Assassin's Quest

They were the wrong words. She might have been raised to them, but I had been told, "The fight is not over until you have won it." I lifted my eyes and looked around at them all. I don't know what they saw on my face but their faces became still. "I can find Verity," I said quietly. "And I will."

They were silent.

"You want your king," I said to Kettricken. I waited until I saw assent in her face.

"I want my child," I said quietly.

"What are you saying?" Kettricken demanded coldly.

"I am saying that I want the same things you do. I wish to be with the one I love, to raise our child with her." I met her eyes. "Tell me I can have that. It is all I have ever wanted."

She met my eyes squarely. "I cannot make you that promise, FitzChivalry. She is too important for simple love to claim her."

The words struck me as both utterly absurd and completely true. I bowed my head in what was not assent. I stared a hole into the floor, trying to find other choices, other ways.

"I know what you will say next," Kettricken said bitterly. "That if I claim your child for the throne, you will not help me find Verity. I have considered long and well, knowing that this will sever me from your help. I am prepared to seek him out on my own. I have the map. Somehow, I shall …"

"Kettricken." I cut into her speech with her name said quietly, bereft of her title. I had not meant to. I saw it startled her. I found myself slowly shaking my head. "You do not understand. Were Molly standing here before me with our daughter, still I would have to seek my king. No matter what is done to me, no matter how I am wronged. Still, I must seek Verity."

My words changed the faces in the room. Chade lifted his head and looked at me with fierce pride shining in his eyes. Kettricken turned aside, blinking at tears. I think she may have felt slightly ashamed. To the Fool, I was once more his Catalyst. In Starling there bloomed the hope that I might still be worthy of a legend.

But in me there was the overriding hunger for the absolute. Verity had shown it to me, in its pure physical form. I would answer my king's Skill-command and serve him as I had vowed. But another call beckoned me now as well. The Skill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. The Mountains

ONE MIGHT SUPPOSE that the Mountain Kingdom, with its sparse hamlets and scattered folk, was a new realm but recently gathered together. In truth, its history far predates any of the written records of the Six Duchies. To call this region a kingdom is truly a misnomer. In ancient times, the diverse hunters, herders, and farmers, both nomadic and settled, gradually gave their allegiance to a Judge, a woman of great wisdom, who resided at Jhaampe. Although this person has come to be called the King or Queen of the Mountains by outsiders, to the residents of the Mountain Kingdom, he or she is still the Sacrifice, the one who is willing to give all, even life, for the sake of those who are ruled. The first Judge who lived at Jhaampe as now a shadowy figure of legend, her deeds known only by the songs of her that Mountain folk still sing.

Yet old as those songs are, there is an even older rumor of a more ancient ruler and capital city. The Mountain Kingdom, as we know it today, consists almost entirely of the wandering folk and settlements on the eastern flanks of the Mountains. Beyond the Mountains lie the icy shores that border the White Sea. Some few trade routes still meander through the sharp teeth of the Mountains to reach the hunting folk who live in that snowy place. To the south of the Mountains are the unsettled forests of the Rain Wilds, and somewhere the source of the Rain River that is the trade boundary of the Chalced States. These are the only lands and folks that have been truly charted beyond the Mountains. Yet there have always been legends of another land, one locked and lost in the peaks beyond the Mountain Kingdom. As one travels deeper in the Mountains, past the boundaries of the folk who owe allegiance to Jhaampe, the land becomes even more rugged and unyielding. Snow never leaves the taller peaks, and some valleys host only glacial ice. In some areas, it is said that great steams and smokes pour up from cracks in the mountains and that the earth may tremble quietly or wrench itself in violent shakings. There are few reasons for anyone to venture into that region of scree and cliffs. Hunting is easier and more profitable on the greener slopes of the mountains. There is insufficient grazing to lure any shepherd's flocks.