Assassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool #3)

by Robin Hobb

‘Fitz. How old are you?’ ‘Exactly? I’m not sure. You know that.’ ‘Take a guess,’ he chided me. I blew out my distaste for the subject. ‘Sixty-two, perhaps sixty-three. Sixty-four, maybe. But I don’t look it and most days I don’t feel it.’ ‘But you are it. It’s going to take its toll. You had a good life, for a time. An easy life. With Molly. Calm and prosperity dull a man’s edge just as endless battle and hardship dulls the gentler parts of the soul.’ ‘It was good, Fool. I wanted it to be forever. I wanted to grow old and to die with her sitting by my bed.’ ‘But you didn’t get that.’ ‘No. I got this. Chasing across half the world to kill people I don’t know, people who didn’t know me but still came to destroy what little peace and joy I had left.’ As I put words to that, I felt a fury that would have let me snap a man’s neck. Dwalia. I could have broken her in half with my bare hands at that moment. Then it passed and I felt foolish and empty. And, worst of all, incompetent. I spoke a guilty fear. ‘They lured me away from Withywoods, didn’t they? So they could raid it while I was away.’