Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3)(24)
Author: Kristin Cashore

Not fixing their buildings. Not returning their losses. Not standing beside them as they grieved for their children. Not hesitating to send the mad or the troubled to be executed.

I know one thing, she thought, staring into the sad eyes of the woman in the hanging. I would not like to be deposed. It would hurt like being skinned, or like being torn into pieces.

And yet, what am I as a queen? My mother said I was strong and brave enough for this. But I'm not, I'm useless.

Mama? What happened to us? How can this be, that you're dead and I'm queen of a kingdom I can't even touch?

There was a marble sculpture here, set on the floor with the hanging as its backdrop. A child, five or six, perhaps, whose skirts were metamorphosing into rows of brick, for the child was turning into a castle. Clearly, this was the work of the same sculptor whose woman-turned-mountain-lion was in the back garden. One of the child's arms, reaching up to the sky, shifted form at the elbow and became a tower. On the flat roof of the tower, where her fingers should have been, stood five tiny, finger-sized guards: four with arrows drawn and notched, one with a sword at the ready.

Al aiming upward, as if some threat came from above, from the sky. Perfect in form and absolutely fierce.

The voices of her friends came to her in snatches. Katsa said something about the length of time it took to travel north through the mountain pass to Estil from here. Days and days; weeks. An argument began about which kingdom would make the best base for an operation in Estil .

Half listening, half observing the castle child, Bitterblue was overtaken suddenly by a most peculiar sense of recognition. It crawled up the base of her spine. She knew the stubborn mouth and the small , pointy chin of the sculpture child; she knew those big, calm eyes. She was looking into her own face.

It was a statue of herself.

Bitterblue tottered backward. The end of a bookshelf stopped her and held her up as she stared at the girl who seemed to stare back at her; the girl who was her.

"A tunnel connects Monsea and Estil ," a voice said. Piper, the judge. "It's a secret passage under the mountains.

Narrow and unpleasant, but passable. The journey from here to Estil by that route is a matter of days, depending on how hard you like to push your horse."

"What!" Katsa exclaimed. "I can't believe it. Can you believe it? I can't believe it!"

"We've established that Katsa can't believe it," said Raffin.

"I can't believe it either," said Giddon. "How many times have I crossed those mountains at the pass?"

"I assure you, it exists, My Lady, My Lord," said Piper. "My estate is at Monsea's northwesternmost point. The tunnel begins on my land. We used it to smuggle Gracelings out of Monsea during King Leck's reign, and now we use it to smuggle Estil an Gracelings in."

"This is going to change our lives," said Katsa.

"If the Council based itself in Monsea during the initial planning," Piper said, "Estil ans could come to you swiftly through the tunnel, and you to them. You could smuggle weapons north to them, and any other supplies they needed."

"Except that we're not going to base ourselves in Monsea,"

said Po. "We're not going to make Bitterblue into a target for every angry king's vengeance. She's enough of a target already; we still haven't determined whom Danzhol was planning to ransom her to. And what if one of the kings decides to be less subtle than that? What's to stop one of them from declaring war on Monsea?"

The sculpture-Bitterblue looked so defiant. The little soldiers on her palm were ready to defend her with their lives. Bitterblue was amazed that a sculptor had been able to imagine her that way once: so strong and certain, so steady on the earth. She knew she wasn't those things.

She also knew what would happen if her friends chose to base their operation someplace other than Monsea.

Walking back to the group, waving them down again when they all moved to rise, she said quietly, "You must use my city as your base."

"Hm," Po said. "I don't think so."

"I'm only offering it as a temporary base as you get yourselves organized," Bitterblue said. "I will not provide you with soldiers, nor will I all ow you to employ Monsea's craftworkers to make any arms you need." Perhaps, she thought to Po alone, calculating, I'll write to your father.

There are two ways for an army to invade Monsea: the mountain pass, which is easy to defend, and the sea.

Lienid is the only kingdom with a proper navy. Do you think Ror would bring part of his fleet along this winter? I should like to see it. I think sometimes about building my own, and his will look very nice and threatening sitting in my harbor.

Po rubbed his head vigorously at this. He even let out a small moan. "We understand, Bitterblue, and we're grateful," he said. "But some angry friends of Drowden crossed into the Middluns to kill Bann and Raffin in reparation for what we did in Nander, you do realize that? Estil ans could just as easily cross into Monsea—"

"Yes," she said. "I know. I heard what you said about war, and about Danzhol."

"It isn't just Danzhol," Po snapped. "There may wel be others. I won't risk involving you in this."

"I'm already involved," said Bitterblue. "My problems are already your problems. My family is your family."

Po was still clutching his head worriedly. "You're not invited to any more meetings."

"That's fine," she said. "It will look better if I'm not seen to be in on the planning."

