He tipped his head toward me as if we were sharing a joke. “When she snaps her fingers, she expects the king to come at a trot. He’ll be here soon, Nettle.”
“It will be only the three of you? That’s not much of a Skill-coterie. You’ll need me here.” I tried not to sound as desperate as I felt. I reached my hand toward Chade, thinking that if we touched, I could reach him. Nettle sharply slapped it aside.
“No. We have two Solos we can summon if we think that we need their help. Amethyst and Hardy are not very sociable but both are strong in the Skill. For now, I think those most familiar with Lord Chade can best call him back and bind him up. But not you.” Nettle answered my question and then pointed at the door. I opened my mouth to object and she told me, “You can’t help us. You will only distract us, and that includes distracting Chade. And you may make yourself more vulnerable than you already are. Chade is hemorrhaging into the Skill-stream. And he’s actively trying to draw you with him, whether you realize it or not.”
“I have to stay. You have to bring him back to his senses. Then, wise or not, he and I must attempt to Skill together.”
Nettle narrowed her eyes at me. “No. The very fact that you are asking this shows me that you are strongly drawn to it.”
I met her gaze. Oh, Molly, would that you could look at me with that same stubborn look your daughter wears. I steeled my heart. Loyalty to the Farseer reign Chade had always taught me. Above all things, even loyalty to Chade. Right now, my judgment was clearer than his. “That’s not it at all. It’s not the Skill-yearning. It’s Bee. A short time ago, when we were talking, Chade revealed to me that his daughter Shun—Shine—has the Skill. She is untrained. And worse, he sealed her to the Skill lest she be vulnerable.” The anger on Nettle’s face was building to fury. More frightening was Chade’s lack of reaction to my betrayal. He was watching the wall again, his mouth hanging ajar. “He has been unable to reach her, to Skill the unlocking word to her so she can help us find her. He did not know if it was because he was weak or because the danger all around her has made her put up her Skill-walls. Together, we were going to try to break through to her.”
“After I’d told both of you to refrain from Skilling?”
“I’d forgotten that,” I said honestly.
“You expect me to believe that?” She bit off the words one by one.
“It’s true! The chance to find Bee was all I thought of.”
Her look softened slightly. No, I had imagined that, for her next words were, “And knowing that, you did not think to immediately come to me, the Skillmistress, to seek my advice and expertise in this matter?” She folded her lips tightly, then, as if against her will, asked me, “Do you have any respect for me at all?”
“Of course I do!”
“You love me as your daughter. I don’t doubt that. But respecting my knowledge and ability, I doubt that—” She stopped herself suddenly. She was still for a moment and then asked me calmly, “What was the word to open Shine?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
She nodded gravely. “Perfect.” She pointed to the door. “Now go. I have work to do here.”
“I can help. He trusts me. I know the shape of him, I can find him and bring him back.”
“No. You can’t. Even now, you are spilling and you don’t even know it. You are tangled with him somehow. And he is holding on to you, trying to pull you with him.”
I opened myself, trying to feel if what she said was true. Was there a tugging? Pulling me in or …?
“Stop that!” Nettle hissed at me, and I snapped my walls back into place.
“Pull me back,” Chade said quietly. Every hair on my body stood erect.
“Verity?” I whispered. I took an inadvertent step toward him, looking into his green eyes, seeking the dark-brown gaze of the king I had served. My mind darted back to a Skill-dream, of my weary king crouched by a river of pure and shining magic, plunging his hands and arms into the silvery burning flow. And then begging me to help him, to pull him back from the draw of that liquid magic.
“Stay back, boy!” he cautioned me as my daughter stepped between Chade and me. She put both her hands on my chest.
“Da. Look at me!” she commanded, and when my gaze met hers, she promised, “If I must, I will call the guard and have you removed from this room. If I must, I will force elfbark tea down your throat until you cannot muster even a thread of Skill. I will not lose you. I need you and my sister needs you.”
“Bee,” I said quietly, and as a wave retreats from the beach, all desire for the Skill ebbed from me. I looked at Chade’s glittering eyes and felt ill.
“Save him,” I begged her. “Please. Save him.”
Then I turned on my heel and left them there.
Chapter Twenty
Marking Time