Assassin’s Fate

Slowly he lifted his face. ‘Not a perfect quote, but close.’ He looked ill and dwindled. ‘“Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.” The words I dreamed so long ago. The words I came so far to say to King Shrewd, so that he would not let Prince Regal kill Chivalry’s bastard. I knew if I could but say those words to him, I could keep Fitz alive. The first time.’ He shook his head. ‘The first time of many that I intervened, to push him through a tiny hole in his fate. To keep him alive, to be a lever I could use to alter how the future might unfold.’

And the world re-ordered itself around me. I spoke each word carefully. ‘You are so stupid.’

Astonishment broke through his pain.

Could I still undo what I had done? So that he could do what he should? ‘I lied!’ I spat my whisper at him. ‘I knew you read my journal. I knew you read my dreams. I wrote there what I thought would hurt you most! I lied to hurt you. For letting him be dead while you lived. For being loved by him more than he loved me!’ I took a breath. ‘He loved you more than he ever loved any of the rest of us!’

‘What?’ His mouth hung open after that word, his eyes wide. He made a stupid face of astonishment.

As if he hadn’t always known he was loved the best. That he was the Beloved.

‘Stupid again! Asking stupid questions. Go with him. Go now. It’s you he wants, not me. Go!’

When had my voice risen to a shout? I did not know, I did not care. Let it be a spectacle, let all the camp be roused and folk stare at me. For that was what was happening. Dutiful had come to his feet, a sword in his hand, looking around for an enemy. They were all half-awake, roused by my shouts. Hap was staring with his mouth hanging open, Nettle’s hands clutched her face in horror at the truth I had shouted.

And my father lifted a hand. His face was so ravaged, it was like looking at death itself. Except for the smooth, silvered part of it. By creeping degrees, his human hand lifted. He turned it over, showing a bloody palm. His cracked lips moved.

Beloved.

He could not say the word, but I knew it.

So did his Fool.

He rose, the blanket that had draped his shoulders falling to the earth. He pulled the glove from his hand and let it fall. He walked uncertainly, like a puppet with his strings pulled by an apprentice puppeteer. He reached my father. So tenderly, he set his hand into my father’s. Then he leaned down until he lay upon the wolf, his face turned to my father’s face. He put his arm across my father’s bony back. He drew him close and then set his silver fingers to the wolf.

For a moment, all was still. Then I saw Beloved’s fingers stir the soft fur of the wolf’s back. The firelit bodies of my father and Beloved softened and merged. I felt something I could not describe. Like the whoosh of air when a door opens, and then closes again, but it was in the Skill-current, and so strong that I saw Nettle flinch at it, too. Briefer than an instant, I saw light striate out from them. A nexus, a node on the path of fate. Then it was finished. Something finally complete, as it should have been.

Their colours dimmed and the wolf’s eyes gleamed. It was slow and it was sudden, that they were gone and only the wolf remained. The snarl faded. The wolf’s ears pricked and swivelled. His broad head turned slowly. He lifted his muzzle and snuffed the night air. Such eyes he had! They were a darkness full of the brilliance of life. For one brief instant, light caught in them and glowed green. We were all as motionless as if a huge predator faced us. Then, like a wet dog, the wolf shook himself and tiny fragments of stone flew in all directions, as if he had rolled in them.

His slow look roved over us, pausing at each in turn. His gaze lingered on me the last. His eyes were both hard and amused. Those were astounding lies, cub. And the very last one the most inspired of all. You have your father’s talent for it. He gave a final shake of his coat. I go to the hunt!

His claws left deep scratches on the stone as he leapt, not only over the fire but over all of us. For a moment, he was motion in the darkness. Then gone.

‘He did it!’ Dutiful shouted. ‘He did it!’ He seized Nettle in his arms and whirled her round.

Hap rose to his feet and in his minstrel’s voice, he declaimed to the half-roused camp, ‘And so the Wolf of the West rose from the stone! And so he will rise again if ever the folk of the Six Duchies call to him in need.’

‘Seven Duchies,’ Kettricken corrected him.

FIFTY The Mountains