And he tumbled me in.

  The pool was deeper than I was tall, de­signed to be neck-high on a tall Chy­urda. It was pain­fully hot to my un­pre­pared body. It drove the air from my lungs and I sank. I pushed feebly off the bot­tom and man­aged to get my face above wa­ter. ‘Burrich!’ I wasted my breath on a shout to someone who could not aid me. The wa­ter closed on me again. My arms and legs would not work to­gether. I blundered into a wall and pushed my­self un­der be­fore I could once again sur­face and gasp in some air. The hot wa­ter was loosen­ing my already flac­cid muscles. I think I would still have been drown­ing even if the wa­ter had been only knee-deep.

  I lost count of how many times I floundered to the sur­face, to gasp a breath. The smooth, worked stone of the walls eluded my palsied grip, and my ribs stabbed with pain each time I tried for a deep breath. My strength was flow­ing out of me, las­sit­ude flow­ing in. So warm, so deep. Drowned like a puppy, I thought to my­self as I felt the dark­ness clos­ing. Boy? someone quer­ied, but all was black.

  So much wa­ter, so hot and so deep. I could not find a bot­tom any more, let alone a side. I struggled feebly against the wa­ter, but there was no res­ist­ance. No up, no down. No use fight­ing to stay alive in­side my body. Noth­ing left to pro­tect, so drop the walls, and see if there is one last ser­vice you can render your king. The walls of my world fell away from me, and I sped forth like an ar­row fi­nally re­leased. Ga­len had been right. There was no dis­tance in Skilling, no dis­tance at all. Buck­keep was right here, and Shrewd! I shrieked in des­per­a­tion. But my king was in­tent upon other things. He was closed and walled to me, no mat­ter how I stormed around him. No help there.

  My body was fail­ing, my thread to it was tenu­ous. One last chance. Ver­ity, Ver­ity! I cried. I found him, flailed at him, but could find no pur­chase, no grip. He was else­where, open to someone else, closed to me. Ver­ity! I wailed, drown­ing in des­pair. And sud­denly it was as if strong hands gripped mine as I scrabbled up a slip­pery cliff, gripped and held tight and drew me in when I would have slipped away.

  Chiv­alry! No, it can’t be, it’s the boy! Fitz?

  You ima­gine things, my prince. There is no one there. At­tend to what we do now. Ga­len, calm and in­si­di­ous as poison as he pushed me aside. I could not with­stand him; he was too strong.

  Fitz? Ver­ity, un­sure now as I grew weaker.

  From I knew not where, I found strength. Some­thing gave way be­fore me, and I was strong. I clung to Ver­ity like a hawk on his wrist. I was there with him. I saw with Ver­ity’s eyes: the freshly-decked throne room, the Book of Events on the great table be­fore him, laid open to re­ceive the re­cord­ing of Ver­ity’s mar­riage. Around him, in their best finery and most costly jew­els, the few hon­oured ones who had been in­vited to wit­ness Ver­ity wit­ness­ing his bride’s pledge through Au­gust’s eyes. And Ga­len, who was sup­posed to be of­fer­ing his strength as a King’s man, was poised be­side and slightly be­hind Ver­ity, wait­ing to drain him dry. Shrewd, in crown and robe upon his throne, was all un­know­ing, his Skill burned and dulled away years ago by mis­use, and him too proud to ad­mit it.

  Like an echo, I saw through Au­gust’s eyes as Kettricken stood pale as a wax candle on a dais be­fore all her people. She was telling them, simply and kindly, that last night Rurisk had fi­nally suc­cumbed to the ar­row-wound he had taken on the Ice Fields. She hoped to please his memory by pledging her­self as he had helped ar­range, to the King-in-Wait­ing of the Six Duch­ies. She turned to face Regal.

  In Buck­keep, Ga­len’s claw of a hand settled on Ver­ity’s shoulder.

  I broke into his link with Ver­ity, pushed him aside. Be­ware Ga­len, Ver­ity. Be­ware a traitor, come to drain you dry. Touch him not.

  Ga­len’s hand tightened on Ver­ity’s shoulder. Sud­denly all was a suck­ing vor­tex, drain­ing, try­ing to pull everything out of Ver­ity. And there was not much left to take. His Skill was so strong be­cause he let it take so much from him so fast. Self-pre­ser­va­tion would have made an­other man hold back some of his strength. But Ver­ity had been spend­ing his reck­lessly, every day, to keep the Red Ships from his shores. So little left now for this ce­re­mony, and Ga­len was ab­sorb­ing it. And grow­ing stronger as he did so. I clung to Ver­ity, fight­ing des­per­ately to re­duce the loss. Ver­ity! I cried to him. My prince. I sensed a brief ral­ly­ing in him, but all was grow­ing dim be­fore his eyes. I heard a stir­ring of alarm as he sagged and caught at the table. Faith­less Ga­len kept his grip on him, bent over him as he went to one knee, mur­mur­ing so­li­cit­ously, ‘My prince? Are you quite all right?’

