Robin Hobb - Royal Assassin

No. I would go with dignity. No. I would kill as many of his inland-bred curs as I could with my bare hands. No. I would go quietly, and wait for a chance at Regal. I knew he would be there, to watch me die. My promise to Shrewd, not to kill one of his own? It no longer bound me. Did it? No one could save me. Don't even wonder if Chade would act, if Patience could do anything at all. After Regal had tortured a confession from me… would he keep me alive to hang and quarter before all? Of course he would. Why deny himself that pleasure? Would Patience come to watch me die? I hoped not. Maybe Lacey could keep her away. I had thrown my life away, sacrificed all for nothing. At least, I had killed Serene and Justin. Had it been worth it? Had my queen escaped at all, or was she still hidden somewhere within the castle walls? Was that what Chade had been trying to tell me? No. My mind paddled and scrabbled through thoughts like a rat fallen into a rain barrel. I longed to talk to someone, anyone. I forced myself to calmness, to rationality, and finally found a grip. Nighteyes. Nighteyes had said that he had taken them, had guided them to Burrich.

My brother? I reached for Nighteyes.

I am here. I am always here.

Tell me of that night.

What night?

The night you guided the people from the Keep to Heart of the Pack.

Ah. I sensed him struggling. His ways were a wolf's ways. A thing done was a thing done. He planned no further ahead than the next kill, recalled almost nothing of events that happened a month or a year ago, unless they touched most directly on his own survival. Thus he recalled the cage I had taken him from, but where he had hunted four nights ago was lost to him. General things he recalled: a well-used rabbit trail, a spring that did not freeze over, but specific details of how many rabbits he had killed three days ago were lost forever. I held my breath, hoping he could give me hope.

I took them all to Heart of the Pack. I wish you were here. I've a porcupine quill in my lip. I can't paw it loose. It hurts.

And how did you get that? In the midst of all else, I still had to smile. He knew better but had not been able to resist the fat waddling creature.

It isn't funny.

I know. Truly, it was not funny. A quill was a nasty barbed thing that would only work deeper, festering all the way. It could get bad enough to keep him from hunting. I turned my attention to his problem. Until I had solved it for him, he would be able to focus on nothing else. Heart of the Pack would get it out for you, if you asked him nicely. You can trust him.

He pushed me when I spoke to him. But then he spoke to me.

Did he?

A slow working through of thought. That night. When I guided them to him. He said to me, "Bring them here to me, not to the dog fox place. "

Picture me the place you went.

This was harder for him. But as he tried he recalled the roadside, empty in the blowing snow, save for Burrich astride Ruddy and leading Sooty. I glimpsed the Female and the Scentless One, as he thought of them. Chade he remembered well, chiefly for a fat beef bone bestowed on Nighteyes at their parting.

Did they speak to one another?

Overly much. I left them yipping to one another.

Try as I might, that was really all he had for me. It was enough that I knew the plans had changed drastically and at the last minute. Odd. I had been willing to lay down my life for Kettricken, but at the last accounting, I was not sure how I felt about giving up my horse. Then I recalled I would probably never ride a horse again, save the one that carried me to the hanging tree. At least Sooty had gone with someone I cared about. And Ruddy. Why those two horses? And only those two? Had Burrich been unable to get others out of the stable? Was that why he had not gone?

The quill hurts, Nighteyes reminded me. I cannot eat for the pain.

I wish I could come to help you, but I cannot. You must ask Heart of the Pack.

Cannot you ask him to do it? He does not push you.

I smiled to myself. He did once. It was enough; I learned from it. But if you go to him, asking for help, he will not repel you.

Cannot you ask him to help me?

I cannot speak to him as we speak. And he is too far away for me to yip at him.

I will try, then, Nighteyes said doubtfully.

I let him go. I thought of trying to make him understand my situation. I decided against it. There was nothing he could do; it would only distress him. Nighteyes would tell Burrich I had sent him; Burrich would know I was still alive. There was little else to convey that he would not already know.

A long slow time passed then. I measured it in the small ways I could. The torch Regal had left burned out. The guard changed. Someone came and put food and water through my door. I had not asked for it. I wondered if that meant a very long time had passed since I had last eaten. The guard changed again. These were a chatty pair, a man and a woman. But they spoke in low voices, and all I heard were the murmurs, and the laughter. Some sort of a ribald flirtation between the two, I surmised. Interrupted by someone's arrival.

The friendly chatter suddenly ceased. Low murmurs, in a very respectful tone. My stomach roiled cold inside me. Quietly I came to my feet, crept to my door. I peered through the doors toward the guards' station.

He came like a shadow down the hall. Silently. Not furtive. He was so unobtrusive, he did not need to worry about being furtive. This was Skill as I had never seen it used before. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck hackle when Will stopped outside the door and looked in at me. He did not speak and I dared not. Even looking at him was giving him too much of an opening to myself. Yet I feared to look away. The Skill shimmered around him like an aura of awareness. I coiled deep inside myself, tighter and tighter, pulling back everything I felt or thought, slamming my walls up as swiftly as I could, but knowing, somehow, that even those walls told him much about me. Even my defenses were a way for this one to read me. Even as my mouth and throat went dry with fear, a question hovered. Where had he been? What had been so important to Regal that he had set Will upon it rather than using him to secure the crown?

White ship.

The answer came to me from deep within me, founded on a connection so deep I could not unearth it. But I did not doubt it. I looked at him, considering him in conjunction with the white ship. He frowned. I felt an increase in the tension between us, a pressing of the Skill against my boundaries. He did not scrabble or pluck at me like Serene and Justin had. More I could compare it to an engagement of blades, where one tests the strength of his opponent's attack. I balanced myself against him, knowing that if I wavered, if for one instant I did not hold him out, he would slip past my guard and skewer my soul. His eyes widened and surprised me with a brief look of uncertainty. But he followed it with a smile as welcoming as a shark's maw.

"Ah," he sighed out. He seemed pleased. He stepped back from my door, stretched like a lazy cat. "They have underestimated you. I shall not make that mistake. Well I know the advantages one gains when your rival undervalues you." Then he left, neither abruptly nor slowly, but like smoke drifts away on a breeze. Here, and then gone.

After he was gone, I went back to my slab and sat. I took a deep breath and sighed it out to still the quivering inside me. I felt I had passed through a trial, and that this time, at least, I had held my own. I leaned back against the cold stone wall and glanced once more at my door.

Will's half-lidded eyes bored into me.

I leaped up so suddenly the scabbed-over injury on my leg tore open afresh. I glared at my window. Nothing. He was gone. Heart hammering, I forced myself to go to the tiny window and peer out it. No one was there, that I could see. He was gone. But I could not make myself believe he was gone.