ones who cut them and raped them. Children!" he cried. "Little girls! I see their faces!"
Bitterblue was paralyzed with dizziness. "What?" she said, understanding, all at once, the final truth. "Thiel! Leck made you do the hurting?"
"I was his favorite," Thiel said, frantic. "I was his number one. I felt the pleasure when he told me to. I feel it when I see their faces!"
"Thiel," she said, "he forced you. You were his tool!"
"I was a coward," he cried out desperately, against the wind. "A coward!"
"But it wasn't your fault! Thiel. He stole who you were!"
"I killed Runnemood—you see that, don't you? I pushed him off
this bridge to stop him hurting you. I've killed so many. I've tried to make the memory end, I've needed it to go away, but all of it only gets bigger and more impossible to control. I never meant it to grow so big. I never meant to tell so many lies. It was supposed to end. It never ends!"
"Thiel," she said, "there is nothing that cannot be forgiven!"
"No," he said, shaking his head, shaking the tears from his face. "I've tried, Lady Queen. I've tried, and it won't heal."
"Thiel," she said, sobbing now. "Please. Let me help you. Please, please, come away from the edge."
"You're strong," he said. "You will make things better; you're a true queen, like your mother. I stood here while your mother burned. When he lit her body up on Monster Bridge, I stood right here and watched. I was there to honor her passing. It's right that no one will honor mine," he said, turning around toward the parapet.
"No," she said. "No, Thiel!" she cried, grabbing at him, dropping her useless sword, willing some part of her, some extension of her spirit or soul to reach out from inside her and entwine him, stop him, hold him on this bridge. Hold him here safe with her love. Stop struggling, Thiel. Stop fighting me. No, stay here, stay here! You will not die.
Prying her fingers away, he pushed her so hard that she fell to the ground. "Be safe, Bitterblue. Be free of this," he said to her. Then he grabbed the parapet, hoisted himself onto it, and fell over the edge.
39
SHE LAY FAR above rushing water.
Maybe he had pretended. Maybe he'd walked away while her eyes were closed, changed his mind, gone back home.
No. He hadn't pretended. Her eyes had never closed. She had seen.
IT WAS NECESSARY that she no longer be on this bridge. Of that, she was fairly certain. But she couldn't walk, because the bridge was too high in the air for walking on. What if she stayed here? What if she clung to a memory of a cold mountain, of Katsa's body giving her heat, of Katsa's arms holding her safe to the earth?
Crawl, she could crawl. There was no shame in crawling when one couldn't walk. Someone had said that to her once. Someone—
"Hey."
The voice from above was familiar.
"Hey, what are you doing? Are you hurt?"
The person attached to the voice was touching her with his hands, brushing off an accumulation of snow. "Hey, can you get up?"
She shook her head.
"Can you talk? Is it the heights, Sparks?"
Yes. No. She shook her head.
"You're scaring me," he said. "How long have you been out here? I'm picking you up."
"No," she managed, because being picked up was too high.
"Why don't you tell me what four hundred seventy-six times four hundred seventy-seven is, all right?"
Saf gathered her up, gathered her sword too, and carried her to the drawbridge tower while she clung to him, and tried to work that one out.
INSIDE, IT WAS warm. There were braziers. When he lowered her to a chair, she held on to one of his arms and wouldn't let him go.
"Sparks," he said, on his knees before her, taking off her gloves and hat, feeling her hands and face, "this is not cold sickness, and I get the feeling that it's more than your fear of heights. Last time you were afraid of heights, you had a tongue to curse me with."
Bitterblue was holding his arm so hard that she thought her fingers would break. And then he put his other arm around her and pulled her into a hug. She transferred all her clinging pressure to his torso, hugging him back. Shaking. "Tell me what's wrong," he said.