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PART ONE

The Lady Killer

Chapter One

IN THESE DUNGEONS the darkness was complete, but Katsa had a map in her mind One that had so far proven correct, as Oll'sthe cold walls and counted doors and passageways as she went Turning when it was ti that should contain a stairway leading down She crouched and felt forith her hands There was a stone step, damp and slippery with moss, and another one below it This was Oll's staircase, then She only hoped that when he and Giddon followed her with their torches, they would see the moss sli headlong down the steps

Katsa slunk down the stairway One left turn and two right turns She began to hear voices as she entered a corridor where the darkness flickered orange with the light of a torch set in the wall Across fro to Oll, anywhere fro watch before a certain cell at the passageway's end

These guards were Katsa's mission It was for them that she had been sent first

Katsa crept toward the light and the sound of laughter She could stop and listen, to get a better sense of how many she would face, but there was no ti around the corner

She al on the floor across fros splayed, the air stinking hatever strong drink they'd brought down here to pass the time of their watch Katsa kicked and struck at teether on the floor before aistered in their eyes

There was only onebefore the cell bars at the end of the corridor He scrambled to his feet and slid his sword from its sheath Katsa walked toward him, certain that the torch at her back hid her face, and particularly her eyes, froht She measured his size, the way he moved, the steadiness of the arm that held the sword toward her

"Stop there It's clear enough what you are" His voice was even He was brave, this one He cut the air with his sword, in warning "You don't frighten me"

He lunged toward her She ducked under his blade and whirled her foot out, clipping his teround

She stepped over hi into the darkness of the cell A shape huddled against the back wall, a person too tired or too cold to care about the fighting going on Ars, and head tucked between knees He was shivering—she could hear his breath She shifted, and the light glanced over his crouched forliold in his ear Oll's maps had served them well, for thisfor

She pulled on the door latch Locked Well, that was no surprise, and it wasn't her problem She whistled once, low, like an owl She stretched the brave guard flat on his back and dropped one of her pills into his mouth She ran up the corridor, turned the four unfortunates on their backs beside each other, and dropped a pill into eachto wonder if Oll and Giddon had lost theeons, they appeared around the corner and slipped past her

"A quarter hour, no more," she said

"A quarter hour, My Lady" Oll's voice was a rumble "Go safely"

Their torchlight splashed the walls as they approached the cell The Lienid li of lock picks clink against itself She would have liked to have waited to see that they opened the door, but she was needed elsewhere She tucked her packet of pills into her sleeve and ran

THE CELL GUARDS reported to the dungeon guard, and the dungeon guard reported to the underguard The underguard reported to the castle guard The night guard, the king's guard, the wall guard, and the garden guard also reported to the castle guard As soon as one guard noticed another's absence, the alarh away, all would be lost They would be pursued, it would come to bloodshed; they would see her eyes, and she would be recognized So she had to get theues

sed there would be twenty Prince Raffin had made her thirty pills, just in case

Most of the guards gave her no trouble If she could sneak up on theroups, they never knehat hit theuards defended his office She swirled through the lot of theuard juh the door, and ran into the fray

"I know a Graceling when I see one" He jabbed with his sword, and she rolled out of the way "Let me see the colors of your eyes, boy I'll cut them out Don't think I won't"

It gave her some pleasure to knock hirabbed his hair, dragged hiue They would all say, when they woke to their headaches and their shahting, acting alone They would assume she was a boy, because in her plain trousers and hood she looked like one, and because when people were attacked it never occurred to anyone that it limpse of Oll or Giddon: She had seen to that

No one would think of her Whatever the Graceling Lady Katsa ht be, she was not a criuised And besides, she was supposed to be en route east Her uncle Randa, King of the Middluns, had seen her off just that , with Captain Oll and Giddon, Randa's underlord, escorting her Only a day of very hard riding in the wrong direction could have brought her south to King Murgon's court

Katsa ran through the courtyard, past flower beds, fountains, and on It was quite a pleasant courtyard, really, for such an unpleasant king; it srass and rich soil, and the sweetness of dew-dripped flowers She raced through Murgon's apple orchard, a trail of drugged guards stretching out behind her Drugged, not dead: an important distinction Oll and Giddon, and most of the rest of the secret Council, had wanted her to kill theued that killing theain no time

"What if they wake?" Giddon had said

Prince Raffin had been offended "You doubt my medicine They won't wake"

"It would be faster to kill them," Giddon had said, his brown eyes insistent Heads in the dark room had nodded

"I can do it in the time allotted," Katsa had said, and when Giddon had started to protest, she'd held up her hand "Enough I won't kill them If you want them killed, you can send someone else"

Oll had s lord on the back "Just think, Lord Giddon, it'll on's guards, and nobody hurt? It's a good game"