AN: so it's a bit dues ex machina with the whole Grace thing...meh. I was sixteen, this was a school project, and I needed to end it at some point.

Part 6: A Safer Kingdom

Po's brother Skye, Katsa, and I made our way back to the mountains to find Po. It was really funny – the way we found Po, or rather, the way he found us. Katsa was arguing with Skye, who reminds me so much of Po that it hurts, about how fast to push the horses. Katsa was impatient and wanted to find Po as quickly as possible, which meant she wanted to keep moving fast and Skye was trying to talk some sense into her.

All of a sudden a voice with a laugh in it said, "Still doing your best to ruin the horses, I see." It was Po! We both ran to hug him – me and Katsa.

There's something strange about Po's eyes – as if those silver and gold beacons could get any stranger. He's not looking at me or focusing his eyes on me when eh does – it's like he's looking through me. But of course as soon as I thought this, he began to look at me more.

I was queen now, and the coronation ceremony that was to take place in Leck City, soon to be Bitterblue City, as approaching fast. My castle servants sent me dresses and other fines things, and, at my request, a sword. While Katsa set Sky and Po to wrestling each other to build Po's strength up, she taught me how to hold and use a sword. My soldiers gathered to watch the Graceling prince and his brother wrestle each other in the mud and the Graceling, not kill, but survival artist, who'd kept their young queen (that's me!) alive teach me swordplay. After my coronation (The crown was huge! If it weren't for the padding, it'd fall and rest around my neck!) Katsa agreed to teach Monsean girls the same fighting skills she'd taught me. She'd seen a girl at an inn along her journey who had to depend on her brother s and father for protection from the wild men who stayed at the in and ever since then had wanted to do something about it. Po and Sky went back to Lienid. Po and Katsa say they won't marry. Katsa doesn't want to be bound down by marriage, but I have a feeling that it won't last.

I found my friend Anezka. She had cuts on her arms and had been tortured by Leck, but she was alive and back in all her yellow-and-pink-eyed happiness, for I was happy to see her. One morning, I awoke to my confusion and her astonishment on Anezka's face. I immediately knew – I was a Graceling, a rare one whose eyes settled years after birth. Maybe it was just waiting for it to be safe for my Graceling nature to reveal itself. I had one eye as turquoise blue as Katsa's and one gold like my cousin Po's. I suppose I inherited a bit of my Grace from my father – my Grace would have balanced his perfectly – I was Graced with wisdom. I always knew what the right thing to do was, deep in my gut, when presented with a problem (Maybe Katsa would have listened to me at Grella's Pass?)

But I know, with the help of this Grace, I will rule Monsea well and it will flourish. I know this from the depth of my heart.

Yours,

Queen Bitterblue