Last time, the book still wasn’t over.

IT BECAME a kind of school. Katsa made up drills for Skye and Po that were first and foremost a challenge to Po’s strength. Skye was satisfied, for the drills favored him. Katsa was satisfied, for she could see Po’s progress. She set them always to wrestling, rarely to proper hand fighting, and reminded Po constantly, in his mind and out loud, to muscle rather than Grace his way out of every scrape. Alongside the grappling brothers, Katsa taught Bitterblue to hold a sword, and then to block with one, and then to strike. Position and balance, strength and motion, speed. The child was as awkward at first with the sword as she had been with the knife, but she worked stubbornly, and like Po she made progress.
And Katsa’s school grew. The guards and messengers couldn’t resist the spectacle of the Lady Katsa teaching swordplay to their young queen, or the Lienid and his brother wrestling each other into the ground. They gathered round, asking this and that question about a drill she fabricated for the princes, or a trick she taught Bitterblue to compensate for the queen’s lack of size and strength. Before Katsa knew it she was teaching the trick to a pair of young soldiers from Monsea’s southern shore, and devising a drill to improve the opposite-hand swordplay of Bitterblue’s guards.

Apparently “survival” makes you an awesome teacher.

Now, this is a mistake less terrible books have made, but people who are naturally talented at something tend to suck at teaching it. When it comes naturally to you, when you don’t make the mistakes everyone else did or have to find a way to work through a block, you have no idea how to help others through it.

Even without that, there’s the part where Katsa is superhuman and everything she’s learned about fighting has been based around a style that assumes you’re fast enough to dodge arrows effortlessly, immune to pain and have unbreakable bones.

Anyway, Metaleyes and his near identical brother mudwrestle a lot until one day Metaleyes finally wins, and from there he becomes an even better fighter than before because the author isn’t going to stop the power creep just because it’s’ the last chapter.

Finally Bitterblue goes home to be crowned and they go with her. While they wait in their room at the castle, Ragamuffin shows up with his helper herb-grinder and Katsa’s special torturer friend. Pandaman and Giddy aren’t there, though.

Katsa didn’t mind the tedium, for Raffin was on one side of her and Bann on the other, and not fiv minutes passed without them amusing themselves in some way. When Bann whispered to her about Raffin’s new medicinal discovery that cured bellyache but caused itchy feet, and his subsequent discovery that cured itchy feet but caused bellyache, Katsa giggled. Standing three rows ahead with his two sons, Ror whipped his head around to glare at her. “This is not a Sunderan street carnival,” he whispered with great and dignified reproach. And Po’s shoulders began to shake with laughter, and various voices whispered for Ror to shush but then realized whom they were shushing and issued an appalled stream of apology.
“Yes, all right,” Ror was left saying, repeatedly and with increasing volume. “Truly, it’s all right.” The interruption grew to something rather large and intrusive, causing a coronation attendant to stumble in his litany of the Monsean rulers across time. Bitterblue smiled softly at the attendant, and nodded for him to continue. After that, word passed through the crowd that the young queen was kindhearted, and not one to punish small mistakes.

This world has some terrible standards. So people like Katsa and Bann can gossip about unrelated shit during a coronation, and as nice as Roary is it’s not so nice people aren’t terrified to mindlessness at the idea they could have upset him, and the fact Bitterblue doesn’t flip out at one minor thing that isn’t even the guy’s fault is enough for people to think she’s incredibly nice.

Katsa’s told that Giddy is sad but still devoted to the council. Katsa’s just yeah whatever, going back to Po’s cabin after this so I don’t care.

And then, because this book just will. Not. End. we also have an epilogue. Katsa and Metaleyes go into the secret cave, where they fuck in the freezing cold on sand and rock and somehow it’s pleasant because the author says so.

Then they chat about Bitterblue, who’s still a bit twitchy about her mom’s death – eh, children get over that – and Leck.

“Do you think he was mad?”
Po hesitated. “I truly don’t know. Certainly he was cruel, and perverse. But it’s hard to tell where he ended and his Grace began, do you know what I mean? And I suppose we’ll never know now where he came from. Or what it is he really wanted.”

Uh, isn’t it really obvious what he wanted? He tortured people for fun and seemed to have absolutely no ambitions beyond that. As to where he was from, you can almost feel the author leaning in to whisper dramatically there. There’s no reason for the characters to wonder where he came from – he was someone born with that grace, probably used it to make those around him forget about it, and once it developed to a certain point where he could pull it off, he went to go take over a kingdom. It’s obvious the author has some sort of larger plan here, but it doesn’t serve this story at all. I suppose it’s related to whatever’s going on in Fire, but it just detracts from this story. Things don’t have to all be linked.

Oh, also Bitterblue totally knows Metaleyes is a mindreader but doesn’t seem to care, gasp shock. Considering she’s a kid, it’s not like that means anything. Kids are used to adults knowing things they try to keep secret.

And everyone wants them to marry. I don’t give a fuck, book.

Katsa was en route back to Bitterblue City to give fighting lessons to girls. It was a thing she’d decided she wanted to do, in all seven kingdoms, and after the coronation Bitterblue had begged her to start in Monsea.

It’s like the author doesn’t realize there’s reasons not to change a city’s name constantly.

Also, like the author doesn’t realize time is a scarce commodity in most societies. The only people who can afford to do fighting lessons would be the upper classes. And why would girls even show up when Katsa’s experience, at least, is that fighting is the antithesis of femaleness?

“I’m going into the Middluns, Po. There’s one more king I need to face.”

For a minute I was hopeful, but then Katsa clarifies that she doesn’t mean to kill him, just to say the rules don’t apply to her and that she should get to come and go as she pleases. Also, she wants to send Helga to take care of Bitterblue, because the woman’s actual friends and family are unimportant, all that matters is being a servant to nobility.

“You know,” he said, “I wish you could see this cave.”
“What’s it like?”
He paused. “It’s… beautiful, really.”
“Tell me.”
And so Po described to Katsa what hid in the blackness of the cave; and outside, the world awaited them.

And we end.