They were coming. I saw with the cat’s eyes, and recognized the Piebalds we had battled earlier in the day. Limping, she led them. The big man came slowly, on foot, leading his massive horse as they forced their way through the dark forest. The two women rode slowly behind him. The scratched man with the injured cat came last of all. They led two riderless horses now, so we had either killed or severely injured one of their party. We come, my love. And a bird has been sent, summoning others to your aid. Soon you will be with us again, she promised. We will take no chances of losing you. When the others are near, we will close in and free you.
Will you kill Lord Golden and his servant? the Prince asked anxiously.
Yes.
I wish you wouldn’t kill Lord Golden..
It is necessary. I regret it, but it must be, for Lord Golden has come too far into our territory. He has seen the faces of our folk, and ridden our paths. He has to die.
Can you not let him go? He is sympathetic to our cause. Shown our strength, he might simply go back to the Queen and say he had never found Where is your loyalty? How can you trust him so quickly? Have you forgotten how many of our own folk have been killed by the Farseer reign? Or do you wish to see me and all our people die?
This question was like the snap of a whip and it pained me to feel Dutiful cower before it. My heart is with you, my love, with you, he assured her.
Good. That’s good. Then trust only me, and let me do what I must do. There is no need for you to dwell on it. You need not feel responsible for what people bring down upon themselves. It is none of your doing. You tried to leave quietly. They are the ones who pursued you and attacked us. Put it from your mind.
Then she wrapped him in love, in a surging wave of warm affection that overpowered any thought of his own that he might have. But she seemed to be only at the edges of that flow. It was cat-love, the fierce claws-and-teeth love of a feline. The emotion drenched me and, despite my wariness, I near succumbed to it myself. I felt the Prince accept that she would do what she must do. She only did it so that they could be together. Was any price too high to pay for that?
She’s dead.
The wolf’s thought was like a voice in the room of a sleeping man. For a moment, I incorporated it into my dreams. Then the sense of it struck me like a punch to the belly. Of course. She’s dead. She rides the cat.
And in that foolish moment of my sharing with the wolf, she was aware of me.
What is this? Her fear and outrage were nothing compared to her utter shock. She had never experienced anything like this. It was outside her magic completely, and in the rawness of her astonishment, she betrayed much of her self.
I wrenched free of all contact before she could know any more than that someone had been there, watching her, just as I felt her make surer her grip upon him. It reminded me of a great cat seizing a mouse in her jaws and paralyzing it with a bite. I got that same sense of both possession and devouring. For one clear moment, I hoped that the Prince perceived her as clearly as I did. He was a toy for her, a possession and a tool. She felt no love for him.
But the cat does, Nighteyes pointed out to me. And in that twisting disparity, I came back to myself. It reminded me of my jolting leap from the tree. Slammed back into my own flesh, I sat up, gasping for air and space. Beside me, the Prince remained inert, but Nighteyes was instantly with me, thrusting his great head under my arm. Are you all right, little brother? Did she hurt you?
I tried to answer, but instead rocked forward, moaning as a Skill-headache exploded in my skull. I was literally blinded, isolated in a black night riven by lightning bolts of blazing white across my vision. I blinked, then knuckled my eyes, trying to make the glaring light go away. It burst into colors that sickened me. I hunched my shoulders and curled up against the pain.
A moment later, I felt a cold cloth laid across the back of my neck. I sensed the Fool beside me, blessedly silent. I swallowed and drew several deep breaths and then spoke into my hands. “They’re coming. The Piebalds we fought today, and others. They know where we are from the Prince. He’s like a beacon fire. We can’t hide, and they’re too many for us to fight and survive. Running is our only chance. We can’t wait for moonrise. Nighteyes will lead us,”
The Fool spoke very softly as if he guessed at my pain. “Shall I wake the Prince?”
“Don’t bother trying. He’s far and deep, and I don’t think she’ll let him come back to his body right now. We’ll have to take him as a dead weight. Saddle the horses, will you?”
“I will. Fitz, can you ride as you are?”
I opened my eyes. Floating jags of light still divided my vision, but now I could see the darkened meadow beyond them. I forced a smile to my face. “I’ll have to ride, just as my wolf will have to run. And you may have to fight. Not what any of us would choose, but there it is. Nighteyes. Go now. Choose a path for us, and get as far ahead of us as you can. I don’t know from which direction the other attackers are coming. Spy ahead for us.”
You think to send me out of harm’s way. The thought was almost reproachful.
I would if I could, my brother, but the truth is that I may be sending you directly into danger. Scout for us. Go now.
He rose stiffly and stretched. He gave himself a shake, and then set out, not at a lope, but at his distance-devouring trot. Almost immediately, he became invisible to me, the gray wolf gone into the gray meadow. Go carefully, my heart, I wished after him, but softly, softly, lest he know how much I feared for him.
I rose, moving very carefully, as if my head were an overfull glass. I did not actually believe my brains would spill out of the top of my skull if I were careless, but I almost hoped it. I took the Fool’s wet handkerchief off the back of my neck and held it to my brow and eyes for a time. When I looked down on the Prince, he hadn’t moved. If anything, his body was curled more tightly. I heard the Fool come up behind me leading the horses and I turned cautiously to look at him.
“Can you explain?” he asked softly, and I realized how little he knew. It was all the more amazing that he so un-questioningly acted on my requests.
I drew a breath. “He’s using the Skill and the Wit. And he hasn’t been trained in either, so he’s vulnerable, very vulnerable. He’s too young to understand just how much at risk he is. Right now, his consciousness rides with the cat. For all intents, he is the cat.”
“But he will awaken and come back to his body?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so. Fool, there is more. There is someone else joined to the cat. I, that is, we, Nighteyes and I, suspect that she is the cat’s former owner.”
“Former? I thought Witted ones bonded to their animals for life?”
“They do. She would be dead now. But her consciousness is within the cat, using the cat.”
“But I thought the Prince—”
“Yes. The Prince is there, too. I do not think he realizes that this woman he loves does not exist as a woman anymore. I know he has no concept of how much power she has over him. And over the cat.”
“What can we do?”
The throbbing in my head was making me sick to my stomach. I spoke more harshly than I intended. “Forcibly separate the boy from the cat. Kill the cat, and hope the boy doesn’t die.”
“Oh, Fitz!” He was appalled. I didn’t have time to care.