions; they would welcome and assist her. And Bitterblue might be kept safe in Po’s castle while Katsa thought and planned and waited to hear something of Po.

When light came and Bitterblue awoke, she and Katsa led the horse down to the lake to drink and graze. They collected wood, in case they stayed in this camp again that night. They ate winterberries from a clump of bushes beside the water. Katsa caught and gutted fish for their dinner. When they climbed back up to the rock camp, the sun had not even topped the sky.

Katsa thought of doing some exercises, or of teaching Bitterblue to use her knife. But she didn’t want to attract attention with the noise it would make. Nor did she want to miss the slightest glimpse or sound of an approaching enemy, or of Po. There was nothing to do but sit still and wait. Katsa’s muscles screamed their impatience.

By early afternoon she was pacing back and forth across the camp, utterly stir-crazy. She paced, fists clenched; and Bitterblue sat against the boulders in the sun, knife in hand, watching her.