A Farseer kills the Outislander dragon. What happens next? I saw it as clearly as if I had been granted the Fool's prescience. That insult to the Outislanders would not only eliminate all chance of dragons returning to the world, it would become the incident that united the Outislanders against the Six Duchies. Far from guaranteeing a marriage that would secure a lasting peace, it would be the spark that set off the conflagration of war again. Chade, Dutiful and I were the last male members of the Farseer line; I doubted that any of us would leave the island alive. And Nettle? If Kettricken revealed my daughter's bloodlines and proclaimed her the Farseer heir, would the Outislanders let her reign in peace? I doubted it. The uncertain peace we had achieved in the last fifteen years would be swept aside. The slaughter would begin here on Aslevjal and spread. There would be no one to rouse the stone dragons this time, no Elderling allies to come to our aid. Destruction and Forging would return to our shores. The Pale Woman would reign, unchallenged, for the future she had made.

My heart was pounding in my chest with what I had nearly done. As the Fool had predicted, the choice had passed to me. 1 had come so close to fulfilling the Pale Woman's dreams. I set my own fingertips to the marks the Fool had left on my wrist. 'Forgive me,' I begged him. 'Forgive me for doing what you hoped I would do.' Then I threw myself flat on the ice and with every bit of strength I had, I flung my awareness, Wit and Skill, at the dragon.

My Skill was a flapping, fluttering moth, but my Wit was strong.

I felt Icefyre become aware of me. I felt the danger of his regard, just as prey lifts its head abruptly, knowing that a predator has focused on it. But I did not quail before him, but roared with my body's strength, like one predator challenging another for territory. With my Wit, I could not convey my thoughts to him, but perhaps he would reach for me. Perhaps if he touched his mind to mine, he could know what I knew. That there was another dragon, a female, and she was even now winging her way toward us guided by a gull.

I know he sensed me, but to him I was a crow, neither prey nor pack, unworthy of his attention. His thoughts rolled over and away from me, and he made another dive into death and oblivion.

I flailed in panic. Just when I needed the Skill most, it had faded to a flickering ember in me. I was not strong enough to reach the dragon's mind on my own. He was too determined to seek his own oblivion. I tried again, honing my Skill to an arrow's point, and jabbing it toward the dragon.

There you are. I thought you were dead'. I've been seeking you every night for days now. What is wrong, why did you vanish? Nettle's powerful sending caught my weak Skill like strong hands clutching at a drowning man. She held my thoughts to hers. I pushed her away.

Nettle, not now. Go away. 1 have no time for you now.

And then, just as she fled in affront and hurt, my stupidity broke over me, and I cried out, No, come back, wait, I need you!

She halted at the edge of my awareness. I saw fluttering rags of her dream. She was a hunter, her hair tied back and a game net held at the ready. I lunged at her, pleading, No, come back! Please! 1 need your help!

For what? she demanded coldly-

I'd hurt her by my brusque dismissal after so long an absence. I doubt that she recollected that she was the one who had first barricaded her thoughts against mine. I wished I had time for explanations, but I did not. Already my Wit-sense of the dragon was starting to subside. In moments, he'd be beyond my reach- Help me wake a dragon! I pleaded with her. He dives down deep into his dreams, seeking death. But if you can reach down into sleep, perhaps you can reach down into his death dream and pull him back from there.

But . . . Shadow Wolf? Changer? Is it truly you, bidding me do this? Always before, you cautioned me of the dragon, warning me not to even say her name. Now you would have me wake her for you?

It's a different dragon. And then, knowing how little time there was, I trod heavily where I had never ventured to go before. Please. If you would only do this thing for me, trusting me, without asking why. There is so little time. 1 would tell you all if we had time, I will tell you all when it is over. Only, for now, I ask you to trust me. Wake this dragon for me. Help me speak to him.

What dragon?

This one! I pointed frantically, Wit and Skill, but Icefyre was gone again. Wait, wait'. 1 begged her. He dives deep right now, but he is here, I promise you. Wait and watch with me. In a moment, he'll be back.

Are you all right? Why haven't you come out yet? Have you placed the powder? It was a panicky Skilling from Dutiful, breaking into my desperate thoughts to Nettle.

A moment or two longer, m.31 prince. There is something I must do here. Then, as the dragon suddenly surged back into existence below me, I frantically summoned Nettle with, There'. There he is. Wake him, reach him! Tell him he is not the last of his kind, tell him of Tintaglia. Tell him that she comes for him, to wake him and restore dragons to the air and earth.

Then, like a roll of doom, Chade burst in with, Fitz, what do you do? Would you betray us? Would you betray me, after ail these years? Would you betray the Farseer throne and your own blood?

1 do what I must! I Skilled it out wildly, feeling the strength of my magic wobble and fail. I could not tell if anyone heard me. I found I was lying flat on the ice in the tunnel. The dragon had receded again. By my head, the kettle glowed red. The container of powder was by my hand. I summoned my magic, hammered it like red iron and thrust it out into the world. I begged, hoping Nettle heard my thought. Tell him to turn away from death and choose life. Choose struggle and toil and pain and lovely, lovely life. Speak to him and tell him that Tintaglia still lives. Speak to him for me.

1 will try, she agreed dubiously. She had held our link. I felt her thought but could no longer see her. I do not perceive this dragon that you speak of. But if you can show him to me, show me his dream, perhaps 1 can enter it and find him there.

I held a feeble Skill-wall against Chade's threats, imprecations and pleas and Dutiful's confusion while I pressed myself against the floor of ice and sought for the dragon that had no awareness of me. I could not reach him. Time both raced and dragged for me. I needed to reach him soon, before Chade could act against me, physically or with the Skill I did not doubt that he would stop me if he could.

I recalled there had been a place where our spirits had touched, the dragon's and mine, and I had entered his dream. I did not want to return to that time and that memory. It had been a turning point in time, not unlike this one, I suddenly realized. It had been one of the Fool's crossroads; a place where a decision made by one had altered all that had followed. Burrich had chosen, for love of me, to use a magic he found hateful. I had chosen to trust the wolf and embrace a death that was not a death. In doing so, I had unwittingly chosen to go on living.

I found the place where my experience matched Icefyre's. I found the cold and the dark and the despair, I found the longing for a death that I could not reach on my own. I returned my soul to Regal's dungeon of beatings and isolation.

It was one thing to know I had been in a place like that. It was another to reach for it, to taste again old blood around my loosened teeth, to smell the stink of my own festering wounds, and feel the numbing cold of the stone walls that was still not enough to dull the aching of my battered flesh. I put my soul back into that trapped body and knew again the despair of reaching for a death that would not come to me. I pushed the life from my body and held it at bay, only to have it flow relentlessly back into my flesh the moment I relaxed my guard against it.