Assassin’s Fate

‘I would just like to finish this,’ I said to the Fool. I stroked the wolf’s rough stone coat. He still had no colour. The fur of his tail looked lumpy to me. His eyes needed work, and his bared teeth. The tendons in his hind legs. I closed my eyes. I needed to stop numbering what was missing.

It was relatively quiet now. Dark had come and the cool of the Mountains night was descending. The shelter helped but the chill still reached in. I was sitting in the open front of it, leaning back on my wolf. I felt as if I must always be touching him now. For safety.

The Fool was sitting on the ground next to me, hugging his knees and drinking a cup of tea. He set it down carefully. ‘You did not really think you would be allowed to die privately, did you?’ He flapped a long, narrow hand at the encampment that had sprung up in the quarry. There were multiple campfires and tents softly billowing in the night breeze. At the forest’s edge, someone kept watch on the picketed horses. How many people? I could not guess. More than thirty. More had arrived today. All come to watch me die.

Dutiful had come with his Skill-coterie. Over their mother’s objections, both Integrity and Prosper had come as well. Shun had wanted to come but still had a terrible fear of Skill-pillars. Hap had talked them into bringing him, and was now lying in a tent feeling disoriented and nauseated. He had even suggested he might ride a horse home through the Mountain Kingdom rather than brave a Skill-pillar again. Integrity had liked the idea and proposed to accompany him ‘since I am soon bound for the Mountain Kingdom anyway’. Dutiful was uncertain. They were waiting for Kettricken to return from visiting Verity-as-Dragon to discuss it. I could sense Dutiful’s impatience. His wife would soon be brought to bed with their child. He should be there, not here to watch me die. Earlier I had promised, ‘I will go into the wolf as soon as I can. For now, you should just go home. There is nothing you can do here. Be with the woman you love, while you can.’

He had looked troubled, but had not left yet.

I did not want to ponder any of it. My body was beginning to feel like a rickety shed on a sea cliff’s edge. I still ate but there was no pleasure in it. My gums were bleeding and my nose was continually crusted with blood. The world tasted and smelled like blood. And I itched everywhere, inside and out, as new pustules erupted. I had a terrible itch in the back of my throat, and one high inside my nose. They were maddening. I felt regret for the sturdy body I had taken for granted. With my fingers and thumb, I worked a lump from Nighteyes’ tail.

‘What did Dutiful say to you?’ the Fool asked.

‘The usual. He promised to care for Nettle and Bee. He said he would miss me. That he wished I could see his third child born. Fool, I know that what he says is so important to him. It should be to me. I know that I loved him and his boys. But … there is not enough left of me to feel those things.’ I shook my weary head. ‘All of the memories that kept those connections, the wolf has taken. I fear I hurt him. I wish he would just go home and take his coterie with him.’

He nodded slowly and took another sip of his tea. ‘So it was with Verity at the end of his days. It was hard to reach him. Did that hurt you?’

‘Yes. But I understood.’

‘And so does Dutiful. And Kettricken.’ He looked away from me. ‘So do we all.’

He lifted his gloved hand and considered it. The first time he had silvered his fingers, it had been an accident. He had been acting as Verity’s manservant and had accidentally touched his silvered hands. ‘Fitz,’ he said suddenly. ‘Is there enough of you to fill this wolf?’

I considered my wolf. It was a small block of memory-stone compared to what Verity had chosen, but much larger than a real wolf. The top of his shoulders was level with my chest. But somehow the size of the stone did not seem related to how much I needed to fill it. ‘I think so. I won’t know until I go into him.’

‘When will that be?’

I scratched the back of my neck. My nails came back bloody. I wiped them on my thigh. ‘When I have no more to give him, I suppose. Or when I am so close to dying that I must go.’

‘Oh, Fitz,’ he said mournfully, as if it were the first time he had considered the idea.

‘It will all be for the best,’ I told him, and tried to believe it. ‘Nighteyes will be a wolf again. As will I. And Bee will have you to watch over her and—’

‘She doesn’t like me, I fear.’

‘There have been many times when Nettle or Hap disliked me, Fool.’

‘I might feel better if she disliked me. I don’t think she feels much one way or the other.’ In a lower voice he added, ‘I was so sure that she would love me, as I love her. I thought it would just happen, once we were near each other. It has not.’

‘Being loved by your children isn’t really what being a parent is about.’

‘I loved my parents. I loved them so terribly much.’

‘I have no basis of comparison,’ I pointed out to him quietly.

‘You had Burrich.’