He took my life from me.
It was a dream I had had before. I knew the feel of an old man's body. The other time, I had been King Shrewd, in a soft nightshirt, in a clean bed: This time was harsher. I ached in every joint of my body. My gut burned inside me. And I had scalded myself, on my face and hands. There was more pain than life left in this body. Like a candle almost burned to the socket. I opened my eyes stickily. I sprawled on cold, gritty stone. A wolf sat watching me.
This is wrong, he told me.
I could think of nothing to say to that. It certainly did not feel right. After a time, I pushed myself up to my hands and knees. My hands hurt. My knees hurt. Every joint in my body creaked and complained as I drew myself up and looked around. The night was warm, but I still shivered. Above me, on a dais, an incomplete dragon slumbered.
I do not understand. Nighteyes pleaded for an explanation.
I do not wish to understand. I do not want to know.
But whether I wished it or not, I did know. I walked slowly and the wolf came at my heels. We walked past a dying fire between two tents. No one kept watch. From Kettricken's tent, there were small noises. Verity's face was what she saw in the dimness. Verity's dark eyes, looking into hers. She believed her husband had finally come to her.
In truth, he had.
I did not want to hear, I did not want to know. I walked on with my old man's careful pacing. Great black blocks of stone loomed around us. Ahead of us, something clicked and chinked softly. I walked through the sharp- edged stone shadows and into moonlight again.
Once you shared my body. Is this like that?
'No.' I spoke the word aloud, and in the wake of my voice, I heard a small scrabbling. What's that?
I'll go and see. The wolf melted into the shadows. He returned instantly. It's only the Scentless One. He hides from you. He does not know you.
I knew where I would find him. I took my time. This body had all it could do to move, let alone move swiftly. When I came to Girl-on-a-Dragon, it was horribly hard to clamber up on her dais. Once I was up, I could see the fresh rock chips everywhere. I sat down by the dragon's feet, a cautious lowering of my body to cold stone. I looked at his work. He had almost cut her free. 'Fool?' I called out softly in the night.
He came slowly, from the shadows, to stand eyes down before me. 'My king,' he said softly. 'I tried. But I cannot help myself. I cannot just leave her here ….'
I nodded slowly, wordlessly. At the base of the dais, Nighteyes whined. The Fool glanced down at him, then back up at me. Puzzlement crossed his face. 'My lord?' he asked.
I reached for the thread of Skill-bond between us and found it. The Fool's face grew very still as he struggled to understand. He came to sit beside me. He stared at me, as if he could see through Verity's skin. 'I like this not,' he said at last.
'Nor I,' I agreed.
'Why have you …'
'Better not to know,' I said briefly.
For a time we sat in silence. Then the Fool reached back to brush a handful of fresh stone chips from about the dragon's foot. He met my eyes, but there was still furtiveness as he drew a chisel from his shirt. His hammer was a stone.
'That's Verity's chisel.'
'I know. He doesn't need it anymore, and my knife broke.' He set the edge carefully to the rock. 'It works much better anyway.' I watched him tap another small chip free. I aligned my thoughts with his.
'She draws on your strength,' I observed quietly.
'I know.' Another chip came free. 'I was curious. And my touch hurt her.' He placed his chisel again. 'I feel I owe her something.'
'Fool. She could take all you offer her and it would still not be enough.'
'How do you know?'
I shrugged. 'This body knows.'
Then I stared as he laid his Skill-fingers to the place where he had chiseled. I winced, but sensed no pain from her. She took something from him. But he had not the Skill to shape her with his hands. What he gave her was only enough to torment her.
'She reminds me of my older sister,' he said into the night. 'She had golden hair.'
I sat in stunned silence. He did not look at me as he added, 'I should have liked to see her again. She used to spoil me outrageously. I would have liked to have seen all my family again.' His tone was no more than wistful as he moved his fingers idly against the chiseled stone.
'Fool? Let me try?'
He gave me a look that was almost jealous. 'She may not accept you,' he warned me.
I smiled at him. Verity's smile, through his beard. 'There is a link between us. Fine as thread and neither the elfbark nor your weariness aid it. But it is there. Put your hand to my shoulder.'
I did not know why I did it. Perhaps because he had never before spoken to me of a sister or a home he missed. I refused to stop and wonder. Not thinking was so much easier, and not feeling was easiest of all. He put his unskilled hand, not to my shoulder, but to the side of my neck. Instinctively, he was right. Skin to skin, I knew him better. I held Verity's silver hands up before my eyes and marveled at them. Silver to the eye, scalded and raw to the senses. Then, before I could change my mind, I reached down and grasped the dragon's shapeless forefoot between my two hands.
Instantly, I could feel the dragon. Almost it squirmed within the stone. I knew the edge of each scale, the tip of each wicked claw. And I knew the woman who had carved it. The women. A coterie, so long ago. Salt's Coterie. But Salt had been too proud. Her features were on the carven face, and she had sought to remain in her own form, carving herself upon the dragon that her coterie shaped around her. They had been too loyal to object. And almost she had succeeded. The dragon had been finished, and almost filled. The dragon had quickened and began to rise as the coterie was absorbed into it. But Salt had striven to remain only within the carved girl. She had held back from the dragon. And the dragon had fallen before it could even rise, sinking back into the stone, miring down forever. Leaving the coterie trapped in the dragon and Salt trapped in the girl.
All this I knew, swifter than lightning. I felt too, the hunger of the dragon. It pulled at me, pleading for sustenance. Much had it taken from the Fool. I sensed what he had given, light and dark. The jeering taunts of gardeners and chamberlains when he was young at Buckkeep. A branch of apple blossoms outside a window in spring. An image of me, my jerkin flapping as I hurried across the yard at Burrich's heels, trying to make my shorter legs match his long stride. A silver fish leaping above a silent pond at dawn.
The dragon tugged at me insistently. I suddenly knew what had really drawn me here. Take my memories of my mother, and the feelings that went with them. I do not want to know them at all. Take the ache in my throat when I think of Molly, take all the sharp-edged, bright-colored days I recall with her. Take their brilliance and leave me but the shadows of what I saw and felt. Let me recall them without cutting myself on their sharpness. Take my days and nights in Regal's dungeons. It is enough to know what was done to me. Take it to keep, and let me stop feeling my face against that stone floor, hearing the sound of my nose breaking, smelling and tasting my own blood. Take my hurt that I never knew my father, take my hours of staring up at his portrait when the great hall was empty and I could do so alone. Take my-
Fitz. Stop. You give her too much, there will be nothing left of you. The Fool's voice inside me was horror- stricken at what he had encouraged.
-memories of that tower-top, of the bare windswept Queen's Garden and Galen standing over me. Take that image of Molly going so willingly to Burrich's arms. Take it and quench it and seal it away where it can never sear me again. Take
My brother. Enough.
Nighteyes was suddenly between me and the dragon. I knew I still gripped that scaly foreleg, but he snarled at it, defying it to take more of me.
I do not care if it all is taken, I told Nighteyes.
But I do. I would sooner not be bonded with a Forged one. Get back, Cold One. He snarled in spirit as well as
