Royal Assassin

I have found the old adages to be true. One can only walk so far from one's true self before the bond either snaps, or pulls one back. I am fortunate. I have been pulled back. I walk once more in trueness to myself, FitzChivalry. That is what you sense today."

For a moment we just looked at one another. Then she burst out laughing. I stood, affronted and grim, as she came to me, still laughing. Then she put her arms around me. "Newboy. You take a most roundabout path to finally declare you love me. To break into my room, and then to stand there, tying your tongue in knots about the word `love.' Could not you simply have said it, a long time ago?"
I stood stupid in the circle of her arms. I looked down at her. Yes, I realized dully, I had grown that much taller than she.
"Well?" she prompted, and for a moment I was puzzled.
"I love you, Molly." So easy to say, after all. And such a relief. Slowly, cautiously, I put my arms around her.
She smiled up at me. "And I love you."
So, finally, I kissed her. In the moment of that kiss, somewhere near Buckkeep, a wolf lifted up his voice in a joyous ululation that set every hound to baying and every dog to barking in a chorus that rang against the brittle night sky.

"Don't get comfortable," she warned me. "You were just leaving. Alone, or with the Keep guards. Your choice."
"I'll go," I promised, standing hastily. "I just wanted to be sure you were all right."
"I'm fine," she said testily. "Why wouldn't I be fine? I'm as fine tonight as I was last night, as I have been for the last thirty nights. On none of them were you inspired to come and inspect my health. So why tonight?"
I took a breath. "Because on some nights threats are more obvious than others. Bad things happen, that make me take stock of what worse things could happen. On some nights, it is not the healthiest thing to be the beloved of a bastard."
The lines of her mouth went as flat as her voice as she asked, "What is that supposed to mean?"
I took a breath, determined that I would be as honest with her as I was able. "I cannot tell you what happened. Only that it made me believe you might be in danger. You will have to trust--"
"That isn't the part I meant. What do you mean, beloved of a bastard? How do you dare to call me that?" Her eyes were bright with anger.
I swear that my heart thudded to a halt in my chest. The cold of death swept through me. "It is true, I have no right," I said haltingly. "But neither is there any way I could stop caring for you. And whether or not I have the right to name you my beloved would not deter those who might seek to injure me by striking at you. How can I say I love you so much that I wish I did not love you, or at least could refrain from showing that I loved you, because my love puts you in such danger, and have those words be true?" Stiffly, I turned to go.
"And how could I possibly dare to say I made sense of your last statement and have it be true?" Molly wondered aloud.