Chapter Twelve

THE NEXT MORNING Randa came to their practice for the first time. He stood at the side, so that everyone in the room was compelled to stand as well and watch him instead of the fighters they’d come to see. Katsa was glad to fight, glad for the excuse to ignore him. Except that she couldn’t ignore him. He was so tall and broad, and he stood against the white wall in bright blue robes. His lazy laugh carried into every corner of the room. She couldn’t shake the sense of him—and there must be something he wanted. He never sought out his lady killer unless there was something he wanted.

She had been running through a drill with Po when Randa had arrived, a drill that was giving her some trouble. It began with Katsa on her knees and Po behind her, pinning her arms behind her back. Her task was to break free of Po’s grip and then grapple with him until she had trapped him in the same position. She could always fight her way free of Po’s grip. That wasn’t the problem. It was the counterpin that frustrated her. Even if she managed to knock him to his knees and trap his arms, she couldn’t keep him down. It was a matter of brute strength. If he tried to muscle himself to his feet, she didn’t have the force to stop him, not unless she knocked him unconscious or injured him seriously, and that wasn’t the point of the exercise. She needed to find a holding position that would make the effort of rising too painful to be worth his while.

They began the drill again. She knelt with Po at her back, and Po’s hands tightened around her wrists. Randa’s voice rose and fell, and one of the stewards responded. Flattering, fawning. Everyone flattered Randa.

Katsa was ready for Po this time. She twisted out of his grip and was on him like a wildcat. She pummeled his stomach, hooked her foot between his legs, and battered him to his knees. She yanked at his arms. His right shoulder—that was the one he was always icing. She twisted his right arm and leaned all her weight against it, so that any attempt to move would require him to wrench his shoulder and bring more pain to it than she was already causing him to feel.

“I surrender,” he gasped. She released him, and he heaved himself to his feet. He massaged his shoulder. “Good work, Katsa.”

“Again.”

They ran through the drill again, and then once more, and both times she trapped him easily.

“You’ve got it,” Po said. “Good. What next? Shall I try it?”

Her name cut through the air then, and her hackles rose. She’d been right. He hadn’t come only to watch; and now, before all these people, she must act pleasant and civil. She fought against the frown that rose to her face, and turned to the king.