“Aren’t you tired?” Bitterblue asked. “When did you last sleep?”

“I don’t need as much sleep as other people,” Katsa said.

Bitterblue’s eyes followed her as she marched back and forth. “I’m tired,” Bitterblue said.

Katsa stopped and crouched before the girl. She felt Bitterblue’s hands and forehead. “Are you cold, or hot? Are you hungry?”

Bitterblue shook her head. “I’m only tired.”

And of course she was tired, her eyes big and her face tight. Any person in this situation would be tired. “Sleep,” Katsa said. “It’s safe for you to sleep, and it’s best for you to keep up your strength.”

Not that the child would need her strength for flight that night, for doubtless at any moment, Po would come scrambling over the cliff path on his horse.

THE SUN crawled behind the western mountaintops and turned their rocky camp orange, and still Po did not come. Katsa’s mind was frozen into place. Surely he would materialize in the next few minutes; but just in case he did not, she woke Bitterblue. She pulled their belongings together and removed all trace of their fire. She scattered their firewood. She saddled the horse and strapped their bags to the fine Monsean saddle.

Then she sat and stared at the cliff path that shone yellow and orange in the falling light.

The sun was setting, and he hadn’t come.

She couldn’t help the thought, then, that shouldered its way into her mind—that wouldn’t be held back any longer, no matter how hard she pushed at it. Po could be in the forest, injured, the king could be murdered and all could be safe, and Po could be somewhere, needing her help, and she not able to give it because of the chance the king was alive. He could even be near, just beyond the cliff path, limping, stumbling toward them. Needing them, needing her; and she, in a matter of minutes, mounting her horse and galloping it in the opposite direction.

They would go then, because they must. But they would backtrack just a bit, on the chance that he was near. Katsa glanced quickly around the rock camp to be sure they’d left no sign of their presence. “Well then, Princess,” she said, “we’d better be going.” She avoided Bitterblue’s eyes and lifted her into the saddle. She untied the horse’s reins and handed them to the child. And that’s when she heard the pebbles bouncing along the cliff path.

She raced back to the path. The horse was coming across the ledge along the top of the cliff, stumbling across, its head hanging. Too close, just a little too close to the drop. And Po lying on the horse’s back, unmoving; and an arrow, an arrow in his shoulder. His shirt soaked with blood. And how many arrows in the horse’s neck and side she didn’t try to count, for suddenly pebbles were spraying over the cliff edge. The horse was slipping, and the whole path was sliding under its panicked hooves. She screamed Po’s name inside her mind, and ran. He raised his head, and his eyes flashed into hers. The horse shrieked and struggled madly for ground to stand on, but she couldn’t reach him in time. Over the edge the horse tumbled, over the edge, and she screamed again, aloud this time; and he was gone below her, falling through the yellow light.