AN: I was re-reading Graceling when I got to the part where Katsa kills Leck and a random thought popped into my mind: what if it had been Bitterblue that got to kill Leck instead? I mean, I know she's only ten, but the man was a dangerous pervert who killed her mother-his own wife-and Princess Bitterblue is (in my opinon, at least) a shockingly mature ten year old, all things considered. And I got to thinking it was kind of sad that Katsa taught her all that stuff about defense and fighting and blah blah blah and she never even got to use them on King Leck. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the scene the way it is in the book just fine, cuz Leck dies and Katsa gets to be the one to stop him from telling everyone what Po's grace really is, but I just thought it would be an interesting one-shot to explore he idea of Bitterblue offing King Leck instead. So this is what I came up with; obviously it's slightly AU but not dramatically so because I tried to keep it close enough to the book in some ways so it would still make sense with the source-material. Oh, and this fic's rated T because of the whole killing theme (duh) and some fighting/blood towards/at the end. Also, this is my first ever Seven Kingdoms/Graceling Fanfic, I hope I didn't make anyone OOC; I did my best not to.
Trudging through the doors of Po's castle, shuffling her feet over the threshold, Bitterblue kept close to Katsa's side and steadied herself against her protective arm.
They were safe now, now that they'd reached Lienid at long last. Or at least, they hoped they were. Leck-her father, the king of Monsea-was still alive, after all; but what they had gone through to get here should give them a fighting chance. Not for nothing had they done the impossible and taken Grella's Pass to get out of Monsea, and it wasn't for no reason that they had traveled all this way with Captain Faun.
Of course it meant Katsa was going to have to set up many precautions, for King Leck would look here sooner or later. It was only a question of when, not if.
Bitterblue stopped, her ears pricked, as she heard the manservant who'd opened the doors to them say something very curious; something about his master having expected them.
A look of delighted befuddlement came into Katsa's beautiful blue and green graceling eyes, her whole face lit up like a candle. She couldn't believe Prince Po would have found his way here, back home to Lienid, and yet...well, he had had time, technically. They'd been practically for ever in those mountains. He could presumably have beat them here, remarkable as that would be.
"Right this way, My Lady," said the servant, directing them. "The whole family is in the receiving room."
Amazed and too happy to think straight, Katsa was fumbling for the right questions to inquire of how long Po had been there.
Bitterblue was excited, too, but she suddenly felt something was very wrong when, instead of saying, as she rather expected now, "Oh, Prince Greening arrived here at such-and-such time, and has been waiting for you since such-and-such hour, expecting you, as I said," the servant said the princes had 'only just arrived'. Princes, not prince. Plural, not singular. Why that should bother her so, she wasn't certain, but the princess of Monsea was left feeling rather creepy as she and Katsa entered the receiving room.
When she saw who was waiting for her there, Bitterblue's blood froze in her veins. Not even taking Grella's Pass had the princess felt this cold and miserable. Her father, the most dangerous, sickest, liar of a monarch in the whole world was there, looking out at them through his one eye.
"Friends," cried Leck cheerfully, "welcome! How wonderful. Come and take your honoured places in this merry circle!"
Leck was saying they were friends. For a split-second Bitterblue thought, "Father's here, it's all right. He says we're his friends. And I'm his daughter, of course. So I know he'll want to protect me from whatever it is we came all this way to escape from." But then, in a flash stronger and brighter than any bolt of lightning that ever was, came into her mind the image of her mother getting hit by him, and that of the serving girl (an innocent little child of her own age, no more than ten years old) with cut up cheeks, barely able to walk, coming into them on their last day in the Monsean castle. And Leck had done more than hurt that girl and animals, more even than merely hitting her mother. He'd killed Ashen, too. Selfishly, he had taken away the one person Bitterblue loved and need the most, all because she'd learned to see through him and wanted to protect her daughter. Bitterblue had been strong, she hadn't cried when Kasta and Po told her that her mother was dead; but that didn't mean her heart was broken by that news. Even when a heart is broken, after all, it still keeps beating as if it's quite whole. Her mother would not want her to break down and die because she was too sad to go on. Bitterblue wouldn't have wanted that for herself either, not after her mother had died in the attempt to save her.
