He stopped then, broke a piece of bread, and chewed and swallowed. She stared at him, her eyes wide.

“That’s all, for now,” he said.

“You can’t possibly have been thinking all those things, in that moment,” she said, and then he laughed, and the sound was a comfort to her, and she fought against the gold and silver lights that shone in his eyes, and lost. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

“And now I’m wondering,” he said, “how it is you don’t realize your eyes ensnare me, just as mine do you. I can’t explain it, Katsa, but you shouldn’t let it embarrass you. For we’re both overtaken by the same—foolishness.”

A flush rose into her neck, and she was doubly embarrassed, by his eyes and by his words. But there was relief for her, too. Because if he was also foolish, then her foolishness bothered her less.

“I thought you might be doing it on purpose,” she said, “with your eyes. I thought it might be a part of your Grace, to trap me with your eyes and read my mind.”

“It’s not. It’s nothing like that.”

“Most people won’t look into my eyes,” she said. “Most people fear them.”

“Yes. Most people don’t look into my eyes for very long either. They’re too strange.”

She looked at his eyes then, leaned in and really studied them, as she hadn’t had the courage to do before. “Your eyes are like lights. They don’t seem quite natural.”

He grinned. “My mother says when I opened my eyes on the day they settled, she almost dropped me, she was so startled.”

“What color were they before?”

“Gray, like most Lienid. And yours?”

“I’ve no idea. No one’s ever told me, and I don’t think there’s anyone left I could ask.”

“Your eyes are beautiful,” he said, and she felt warm suddenly, warm in the sun that dappled through the treetops and rested on them in patches. And as they climbed back into their saddles and returned to the forest road, she didn’t feel exactly comfortable with him; but she felt at least that she could look him in the face now and not fear she was surrendering her entire soul.

THE ROAD LED them around the outskirts of Murgon City and became wider and more traveled. Whenever Katsa and Po were seen, they were stared at. It would soon be known in the inns and houses around the city that the two Graceling fighters traveled south together along Murgon Road.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stop in on King Murgon,” Katsa said, “and ask him your questions? It would be much faster, wouldn’t it?”

“He made it quite clear after the robbery that I was no longer welcome at his court. He suspects I know what was stolen.”

“He’s afraid of you.”

“Yes, and he’s the type to do something foolish. If we arrived at his court he’d probably mount an offensive, and we’d have to start hurting people. I’d prefer to avoid that, wouldn’t you? If there’s going to be an enormous mess, let it be at the court of the guilty king, not the king who’s merely complicitous.”