Royal Assassin

Locus Award nominee 1997.

The legend continues...

Regal's treasonous attempt to usurp the Six Duchies throne from his half-brother Verity has been foiled; but Fitz has been left prone to bouts of trembling and faintness as a result of the foul poison administered to him

One night, Fitz has a dream: of Red-Ship Raiders sacking a coastal village, leaving not a single man, woman or child alive or unForged, including, it seems, a familiar dark-haired woman sheltering two children in a fisherman's cottage. Was it Molly he saw in his dream? Is she still alive; or worse, has she been Forged? Tortured by this terrible vision and by his physical traumas, Fitz returns to the Six Duchies court. Where all is far from well.

Despite a marriage designed to stabilize the kingdom, the Mountain Princess, Kettricken, finds herself sadly neglected by King-in-Waiting Verity, who spends all his time in his tower-room, attempting to Skill storm and poor navigation upon the Red-Ship Raiders. It seems that nothing can stop their terrifying marauding. Frustrated in all his efforts, Verity makes what appears to many an insane plan: to seek to awaken the mystical Elderlings in defence of the kingdom.

With King Shrewd struck down by a mysterious sickness, Verity's departure leaves Regal free to pursue his evil plottings; and Fitz, friendless but for the wolf Nighteyes, rescued from a market-trader's cage, and the King's Fool, who torments Fitz with his cryptic prophesies: "Keystone. Gate. Crossroads. Catalyst. All these you have been, and continue to be. Whenever I come to a crossroads, whenever the scent is uncertain, when I put my nose to the ground, and cast about and bay and snuffle, I find one scent. Yours. We are here Fitz, you and I, to change the future and the world..."

Hobb covers portrayed here are from UK editions, by John Howe.