Chapter 176 Chapter 176

Get up and run!Avoid those you can't fight! I found this to be really wise advice.I returned to my body in horror, slamming my inner defenses against their Skill touch.When I regained my senses, I opened my eyes and lay panting on the floor of the King's study, only to see the Fool lying on top of the King and crying loudly.I felt a creepy Skill perception groping me, so I withdrew into the depths of my heart, frantically shielding myself according to the method Verity taught me, but still felt their presence, fingers pulling at my clothes like ghosts, almost Tears my skin and fills me with revulsion of disgust.

"You killed him! You killed him! You killed His Majesty, you vile traitor!" the Fool screamed at me. "No! Not me!" I could barely yell out the words. I was horrified to see Wallace standing by the door, his eyes wide at the sight before him, and then he raised his head and shouted in shock, dropping the firewood in his hand, and the Fool and I turned our heads. I saw the pockmarked man standing by the door of the king's bedroom.Even though I knew it was Chade, I still felt a chilling dread.He was dressed in shabby gray clothes covered in mud and mildew, his long, dirty gray hair was scattered in bunches on his face, and his body was covered with soot, which made the livid scars more obvious.He slowly raised his finger and pointed at Wallace, who screamed and fled into the corridor, and his shouts for the guards echoed throughout the castle.

"What's going on here?" Chade asked after Wallace had escaped.He took a long stride to his brother's side, and ran his slender fingers over the king's throat, and I knew what he was about to find, and I rose to my feet in agony. "He's dead, but I didn't kill him!" I cried over the Fool's wailing, but the Skill's fingers still gripped me. "I will kill the man who killed the king. Take the jester to safety. Have you found the queen?" Chade stared at me wide-eyed as if he had never seen me before.All the candles in the room were suddenly ablaze with blue flames, and the scene couldn't have been more fitting. "Take her to safety," I ordered my master, "and let the jester follow her. If he stays here, he will die, and Regal will spare no one in this room tonight."

"No! I won't leave him!" The Fool opened his empty eyes like a mad thing. "Take him away if you can, Chade! His life depends on you!" I grabbed the Fool by the shoulders and shook his head back and forth on his thin neck. "Follow Chade and be quiet. Be quiet, if you want to avenge the king's death, because that's what I'm going to do." Suddenly my whole body trembled, and the whole world shook, and the edges went black. "Elf bark!" I gasped. "I've got to ask you for the elf bark, and run away!" I pushed the Fool into Chade's arms, and the old man grabbed him with his thick hands, and it felt like he was walking into the arms of death. .Chade pushed the sobbing Fool out of the room, and I knew they were gone a little later when I heard the slight grating of stones.

I was on my knees, still reeling, so I reached out and grabbed the king's thigh, and his growing cold hand slid from the chair to the top of my head. "This is not a stupid time to cry." I yelled into the empty room, but couldn't get them to stop.Darkness still hovered at the edge of my vision, and ghostly Skill fingers still clawed at the walls of my mind, scratching the plaster and stroking every stone.I remembered the way Chade looked at me, and wondered if he'd come back, but I took a breath anyway. Nighteyes, lead them to the fox's den.I let it see which shed they'll be in, and where they're going, and that's all I can do.

my brother? Lead them, my love!I pushed it away weakly and felt it leave, but tears were still streaming down my face.I stretched to steady myself, put my hands on the king's waist, opened my eyes and forced myself to see.It was his knife, not a jeweled dagger, but a common blade that everyone wears around their waist for simple everyday tasks.I took a breath and drew the knife out of its sheath, resting it on my lap and staring.It was a fine knife, the blade thinned by years of use, and the handle, which might have been carved, was smoothed by his constant handling.I touched the knife lightly with my finger, and I also touched something that the naked eye can no longer recognize, that is the logo of Haode.The weapons master forged the sword for the king, and he used it well.

A past incident secretly stirred my heart. "We're tools," Chade told me.I'm the tool he casts for the king, and didn't the king just look at me and wonder, what have I molded you into?I need not wonder, for I am in many ways the king's instrument, and I have just served him for the last time, as he wished. Someone crouched next to me. It was Chade.I slowly turned to look at him. "Carisseed," he told me. "No time to prepare elf bark. Come on, I'll take you to hide." "No." I took the lump of calesse seeds made from compressed honey, stuffed it into my mouth, chewed it, bit it with my back teeth to release all the juice, and swallowed it. "Come on!" I said to him. "I have a job to do, and so do you. Burrich is waiting, and the alarm is about to go off. Take the queen away, you still have time to get to the cottage, Let me lure them away."

He let me go. "Goodbye, boy," he said stiffly, before bending over to kiss my forehead.That was the farewell, because he didn't expect to see me live. Both of us. He left me there, and I felt the karesseed work before I heard the grating of stones against each other.I've tasted it like everyone in Spring Festival, and a sprinkle of it on top of a sweet cake can induce a blinding burst of delight in the heart.Burrich warned me that some unscrupulous horse dealers fed their horses grains drizzled with carris seed oil in order to make them win races or brighten sick horses at auction.He also warned me that the horses that had taken it on a regular basis would not be the same if they survived.I knew Chade took it occasionally, and I'd seen him fall like a stone when the effects wore off, but I didn't hesitate.Perhaps, I conceded briefly, perhaps Burrich was right about me, the ecstasy of the Skill, and the wild excitement and heat of the hunt.Am I teasing this self-destruction, or am I longing for it?I didn't think about it for a long time, but the karisi seed made me ten times stronger, and my heart was lifted up like an eagle soaring high, so I jumped up and walked towards the door, and then turned back.

I knelt before the dead king, and raised his knife to my brow and swore to him. "This knife will avenge you." After I kissed his hand, I left him before the fire.