Assassin's Quest

I briefly considered the Fool, Kettle, and Starling. It was hard to explain to myself the uneasiness I felt at speaking bluntly of a magic that had been guarded as a secret for so many generations. But this was my queen and she had asked me a question. I lowered my eyes and spoke. "The coterie Galen made was never loyal to the King. Not to King Shrewd, not to King Verity. Always they were the tool of a traitor, used to cast doubt on the King's abilities and undermine his ability to defend his kingdom."

From Kettle came a small gasp of indrawn breath, while Kettricken's blue eyes went steely gray with cold. I continued. "Even now, were I to openly Skill to Verity, they might find a way to listen. By such a Skilling, they might find him. Or us. They have grown strong in the Skill, and ferreted out ways of using it that I have never learned. They spy on other Skill users. They can, using only the Skill, inflict pain, or create illusion. I fear to Skill to my king, Queen Kettricken. That he has not chosen to Skill to me makes me believe my caution is the same as his."

Kettricken had gone snow pale as she mulled my words. Softly she asked, "Always disloyal to him, Fitz? Speak plainly. Did not they aid in defending the Six Duchies at all?"

I weighed my words as if I were reporting to Verity himself. "I have no proof, my lady. But I would guess that Skill-messages of Red-Ships were sometimes never relayed, or were deliberately delayed. I think the commands that Verity Skilled forth to the coterie members in the watchtowers were not passed on to the keeps they were to guard. They obeyed him enough that Verity could not tell his messages and commands had been delivered hours after he had sent them. To his dukes, his efforts would appear inept, his strategies untimely or foolish." My voice trailed away at the anger that blossomed in Kettricken's face. Color came up in her cheeks, angry roses.

"How many lives?" she asked harshly. "How many towns? How many dead, or worse, Forged? All for a prince's spite, all for a spoiled boy's ambition for the throne? How could he have done it, Fitz? How could he have stood to let people die simply to make his brother look foolish and incompetent?"

I did not have any real answer to that. "Perhaps he did not think they were people and towns," I heard myself say softly. "Perhaps to him they were only game pieces. Possessions of Verity's to be destroyed if he could not win them for himself."

Kettricken closed her eyes. "This cannot be forgiven," she said quietly to herself. She sounded ill with it. With an oddly gentle finality, she added, "You will have to kill him, FitzChivalry."

So odd, to be given that royal command at last. "I know that, my lady. I knew it when last I tried."

"No," she corrected me. "When last you attempted it, it was for yourself. Did not you know that had angered me? This time, I tell you that you must kill him for the sake of the Six Duchies." She shook her head, almost surprised. "It is the only way in which he can be Sacrifice for his people. To be killed for them before he can hurt them any more."

She looked around abruptly at the circle of silent people huddled in bedding, staring at her. "Go to sleep," she told all of us, as if we were willful children. "We must get up early again tomorrow and once more travel swiftly. Sleep while you can."

Starling went outside to take up her first night's watch. The others lay back, and as the flames from the brazier fell and the light dimmed, I am sure they slept. But despite my weariness, I lay and stared into the darkness. About me were only the sounds of people breathing, of the night wind barely moving through the trees. If I quested out, I could sense Nighteyes prowling about, ever alert for the unwary mouse. The peace and stillness of the winterbound forest was all around us. They all slept deeply, save for Starling on watch.

No one else heard the rushing drive of the Skill-urge that grew stronger within me every day of our journeying. I had not spoken to the Queen of my other fear: that if I reached out to Verity with the Skill, I would never return, but would instead immerse myself in that Skill river I had glimpsed and be forever borne away on it. Even to think on that temptation brought me quivering to the edge of acquiescence. Fiercely I set my walls and boundaries, putting every guard between me and the Skill that I had ever been taught. But tonight I set them, not just to keep Regal and his coterie out of my mind, but to keep myself in it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. The Skill Road