Fool’s Assassin

I don’t want to kill myself, Nettle. I don’t. I haven’t even thought about it. I just sometimes get so lonely … Sometimes, I just need it to stop hurting.

Well, it doesn’t. Her reply was savagely angry. It doesn’t stop hurting. So live with it, because you are not the only one feeling that pain. And the last thing that Bee needs is to have it doubled.

I wouldn’t do that! I was starting to be angry at her. How could she think that of me?

It’s a bad example to set for the apprentices. And it’s not as if you are the only one who has ever been tempted to escape by that route.

That stunned me. Cold rippled down my spine. You?

She did something. I wasn’t sure what, but suddenly I was slammed back into my own body. I was sitting in my chair in front of a dying fire. I sat up with a start, and then leaned back, my head spinning and my heart pounding, just as if she had flung me to the ground. I had the grace to be ashamed of myself. She was right. I had been teetering on the edge, looking over, daring myself to take the plunge. If I had weakened for one moment, it would have been irrevocable. And Bee would have taken the brunt of it.

I shut my eyes and lowered my face into my hands.

And another thing!

Sweet Eda, she had grown powerful. Nettle barged into my mind as strongly as if she slammed the door open and stood before my chair. She gave me no time to respond.

You need to pay more attention to Bee. Riddle says she is much alone, running about with little supervision, no chores or expectations, and that she looks neglected. Her clothing, her hair … He says that you seem to pay attention to her mind, but the rest of her is … Well. She can’t be allowed to run about like a stray cat. You need to take her in hand. Would you have her grow up both useless and ignorant? Unkempt and untaught? She need to be occupied, both her mind and her hands! He says that we have badly misjudged how intelligent she is, and that as a result she has not been educated as she should have been, from the time she was small. Bee is jealous of Shun and the attention she demands. Don’t give her cause for that. You’ve only the one child there, Fitz. Pay attention to her.

I will, I promised, but she was gone. And I was left sitting in my chair, my head aching from the Skill as it had not in many a year. My uncle Verity had once said of my father that being Skilled by him was like being trampled by a horse. He was strong with it; he charged into his brother’s mind, dumped his information, and left. I now thought I understood what he had meant. My candles had burned down to stubs before I felt completely like myself. Nettle had planted a foreign thought in my mind. Bee was jealous? I spent that time pondering why on earth Bee would feel jealous of Shun. When I thought I had the answer, I resolved to call in Revel early the next day and remedy all.

Chapter Twenty-Two Perseverance