  I flung my strength to Ver­ity, re­serves I had not sus­pec­ted in my­self. I opened up and let go of them, just as Ver­ity did when he Skilled. ‘Take it all. I would die any­way. And you were al­ways good to me when I was young.’ I heard the words as clearly as if I had spoken them, and felt the break­ing of a mor­tal bond as strength flowed into Ver­ity through me. He waxed sud­denly strong, beast-strong, and angry.

  Ver­ity’s hand rose to grip Ga­len’s. He opened his eyes. ‘I shall be fine,’ he said to Ga­len, aloud. He looked around the room as he rose to his feet again. ‘I but wor­ried about you. You seemed to tremble. Are you sure you are strong enough for this? You must not at­tempt a chal­lenge that is bey­ond you. Think what might hap­pen.’ And as a gardener pulls a weed from the earth, Ver­ity smiled, and pulled from the traitor all that was in him. Ga­len fell, clutch­ing his chest, an empty man-shaped thing. The on­look­ers rushed to at­tend him, but Ver­ity, re­plete now, lif­ted his eyes to the win­dow and fo­cused his mind afar.

  Au­gust. At­tend me well. Warn Regal his half-brother is dead. Ver­ity boomed like the sea, and I felt Au­gust quail at the strength of the Skilling. Ga­len was too am­bi­tious. He at­temp­ted that which was bey­ond his skill. A pity the Queen’s bas­tard could not be con­tent with the po­s­i­tion she gave him. A pity my younger brother could not dis­suade his half-brother from his mis­placed am­bi­tions. Ga­len over­stepped his po­s­i­tion. My younger brother should take heed of what comes of such reck­less­ness. And Au­gust. Be sure you tell Regal privately. Not many knew Ga­len was the Queen’s bas­tard and his half-brother. I am sure he would not want scan­dal to soil his mother’s name, or his. Such fam­ily secrets should be well-guarded.

  And then, with a force that put Au­gust on his knees, Ver­ity pushed through him to stand be­fore Kettricken in her mind. I sensed his ef­fort to be gentle. I await you, my Queen-in-Wait­ing. And by my name, I swear to you I had naught to do with your brother’s death. I knew noth­ing of it, and I grieve with you. I would not want you to come to me, think­ing his blood on my hands. Like a jewel open­ing was the light in Ver­ity’s heart as he ex­posed it to her that she might know she had not been given to a mur­derer. Self­lessly, he made him­self vul­ner­able to her, giv­ing trust to build trust. She swayed, but stood. Au­gust fain­ted. That con­tact was gone.

  And then Ver­ity was shov­ing at me. Back, get back, Fitz. That’s too much, you’ll die. Back, let go! And he cuffed me like a bear, and I slammed back into my si­lent, sight­less body.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Af­ter­math

  In the Great Lib­rary at Jhaampe there is a tapestry that is ru­moured to con­tain a map through the moun­tains to the Rain Wilds. Like many Jhaampe maps and books, the in­form­a­tion con­tained was con­sidered so valu­able that it was en­coded in the form of riddles and visual puzzles. Figured on the tapestry, among many im­ages, are the forms of a dark-haired, dark man, stout and mus­cu­lar and bear­ing a red shield, and, in the op­pos­ite corner, a golden-skinned be­ing. The golden-skinned creature had been the vic­tim of moths and fray­ing, but it is still pos­sible to see that in the scale of the tapestry, it is much lar­ger than a hu­man, and pos­sibly winged. Buck­keep le­gend has it that King Wis­dom sought and found the Eld­er­lings’ home­land by a secret path through the Moun­tain King­dom. Could these fig­ures rep­res­ent an Eld­er­ling and King Wis­dom? Does this tapestry re­cord the path through the Moun­tain King­dom to the Eld­er­lings’ home­land in the Rain Wilds?

  Much later I learned how I had been found, lean­ing against Burrich’s body on the tile floor of the steams. I was shak­ing as with an ague, and could not be roused. Jon­qui found us, though how she knew to look in the steams I will never know. I will al­ways sus­pect that she was to Eyod as Chade was to Shrewd, not as as­sas­sin per­haps, but as one who had ways of know­ing or find­ing out al­most any­thing that happened within the palace. How­ever it was, she took com­mand of the situ­ation. Burrich and I were isol­ated in a cham­ber sep­ar­ate from the palace, and I sus­pect that for a while no one from Buck­keep knew where we were or if we lived. She ten­ded us her­self with the aid of one old manser­vant.

