THEY WRAPPED themselves in their blankets and lay before the dying fire. Po yawned a great, deep yawn, but Katsa wasn’t tired. A question occurred to her. But she didn’t want to wake him, if he was falling asleep.

“What is it, Katsa? I’m awake.”

She didn’t know if she would ever get used to that.

“I was wondering whether I could wake you,” she said, “by calling to you inside your mind when you’re sleeping.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t sense things while I’m sleeping, but if I’m in danger or if someone approaches, I always wake. You may try it”—he yawned again—“if you must.”

“I’ll try it another night,” she said, “when you’re less tired.”

“Aren’t you ever tired, Katsa?”

“I’m sure I am,” she said, though she couldn’t bring a specific example to mind.

“Do you know the story of King Leck of Monsea?”

“I didn’t know there was a story.”

“There is,” Po said, “a story from ages ago, and you should know it if we’re to travel to his kingdom. I’ll tell it to you, and perhaps you’ll feel more tired.”

He rolled onto his back. She lay on her side and watched the line of his profile in the light of the dying fire.

“The last King and Queen of Monsea were kind people. Not particularly great state minds,” he said, “but they had good advisers, and they were kinder to their people than most today could even imagine, for a king and queen. But they were childless. It wasn’t a good thing, Katsa, as it would be for you. They wanted a child desperately, so that they might have an heir—but also just because they wanted one, as I suppose most people do. And then one day, a boy came to their court. A handsome boy of about thirteen years, clever-looking, with a patch over one eye, for he’d lost an eye when he was younger. He didn’t say where he came from, or who his parents were, or what had happened to his eye. He only came to court begging and telling stories in return for food and money.

“The servants took him in, for he told such wonderful stories—wild stories about a place beyond the seven kingdoms, where monsters come out of the sea and air, and armies burst out of holes in the mountains, and the people are different from anyone we’ve ever known. Eventually the king and queen learned of him and he was brought before them to tell his stories. The boy charmed them completely—charmed them from the first day. They pitied him, for his poverty and loneliness and his missing eye. They began to bring him into their presence for meals, or ask for him when they’d returned from long journeys, or call him to their rooms in the evenings. They treated him like a noble boy; he was educated, and taught to fight and ride. They treated him almost as if he were their own son. And when the boy was sixteen and the king and queen still didn’t have a child of their own, the king did something extraordinary. He named the boy his heir.”