No, Leck was not a protector; Katsa was. Leck may have sired her, but he was not, Bitterblue knew, her father. Her father wouldn't have treated her like that. Fathers and daughters were supposed to love each other; Bitterblue didn't love Leck (she loved her graceling cousin Po, and she loved Lady Katsa her graceling friend from Middluns, and she loved Captain Faun the graceling who always knew weather before it came) and he didn't love her, he only wanted her. She hated this man who called himself her father, not because of his grace, but because of the monster it made him; no, because of the monster he made himself...the grace, it was only his pet, his sword. Without it, she felt sure, he would still be an evil and dangerous man, albeit less powerful.
Katsa was looking at King Leck with that clouded confused expression Bitterblue had come to know. She was forgetting; she wasn't immune to Leck. It was true she had seen Ashen murdered, but it hadn't been to her what it would have been to Bitterblue to witness; Ashen was not Katsa's mother. Nor, even, was it the same as what it had been for Po, seeing his aunt killed before his very eyes.
She could not lose her protector, not now, not when she needed her most; Bitterblue had to make Katsa understand, she had to make her remember. She was about to scream out the truth, when suddenly she thought that Leck might, if Katsa ever truly found a way to overcome the effect his grace had on her, just dispose of her the way he'd disposed of his queen.
"Oh, Mummy," thought Bitterblue, brokenly.
That was when it hit her, fear-cold, hard fear. No one would believe her. It was almost worse to be the only one who knew or remembered the truth in this room than it was to be brainwashed and controlled by Leck's grace. He would hurt her; he would not have hunted his daughter down just to talk to her. He might hurt Katsa (after he'd had enough of 'his daughter's company'); maybe even if she didn't remember his grace...he always had liked pretty women, and Katsa was beautiful, especially for a graceling.
She had to be strong, she had to make Katsa understand now before it was too late. Too late, like it was for countless girls Leck had hurt (raped, cut, hit, and got away with it), countless animals he'd sliced up, enjoying the pain of harmless creatures, too late for the queen-the woman who'd mistakenly thought her king and husband loved her once, before her 'mother' instinct had told her it was not safe to let him spend time with his daughter alone.
"He's lying," Bitterblue sobbed to Katsa. "He's lying." She wanted to scream it, but it came out in strangled whimpers. Regardless, though, it was coming out. She had to keep saying it. "He's lying."
Katsa looked at her.
"He's lying," she said again.
Katsa's expression was blank.
"He's lying!" The princess's voice was louder now, though she still sobbed.
"My daughter is ill," said Leck pretend-mournfully. "I hate to see her suffer so, it pains me."
"He's lying!" If Bitterblue had been a very little bit younger and the situation had been a very little less frightening, she might have stamped her foot. "He's lying!"
"Help your poor, sick niece," Leck ordered 'kindly' to a woman on his left.
She jumped up. "Come here, poor child."
"No!" screamed Bitterblue. She didn't trust this woman, she didn't care if she was supposedly her aunt; she only trusted Katsa, and even she was on the wrong side at the moment.
The woman-Po's mother, her aunt-was trying to take her away from Katsa's side now, murmuring kind-sounding things to her, attempting to comfort her niece. Bitterblue would have none of it; this woman would play right into Leck's hands. She screamed and slapped at the woman and grabbed onto Katsa, and clung to her, with all her might.
"Why, she's hysterical," said Po's mother to Katsa.
"Yes," replied Katsa slowly, letting Bitterblue hold onto her as tightly as she wanted and holding her close in return. "I'll take care of her."
"Where's my son?" asked the woman, then.
"Yes, you're missing one of your party, aren't you?" said Leck.
Oh, how dare he make himself sound so concerned, so worried, when all he really wanted was to kill poor dear Prince Po, the first man Bitterblue had learned to trust, just like he'd killed his queen, Po's aunt!
"I hope he's alive?" Leck arched a brow.
"Yes, of course he is," Katsa blurted.
No! She couldn't say that, she couldn't let him know Po was all right! He was going to kill him.
"Is he really?" laughed Leck, shaking his head, as if in great relief. "How nice. Tell me, where did you leave him? Where is he?"
Katsa said nothing. Bitterblue dared to let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding in.
"Perhaps we can help him," Leck offered.
Oh no, Katsa looked like she was going to say something now, in hopes of King Leck sending 'help' to Po.
"Don't tell him, Katsa!" screamed Bitterblue. "Don't tell him where Po is! Don't tell him."
Katsa shushed her. "It's all right, child."
