Twenty-Seven: The City

Fitz comes to in a snow-dimmed, silent city with no memory of leaving the Skill Road. Panic subsides as he discovers that touching black, crystal-veined stone awakens the city’s past: streets fill with people, wagons, and guards who cannot see him. He reaches a wide river and suspects it connects to the silver Skill stream Verity once used, but he resists immersing himself.

Seeking shelter, Fitz kindles a real fire in a ruined shop and, drifting into uneasy sleep, dreams of Molly tenderly caring for their infant Nettle in hardship. He then glimpses Chade with a seasoned warrior woman studying a war map; she deduces Regal’s diversions mask a flanking thrust via a lesser pass and reveals she has already sent a courier to warn King Eyod.

By day, the city’s phantoms grow stronger. Fitz enters a monumental building bustling with robed officials when touched, climbs to an upper tower, and finds a shattered window, a small old fire, and a vast relief map-table of the city. Recognizing Verity’s signs—window broken for a clearer view, soot from a copying fire—Fitz studies etched white-stone wall panels that mirror the vistas and glyphs beyond each window.

With salvaged ink and nib, Fitz copies the panel Verity had cleared, hoping to match it to Kettricken’s map. As night falls, hunger gnaws at him. At the river, a golden Elderling dragon manifests, rises from the water, and later drinks repeatedly from basins filled with shimmering silver magic, confirming the city’s link to the Skill. The procession vanishes at a vast rift that has cleaved the city.

Retracing his steps to the plaza where he first arrived, Fitz examines a black glyph-etched pillar—likely a guidepost. When he touches a familiar glyph, vertigo seizes him; the city collapses away, and he falls into crusted snow. Nighteyes slams joyfully into him, and Fitz realizes he has been flung back to the road and to his companions’ trail.