By the time I reached the top of the spiraling tower steps, I was winded and my legs ached. I pushed at the door and it gave easily on oiled hinges. From long habit, I stepped quietly as I entered the room. I had not really expected to find Verity or anyone else there. The sea storms were our watchmen in winter, guarding our coasts from Raiders. I blinked in the sudden gray light of morning that was flooding in from the unshuttered tower windows. Verity was a dark silhouette against a gray storm sky. He did not turn. “Shut the door,” he said quietly. “The draft up the stairs makes this room as windy as a chimney.”
I did so, and then stood shivering in the chill. The wind brought the scent of the sea with it, and I breathed it in as if it were life itself. “I had not expected to find you here,” I said.
He kept his eyes on the water. “Didn’t you? Then why did you come?” There was amusement in his voice.
It jolted me. “I don’t really know. I headed back to my room ….” My voice dwindled away as I tried to recall why I had come here.
“I Skilled you,” he said simply.
I stood silent and thought. “I felt nothing.”
“I didn’t intend that you should. It is as I told you a long time ago. The Skill can be a soft whisper in a man’s ear. It doesn’t have to be a shout of command.”
He slowly turned to face me, and as my eyes adjusted to the light my heart leaped with joy at the change I saw in the man. When I had left Buckkeep at harvest time, he had been a withered shadow, worn thin by the weight of his duties and his constant watchfulness. His dark hair was still salted with gray, but there was muscle once more on his stocky frame, and vitality snapped in his dark eyes. He looked every bit a King.