Last time, Katsa sure is a sue.

This time, they reach the mountain pass. God, we’re still not in Leck’s kingdom.

There was no camping and no hunting for them that night. Their meal was cooked for them and served by the rough, friendly wife of the innkeeper, who seemed unconcerned with their eyes and wanted to know everything they’d seen on their journey, and everyone they’d passed.

This is weird. This is apparently a well-traveled area. It’s the only way by land to get into the country and it’s significantly faster than the sea route. Plus they have this whole system of buying/selling horses to travelers, which suggests they’re relatively large and busy to always have cash on hand for horses and horses on hand for travelers. They go on to say they also left their swords and a bunch of their stuff at the inn because they couldn’t carry it. (I’m not clear why they brought swords at all if they meant to do this, or why swords are the first thing you’d leave behind.)

Yet the inn is described like it’s rustic and isolated. In fact, as if it’s so cut off from the usual world they don’t even notice graceling eyes, which thus far has been the only uniting bit of culture we’ve seen. And Katsa, who’s always whining about how everyone on the planet treats her weird for her eyes, just gives it an offhand mention

In some places huts had been built for the use of travelers, empty of furniture but with crude, functional fireplaces. Built by the combined efforts of Sunder, Estill, and Monsea, in a time long ago when the kingdoms worked together for the safe passage of travelers across their borders.

I know it said long ago, so who knows what the political system was, but it’s still really hard to believe. Tiny kingdoms aren’t known for working together well on public works projects and kingdoms generally aren’t given to this sort of concern for the little guy. And three kingdoms dividing up the effort and cost, for a passage that seems to just benefit Monsea? Weird. And whose job is it to maintain them now? A long time ago means a lot of intervening time when stuff needs replacing.

I don’t know why it’s not just Monsea, or even that there’s some boundary where one kingdom’s responsible for their half and the other handles the other. Then you could tell you’d reached a certain point when the huts suddenly improved or degraded. Personally, I’d assume Monsea’s the more motivated one, but maybe having poorly kept huts would be a sign the kingdom was now more isolationist, or that the king was bad and not spending necessary money for the common good.

Metaleyes tells the story of getting trapped in a blizzard once, and Katsa says it’s a shame he couldn’t sense animals back then because then he could have gone hunting. Because clearly, the poor visibility preventing shooting stuff is the only problem with blizzards. Clearly, Katsa’s grace only goes so far. Metaleyes points out he could have gotten lost, which is closer, but considering it was on a mountain, it seems this is all missing the bigger part where you fall off a cliff.

He then talks about how he never told his brothers, and now he realizes that was right because they’re decent people but his gift is too much of a temptation. And then his dad would find out…

He’s not an unkind father. But it’s hard to be king. Men will trick power away from a king, however they can. I would’ve been too useful to him.

Aside from the fact that Metaleyes apparently has no patriotic or familial leanings, this is interesting because it’s the first sign we’ve seen of this. Maybe Lienid functions as an actual kingdom and not whatever weirdness the rest function under, where Pandaman can order Katsa to break the arms of people in other kingdoms while their secret council runs the world under his nose.

It didn’t seem right to Katsa that a mother should have to protect her child from its father. But she didn’t know much of mothers and fathers. She hadn’t had a mother or a father to protect her from Randa’s use. Perhaps rather than fathers, it was kings that were the danger.

This is just weird. Obviously it’s supposed to be more Katsa thoughts, but it seems like it’s some sort of author message and I’m not sure what.

Oh. Katsa’s suddenly realized that since mothers protect children from father-kings, obviously the reason the queen’s locked herself away is to protect her daughter from the king! I can tell it’s the right answer because of how the reasoning comes out of nowhere.

Po stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her anxiously. “If he cuts up animals for pleasure, I hate to think what he would want with his own daughter.”

…but other people’s daughters will be fine, or is it just it’s fine as long as they’re not his daughter? Jesus, Metaleyes, think when you speak.

“Let’s move faster,” Katsa said, “just in case I’m right.”
They set off almost at a run. They followed the path upward, through the mountains that separated them from Monsea and whatever truth it contained.

No one, walking with a huge backpack uphill, would ever speed up to almost a run, and were they to be so stupid, they would quickly tire. Even if we’re supposed to assume Katsa can do this because it’s somehow counting as survival, Metaleyes is just psychic.

The next day, he suggests that maybe they shouldn’t go to the court immediately but wait a day to see what they can find out. Why is this only coming up now? It’s like they’ve just suddenly realized he was evil. They already believed he tortures animals and killed girls.

She pictured Leck as a smirking, insincere man standing at the end of a velvet carpet, his single eye narrowed and clever. She imagined herself shooting an arrow into his heart, so that he crumpled to his knees, bled all over his carpet, and died at the feet of his stewards.

“Survival” sure does cover a lot.

At Po’s command, her strike. It would have to be at Po’s command, for until they knew the truth of his Grace, she couldn’t trust her own judgment. Po? That’s true, isn’t it?
He took a moment to gather her thoughts. “I’ve some ideas about that as well,” he said. “Once we’re in Monsea, would you consent to do what I say, and only what I say? Just until I have a sense of Leck’s power? Would you ever consent to that?”
“Of course I would, Po, in this case.”

…What’s the point of giving her issues if she doesn’t have to work through them?

They get to the top and they see Leck City, and it’s very pretty.

Then Metaleyes finds some sweet berries, because now his grace lets him see plants too.

Author, if you wanted to write about x-men in fantasyland, just do it. It’s way less annoying than opening the book by saying you have magic that follows certain rules and then completely ignoring that.

And he makes her promise again that she’ll obey him when he gives the order. Ominous!