  I awoke some two days after the wed­ding. Four of the most miser­able days of my life were spent ly­ing in bed, limbs at­witch but not at my com­mand. I dozed of­ten, in a deadened way that was not pleas­ant, and either dreamed vividly of Ver­ity, or sensed him try­ing to Skill to me. The Skill dreams con­veyed no sense to me, other than that he was con­cerned for me. I grasped only isol­ated bits of know­ledge from them, such as the col­our of the cur­tains in the room he Skilled from, or the feel of a ring on his fin­ger that he ab­sently twis­ted as he tried to reach me. Some more vi­ol­ent jerk of my muscles would shake me from my dreams, and my spas­ming would tor­ment me un­til, ex­hausted, I dozed again.

  My peri­ods of alert­ness were as bad, for Burrich lay on a pal­let in the same room, breath­ing hoarsely, but do­ing little more than that. His fea­tures were swollen and dis­col­oured such that he was barely re­cog­niz­able. From the be­gin­ning, Jon­qui gave me little hope for him, either that he would live, or that he would be him­self if he did sur­vive.

  But Burrich had cheated death be­fore. The swell­ing gradu­ally sub­sided, the purpling faded, and when he did awaken, he pro­ceeded to re­cover him­self swiftly. He had no memor­ies of any­thing that oc­curred after he took me from the stable. I told him only what he needed to know. It was more than it was safe for him to know, but I owed it to him. He was up and about be­fore I was, though at first he had times of dizzi­ness and head­aches. But be­fore long Burrich was get­ting to know the Jhaampe stables and ex­plor­ing the town at his leis­ure. In the even­ings he would re­turn, and we had many long, quiet con­ver­sa­tions. We both avoided top­ics where we knew we would dis­agree, and there were areas, such as Chade’s teach­ings, where I could not be open with him. Mostly, though, we talked about dogs he had known and horses he’d trained, and some­times he spoke, a little, of his early days with Chiv­alry. One even­ing I told him about Molly. He was quiet for a time, and then told me that he’d heard the owner of the Bee­balm Chand­lery had died in debt, and that his daugh­ter who had ex­pec­ted to in­herit it had gone to live with re­l­at­ives in a vil­lage in­stead. He did not re­mem­ber which vil­lage, but knew someone who would know. He did not mock me, but told me ser­i­ously that I should know my own mind be­fore I saw her again.

  Au­gust never Skilled again. He was car­ried from the dais that day, but as soon as he re­covered from his faint, he de­man­ded to see Regal im­me­di­ately. I trust he de­livered Ver­ity’s mes­sage. For while Regal did not come to visit either Burrich or me dur­ing our con­vales­cence, Kettricken did, and she men­tioned that Regal was most con­cerned that we re­cover quickly and com­pletely from our ac­ci­dents, for as he had prom­ised her, he had for­given me com­pletely. She told me how Burrich had slipped and struck his head try­ing to pull me from the pool when I went into a seizure. I do not know who con­cocted that tale. Jon­qui her­self, per­haps. I doubt if even Chade could have come up with a bet­ter one. But Ver­ity’s mes­sage was the end of Au­gust’s lead­er­ship of the co­terie, and all Skilling as far as I know. I do not know if he was too afraid after that day, or if the tal­ent was blas­ted out of him by that force. He left court, and went to Withy­woods, where Chiv­alry and Pa­tience had once ruled. I be­lieve he be­came wise.

  Fol­low­ing her wed­ding, Kettricken joined with all of Jhaampe in a month of mourn­ing for her brother. From my sickbed, I was aware of it mostly as chimes, chant­ings, and great burn­ings of in­cense. All Rurisk’s pos­ses­sions were given away. To me Eyod him­self came, and brought a simple sil­ver ring his son had worn. And the head of the ar­row that had pierced his chest. He did not say much to me, ex­cept to tell me what the ob­jects were, and that I should cher­ish these re­mind­ers of an ex­cep­tional man. He left me to won­der why these items had been se­lec­ted for me.

  At the end of a month, Kettricken set her mourn­ing aside. She came to bid Burrich and me a swift re­cov­ery, and to bid us farewell un­til she saw us at Buck­keep. The brief mo­ment of Skilling from Ver­ity had elim­in­ated all her re­ser­va­tions about him. She spoke of her hus­band with a quiet pride, and went will­ingly to Buck­keep, know­ing her­self given to an hon­our­able man.

