Bitterblue

that some of them were from a land to the north of the Dells called Pikkia, a land that occasionally bickered with the Dells, but was currently at peace with them—or not? It was hard to follow, because Katsa was explaining it badly and none of them seemed to speak the Monsean language much at all. Bitterblue knew what language they must all speak, but the only words she could remember were cobwebs and monster. And she still seemed to be leaking tears.

'Death,' she said. 'Somebody fetch Death. Katsa, just for a minute, stop talking,' she said, needing quiet, because something peculiar was happening here in the courtyard. The voices, the need to understand messy things, and all the nattering—all of it was keeping her from being able to focus.

Everyone stood quietly, waiting.

Bitterblue couldn't take her eyes off the woman from the hanging. And the strangeness was coming from this woman: Bitterblue realized that now; she was changing the air somehow, changing the way Bitterblue felt. She tried to breathe easily, tried not to be overwhelmed. Tried to see the woman's individual parts instead of being invaded by . . . her extraordinary whole. Her skin was brown and her eyes were green and her hair—Bitterblue understood the woman's hair, for she'd seen the rat pelt, but the pelt hadn't been a living, breathing woman, and it had not made her feel as if the top of her head were singing.

The air was soaked with the feeling of power being used.

'What are you doing to us?' Bitterblue whispered to the woman.

'She does understand you, Bitterblue,' said Katsa, 'though she doesn't speak our language. She can respond to you, but she'll only do so with your permission, for she does it mentally. It'll feel like she's in your head.'

'Oh,' Bitterblue said, stepping back. 'No. Never.'

'All she does is communicate, Bitterblue,' said Katsa gently. 'She doesn't steal your thoughts, or change them.'

'But she could if she wanted to,' said Bitterblue, for she'd read her father's stories about a woman who looked like this and had a venomous mind. Behind her, the courtyard had filled with servants, with clerks, guards, Giddon, Bann, Raffin, Helda, Hava—Anna the baker, Ornik the smith. Dyan, the gardener. Froggatt, Holt. And others filing in, and all of them staring in wonder at a woman who was standing there glowing with something.

'She doesn't want to change your thoughts, Bitterblue,' said Katsa, 'or anyone's here. And in your case, she tells me she couldn't, because you have a good, strong mind that is closed to her interference.'

'I've had practice,' Bitterblue said in a small, hard voice. 'How does her power work? I want to know exactly how it works.'

Po broke in. 'Beetle,' he said, his voice hinting that she was, perhaps, being rude, 'I understand you, but perhaps you'd like to greet them and bring them in out of the cold first? They've come a long way to meet you. They'd probably like to be shown to their rooms.'

Bitterblue cursed the tears that kept running down her cheeks. 'Perhaps you've forgotten the events of the last few days, Po,' she said plainly. 'It pains me to be rude, and I apologize for my rudeness. But, Katsa, you have brought a woman who controls minds into a castle of people particularly vulnerable to such a thing. Look around,' she said, gesturing to the courtyard that continued to fill with people. 'Do you think this is good for them, to be standing here, mindlessly staring? Maybe it is,' she said bitterly. 'If she truly comes in peace, maybe she can be their higher power, and keep them from committing any more suicides.'

'Suicides?' said Katsa in dismay.

'I'm responsible for these people,' Bitterblue said. 'I'm not going to welcome her until I understand who she is and how her power works.'

THEY WENT TO the library to talk about it: Bitterblue, her Council friends, the Dellians and Pikkians, away from prying eyes and empty, captive minds. Passing Death's ruin of a desk, she remembered that Death was in the infirmary.

The strangers seemed neither surprised nor offended by Bitterblue's lack of hospitality. But when she walked them into her alcove, they stopped, eyes widening, and gawked at the hanging, murmuring among themselves in words Bitterblue knew the sound of, but couldn't understand. The woman with the power, in particular, exclaimed something to the others, then grabbed hold of one of her companions and motioned him to say something, or do something, to Bitterblue. The man stepped forward, bowed, and spoke in a heavy but somehow pleasant accent. 'Queen Bitterblue,' he said. 'Please forgive my—poor speech—but Lady Bier remembers this—' The man gestured to the hanging. 'She is moved to—' He stopped, in frustration.

