Assassin's Quest

None save Chade. He crossed the room to me in long strides, stripping off his riding gloves as he came. When he threw back the hood of his winter cloak, I saw that his white hair was bound back in a warrior's tail. He wore a band of leather across his brow, and centered on his forehead was a medallion of silver. A buck with antlers lowered to charge. The sign Verity had given to me. Starling moved hastily from his path. He gave her not a glance as he folded easily to sit on the floor by my bed. He took my hand in his, narrowed his eyes at the sight of the frostbite. He held it softly. "Oh, my boy, my boy, I believed you were dead. When Burrich sent me word he had found your body, I thought my heart would break. The words we had when last we parted … but here you are, alive if not well."

He bent and kissed me. The hand he set to my cheek was callused now, the pocks scarcely visible on the weathered flesh. I looked up in his eyes and saw welcome and joy. Tears clouded my own as I had to demand, "Would you truly take my daughter for the throne? Another bastard for the Farseer line … Would you have let her be used as we have been used?"

Something grew still in his face. The set of his mouth hardened into resolve. "I will do whatever I have to do to see a true hearted Farseer on the Six Duchies throne again. As I am sworn to do. As you are sworn also." His eyes met mine.

I looked at him in dismay. He loved me. Worse, he believed in me. He believed that I had in me that strength and devotion to duty that had been the backbone of his life. Thus he could inflict on me things harder and colder than Regal's hatred of me could imagine. His belief in me was such that he would not hesitate to plunge me into any battle, that he would expect any sacrifice of me. A dry sob suddenly racked me and tore at the arrow in my back. "There is no end!" I cried out. "That duty will hound me into death. Better I were dead! Let me be dead then!" I snatched my hand away from Chade, heedless of how much that motion hurt. "Leave me!"

Chade didn't even flinch. "He is burning with fever," he said accusingly to the Fool. "He doesn't know what he's saying. You should have given him willowbark tea."

A terrible smile crooked the Fool's lips. Before he could reply, there was a sharp shredding sound. A gray head was forced through the greased hide window, flashing a muzzle full of white teeth. The rest of the wolf soon followed, oversetting a shelf of potted herbs onto some scrolls set out below them. Nighteyes sprang, nails skittering on the wood floor, and slid to a halt between me and the hastily standing Chade. He snarled all round. I will kill them all for you, if you say so. I dropped my head down to my pillows. My clean, wild wolf. This was what I had made of him. Was it any better than what Chade had made of me?

I looked around them again. Chade was standing, his face very still. Every single face held some shock, some sadness, some disappointment that I was responsible for. Despair and fever shook me. "I'm sorry," I said weakly. "I have never been what you thought I was," I confessed. "Never."

Silence filled up the room. The fire crackled briefly.

I dropped my face to my pillow and closed my eyes. I spoke the words I was compelled to say. "But I shall go and find Verity. Somehow, I will bring him back to you. Not because I am what you believe me to be," I added, slowly lifting my head. I saw hope kindle in Chade's face. "But because I have no choice. I have never had any choices."

"You do believe Verity is alive!" The hope in Kettricken's voice was savagely hungry. She swept toward me like an ocean storm.

I nodded my head. Then, "Yes," I managed. "Yes, I believe he lives. I have felt him strongly with me." Her face was so close, huge in my sight. I blinked my eyes, and then could not focus them.

"Why has not he returned then? Is he lost? Injured? Does he have no care for those he left behind?" Her questions rattled against me like flung stones, one after another.

"I think," I began, and then could not. Could not think, could not speak. I closed my eyes. I listened to a long silence. Nighteyes whined, then growled deep in his throat.

"Perhaps we should all leave for a time," Starling ventured unevenly. "Fitz is not up to this just now."

"You may leave," the Fool told her grandly. "Unfortunately I still live here."