Assassin's Quest

Kettle did not sound sorry. But I understood that now. Almost all of her feelings were in the dragon. She spoke of what she knew she would have felt, once. She still had pain for me, but she no longer recalled any pain of her own to compare it with. I only, asked, quietly, "Is there nothing private anymore?"

"Only the things we keep from ourselves," she replied sadly. She looked over at me. "It is a good thing you do this night. A kind thing." Her lips started to smile but her eyes teared. "To give him one last night of youth and passion." She studied me, the set look on my face. "I shall say no more of it, then."

I walked the rest of the way beside her in silence.

I sat by the warm embers of last night's fire and watched the dawn come. The shrilling of night insects changed gradually to the morning challenges of distant birds. I could hear them very well now. It was strange, I thought, to sit and wait for myself. Kettle said nothing. She breathed deep of the changing scent of the air as night turned to dawn and watched the lightening of the sky with avid eyes. Storing it all up to put into the dragon.

I heard the grate of boot against stone and looked up. I watched myself coming. My stride was confident and brisk, my head up. My face was freshly washed, my wet hair slicked back from my brow into a warrior's tail. Verity wore my body well.

Our eyes met in the early light. I saw my eyes narrow as Verity appraised his own body. I stood up and without thinking, began to brush my clothes off. Then I realized what I was doing. This was not a shirt I had borrowed. My laugh boomed out, louder than I used it. Verity shook my head at me.

"Leave it, boy. There's no making it better. And I'm almost finished with it anyway." He slapped my chest with the palm of my hand. "Once I had a body like this," he told me, as if I hadn't known. "I had forgotten so much of how that felt. So much." The smile faded from his face as he regarded me peering at him from his own eyes. "Take care of it, Fitz. You only get one. To keep, anyway."

A wave of giddiness. Black closed from the edges of my vision, and I folded up my knees and sank down to keep from falling.

"Sorry," Verity said quietly, and it was in his own voice.

I looked up to find him looking down on me. I stared up at him mutely. I could smell Kettricken's scent on my skin. My body was very tired. I knew a moment of total outrage. Then it crested and fell away as if the emotion were too much effort. Verity's eyes met mine and accepted all I felt.

"I will neither apologize to you nor thank you. Neither would be adequate." He shook his head to himself. "And in truth, how could I say I am sorry? I am not." He looked away from me, out over my head. "My dragon will rise. My queen will bear a child. I will drive the Red-Ships from our shore." He took a deep breath. "No. I am not sorry for our bargain." His eyes came back to me. "FitzChivalry. Are you sorry?"

Slowly I stood up. "I don't know." I tried to decide. "The roots of it go too deep," I said at last. "Where would I start to undo my past? How far back would I have to reach, how much would I have to change in order to change this, or to say I was not sorry now?"

The road is empty below us. Nighteyes spoke in my mind.

I know. Kettle knows, too. She but looked for something to busy the Fool and sent you along to keep him safe. You can come back now.

Oh. Are you all right?

"FitzChivalry. Are you all right?" There was concern in Verity's voice. But it could not completely mask the triumph there as well.

"Of course not," I told them both. "Of course not." I walked away from the dragon.

Behind me, I heard Kettle ask eagerly, "Are we ready to quicken him?"

Verity's soft voice carried to my ears. "No. Not just yet. For a little while longer, I would have these memories to myself. For a short time more, I would remain a man."

As I passed through the camp, Kettricken emerged from her tent. She wore the same travel-wearied tunic and leggings she had the day before. Her hair was caught back from her face in a short, thick braid. There were still lines in her brow and at the corners of her mouth. But her face had the warm luminescence of the finest pearls. Renewed faith shone in her. She took a deep breath of the morning air and smiled at me radiantly.

I hurried past her.

The stream water was very cold. Coarse horsetail grasses grew along one bank. I used handfuls of them to scrub myself. My wet clothes were draped on the bushes on the other side of the stream. The heat of the day promised they would soon be dry. Nighteyes sat on the bank and watched me with a pucker between his eyes.

I do not understand. You do not smell bad.

Nighteyes. Go hunting. Please.

You wish to be alone?

As much as that is possible anymore.

He stood up and stretched, curtseying low to me as he did so.

Someday, it will be only you and I We shall hunt and eat and sleep. And you will heal.

May we both live to see that, I agreed wholeheartedly.