Katsa interjected quietly. 'She says that Leck kidnapped her, Bitterblue, and murdered one of her friends, a very long time ago. She believes this is a scene from the kidnapping, for that is the coat he gave her to wear, and they passed through a forest of white trees. Afterwards, she escaped, and fought him. In the fight, he fell through a crack in the ground, then presumably followed a tunnel that brought him to Monsea. She's moved to tell you how sorry she is that he found his way back here, and did harm to your kingdom. The Dells only discovered the seven kingdoms fifteen years ago, and the only tunnels they've known until now have brought them into far eastern Estill, so they were some time in discovering the problems in Monsea. She's sorry for letting Leck return and for not helping Monsea to defeat him.'

It was strange to listen to Katsa interpret. It involved long, silent pauses on Katsa's part, which gave Bitterblue time to gape and wonder, and be boggled at some of the more astonishing things Katsa said. Which Katsa then followed up with even more astonishing things.

'What does she mean, return?' Bitterblue said.

Katsa squinted. 'Lady Fire is unsure of what you're asking.'

'She said that the tunnel brought him back here, to Monsea,' Bitterblue said. 'That she allowed him to return. Does she mean that Leck wasn't Dellian? Does she know he was Monsean?'

'Ah,' said Katsa, pausing for the answer. 'Leck was not Dellian. She doesn't know if he was Monsean, only that he was from the seven kingdoms. There are no Gracelings in the Dells,' Katsa added, speaking for herself now. 'My arrival created quite a commotion, let me tell you.'

I'm from the seven kingdoms, Bitterblue thought, completely. Dare I hope I'm Monsean? And this woman, this strange, beautiful woman. My father killed her friend.

They discovered the seven kingdoms fifteen whole years ago? 'That man called her Lady Bier,' Bitterblue said. 'But you called her Lady Fire, Katsa.'

'Bir is the Dellian word for fire,' said a worn and familiar voice behind Bitterblue. 'Bee-ee-rah, or, in our letters, B-i-r, Lady Queen.'

Spinning, Bitterblue faced her librarian, who was listing a bit to one side, like a ship taking water. He held the charred remains of the Dellian-Gracelingian dictionary in his hands. Part of its back end was gone, the pages were warped, and the red cover was now mostly black.

'Death!' she said. 'I'm glad you could join us. I wonder—' She was hopelessly confused. 'Perhaps we should all learn each other's names and sit down,' she said, after which there were introductions all around, and hands taken, and manuscripts cleared from the table, and additional chairs found and wedged in among the others. And names almost immediately forgotten, because there was too much else going on. They were a group of nine travelers: three explorers, four guards, one healer, and the lady, who served as ambassador, and also as a silent translator, and who invited Bitterblue to call her Fire. Most of the travelers were browner-skinned than the most sundarkened Lienid Bitterblue had ever seen, except for a couple who were paler, and one, the man who'd spoken before, who was fully as pale as Madlen. Their hair and eyes were also a range of hues— ordinary hues, aside from Lady Fire. And still, there was something in the way they all looked—in their jaws? In their expressions?—something they all had in common. Bitterblue wondered if they saw some sort of distinctive similarity when they looked at her and her friends too.

'I don't completely understand this,' she said. 'Any of it.'

Lady Fire said something, which the pale man made a move to translate, in his nice, funny accent. 'The mountains have always been too high,' he said. 'We have had—stories, but no way across, or—' He made a motion with his hand.

'Under,' said Po.

'Yes. No way under,' said the man. 'Fifteen years ago, a—' He paused again, baffled.

'A landslide,' said Po. 'Revealed a tunnel. And now the stories will no longer be mere stories.'