-Chade Fallstar
We arrived at King Shrewd’s door and knocked. The Fool opened it. I had marked well that Wallace was one of the feasters below, and had remained when the King had departed.
“Let me in,” I said quietly while the Fool glared at me.
“No,” he said flatly. He started to close the door.
I put my shoulder to it, and Burrich assisted. It was the first and last time I would ever use force against the Fool. I took no joy in proving that I was physically stronger than he was. The look in his eyes as I forced him aside was something no one should ever see in a friend’s face.
The King was sitting before his hearth, vapidly mumbling. The Queen-in-Waiting sat desolately beside him, while Rosemary dozed at her feet. Kettricken rose from her seat to regard us with surprise. “FitzChivalry?” she asked quietly.
I went swiftly to her side. “I have much to explain, and a very little time in which to do it. For what I need to do must be done now, tonight.” I paused, tried to decide how best to explain it to her. “Do you remember when you pledged yourself to Verity?”
“Of course!” She looked at me as if I were crazy.
“He used August, then, a coterie member, to come and stand with you in your mind, to show you his heart. Do you remember that?”
She colored. “Of course I do. But I did not think anyone else knew exactly what had happened then.”
“Few did.” I looked around, to find Burrich and the Fool following the conversation wide-eyed.
“Verity Skilled to you, through August. He is strong in the Skill. You know that, you know how he guards our coasts with it. It is an ancestral magic, a talent of the Farseer line. Verity inherited it from his father. And I inherited a measure of it from mine.”