Thirty: Stone Garden

The travelers quit the Skill Road for an overgrown forest track. Fitz enjoys the living woods while the others grumble at its roughness. Banter with the Fool over Starling’s belief about his gender escalates into a sharp exchange about love versus “plumbing,” embarrassing Starling and straining the small group’s harmony.

The trail drops into a lush valley where the company halts before an immense, sleeping, scaled dragon. Moving on, they find more: varied, winged, sleeping beasts. Fitz’s Wit insists they are alive, yet Kettle’s touch and close inspection persuade most they are perfectly preserved carvings. The party spreads out, marveling among dozens of figures, and the Fool finds another marked pillar. Kettricken and Fitz conclude this place matches Verity’s map, perhaps once a lakeshore, but its purpose—garden, graveyard, or something else—remains unclear.

They make camp among the statues. Uneasy, Fitz hunts with Nighteyes; Starling accompanies him. Kettricken has urged Starling to end discord, and in the dark Starling apologizes. She speaks of the fall of Dimity Keep, her rape by Raiders, the failed abortifacient that left her barren, and the hard pragmatism that followed. She admits she traded news of Molly’s child partly to secure her future and a great song. Fitz listens, affirms her worth, and they share a fragile reconciliation.

Seeking simple human comfort, Starling asks Fitz to be with her. He refuses out of fidelity to Molly and reveals that his Wit-bond means Nighteyes would share all knowledge of it. Startled and dismayed, Starling presses about Molly learning the truth; Fitz has no answer. They return to camp, the Fool offers no jests, and Starling lies beside Fitz without intimacy.

That night Fitz dreams peacefully: Molly and Nettle sleeping, the wolf at his feet, the Fool nearby, and Kettle’s game set with dragon pieces and red ships. The day’s discoveries remain unsolved, but the group’s bonds and fractures are newly exposed.