Thirteen: Hunting

At dawn, Fitz arms himself, unsettled by the life he’s leaving and resolved to seek King Shrewd’s consent to wed Molly. In Verity’s tower, Fitz experiences Verity’s wide-ranging Skill as the Prince surveys his people at sea and along the coast. Verity gifts Fitz a master-forged sword and, after Fitz asks to leave assassination, hints at different duties: serving aboard the new warships as a Skilled relay, if Fitz can master both Skill and sword by spring.

Verity proposes to accompany Fitz’s hunt by sharing Fitz’s mind. Fitz hesitates, guarding the secret of his Wit-bond with Nighteyes, but Verity chooses to trust him. Maintaining the mental link, Fitz leaves Buckkeep, riding Sooty into deep forest toward a creek where Forged ones were seen. Verity enjoys the ride through Fitz’s senses but questions Fitz’s unnamed source; Fitz deflects.

A child’s scream shatters the quiet. Fitz and Nighteyes race in to find three Forged men fighting over a tiny girl; one bites before she is fully dead. Fitz charges, Nighteyes attacks, and two Forged are slain in a brutal melee. The third, a powerful smith, ambushes Fitz and nearly chokes him to death before Fitz and Nighteyes, in a frenzy, kill him. The child is already dead. Fitz holds her body, overcome with grief as riders arrive—Verity, Burrich, Blade, others—and the mother takes her child, her screams breaking Fitz’s defenses. Nighteyes slips away unseen.

Later, in Verity’s study, Burrich tends Fitz’s minor wounds while the healer Dem assists. Verity recounts losing the Skill-link when Fitz entered a battle frenzy and apologizes for arriving too late. Burrich, anguished, questions whether it is fitting for Chivalry’s son to face such slaughter alone. Verity, angry but controlled, insists Fitz is no child, that he accompanied Fitz in intent, and that necessity drives these choices.

To prevent future breaks in contact, Verity orders Burrich to train Fitz with the axe, tying weapons practice to sustaining a Skill link. Fitz, claiming the Six Duchies as “his people,” vows vengeance against the Red Ship Raiders whose forging led to this child’s death. Burrich accepts the charge to teach him, and they turn to food, the basin water dark with the smith’s blood.