And it was the wolves and cats that always appeared so suddenly, spitting and roaring, tearing toward them across rock.

First of all, while cougars are ambush hunters, wolves are pack hunters and should not be behaving like this.

Second of all, WHERE ARE ALL THESE APEX PREDATORS COMING FROM AND WHAT ARE THEY EATING?

Maybe Katsa’s ‘survival’ magic is compelling these poor creatures to throw themselves at her so she can have pelts for coats.  Which would be an interesting aspect, if only it were used to effect instead of being a throwaway line.  As it stands, it really doesn’t deliver anything besides ‘you really don’t understand nature, do you, book?’

They keep climbing up the mountain, forging on through blizzards and ice storms, because apparently this book doesn’t understand those either.  And…really, that’s all they do here, they walk and it’s uphill and snowy.  There’s not much in the way of actual mountain climbing, no special considerations that mark it as separate from just walking uphill.  These must be very short mountains.  And yet, they can’t be, because they’re considered “impassable.”  If all it takes is proper winter clothing and an absence of cat-attracting magic, then what’s making them so all-fired difficult?

They finally make it past the tree line and into the pass itself, which Katsa decides to run through all in one go.  Naturally, she does not wait until morning so she can have an entire day to get through it, but rather sets out as soon as she arrives, in the middle of the afternoon.

You know what happens then?  Do you?  Do you?  Oh, it’s so exciting.  THEY WALK SOME MORE.

Seriously, she carries Bitterblue on her back and just runs across the mountains.  Wow, aren’t you so fascinated?

There’s some attempt to convey the fact that it’s super cold, but since all that does is make the book say “it’s super cold” and it doesn’t slow down Katsa at all…who cares?

But sunset meant the day was ending. Night was coming; and night was always colder than day.

No shit, Sherlock.

You know, this could have been really interesting.  A magic that confers ability without intelligence?  Sure, why not.  She starts fucking running across a pass and does it in the middle of the afternoon, and she survives because magic.  If it were being played with, that could be interesting, especially since she’s got non-magic companions.  She could be doing her magical slap-dash shit that she doesn’t even realize doesn’t work, only to have it fail utterly and be confused about that.  We could see everyone else’s confusion as Katsa puts together the most disjointed, jerryrigged plans, not realizing that she’s doing things wrong, because her magic has always made them right.  This could be interesting, but only if her magic doesn’t spread to other people.

And only if the book realizes that she’s doing things wrong, which it doesn’t appear to.

They make it to the treeline on the other side of the pass, collapse there, and build a fire, all the while congratulating themselves on what a fine job they did accomplishing the impossible.  I, on the other hand, am still wondering what they did that was so impressive.  (Seriously, go in with proper gear and walk, why has no one been able to do that before now?)

The inn sat in what passed for a clearing here in the south of Sunder, but would have been called a forest anywhere else. There was space between oaks and maples for the inn, a stable, a barn, and a patch of garden; and enough open sky to allow sunlight to flicker down and reflect the surrounding trees in the windows of the buildings.

Do you know what humans are really, really good at?  Chopping down trees.  Especially when wood is your main fuel source. 

And why is there an inn right here?  They’re in the heights of the “impassable” mountains, where there is literally no reason to go unless you’re trying to just be a hermit, so who the fuck is this inn catering to? 

Traffic through Sunder was always steady, even at winter’s outset, even at the edge of the mountains.

…unless they came out of the mountains somewhere between now at the last chapter?  It never really said that, though.  They survived the pass, built a little fire, went to sleep, and now there’s an inn.  I’m so confused.

Cart horses labored northward pulling barrels of Monsean cider, or the wood of Sunder’s fine forests, or the ice of Sunder’s eastern mountains. Merchants bore Lienid tomatoes, grapes, apricots; Lienid jewelry and ornaments; and fish found only in Lienid’s seas, north from the Sunderan port cities, up into the Middluns, to Wester, Nander, and Estill. And southward from those same kingdoms came freshwater fish, grains and hay, corn, potatoes, carrots – all the things a people who live in the forests want – and herbs and apples and pears, and horses, to be loaded onto ships and transported to Lienid and Monsea.

That’s a hell of a variety of products for an inn that “isn’t busy.”  And I have no idea why you’re carrying around fresh, easily-spoiled produce.  Do you know how long a tomato is going to last in a cart-and-buggy-transportation economy?  I’ll give you a hint: it won’t make it off the island.

Katsa and Bitterblue talk about how they can’t go into the inn because they don’t know if Leck’s magic has come this far.

“Unless you’re planning to kill everyone we see,” Bitterblue grumbled. “Oh, Katsa, look – that girl is carrying eggs. Oh, I would kill for an egg.”

…this narration is so bland I can’t tell what to make of that.  Am I supposed to take from that that Bitterblue is literally willing to kill someone for their eggs?  I would believe that (going weeks without proper food will do strange things to a person) but it’s presented so…blandly.

Katsa decides to just steal some food instead.

They go to a town that has a ‘council sympathizer’ living there, because remember those people?  Yeah, I’d almost forgotten, too.  Don’t worry, though, there’s enough of them that they pop up conveniently whenever needed.  This person also runs a prosperous establishment, a store this time, and he has an enormous house.

IN A SMALL VILLAIGE IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE.

Who the fuck is buying anything from him?  How?  Why?  This is not how economy works!

And if this isn’t the middle of “foothills of the impassable mountains nowhere,” then that would be nice to know!

Katsa wished, as [she spied on all his numerous children], that this Council contact had not taken his duty to procreate quite so seriously.

…whut?  You guys have no discernible religion, so…whut?  Is this your way of telling me that there is a religion around?  Or is there something else that includes a ‘duty to procreate’?

She waits until nightfall, finally goes up to the family, and then starts making a list of demands.  The book tries to paint it as okay because the family is all “yes, yes, whatever you need, of course, and how about this, too,” but that doesn’t change what’s going on here.  Katsa showed up out of the blue, made demands, and then took it as her due when the family rushed to obey.

Because I see we’re still going with the idea that the nobles are the important people and the commoners are just sort of there.

They even give them heated baths!  And, no, the book doesn’t think those are easy, because it also points out that they had to draw water and build up fires to heat it.

To the Sunderan port cities they must now go.

In a book full of awkward sentences, I think that one’s the worst.

She and the child would start tomorrow. They would ride the horse into the ground.

The horse that your hosts have gifted to you.  The horse that you didn’t even offer to pay for.

Fuck you, Katsa.

So, after Katsa eats their food, sleeps in their bed, takes their stuff, and doesn’t even say thank you for all their effort, much less pay them with that bag of gold she’s been carting around this whole time, they set out for a port city to see about getting a ship to Leinid.