Shadow Wolf.

It reminded me of Hap tugging at my shirttail when he was small. Incessant and insistent. Nagging as a mosquito buzzing near your ear in the night.

Shadow Wolf.

Shadow Wolf.

It wasn’t going to go away.

I’m sleeping. I suddenly knew that was so, in that odd way that dreamers do. I was asleep and this was a dream. Dreams didn’t matter. Did they?

So am I. That’s the only time I can reach you. Don’t you know that?

My replying seemed to have strengthened her sending. It was almost as if she clung to me now. No. I didn’t know that.

I looked idly around myself. I nearly recognized the shape of the land. It was spring and close by apple trees were in bloom. I could hear bees busy amongst the blossoms. There was soft green grass under my bare feet and a gentle air moved through my hair.

I’ve come so often to your dreams, and watched what you did. I thought I would invite you to one of mine. Do you like it?

There was a woman beside me. No, a girl. Someone. It was hard to tell. I could see her dress and her little leather shoes, and her weather-browned hands, but the rest of her was fogged. I could not resolve her features. As for myself . . . it was strange. I could behold myself, as if I stood outside myself, and yet it was not the me that I saw when I looked in a mirror. I was a shaggy-haired man, much taller than I truly am, and far more strong. My rough gray hair spilled down my back and hung over my brow. The nails of my hands were black, and my teeth were pointed in my mouth. Uneasiness nibbled at me. Danger here, but not to me. Why couldn’t I remember what the danger was?

This isn’t me. This isn’t right.

She laughed fondly. Well, if you won’t let me see you as you are, then you’ll just have to be how I’ve always imagined you. Shadow Wolf, why have you stayed away? I’ve missed you. And I’ve feared for you. I felt your great pain, but I do not know what it was. Are you hurt? There seems less of you than there was. And you seem tired and older. I’ve missed you and your dreams. I was so scared you were dead, and then you didn’t come anymore. It’s taken me forever to discover that I could reach out to you instead of waiting for you to come to me.

She chattered like a child. A very real and wakeful dismay crept through me. It was like a cold mist in my heart, and then I saw it, a mist rising around me in the dream. Somehow, without knowing how, I had summoned it. I willed it thicker and stronger around me. I tried to warn her. This isn’t right. Or good. Stay back, stay away from me.

That isn’t fair! she wailed as the mist became a wall between us. Her thoughts reached me more faintly. Look what you’ve done to my dream. It was so hard to make and now you’ve spoiled it. Where are you going? You are so rude!

I twitched free of her failing grip on me, and found I could wake up. In fact, I was already awake, and an instant later I was sitting on the edge of my cot. My combing fingers stood up what was left of my hair. I was almost ready for the Skill pain when it lurched through my belly and slammed against the cap of my skull. I took deep, steadying breaths, resolved not to vomit. When some little time had passed, a minute or half a year, I could scarcely tell which, I painstakingly began to reinforce my Skill walls. Had I been careless? Had weariness or my exposure to Smoke dropped them?

Or was my daughter simply strong enough to break through them?

Chapter V

SHARED SORROWS

A storm of gems they were.

Scaled wings jewel-like glittered.

Eyes flaming, wings fanning

The dragons came.

Too flashing bright for memory to hold.

The promise of a thousand songs fulfilled.

Claws shredding, jaws devouring

The King returned.

— “VERITY’S RECKONING,” STARLING BIRDSONG

Air stirred against my cheek. I opened my eyes wearily. I had dozed off, despite the open window and chill morning. Before and below me stretched a vista of water. Waves tipped with white wrinkled under a gray sky. I got up from Verity’s chair with a groan; two steps carried me to the tower window. From here, the view was wider, showing me the steep cliffs and the clinging forest below this aspect of Buckkeep Castle. There was the taste of a storm in the air, and the wind was cutting its winter teeth. The sun was a handbreadth above the far horizon, dawn long fled. The Prince had not come.

I was not surprised. Dutiful was probably still deeply asleep after last night’s festivities. No, there was no surprise that he should forget our meeting, or perhaps rouse just enough to decide it wasn’t that important and roll back into sleep. Yet there was disappointment, and it was not just that my prince found sleep more important than meeting with me. It was that he had said he would meet me here, and then hadn’t. And not only hadn’t, but hadn’t sent word to cancel the meeting and save me the time and trouble of being here. It was a trifling thing in a boy of his years, a bit of thoughtlessness. Yet what was minor in a boy was not so in a prince. I wanted to rebuke him for it, as Chade would have chastened me. Or Burrich. I grinned ruefully. In fairness, had I been any different at Dutiful’s age? Burrich had never trusted me to keep dawn appointments. I could well recall how he would thunder at my door to be sure I did not miss a lesson with the axe. Well, perhaps if our roles had been different, I would have gone and pounded on the Prince’s chamber door.