Bitterblue

my reign began, you've eased back on taxes, only to default on a number of loans to businesses in your town. Don't you have farms and artisans? Isn't your estate prosperous enough to keep you moneyed, Lord Danzhol?'

'Have you noticed that I'm Graced, Lady Queen?' asked Danzhol. 'I can open my mouth as wide as my head. Would you like to see?'

Danzhol's lips parted and began to stretch open, his teeth drawing back. His eyes and nose slid to the back of his head and his tongue flopped out—then his epiglottis, taut and red, and none of it stopping, only becoming more stretched, more red, more open and flopping. Finally, his face was all glistening viscera. It was as if he'd turned his head inside out.

Bitterblue pushed against the back of her chair, trying to get away, her own mouth ajar with mingled fascination and horror. Beside her, Thiel scowled in the most supreme annoyance. And then in one smooth motion, Danzhol's teeth swung over again, closing, pulling the rest of his face back into position.

He smiled and gave her a cheeky twitch of the eyebrows, which was almost too much for Bitterblue. 'Lady Queen,' he said cheerfully, 'I would revoke my each and every objection to the charter if you would consent to marry me.'

'I'm told you have wealthy relations,' said Bitterblue, pretending not to be rattled. 'Your family won't lend you any more money, am I right? Perhaps there's talk of debtor's prison? Your only true objection to this charter is that you're bankrupt and you need a town to overtax, or, preferably, a rich wife.'

Something nasty flickered across Danzhol's face. He did not seem entirely balanced, this man, and Bitterblue found herself wanting to get him out of her office.

'Lady Queen,' he said, 'I don't believe you're giving my objections—or my proposal—the proper consideration.'

'You're lucky I'm not giving this entire matter closer consideration,' said Bitterblue. 'I might ask for the details of how you spent these people's money while they were starving, or what you did with the books and farm animals you took from them.'

'Ah,' he said, smiling again, 'but I know that you won't. A town charter is a guarantee of the queen's considerate inattention. Ask Thiel.'

At her side, Thiel turned the charter to its signature page and thrust a pen into Bitterblue's hand. 'Just sign, Lady Queen,' he said, 'and we'll get this boor out of here. This meeting was a bad idea.'

'Yes,' Bitterblue said, grasping the pen, barely noticing it. 'A town charter is most certainly no such guarantee,' she added, to Danzhol. 'I can order an investigation of any lord I wish.'

'And how many have you ordered, Lady Queen?'

Bitterblue hadn't ordered any investigations. The appropriate circumstances had never arisen before and it wasn't a forward-thinking thing to do; her advisers had never suggested it. 'I don't think we need an investigation, Lady Queen,' said Thiel, 'to determine that Lord Danzhol is unfit to govern this town. It's my advice that you sign.'

Danzhol smiled, bright and toothy. 'Are you quite dead set against marrying me, then, Lady Queen?'

Bitterblue plunked her pen down onto her desk, not signing. 'Thiel,' she said, 'take this unhinged man out of my office.'

'Lady Queen,' Thiel began—then stopped as Danzhol swung out with a dagger he'd pulled from nowhere, slamming Thiel on the head with its hilt. Thiel's eyes rolled up. He toppled to the floor.

Bitterblue sprang to her feet, too amazed at first to think or speak or do anything but gape in astonishment. Before she could collect herself, Danzhol had reached across the desk, grabbed the back of her neck, yanked her forward, opened his mouth, and begun to kiss her. It was awkward positioning, but she fought him, truly frightened now, pushing at his eyes and his face, wrestling his iron-strong arms, finally crawling onto the desk and kneeing him. His stomach was hard and didn't give at all. Po! she cried, for it was possible to get his attention if he was in range. Po, are you awake? She reached for the knife in her boot but Danzhol dragged her off the desk and pulled her against him, twisting her back to his front, holding his dagger to her throat.

'Scream and I'll kill you,' he said.

