One: Siltbay

The chapter opens with a brief chronicle of the burdens of the King- or Queen-in-Waiting under King Shrewd, tracing Chivalry’s abdication, Verity’s war responsibilities, and Kettricken’s uneasy place in a fracturing realm beset by Red Ship raids and civil strain.

Fitz awakens in fine bedding, disoriented, to find the Fool tending him. Speaking gently and calling him “my king,” the Fool reveals Fitz is experiencing King Shrewd’s weakness, while a healer named Wallace has been ineffectively dosing him. As Fitz tries to orient himself, a Skill-trance seizes him, and he sees, as King Shrewd, a winter raid on Siltbay unfolding in perfect detail.

Fitz watches Red Ships slip silently into the fog-shrouded harbor, the sentries already murdered. He witnesses the raiders’ singular cruelty: not theft but slaughter, burning, and the threat of Forging. The Fool, strained by his own glimpses of possible futures, recalls that a song later celebrates Siltbay because none were taken alive to be Forged—at the cost of horrific deaths.

Fitz sees a woman with two children flee a burning house and believes she is Molly. As raiders batter a root-cellar door, Molly kills one attacker, but a collapsing fiery wall cuts off Fitz’s view. He burns his own hand in the hearth as the vision breaks. Desperate to know this woman’s fate, Fitz begs the Fool to “remember forward,” but the Fool can only list divergent possibilities—death, survival, mutilation—none certain.

Shrewd’s resolve surfaces through Fitz: suffering is the monarch’s duty. He orders the Fool to summon Verity and prepare aid for Siltbay, even if it will only douse fires and succor survivors. The Skill contact frays; Fitz finds himself again in his own body in the Mountain Kingdom, exhausted but clear-eyed. He refuses further rest and, at first light when Burrich comes to bid farewell, Fitz is ready to ride with him.