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I saw Nettle recoil from me. She lifted her hands to cover her ears and then it was suddenly harder to reach her. I groped for her, but she tried to wall me out. She could not. I seeped through. I turned my slow glance to Dutiful. Another wall. Why?

“You’re still bleeding.” Kettricken shook out her handkerchief and pressed the silky thing to my brow.Advertisement

“It only happened a few moments ago,” I told her, knowing she had not been a party to our shared thoughts.

“A day, at least,” she reminded me. I stared at her. Wit or Skill? What was the difference, I abruptly wondered. Were not we all animals in some sense of that foolish word?

“I am not sure that time is the same for us,” I said aloud, and then was glad of Riddle’s strong hand gripping my wrist and pulling me up into the wagon. He leaned close to me. “Let go of Kettricken. Walls up, Fitz,” he said quietly. “I’ve not the Skill, but even I can sense you spilling.” Then he left me to help Dutiful arrange Chade. The old man lay on his side, clutching at his wound and groaning. The driver spoke, the horses started the wagon with a lurch, and I passed out.

I came back to awareness somewhat on the stairs inside Buckkeep Castle. A serving man was helping me walk up the stairs. I didn’t know him. I felt alarm, and then a wash of Skill from Dutiful assured me that all was well. I should just keep climbing the stairs. Do not try to Skill back to me, please. Or to anyone. Please put up your walls and try not to spill. I could feel Dutiful’s weariness. I seemed to recall that he had asked me to look to my walls several times. He was not with me. I wondered why.

In my room, a different serving man, one I had never seen before, offended me by insisting on helping me remove my bloody clothes and put on a clean nightshirt. I did not wish to be further bothered, but a healer came into my room and asserted that he must clean both the wound on my shoulder and the slash on my brow and then suture my brow closed with many a “Beg your indulgence, Prince FitzChivalry,” and “If my prince would be pleased to turn his face toward the light,” and “It grieves me to ask you to endure this pain, Prince FitzChivalry,” until I could scarcely stand the man’s unctuousness. When all was done, he offered me tea. At the first sip, I knew it was too strong with valerian, but I had little will to resist his insistence that I drink it. And then I must have slept again.

I woke to the fire burned low and the room full of darkness. I yawned, stretched against the ache of my muscles, and gazed dully at the short flames that licked lazily across the surface of the last log in my hearth. Slowly, slowly, I found myself in place and time. And then my heart jumped in my chest and began to hammer. Chade, injured. Bee, stolen. The Fool, possibly dying. The disasters vied to dominate my fear as being the most terrifying. I groped out with the Skill and touched Nettle and Dutiful simultaneously. Chade?

Softly, Fitz. Softly. Hold yourself in. It isn’t good, Dutiful responded glumly. The stays of his girdle deflected the sword but it still penetrated his side. He lost a great deal of blood and seems disoriented from his experience within the Skill-pillar. The only sense we have had from him is that he is angry with you for divulging that he, too, has a daughter who has been stolen. I am still trying to settle that bit of news in my mind!

I pushed my weary thoughts back. Had I divulged Chade’s secret? Probably when I had spilled myself, it had cascaded out. I was appalled that I had been so careless, but could not dwell on that. It had been when I had given Nettle and Dutiful access to my mind to explain the situation. Even now, I felt too weary for detailed conversation. Is Nettle all right? She looked so worn.

I am better, now that you and Chade are here. I am coming to your room. Now. Try to be very still until I get there.

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I had forgotten that our minds were touching. Am I that addled still? I asked myself, and felt my question echo off into the Skill-current.

I am coming also. And, yes, you are that addled, so please, if you can, put up your walls. Be still. You are alarming the other coteries. You seem to have gained strength and lost control of your thoughts during your passage. You are battering our apprentices. And you seem to not be entirely within yourself, if you can conceive what I mean. As if you are still caught in the Skill-current.

Barricading my thoughts back into my own mind was like building a drystone wall. Fit each piece into place. Hold back the cascading thoughts, stop the chaining thoughts of worry, fear, desperation, and guilt. Stop them, hold them, guard them.

When I thought I was safe once more behind my walls, I became aware of my body’s complaints.

Several of my stitches were too tight. The slightest change in my facial expression made them pull. The rest of my body ached, and I was suddenly, horribly hungry in a way I could not control. pqdm.com