Below the castle, the sea threw itself against the base of the cliff. But there was one nook in the rock, one small inlet where water broke and foamed onto sand. A tiny beach. And a stairway leading up from the beach, rising against the side of the cliff, turning back on itself, disappearing occasionally, and climbing finally up the side of the castle and onto one of those dizzying balconies.

“Where will we dock?” she asked the captain when she’d scrambled down to the deck.

“There’s a bay on the other side of this rise of rock, some distance beyond the beach. We’ll dock there. A path leads up from the bay and away from the castle—you’ll think you’re going the wrong way, Lady Princess—but then it loops back, and takes you up a great hill to the castle’s front. There may be snow, but the path is kept clear in case the prince returns.”

“You speak as if you know it well.”

“I captained a smaller ship a few years back, Lady Princess, a supply ship. The castles of Lienid are all beautifully situated, but believe me when I tell you they’re none of them easy to supply. It’s a steep path to the door.”

“How large a staff does he keep?”

“I’d expect very few people, Lady Princess. And I’ll remind you that it’s your castle at the moment, and your servants, though you continue to refer to them as his.”

Yes, this she knew; and it was one of the reasons she wasn’t looking forward to her first encounter with the inhabitants of the castle. The appearance of Lady Katsa of the Middluns, renowned Graceling thug, in possession of Po’s ring; the absurd, tragic story she had to tell about Leck and Ashen; and her subsequent intentions to turn the castle into a fortress and cut off contact with the outside world. Katsa had a feeling it wouldn’t go smoothly.

THE PATH was just as Captain Faun had described, and the hill steep and ridged with drifts of snow. But the greater problem was Bitterblue’s sea legs. She walked on land almost as clumsily as she’d walked at first at sea, and Katsa held her up as they climbed toward Po’s front door. The wind gusted from behind, so that it felt as if they were being blown up the hill.

The castle wasn’t much more castlelike from this angle. It seemed a tall white house at the top of a slope, with a number of massive trees overshadowing a courtyard that would be pleasant in better weather; a great tower rising behind the trees; tall windows, high roofs, at least one widow’s walk; stables to one side and a frozen garden to the other; and no indication, as long as one’s ears didn’t catch the crash of waves, that behind it all was a drop to the sea.

They reached the top of the hill. A gust of wind pushed them onto the colorful tiled surface of the courtyard. Bitterblue sighed, relieved to encounter flat land. They approached the house, and Katsa raised her fist to Po’s great wooden door. Before she could knock, the door swung open and a rush of warmth hit their faces. A Lienid man stood before her, oldish, dressed like a servant in a long brown coat.