“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 daresay 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.

Epilogue

THEY SWAM through the tunnel, Katsa and Po, and burst into the black air of the cave. They hoisted themselves onto the rocks and wrung what water they could from their clothing.

“Take my hand,” Po said. He led her up an uneven slope jutted with rocks. Katsa could see nothing in the darkness, not even the slightest shape. She tripped, and swore.

“Where exactly are we going?”

“To the beach,” he said. He stopped and lifted her over some rock formation she couldn’t see. When he put her down, her feet touched something gritty and soft. Sand.

Outside, the trees were green with spring’s end and the sun thawed the world, but inside this cave was always a cold season. They sat on the sand and huddled against each other to keep warm; and shivering led to playful pushing, and pushing to roughhousing, and before too long they were laughing and wrestling full tilt on the ground, their wet hair and clothing full of sand. Finally, pinned against her, Po whispered his surrender, running his hand along the back of her leg in a manner that was distinctly uncombative. And the wrestling turned to something slow and gentle and yielding, and they were warm, and occupied with each other, for some time.

SOUND WAS STRANGE in the cave, wet and musical. They lay side by side, warm where their bodies touched. “I’ve inhaled some sand,” Po said, coughing. “So have you, of course, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering you.”

“No,” Katsa said absently, staring up into blackness. Her fingers felt along the scars on her shoulder, and then the scars on her breast. “Po?”

“Hmm?”

“You trust the men who’ll be Bitterblue’s advisers?”

“For the most part.”

“I hope she’ll be all right. She never talks about her mother’s death, but I know she’s still having nightmares.”