“You’re a Lienid,” she said.

“You have good eyesight,” he said.

“Not good enough to see the colors of your eyes.”

He laughed. “I think I know the colors of yours.”

Common sense told her to kill him. “You’re one to speak of being far from home,” she said. “What’s a Lienid doing in the court of King Murgon?”

“I’ll tell you my reasons if you’ll tell me yours.”

“I’ll tell you nothing, and you must let me pass.”

“Must I?”

“If you don’t, I’ll have to force you.”

“Do you think you can?”

She faked to her right, and he swung away, easily. She did it again, faster. Again, he escaped her easily. He was very good. But she was Katsa.

“I know I can,” she said.

“Ah.” His voice was amused. “But it might take you hours.”

Why was he playing with her? Why wasn’t he raising the alarm? Perhaps he was a criminal himself, a Graceling criminal. And if so, did that make him an ally or an enemy? Wouldn’t a Lienid approve of her rescue of the Lienid prisoner? Yes—unless he was a traitor. Or unless this Lienid didn’t even know the contents of Murgon’s dungeons—Murgon had kept the secret well.

The Council would tell her to kill him. The Council would tell her she put them at risk if she left a man alive who knew her identity. But he was unlike any thug she’d ever encountered. He didn’t feel brutish or stupid or threatening.

She couldn’t kill one Lienid while rescuing another.

She was a fool and she would probably regret it, but she wouldn’t do it.

“I trust you,” he said, suddenly. He stepped out of her path and waved her forward. She thought him very strange, and impulsive, but she saw he’d relaxed his guard, and she wasn’t one to waste an opportunity. In an instant she swung her boot up and clipped him on the forehead. His eyes opened wide with surprise, and he dropped to the ground.

“Maybe I didn’t have to do that.” She stretched him out, his sleeping limbs heavy. “But I don’t know what to think of you, and I’ve risked enough already, letting you live.” She dug the pills out of her sleeve, dropped one into his mouth. She turned his face to the torchlight. He was younger than she’d thought, not much older than she, nineteen or twenty at most. A trickle of blood ran down his forehead, past his ear. The neck of his shirt was open, and the torchlight played along the line of his collarbone.

What a strange character. Maybe Raffin would know who he was.

She shook herself. They would be waiting.

She ran.

THEY RODE HARD. They tied the old man to his horse, for he was too weak to hold himself up. They stopped only once, to wrap him in more blankets.

Katsa was impatient to keep moving. “Doesn’t he know it’s midsummer?”

“He’s frozen through, My Lady,” Oll said. “He’s shivering, he’s ill. It’s no use if our rescue kills him.”