The circle considered Bitterblue's words in silence. The four Monseans who worked in the castle seemed rather startled. Helda, stopping her knitting, peered upon Bitterblue with gratified approval.

"Wel then," Katsa said. "Of course, We'll operate with the greatest possible secrecy, Bitterblue. And for what it's worth, We'll deny your involvement to our dying breaths, and I'll kill anyone who doesn't."

Bann began to laugh into Raffin's shoulder. Smiling, Raffin said sideways to him, "Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to say that and mean it?"

Bitterblue didn't smile. She may have impressed them with fine words and sentiments, but her true reason for offering her city as their base was that she didn't want them to leave. She wanted them near, even if they were subsumed by their own affairs, she needed them at sword practice in the morning, at dinner at night, moving and shifting around her, there and gone, back again, arguing, teasing, acting like people who knew who they were. They understood the world and how to mold it. If she could keep them near, maybe one day she'd wake up and discover that she'd become strong that way too.

ONE MORE UNSETTLING thing happened before Bitterblue left the library that night. It involved a book she found by accident, while returning to the secret passage.

An awkward shape, square and flat, it protruded from a shelf, or perhaps a lantern caught the gleam of its cover; either way, when her eyes lit upon it, she knew, instantly, that she'd seen it before. That book, with the same scratch through the gold filigree on its spine, had used to sit on the bookshelves in her blue sitting room, back when that sitting room had been her mother's.

Bitterblue pull ed the book down. The title on the cover, gold printing on leather, said Book of True Things. Opening it to the first page, she found herself looking at a simple but beautifully rendered drawing of a knife. Underneath the knife, someone had written the word M edicine. Turning the page, memory came to her like a dream, like sleepwalking, so that she knew what she would find: a drawing of a col ection of sculptures on pedestals, and underneath, the word Art. On the next page, a drawing of Winged Bridge and the word Ar chitecture. Next, a drawing of a strange, green, clawed, furry creature, a kind of bear, and the word M onster. Next, a person—a corpse? Its eyes were open, painted two different colors, but something was wrong with this person, its face was stiff and frozen—and the word underneath was Graceling. Final y, a drawing of a handsome man with an eye patch and the word F ather.

She remembered an artist bringing this book of pictures to her father. She remembered her father sitting at the table in the sitting room and writing the words in himself, then bringing it to her and helping her read it.

Bitterblue shoved the book back onto the shelf, suddenly furious. This book, this memory did not help her. She didn't need more bizarre things to make sense of.

But she couldn't leave it here either, not real y. It cal ed itself Book of True Things. True things were what she wanted to know, and this book that she didn't understand had to be a clue to the truth about something.

Bitterblue reached for the book again. When she returned to her bedroom, she laid it on the table by her bed and stuck her list of puzzle pieces inside.

Chapter 13

IN THE MORNING, Bitterblue pull ed her list out of the book and read it again. There were some pieces she'd answered and others that remained unsolved.

Teddy's words. Who are my "first men"? What did he mean by cutting and stitching? Am I in danger? Whose prey am I?

Danzhol's words. What did he SEE? What was he trying to say?

Darby's records. Was he lying to me about the gargoyles never having been there?

General mysteries. Who attacked Teddy?

Things I've seen with my own eyes. Why is the east city falling apart but decorated anyway? Why was Leck so peculiar about decorating the castle?

What did Leck DO? Tortured pets. Made people disappear. Cut. Burned printing shops. (Built bridges. Did castle renovations.) Honestly, how can I know how to rule my kingdom when I have no idea what happened in Leck's time? How can I understand what my people need? How can I find out more? In the story rooms?

She stopped on this part. Last night, her friends' meeting had brought her to what was, essential y, the kingdom's biggest story room. What if there were more books like the Book of True Things she'd found, but that she could make sense of? Books that could touch her memory and fil in some of these great gaps of meaning? Could she learn more about what Leck had done? If she knew what he'd done and why, mightn't it be easier to understand some of the things people were doing now?

She added to her list two questions: Why are there so many missing pieces everywhere? Will the library hold any answers?

When Katsa dragged her out of bed for sword practice, Bitterblue found that she'd dragged not just Raffin and Bann, but Giddon and Po along as wel . The lot of them waited in Bitterblue's sitting room, picking at her breakfast while she dressed. Giddon, muddy and rumpled in last night's clothing, showed every sign of having been out all night. Col apsing on her sofa, he actual y fel asleep for a moment.

Raffin and Bann stood together, propped against the wal and against each other, half dozing. At one point, Raffin, not knowing he had one small , curious witness, gave Bann a sleepy kiss on the ear.

Bitterblue had wondered that about them. It was nice when something in the world became clear. Especial y when it was a nice thing.