Po rose, too – did he check his balance? She wasn't sure, but she thought he might have. He took her hand and smiled. "Come out hunting with me, Katsa," he said. "You can try the bow I made."

His voice was light, and Skye and Bitterblue were smiling. Katsa felt that she was the only person in the world with any idea that something was wrong. She forced a smile. "Of course," she said. "I'd love to."

"What's wrong?" she asked, the instant they'd left the cabin behind.

He smiled slightly. "Nothing's wrong."

Katsa climbed hard and bit back her feeling. They tromped through a path in the snow she supposed Po had broken. They passed the pool. The waterfall was a mass of ice, with only the slightest living trickle in its middle.

"Did my fish trap work for you?"

"It worked beautifully. I still use it."

"Did his soldiers search the cabin?"

"They did."

"You made it to the cave all right, despite your injury?"

"I was feeling much better by then. I made it easily."

"But you would have been cold and wet."

"They didn't stay long, Katsa. I returned to the cabin soon after and built up the fire."

Katsa climbed a rocky rise. She grasped a thin tree trunk and pulled herself onto a hillock. A long, flat rock jutted up from the untouched snow. She plowed over to it and sat down. He followed and sat beside her. She considered him. He didn't look at her.

"I want to know what's wrong," she said.

He pursed his lips, and still he didn't look at her. His voice was carefully matter-of-fact. "I wouldn't force your feelings from you, if you didn't want to share them."

She stared at him, eyes wide. "True. But I wouldn't lie to you, as you're lying now when you say nothing's wrong."

A strange expression came over his face. Open, vulnerable, as if he were a child of ten years, trying to keep from crying. Her throat ached to see that look in his face. Po –

He winced, and the expression vanished. "Don't, please," he said. "It makes me dizzy, when you talk to me in my mind. It hurts my head."

She swallowed, and tried to think of what to say. "Your head still hurts, from your fall?"

"Occasionally."

"Is that what's wrong?"

"I've told you, nothing's wrong."

She touched his arm. "Po, please – "

"It's nothing worth your worry," he said, and he brushed her hand away.

And now she was shocked and hurt, and tears stung her eyes. The Po she remembered didn't flick away her concern, he didn't flinch from her touch. This wasn't Po; this was a stranger; and there was something missing here that had been there before. She reached into the neck of her coat and pulled the cord over her head. She held the ring out to him.

"This is yours," she said.

He didn't even look at it; his eyes were glued to his hands. "I don't want it."

"What in the Middluns are you talking about? It's your ring."

"You should keep it."

She stared at him, disbelieving. "Po, what makes you think I would ever keep your ring? I don't know why you gave it to me in the first place. I wish you hadn't."

His mouth was tight with unhappiness, and still he stared into his hands. "At the time I gave it to you, I did so because I knew I might die. I knew Leck's men might kill me and that you didn't have a home. If I died I wanted you to have my home. My home suits you," he said, with a bitterness that stung her, and that she couldn't understand.

She found that she was crying. She wiped tears from her face, furiously, and turned away from him, because she couldn't stand the sight of him staring stone-faced into his hands. "Po, I beg you to tell me what's the matter."

"Is it so wrong that you should keep the ring? My castle is isolated, in a wild corner of the world. You'd be happy there. My family would respect your privacy."

"Have you gone raving mad? What are you going to do once I've taken your home and your possessions? Where are you going to live?"

His voice was very quiet. "I don't want to go back to my home. I've been thinking of staying here, where it's peaceful, and far away from everyone. I-I want to be alone."

She gaped at him, her mouth open.

"You should go on with your life, Katsa. Keep the ring. I've said I don't want it."

She couldn't speak. She shook her head, woodenly, then reached out and dropped the ring into his hands.

He stared at it, then sighed. "I'll give it to Skye," he said, "to take back to my father. He can decide what to do with it."

He stood, and this time she was certain he checked his balance. He trudged away from her, his bow in hand. He caught hold of the root of a shrubbery and pulled himself onto a ledge of rock. She watched as he climbed into the mountains, and away from her.

During the night, the sound of breathing all around her, Katsa tried to work it out. She sat against the wall and watched Po lying in a blanket on the floor beside his brother and the Monsean guards. He slept, and his face was peaceful. His beautiful face.

When he'd come back to the cabin after their conversation, with his bow in one hand and an armload of rabbits in the other, he'd unloaded his quarry contentedly on his brother and shrugged himself out of his coat. Then he'd come to her, where she sat brooding against the wall. He'd crouched before her, taken her hands in his and kissed them, and rubbed his cold face against them. "I'm sorry," he'd said; and she'd felt suddenly that everything was normal, and Po was himself, and they'd start again, fresh and new. Then over dinner, as the others bantered and Bitterblue teased her guards, Katsa watched Po withdraw. He ate little. He sank into silence, unhappiness in the lines of his face. And her heart ached so much to look at him that she walked out of the cabin and stumped around for ages alone in the dark.

At moments he seemed happy. But something was clearly wrong. If he would just... if he would only just look at her. If he would only look into her face.

And of course, if alone was what he needed, alone was what she would give. But – and she thought this might be unfair, but still she decided it – she was going to require proof. He was going to have to convince her, convince her utterly, that solitude was his need. Only then would she leave him to his strange anguish.

In the morning Po seemed cheerful enough; but Katsa, who was beginning to feel like a henpecking mother, registered his lack of interest in the food, even the Lienid food, spread across the table. He ate practically nothing, and then made some vague, unlikely remark about checking on the lame horse. He wandered outside.

"What's wrong with him?" Bitterblue asked.

Katsa's eyes slid to the child's face, and held her steady gray gaze. There was no point pretending she didn't know what Bitterblue meant. Bitterblue had never been stupid.

"I don't know," Katsa said. "He won't tell me."

"Sometimes he seems himself," Skye said, "and other times he sinks into a mood." He cleared his throat. "But I thought it might be a lovers' quarrel."

Katsa looked at him levelly. She ate a piece of bread. "It's possible, but I don't think so."

Skye raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Seems to me you'd know if it were."

"If only things were that simple," Katsa said, drily. "There's something strange about his eyes," Bitterblue said.

"Yes," Katsa said, "well, it's likely he has the strangest eyes in all seven kingdoms. But I'd have expected you to notice that before now."

"No," Bitterblue said. "I mean there's something di fferent about his eyes."

Something different about his eyes.

Yes, there was a difference. The difference was that he wouldn't look at her, or at any of them. Almost as if it pained his heart to raise his eyes and focus on another person. Almost as if –