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

by Robin Hobb

kindness in it. I’d tumbled back into myself, into my lonely small self, and found Vindeliar already sniffing around my boundaries. I had not even dared to weep aloud. I’d slammed my walls tight, tight, tight. Wolf-Father had warned me. To hold my walls that tight meant no one could reach me. At that moment I hoped no one would ever touch my thoughts again. I never wanted anyone to like me again, let alone love me. And I was never, ever going to like anyone else. The pain in my heart had suddenly become a pain in my belly. It combined with the hurt of holding the dreams unspoken and unwritten. But the dreams that came to me now, I dared not speak. They were frightening and tantalizing, tempting and terrifying. They called to me to make them real. And with every day of our journey, they became more real to me, as if I came ever closer to an inevitable future I would make. I closed my eyes for a moment and then opened them to the pastel city before me. I made myself see how pretty it was, and I imagined myself as a happy person there. I would trot along those streets, greeting the people I knew, running some useful errand for Dwalia. And someday I would escape. No. I could not have that thought, nor that plan. Not yet. It was a lovely place, a wonderful place to call home. How happy I was to be here! I trickled out a bit of that thought. I had discovered that I could feed such things to Dwalia even when I couldn’t see her. Her mind was a shape I knew now. As was