Assassin's Quest

Plot summary

After being brought back from the dead, FitzChivalry Farseer spends many months trapped in a wolf’s way of thinking because of his deep mental link with Nighteyes. He hides out in a far-off cabin, watched over only by Burrich and Chade, the sole people who know he survived. Slowly, Fitz recovers his human sense of self, but he cannot shake the pain of everything he lost or the horror of what King Regal did to him. Convinced that killing Regal is the only path to peace, he sets out. Just before leaving, he is ambushed by Forged Ones and kills them. Through uncontrollable Skill visions, he later sees that Burrich discovered the scene and now thinks Fitz is dead. Burrich is looking after Molly, Fitz’s former love, who is carrying Fitz’s child. Back at Buckkeep, Lady Patience commands what remains of the resistance against the Red Ship Raiders.

Fitz reaches Regal’s palace in Tradeford but cannot carry out the assassination because the remaining coterie members block him. Verity helps him flee and plants a powerful Skill command in his mind: “Come To Me.” Fitz cannot resist it, so he follows the path of Verity’s own journey to find the Elderlings in the Mountain Kingdom. As he travels, his bond with Nighteyes grows even stronger, and the two become more alike. The wolf starts to think in human ways. Fitz meets other Witted folk who call themselves Old Blood, but he chooses not to learn their traditions.

A minstrel named Starling and an old woman called Kettle, who is searching for the White Prophet, join Fitz and Nighteyes. They dodge Regal’s soldiers and make it to the Mountain Kingdom. There, the White Prophet turns out to be the Fool, who nurses Fitz back to health. The Fool has long prophesied that Fitz is a Catalyst, vital to the Six Duchies’ future. Verity and Kettricken’s child was stillborn. Against Fitz’s desperate objections, Kettricken and Chade decide to take Fitz and Molly’s daughter and raise her as the Farseer heir.