"[...]You will be the rightful King of the Six Duchies, of the Out Islands, of all the Cursed Shores! All. I will give you all your dreams, if only you come back!"
My dream was dead in my arms. I continued to walk.
He lifted his hands and ran them over my garments as if I were a horse he was considering buying. He felt the fabrics, touched the rows of buttons, tugged at my collar, and then touched my chin. “Don’t shave,” he instructed me abruptly, as if I had been poised with razor in hand.
He slept, curled like a kitten, his brow nearly touching mine, on the other end of his pallet. His breathing was deep and even, and one long hand was palm up on the blankets between us, as if in offering, or beseeching something of me. I reached over and set my hand in his.
“This was his most recent message to me,” she said. Most recent. I knew a moment of the sharpest, greenest envy I had ever felt. He had not sent me as much as a bird message, but Jofron had a small casket of scrolls!
It was not the Fool’s work, but I recognized the hands curved protectively to form a lid over the box’s contents. Jofron had carved his hands as a lid for her box.
I caught him and hugged him tight to me saying, ‘Fool, Fool, it’s me, it’s Fitz! Stop, it’s me!’ An instant longer, his body was tense against mine and then he all but collapsed.