She couldn't have screamed, not with her head jerked back as it was. The pins in her hair pulled and cut at her scalp. 'Do you imagine,' she choked out, 'that this is the way to get what you want?'

'Oh, I'll never have what I want. And the marital approach seemed not to be working,' he said, one of his hands raking her arms and chest, hips and thighs for weapons, which set her ablaze with indignation and made her hate him, truly hate him. His chest and stomach were strange and bulky against her back.

'And you think that killing the queen will work?' she said. 'You won't even make it out of this tower.' Po. Po!

'I'm not going to kill you, unless I have to,' he said, dragging her easily across the room to the northernmost window, pressing his knife so hard against her throat that she daren't even squirm, then struggling one-handed with his coat in some awkward manner that she couldn't see but that resulted in a bunched-up pile of rope, attached to a grappling hook, clattering to the floor around his feet. 'My plan is to kidnap you,' he said, pulling her closer, his body soft and human-feeling now. 'There are people who would pay a fortune for you.'

'Who are you working for?' she cried. 'Who are you doing this for?'

'Not for myself,' he said. 'Not for you. Not for anyone alive!'

'You're mad,' she gasped.

'Am I?' he said, almost conversationally. 'Yes, I probably am. But I did it to save myself. The others don't know that it made me mad. If they knew, they wouldn't let me near you. I saw them!' he cried out. 'I saw!'

'You saw what?' she said, tears running down her face. 'What did you see? What are you talking about? Let me go!' The rope was knotted at regular intervals. Bitterblue began to understand what he was doing, and with her comprehension came the sheerest, blankest refusal. Po! 'There are guards on the grounds,' she said. 'You will not get me past them.'

'I have a boat on the river, and some friends. One of them is.

Graced with disguise—we slipped right by the river guards. I think she'll impress you, Lady Queen, even if I haven't.'

Po! 'You won't—'

'Shut your mouth,' he said with a press of the dagger that effectively made his point. 'You talk too much. And stop moving around.' He was having some trouble with the grappling hook. It was too small for the sill and kept clunking to the stone floor. He sweated and yammered to himself, shaking a bit, his breath rasping and uneven. Bitterblue knew, with a fundamental, unshakable sort of knowledge, that she was not capable of stepping with this man out of the kingdom's highest window onto a badly attached rope. If Danzhol wanted her to leave by this window, he was going to have to throw her out of it.

She tried Po one last, hopeless time. Then, when Danzhol dropped the hook again, she took advantage of his need to bend down to attempt something desperate. Lifting one foot up, reaching one hand down—crying out, as she had to push her throat right into the dagger in order to reach—she groped for the tiny knife in her boot. Finding it, she jabbed backward, stabbing Danzhol in the shin as hard as she could.

He yelled out in pain and fury and loosened his hold on her, just enough for Bitterblue to spin around. She plunged the knife into his chest as Katsa had taught her, under the breastbone and up with all her strength. It was horrible going in, unimaginably horrible; he was too solid and giving, too real, and suddenly too heavy. Blood ran down her hands. She pushed hard at his weight. He crashed to the floor.

A moment passed.

Then footsteps thundered on the stair and Po exploded into the room, others behind him. Bitterblue was in his arms but didn't feel it; he asked questions she couldn't comprehend, but she must have opened the answers to him, because barely a moment had passed before he'd let her go, attached Danzhol's hook to the sill, flung the rope out the window, and flung himself out after it.

She couldn't stop looking at Danzhol's body. She found herself against the opposite wall, vomiting. Someone kind was holding her hair out of the way. She heard the rumble of the person's voice above her. It was Lord Giddon, the Middluns lord, Po's traveling companion. She began to cry.

'There,' Giddon said quietly. 'That's all right.' She tried to wipe her tears but saw that her hands were covered with blood; she turned to the wall and was sick again. 'Bring me some of that water,' she heard Giddon say, then felt him cleaning her hands with a dripping wet cloth.