Assassin's Quest

My skin prickled as I realized we were going in the direction of the pillar. But we found her before we reached there. She was standing, motionless as the stone itself, by the girl on the dragon. She had clambered up onto the block of stone that mired the dragon, and reached up to lay a hand on the girl's leg. A trick of the moonlight made it look as if the girl's stone eyes looked down at her. Light sparkled silver on a stone tear, and glistened on the tears on Kettricken's face. Nighteyes padded lightly up, leaped weightlessly upon the dais, and leaned his head against Kettricken's leg with a tiny whine..

"Hush," she told him softly. "Listen. Can you hear her weeping? I can."

I did not doubt it, for I could feel her questing out with the Wit, more strongly than I had ever sensed it from her before.

"My lady," I said quietly.

She startled, her hand flying to her mouth as she turned to me.

"I beg your pardon. I did not mean to frighten you. But you should not be out here alone. Kettle fears there may still be danger from the coterie, and we are not so far from the pillar."

She smiled bitterly. "Wherever I am, I am alone. Nor can I think of anything they could do to me worse than what I have done to myself."

"That is only because you do not know them as well as I do. Please, my queen, come back to the camp with me."

She moved and I thought she would step down to me. Instead she sat down and leaned back against the dragon. My Wit-sense of the dragon-girl's misery was echoed by Kettricken's. "I just wanted to lie beside him," she said quietly. "To hold him. And to be held. To be held, Fitz. To feel … not safe. I know none of us are safe. But to feel valued. Loved. I did not expect more than that. But he would not. He said he could not touch me. That he dared not touch anything live save his dragon." She turned her head aside. "Even with his hands and arms gloved, he would not touch me."

I found myself clambering up the dais. I took her by the shoulders and drew her to her feet. "He would if he could," I told her. "This I know. He would if he could."

She lifted her hands to cover her face, and her silent sliding tears suddenly became sobs. She spoke through them. "You … and your Skill. And him. You speak so easily of knowing what he feels. Of love. But I … I don't have that. I am only … I need to feel it, Fitz. I need to feel his arms about me, to be close to him. To believe he loves me. As I love him. After I have failed him in so many ways. How can I believe … when he refuses to even …" I put my arms about her and drew her head down on my shoulder, while Nighteyes leaned up against both of us and keened softly.

"He loves you," I told her. "He does. But fate has laid this burden upon both of you. It must be borne."

"Sacrifice," she breathed, and I did not know if she named her child or defined her life. She continued to weep, and I held her, soothing her hair and telling her it would get better, it had to be better someday, there would be a life for them when all this was over, and children, children growing up safe from Red-Ships or Regal's evil ambitions. In time I felt her quiet, and realized it was Wit as much as words I had been giving her. The feeling I had for her had mingled with the wolf's and joined us. Gentler than a Skill-bond, more warm and natural, I held her in my heart as much as in my arms. Nighteyes pressed up against her, telling her he would guard her, that his meat would ever be her meat, that she need fear nothing that had teeth, for we were pack, and always would be.

It was she who finally broke the embrace. She gave a final shuddering sigh, and then stepped apart from me. Her hand rose to smear the wetness on her cheeks. "Oh, Fitz," she said, simply, sadly. And that was all. I stood still, feeling the chill apartness where for a time we had been together. A sudden pang of loss assailed me. And then a shiver of fear as I realized its source. The girl on the dragon had shared our embrace, her Wit-misery briefly consoled by our closeness. Now, as we drew apart, the far, chill wailing of the stone rose up again, louder and stronger. I tried to leap lightly down from the dais, but as I landed I staggered and nearly fell. Somehow that joining had drawn strength from me. It was frightening, but I masked my uneasiness as I silently accompanied Kettricken back to the camp.