  It was not for me to ride along­side her at the head of that home­ward pro­ces­sion, or to enter Buck­keep pre­ceded by horns and tum­blers and chil­dren ringing bells. That was Regal’s place, and he put a gra­cious face on it. Regal ap­peared to take Ver­ity’s warn­ing to heart. I do not think Ver­ity ever com­pletely for­gave him. But he dis­missed Regal’s plot­tings as if they were nasty boy­ish tricks, and I think that cowed Regal more than any pub­lic rep­rim­and could have. The pois­on­ing was even­tu­ally blamed on Rowd and Sevrens by those who knew of it. Sevrens had, after all, ob­tained the poison, and Rowd had de­livered the gift of apple wine. Kettricken pre­ten­ded to be con­vinced that it was a mis­placed am­bi­tion by ser­vants on be­half of an un­know­ing mas­ter. And Rurisk’s death was never openly spoken of as a pois­on­ing. Nor did I be­come known as an as­sas­sin. Whatever was in Regal’s heart, his out­ward de­mean­our was that of a younger prince gra­ciously es­cort­ing his brother’s bride home.

  I had a long con­vales­cence. Jon­qui treated me with herbs she said would re­build what had been dam­aged. I should have tried to learn her herbs and tech­niques, but my mind could not seem to hold things any bet­ter than my hands could. I re­mem­ber little of that time. My re­cov­ery from the pois­on­ing was frus­trat­ingly slow. Jon­qui sought to make it less te­di­ous by ar­ran­ging time for me in the Great Lib­rary, but my eyes wear­ied quickly and seemed as prone to trem­bling dis­orders as my hands. I spent most days ly­ing in my bed, think­ing. For a time I wondered if I wanted to re­turn to Buck­keep. I wondered if I could still be Shrewd’s as­sas­sin. I knew that if I re­turned, I would have to sit down the table from Regal and look up to see him at my king’s left hand. I would have to treat him as if he had never tried to kill me, nor used me in the pois­on­ing of a man I had ad­mired. I spoke of it frankly one even­ing to Burrich. He sat and listened quietly. Then he said, I can­not ima­gine it will be easier for Kettricken than it would be for you. Nor for me, to look at a man who has tried to kill me twice, and call him “My prince”. You must de­cide. I should hate to have him think he had frightened us away. But if you de­cide we are go­ing else­where, then we shall.’ I think I fi­nally guessed then what the ear­ring sig­ni­fied.

  Winter was no longer a threat, but a real­ity, when we left the moun­tains. Burrich, Hands and I re­turned much later to Buck­keep than the oth­ers, for we took our time on the jour­ney. I tired eas­ily, and my strength was still very un­pre­dict­able. I would crumple at odd mo­ments, fall­ing from the saddle like a sack of grain. Then they would stop to help me re-mount, and I would force my­self to go on. Many nights I awoke shak­ing, without even the strength to call out. These lapses were slow to pass. Worst, I think, were the nights when I could not waken, but dreamed only of end­lessly drown­ing. From one such dream I woke to Ver­ity stand­ing over me.

  You’re enough to wake the dead, he told me gen­i­ally. We must find a mas­ter for you, to teach you some con­trol if noth­ing else. Kettricken finds it a bit pe­cu­liar that I dream so of­ten of drown­ing. I sup­pose I should be grate­ful you slept well on my wed­ding night at least.

  ‘Ver­ity?’ I said grog­gily.

  Go back to sleep, he told me. Ga­len is dead, and I’ve put Regal on a shorter leash. You’ve noth­ing to fear. Go to sleep, and stop dream­ing so loudly.

  Ver­ity, wait! But my act of grop­ing after him broke the tenu­ous Skill con­tact, and I had no choice but to do as he had ad­vised.

  We trav­elled on, through in­creas­ingly un­pleas­ant weather. We all looked for­ward to get­ting home long be­fore we ar­rived there. Burrich had, I be­lieve, over­looked Hands’ abil­it­ies un­til that trip. Hands had a quiet com­pet­ence that in­spired trust in horses as well as dogs. Even­tu­ally he eas­ily re­placed both Cob and me in the Buck­keep stables, and the friend­ship that grew between Burrich and Hands caused me to be more aware of my alone­ness than I care to ad­mit.

  Ga­len’s death was con­sidered a tra­gic thing at Buck­keep court. Those who had known him least spoke mostly kindly about him. Ob­vi­ously the man had over­strained him­self, for his heart to fail him so young. There was some talk of nam­ing a war­ship after him, as if he were a fallen hero, but Ver­ity never re­cog­nized the idea and it never came to pass. His body was sent back to Far­row for burial, with all hon­our. If Shrewd sus­pec­ted any­thing of what had gone on between Ver­ity and Ga­len, he kept it well hid­den. Neither he nor even Chade ever men­tioned it to me. The loss of our Skill­mas­ter, with not even an ap­pren­tice to re­place him, was no trivial thing, es­pe­cially with the Red Ships on our ho­ri­zons. That was what was openly dis­cussed, but Ver­ity flatly re­fused to con­sider Se­rene or any of the oth­ers Ga­len had trained.