"Please don't tell him." She couldn't bear to lose her cousin, too. The tears that had not come for her mother came in double for Po now. She didn't care that crying harder only made her seem more hysterical; ill, as Leck wanted everyone to believe. She didn't care one bit. She couldn't help it, she couldn't stop these tears.
"I won't." Katsa bent down to Bitterblue's level. "I wont."
"Very well." Leck's hand rested on the hilt of a knife he wore at his belt and his eyes flickered over to his daughter. "I see how things are."
"Poor thing," murmured Po's mother, looking at Bitterblue. "How awful you must feel, to cry so."
"You know nothing about it," whispered Bitterblue through her chattering teeth.
She hated her father; she wished she had a grace, and not just any grace, a killing grace like Katsa used to believe she had, just so she could kill the king now. The thought of driving her thumbs into Leck's eyeballs was less disgusting than the thought of him living on hurting more people. But of course no one here was going to let her leap at her father and shove his eyeballs back into his skull. And even if they would have, while she hated to admit it, Princess Bitterblue knew she was too scared to go near him.
"I've been telling Po's family all about my poor daughter's illness," Leck was saying to Katsa now, soothingly, pretending to be deeply pained. "She's not herself; she thinks I would hurt her. It all started after her mother's accident, you know, when she heard about it and ran away from home." He paused and looked straight into Bitterblue's eyes, then Katsa's, holding her gaze. "I'm so grateful to you and Prince Po for keeping her safe for me."
"Yes," Katsa said simply. "I've kept her safe."
Smiling, Leck said, "And now you can return my daughter to me. A task well carried-out, Lady Katsa. But tell me, how did you get out of Monsea?"
To Bitterblue's horror, Katsa told him. Thankfully not in great detail, but she told him nonetheless.
"And you've brought her right to my castle."
"It's not his castle, he's lying," said Bitterblue. "It's Po's castle." She thought she saw a flicker of recognition in Po's mother's eyes when she said this. To Katsa she added, "It's more yours than Leck's, you know that."
"I do?" Katsa blinked.
"She's confused," said Leck, clucking his tongue in a disgusting parody of a concerned parent. "Bring her to me. She doesn't know what she is saying. I know how to make her feel better, you can trust me."
"I can," said Katsa, slowly.
"No..." murmured Bitterblue, shaking her head.
"Give me my daughter, I shall help her now."
"I will give her to you," Katsa told him, seeing the stricken look on Bitterblue's face. "When she is feeling better."
"No, now." Leck cocked his head at his daughter. "I know how to make her feel better," he repeated. One of his hands was resting on that knife hilt again, the princess noticed, though no one else did.
"No." Something for which Bitterblue was for ever thankful was making Katsa resist stubbornly even as she was believing Leck's every word. "After."
"Fine," he sighed. "I'll enjoy my daughter's company later. I've just been so worried, I never got to properly explain her mother's accident to her before she ran away. Her illness is so intense that I want to make sure she understands. When we go to Monsea again, she will need to know not to frighten my subjects with tall tales about how their queen's death took place. You know, beautiful woman though she was, she was weak-minded, too, and prone to illnesses like my poor, poor daughter; a burdensome inheritance, but I will protect her."
Anger bubbled up in Bitterblue more intensely than her fear had ever been. How dare he make out her mother to be weak. It was one thing to make one of his archers, or even himself, seem to have accidentally killed her by miss-shooting an arrow, another to say something like this. Ashen had not been weak; she was the bravest, strongest woman Bitterblue knew, even Katsa could not measure up to her in some ways. Ashen was more than just beautiful, too; she was also every bit as kind-hearted and gentle as Leck made others think he was. Perhaps if she had not twisted her ankle she would be there today, standing up for herself against her twisted husband's lies.
"Ah, my dear, poor, beloved Ashen..." sighed Leck, pursing his lips just a little, as if lost in deep memory. "Poor Ashen, Bitterblue, you remember her fondly, do you not?"
"Don't you say her name, you murderer!" cried Bitterblue. She was in Katsa's arms now, had been for a bit, since everyone apparently thought she was too sick even to stand up on her own. "Put me down, Katsa."
"Why, what do you-" she began, but put her down anyway.
