Fool's Fate

“I won't be going back with you. Can you take care of your father without me?”

“Can I . . . what do you mean, you won't be coming back with us? What else can you do?”

“Stay here. I need to go back to the glacier, Swift. I want to find a way into her underground palace. At the least, I want to find my friend's body and burn it. He hated to be cold. He would not wish to be entombed forever in ice.”

“And what else do you hope to do? There is something you are not saying.”

I took a deep breath, thought of a lie, and then set it down. Enough lies for one lifetime. “I hope to look on the Pale Woman's body. I hope to find her dead, to know that she died for all she has done to us. And if I find her living, I hope to kill her.”

It was a small and simple promise I'd made to myself. I doubted it would be easy to carry out, but it was the only comfort I could find to offer myself.

“You look a different man when you talk like that,” Swift said in a hushed voice. He leaned close to me. “When you talk like that, you have a wolf's eyes.”

I shook my head and smiled. At least, my teeth showed. “No. No wolf wastes time on vengeance, and that is what this is. Vengeance, pure and simple. When people look most vicious, what you are seeing is not their animal side. It is the savagery that only humans can muster. When you see me loyal to my family, then you see the wolf.”

He touched a finger to his dangling earring. He knit his brows and asked, “Do you want me to stay with you? You should not face this alone. And, as you have seen, I did not lie. I am good with a bow.”

“You are indeed. But you have other duties, more pressing ones. Burrich has no chance at all if he stays here. Get him onto the ship and back to Zylig. They may have skilled healers there. At the very least, they will have a place that is warm, with decent food and a clean bed for him.”

“My father is going to die, FitzChivalry. Let us not pretend otherwise.”

Oh, the power that lurks in the naming of names. I let go. “You are right, Swift. But he need not die in the cold, under a piece of flapping canvas. That much we can give him.”

Swift scratched his head. “I want to do my father's will in this. I think he would tell me to stay with you. That I cannot be as useful to him as I could be to you.”

I thought about it. “Perhaps he would. But I do not think your mother would tell you that. I think you need to be with him. He may rally again, before the end, and what words he may have for you could be precious ones. No, Swift. Go with him. Be with him, for me.”

He did not reply, but bowed his head to my words.

Even as we spoke, men were dismantling our camp and loading it aboard the ship. I think it shocked Swift when it was the Outislanders who came for him and Burrich. Bear came, to incline his head gravely to the boy and ask the honor of transporting him and his father aboard the Hetgurd ship. “Demon-slayers,” he named both of them, and I think it shocked Swift to realize that he had been left to grieve in isolation out of respect, not out of negligence. The Owl, their bard, sang them aboard the Bear ship, and though he twisted the words in their bard's tongue, still I heard with throat-choking pride of the man who had brought the dragon-demon to its knees and the boy who slew it to set the Pale Woman's hostages free. Web, I noted, rode out in the boat with them, and would be taking ship with Swift. This comforted me. I did not want the lad to be alone among strangers, no matter how they might honor him when Burrich died, and I feared he would not live to see Zylig port.

Then the Prince was at my side, demanding to know which ship I was embarking upon. “You are welcome on either, but it will be close quarters no matter which you choose. They did not expect to carry off this many people. We shall be packed like salt fish in a keg. Chade, in his wisdom, has chosen to separate me from the Narcheska, so I will be on the Bear ship. Chade goes on the Boar ship with Peottre and his women, for he hopes to further advance the final negotiations of our alliance during the voyage.”

I had to smile, despite my heavy heart. “Alliance, you still call it? It has begun to look like a wedding to me. And have you given Chade reason to think it best to separate you from Elliania for the voyage to Zylig?”

He raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth quirking. “Not I! It was Elliania who proclaimed she was satisfied as to her challenge to me to be worthy of her, and declared that she now regarded me as her husband. I do not think her mother was entirely pleased, but Peottre declined to oppose her. Chade has tried to explain to Elliania the necessity of my vowing to her in my ‘mothershouse,' but she will have none of that. She asked him, ‘And what is a man, to oppose a woman's will in this matter?' ”