“You’re not an unnatural woman, Katsa. You can fight as other women can’t, but you’re not so different from other women. You’ll want babies. I’m certain of it.”

She hadn’t expected to have such an immediate opportunity to practice containing her temper. For he deserved a thumping, to knock his certainty out of his head and onto the ground where it belonged. “I can’t marry you, Giddon. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s only to do with me. I won’t marry, not anyone, and I won’t bear any man children.”

He stared at her then, and his face changed. She knew that look on Giddon’s face, the sarcastic curl of his lip and the glint in his eye. He was beginning to hear her.

“I don’t think you’ve considered what you’re saying, Katsa. Do you expect ever to receive a more attractive proposal?”

“It’s nothing to do with you, Giddon. It’s only to do with me.”

“Do you imagine there are others who would form an interest in a lady killer?”

“Giddon—”

“You’re hoping the Lienid will ask for your hand.” He pointed at her, his face mocking. “You prefer him, for he’s a prince, and I’m only a lord.”

Katsa threw her arms in the air. “Giddon, of all the preposterous—”

“He won’t ask you,” Giddon said, “and if he did you’d be a fool to accept. He’s about as trustworthy as Murgon.”

“Giddon, I assure you—”

“Nor is he honorable,” Giddon said. “A man who fights you as he does is no better than an opportunist and no worse than a thug.”

She froze. She stared at Giddon and didn’t even see his finger jabbing in the air, his puffed-up face. Instead she saw Po, sitting on the floor of the practice room, using the exact words Giddon had just used. Before Giddon had used them.

“Giddon. Have you spoken those words to Po?”

“Katsa, I’ve never even had a conversation with him when you were not present.”

“What about to anyone else? Have you spoken those words to anyone else?”

“Of course not. If you think I waste my time—”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, I’m certain. What does it matter? If he asked me, I would not be afraid to tell him what I think.”

She stared at Giddon, disbelieving, defenseless against the realization that trickled into her mind and clicked into place. She put her hand to her throat. She couldn’t catch her breath. She asked the question she felt she had to ask, and cringed against the answer she knew she would receive.

“Have you had those thoughts before? Had you thought those things, while you were in his presence?”

“That I don’t trust him? That he’s an opportunist and a thug? I think of it every time I look at him.”

Giddon was practically spitting, but Katsa didn’t see. She bent her knees and set her bow on the ground, slowly, deliberately. She stood, and turned away from him. She walked, one step at a time. She breathed in and breathed out and stared straight ahead.