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“I am sorry, by the way. About your Molly girl and all. I did try to tell you.” Kettle did not sound sorry. But I understood that now. Almost all of her feelings were in the dragon. She spoke of what she knew she would have felt, once. She still had pain for me, but she no longer recalled any pain of her own to compare it with.
I watched myself coming. My stride was confident and brisk, my head up. My face was freshly washed, my wet hair slicked back from my brow into a warrior’s tail. Verity wore my body well. Our eyes met in the early light. I saw my eyes narrow as Verity appraised his own body.
“I will neither apologize to you nor thank you. Neither would be adequate.” He shook his head to himself. “And in truth, how could I say I am sorry? I am not.” He looked away from me, out over my head. “My dragon will rise. My queen will bear a child. I will drive the Red Ships from our shore.” He took a deep breath. “No. I am not sorry for our bargain.” His eyes came back to me. “FitzChivalry. Are you sorry?”
the Wit in Realder’s dragon. In a brief stench, my bloody
I healed. Not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding.
The folk of the Six Duchies feared them not. Children ran out from huts and cottages, to point overhead at the jeweled passing of the creatures. When the dragons slept, temporarily satiated, on the beaches and in the pastures, the people came out to walk among them fearlessly, to touch with their own hands these jewel-glittering creatures. And everywhere the Raiders had established strongholds, the dragons fed well.
As the wolf and I gave thought to shelter for the winter, I had dreams of dragons flying over shores I had never seen before. Water churned cold against those harsh shores, and ice encroached on the edges of their narrow bays. The OutIslands, I surmised. Verity had always longed to bring the war to their shores, and did so with a vengeance. And that, too, was as it had been in King Wisdom’s time.
I could not tell you if Verity led their flight, or even if Girl-on-a-Dragon was among them. I only knew that peace had been restored to the Six Duchies and that no Red Ships would venture near our shores again. I hoped they would all sleep well in the Stone Garden as they had before. I went back into the hut to turn the rabbit on the cooking spit. I looked forward to a long quiet winter.
Minstrels made songs of it. All the songs say that Verity came home himself upon the turquoise dragon, and rode the beast into the battle against the Red Ships. And the best songs say that when the fighting was over, Verity was carried off by the Elderlings, to feast with them in great honor and then sleep beside them in their magic castle until such time as Buck shall need to call on him again.
All spoke in wonder, of how the prince had started up from a dream, and run half-dressed through the halls of Tradeford, miraculously foretelling the return of King Verity to Buckkeep and the summoning of the Elderlings to save the Six Duchies. Birds were sent, withdrawing all troops from the Mountains and offering his most humble apologies and generous monetary reparation to King Eyod. He summoned his nobles, to foretell to them that Queen Kettricken would bear Verity’s child, and that, he, Regal, wished to be first to pledge fealty to the next Farseer monarch.
To Lord Chade, the Queen’s adviser, he returned all the scrolls and books of Skillmaster Solicity, with the plea that he guard them well, for there was much in them that could be turned to evil in the wrong hands.
I had considered having him erect a statue in my memory, but had decided that would be going too far. The fanatical loyalty I had imprinted on him would be my best memorial. While Regal lived, Queen Kettricken and her child would have no more loyal subject.
Forging was not an invention of the Red Ships. We had taught it well to them, back in the days of King Wisdom. The Elderlings that took our revenge on the OutIslands soared many times over that country of islands. Many OutIslanders were devoured outright, but many others were overflown by dragons so often that they were stripped of their memories and feelings.
When the Red Ships sailed, it was not to claim Six Duchies territory or wealth. It was for revenge. To do to us as so long ago we had done to them, in the days of their great-great-grandmothers.
The dragons devoured all her crew, down to the last man. In her hold were found only great blocks of shining black stone. Locked within them, I believe, were the stolen lives and feelings of the folk of the Six Duchies who had been Forged. Their studies had led the OutIslander scholars to believe that stone sufficiently imbued with life-force could be fashioned into dragons to serve the OutIslanders. It is chilling to think how close they came to discovering the complete truth of creating a dragon.
Molly tends her hives and candle shop, while Burrich has used stud fees from Ruddy and Ruddy’s colt to begin to breed horses again. Starling knows these things, for it was she who tracked them down and saw to it that Ruddy and Sooty’s colt were given over to him.
Chade no longer lives in the shadows, but is the honored adviser to the Queen. According to Starling, he is a foppish old man who is entirely too fond of the company of young women. But she smiles as she says it, and “Chade Fallstar’s Reckoning” will be the song she is remembered for when she is gone.
Even on the nights when I Skill out in despair as lonely as a wolf’s howling, begging anyone, anyone to respond, I feel nothing. Not even an echo. Then I sit by my window and look out through the mists past the tip of Antler Island. I grip my hands to keep them from trembling and I refuse to plunge myself whole into the Skill river that is waiting, always waiting to sweep me away. It would be so easy. Sometimes all that holds me back is the touch of a wolf’s mind against mine.