For a moment Bitterblue wondered if she did not have a killing grace after all, despite her matching gray eyes. She knew Leck had to die, and so quickly her hand went to Katsa's dagger at her belt and pulled it out. If Katsa had not been confused and had truly not wanted it pulled out, she would have been able to stop her, but she hesitated, while Bitterblue did not.
"Oh, Bitterblue, what are you doing with that dagger, child?" Leck hummed and cooed sympathetically at her. "What would your dear late mother say if she knew you were grabbing at daggers in the presence of guests? Put it back, my dear child, you don't need it here; you are among friends."
"Nobody hurts my mother," said Bitterblue fiercely. And, forgetting her fear, she ran towards the king, dagger in hand.
No one stopped her, because King Leck held up a hand. He was not afraid of his daughter; he was not afraid of a little girl. He could control her, he would gain her trust back, it would just take some extra words. Before she did any harm, he would cloud her judgment again, make her understand that doing what he said was best. Then he would get Katsa to tell him where Po was, and then after he killed him there would be no one left to doubt him or his benevolence ever again.
"Dear daughter, you don't want to hurt your father," he whispered gently. "Be a good girl now."
Bitterblue pretended to raise the dagger in a non-threatening manner. She lifted it as if she had been about to stab him in the heart but had changed her mind.
It was working, he thought. "We will have a long talk alone, you and I."
The girl with the cuts, the last girl, one of many, they had 'talked alone' and she had remembered nothing afterward; and she wouldn't be the last for long unless Bitterblue killed the king now. His words weren't really controlling her; she wasn't going to stab him in the heart, not when she wasn't even convinced he actually had one. No, she was going to go for the source of his poison, and his grace; his mouth.
It took every bit of courage, cunning, and memory of the defense skills Katsa had taught her on the ship over here to Lienid to thrust the dagger into his mouth and up.
Leck didn't die right away; even through the blood pouring out and splattering on his lips, he was trying to convince her to let go of the dagger and embrace him as her father, that she didn't really want to hurt him.
When that didn't work, he cried for the others to help.
Katsa tried to pull Bitterblue off of Leck, but she resisted. Po's brothers and father, King Ror, came and started pulling, too. There was a great deal of confusion as Bitterblue, knowing it would take one good final shove to make the dagger go in deep enough that it would be fatal no matter what, was trying to get at the tip of the hilt, but Leck's hand caught her wrist and held on with a brute-like grip that was anything but gentle though everyone else would have thought, by his slurred words, that he was tenderly assisting his ill daughter who couldn't get up off of him on her own.
"Sire, we can't get your daughter up if you hold onto her like that," said one of Po's brothers.
"I'm helping her," he slurred, thinking of the lesson he was going to slowly teach his daughter with his own daggers when he caught her alone.
Everyone, except for Katsa who persisted in lingering nearby, stopped trying to pry her off her father and stepped back.
Leck knew he was bleeding hard, but he wasn't going to give this girl the satisfaction of mere force; he was going to make her say yes, he was going to make her apologize to him, make her say he was the parent who loved her, if it was the last thing he did.
Some of Leck's blood sprayed out like spittle and hit Bitterblue on the cheek. "Dearest daughter, calm down, I am your protector. You're home, you're safe."
Bitterblue calmed down. "You're bleeding," she said quietly. Her eyes suddenly closed, but the look on her face seemed to suggest Leck was regaining power over her.
He let go of her wrist. "Now, now, dear daughter, let us go into a private room. There is blood to wash off both of our faces. A terrible accident we've had here. You shouldn't have been running with that dagger, but your father is a good, kind man, I forgive you sweet daughter. Princess. Helpless ill Princess."
"I'm not a princess," said Bitterblue, her eyes still half-closed.
"No?" said Leck, reaching up to slowly remove the dagger from his mouth. "What are you, then, my dear?"
Behind her eyelids her eyes were not clouded with the fog of Leck's lies, unbeknownst to him. She reached up and pushed the dagger further in. Heavy, dark, almost black, blood, hot as lava, spilled out of his mouth and onto her hands.
"I'm the Queen of Monsea," Bitterblue announced. Daughter of the late gentle Queen Ashen.
And the Queen of Monsea untangled herself from the dead, former king's body, one hand and one cheek covered in blood, standing up and staring at the Lienid royals and Lady Katsa. Her hair short and her stained, ruffled articles of clothing those of a boy, the little queen was looking for all the world like a street urchin coming out of an alleyway after winning a nasty fight.
AN: Please review.