Assassin's Quest

Did she know that with her words she gave Verity back to me? I suspect she did. I had seen much of her past during our Skill-sharing. I knew the experience had to have flowed both ways. She knew how I had loved him, and how hurt I had been to find him so distant when I got here. I stood up immediately to go speak with him.

"Fitz!" she called me back. I turned to her. "Two things I would have you know, painful as you may find them."

I braced myself. "Your mother loved you," she said quietly. "You say you ca

Her words angered me and dizzied me. I pushed away the knowledge she offered me. I knew I had no memories of the woman who had borne me. Time and again, I had searched myself, and found no trace of her. None at all. "And the second thing," I asked her coldly.

She did not react to my anger, save with pity. "It is as bad, or perhaps worse. Again, it is a thing you already know. It is sad, that the only gifts I can offer you, the Catalyst who has changed my living death to dying life, are things you already possess. But there it is, and so I will say it. You will live to love again. You know you have lost your springtime girl, your Molly on the beach with the wind in her brown hair and red cloak. You have been gone too long from her, and too much has befallen you both. And what you loved, what both of you truly loved, was not each other. It was the time of your life. It was the spring of your years, and life ru

"You are wrong!" I shouted furiously. "You are wrong!"

The force of my cries had brought Kettricken to her feet. She stared at me, in fear and worry. I could not look at her. Tall and fair. My mother had been tall and fair. No. I recalled nothing of her. I strode past her, heedless of the wrench of pain my knee gave me at every step. I walked around the dragon, damning it with every step I took, and defying it to sense what I felt. When I reached Verity working on the left forefoot, I crouched down beside him and spoke in a savage whisper.

"Kettle says you are going to die when this dragon is done. That you will put all of yourself into it. Or so, with my feeble understanding of her words, I take it. Tell me I am wrong."

He leaned back on his heels and swiped at the chips he had loosened. "You are wrong," he said mildly. "Fetch your broom, would you, and clear this?"

I fetched my broom and came up beside him, almost of a mind to break it over his head more than use it. I knew he sensed my simmering fury, but he still gestured for me to clear his workspace. I did so with one furious brush. "Now," he said gently. "That is a fine anger you have. Potent and strong. That, I think, I shall take for him."

Soft as the brush of a butterfly's wing, I felt the kiss of his Skill. My anger was snatched from me, flayed whole from my soul and swept away to…

"No. Don't follow it." A gentle Skill-push from Verity, and I snapped back to my body. An instant later, I found myself sitting flat on the stone while the whole universe swung dizzyingly around my head. I curled forward slowly, bringing up my knees to lean my head against. I felt wretchedly ill. My anger was gone, replaced by a weary numbness.

"There," Verity continued. "As you asked for, I have done. I think you understand better now, what it is to put something into the dragon. Would you care to feed it more of yourself?"

I shook my head mutely. I feared to open my mouth.

"I will not die when the dragon is finished, Fitz. I will be consumed, that is true. Quite literally. But I will go on. As the dragon."

I found my voice. "And Kettle?"

"Kestrel will be a part of me. And her sister Gull. But I shall be the dragon." He had gone back to his wretched stone chipping.

"How can you do that?" My voice was filled with accusation. "How can you do that to Kettricken? She's given up everything to come here to you. And you will simply leave her, alone and childless?"

He leaned forward so that his forehead rested against the dragon. His endless chipping stopped. After a time, he spoke in a thick voice. "I should have you stand here and talk to me while I work, Fitz. Just when I think I am past any great feelings at all, you stir them in me." He lifted his face to regard me. His tears had cut two paths through the gray rock dust. "What choice do I have?"

"Simply leave the dragon. Let us go back to the Six Duchies, and rally the folk, and fight the Red-Ships with sword and Skill, as we did before. Perhaps…"

"Perhaps we would all be dead before we even reached Jhaampe. Is that a better end for my queen? No. I shall carry her back to Buckkeep, and clean the coasts, and she shall reign long and well as Queen. There. That is what I choose to give her."

"And an heir?" I asked bitterly.

He shrugged wearily and took up his chisel again. "You know what must be. Your daughter will be raised as heir."

"NO! Threaten me with that again, and regardless of the risk, I will Skill to Burrich to flee with her."

"You ca

Another small mystery laid to rest. For all the good it did me. "Verity, please. I beg you. Do not do this thing to me. Far better I should be consumed in the dragon as well. I offer you that. Take my life and feed it to the dragon. I will give you anything you ask of me. But promise me that my daughter will not be sacrificed to the Farseer throne."

"I ca

"If you bore any feelings at all for me anymore," I began, but he interrupted me.

"Ca

I managed to stand up. I limped away. There was nothing more to say to him. King or man, uncle or friend, I seemed to have lost all knowledge of who he was. When I Skilled toward him, I found only his walls. When I quested toward him with the Wit, I found his life flickering between himself and the stone dragon. And of late, it seemed to burn brighter within the dragon, not Verity.

There was no one else in camp and the fire was nearly out. I flung more wood on it, and then sat eating dried meat beside it. The pig was nearly gone. We'd have to hunt again soon. Or rather, Nighteyes and Kettricken should hunt again. She seemed to bring meat down easily for him. My self-pity was losing its savor, but I could think of no better solution than to wish I had some brandy to drown it in. At last, with few other interesting alternatives, I went to bed.

I slept, after a fashion. Dragons plagued my dreams and Kettle's game took on odd meanings as I tried to decide if a red stone was powerful enough to capture Molly. My dreams were rambling and incoherent, and I broke often to the surface of my sleep, to stare at the dark inside the tent. I quested out once to where Nighteyes prowled near a small fire while Starling and the Fool slept turn and turn about. They had moved their sentry post to the brow of a hill where they could command a good view of the winding Skill road below them. I should have walked out and joined them. Instead I rolled over and dipped into my dreams again. I dreamed of Regal's troops coming, not by dozens or scores, but hundreds of gold-and-brown troops pouring into the quarry, to corner us against the vertical black walls and kill us all.