I blame myself. We gave him delvenbark to quench his Skill. He had grown so randomly strong with it. He would be calm, and then he was like a cold wind blasting. Two of the new apprentices decided to leave the training because his spells were so frightening. Even Shine had come to dread his moments of strength, for no matter how she deadened herself, he would seize her and tumble her into the Skill with him. She was terrified. As were we all!
So I authorized the delvenbark. I changed all the pages who had been carrying out his errands. I suspect they were fetching more than food and wine for him! After three days of it, it blocked his Skill, and he became … an old man. Kindly but fretful, and old. We let him have visits with Shine again; I’d had to keep her away from him. He … he didn’t seem to understand why we had kept his daughter away. He was so confused. He would talk to Shrewd’s portrait … Oh, Fitz, I fear he died thinking I was needlessly cruel, that I had taken his daughter and his magic from him, simply for meanness. Simply to control him.
I felt Riddle. He’d heard her crying, I surmised, and awakened. I felt him as if he were armour closing around her, hammered metal holding her in and upright. Anything that wanted to hurt her would have to go through him first. I thought grief had numbed me, but suddenly relief soared in my heart. I am glad Riddle is there with you.
So am I. I’ll tell him that.
Did you get our bird messages?
Yes. Chade’s message from Lant was clutched in his hand. I don’t know how many times Shine read it aloud to him, Fitz. He was smiling when we found him. A calm, sweet smile.
I realized abruptly, I have to tell Lant. Then, I can’t.
Your first thought was correct. You must tell him. As I had to tell you.
I will. I didn’t know how or when, but I would tell him. And Spark. I wondered if I now understood the Fool’s compulsion to speak of his dreams. I did not want to tell them. Yet I desperately wanted to share the news, as if grief were a heavy burden to be spread out among those who must bear it.
Yes, she agreed with me. And it’s good to know you are alive. I have reached out to you over and over these last few days. When none of us could reach you with the Skill, we feared the worst.
I’m on a liveship His presence is … pervasive. Even as I Skilled to her I could feel the ship sharing what I told her. I am sorry to have worried you.
I understand. I will immediately wake Dutiful to tell him.
Then my own news burst from me without warning. The Fool has dreamed that Bee is alive. And the last time I could reach you with the Skill, when Chade so abruptly parted us? I felt Bee. I knew her touch.
The winds of all the worlds blew between us and the shushing of waves whispered against every shore. What news was more shocking? That Chade had died or Bee might still live?
I felt her shock pour through me. Where is she? How is she? Have they mistreated her? Does she think we abandoned her? How did she survive passing through that Skill-stone? How is it possible she lived and we gave up on her, for months!
I don’t know. That was the torment of it, so much I didn’t know. I was not going to tell my pregnant daughter that her small sister was miserable and mistreated. That I would lie about, with a clear conscience. I agonized enough for the both of us. I would not put that burden on her. I had just a brush of her against my senses. I know she is bound for Clerres, as are we. I do not know if she is ahead of us or behind us. Only that she is on a ship bound for Clerres. That was all. And the Fool dreamed of her, alive. It’s little to go on, but I will take heart from it.
Her thoughts suddenly swept over me, a mistress of war awakened. I will muster an army of warriors and Skill-users. Elliania has brought up this proposal more than once to me. We will come. We will take back what is ours and leave nothing but ruins and bodies.
No! For now, do not send any vast force in this direction. We think our best chance is to go in quietly.
You will negotiate for her return?
That thought had never even occurred to me. I had set out on a mission of vengeance, planning only to kill. The thought of Bee in their hands had only made me more determined to see their blood.
I am still on a ship, bound for Clerres. I will decide when I arrive there and study the situation. Perhaps I shall negotiate. There were many ways to negotiate. Taking hostages immediately sprang to mind. My thoughts went winging off, and I knew that Nettle sensed that.
How are you? I asked her.
Heavy. Tired. Happy. Sometimes.
Sometimes. When she was thinking of her baby rather than the death of Chade or the torment of her small sister. I’m sorry I woke you. And sorry that Chade is gone. I will tell Lant. And you should rest now.
She laughed. Rest. While thinking of little Bee in the hands of kidnappers. Oh, Da, does life ever become simple?
Only for a few moments, my dear. Only for a few moments.
I drew myself away from her as if we were unclasping hands. For a time longer, I floated in the Skill. I wondered if some remnant of Chade remained in this flow, some ghost of Verity or perhaps even my father. I had encountered presences in the Skill. I was not sure what they were, only that they were far larger beings than I was. Larger? Richer, deeper, more fully formed. Eda and El? Ancient Elderlings or Skill-users who had acquired more presence in that flow?
I gathered my courage. Bee. Can you hear me? I formed an image of my little girl in my mind. Little Bee. I saw her in her old-fashioned clothing, I saw her doubting gaze as she looked up at me. I smelled the fading scent of honeysuckle on a warm summer night. Then I saw all the ways I had failed her. No. This was not helping. I’d never find her that way.
I pushed aside reluctance and tried to reconstruct that moment of contact we’d had. With Chade rushing down on us like a summer squall on a small boat, pushing and scattering and threatening.
Fitz, my boy!
An echo in the vast current of Skill. A brief recollection of Chade, like a perfume on a spring breeze. Dead. Gone.
The flood of loss was too much. I tried again to reach for Bee but I was groping in dark water. My child was as gone as Chade was.
I drew back from the Skill-current, and opened my eyes to the darkness of the Fool’s chamber. He was sleeping deeply. There was no one else in the room. Sitting on the floor, I pulled my knees up tight to my chest and bowed my head over them. Chade’s boy wept.
TWENTY-THREE
* * *
Clerres
The Unexpected Son arrives cloaked in a power that none can see but all can feel. It shimmers and floats and confuses both eye and mind. In my dream, he is one, then two, then three creatures. He opens his cloak and fury burns inside him, flames that make me fall back before their heat. He closes his cloak and he is gone.