Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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A commentary by Chade on the map-room at Aslevjal precedes “Bee Stings.” The chapter opens with Bee fleeing from Dwalia and her company after emerging from the Skill-pillar. Her situation is related, as are her surroundings, and the voice of Wolf-Father within her bids her find a place to stand and fight. She complies as pursuit continues, and she gives as good an account of herself in the ensuing fracas as can be hoped–but she is taken again and beaten unconscious.

Bee wakes restrained and assesses her injuries as she can. Within her, Wolf-Father exhorts her to work to free herself again, and she overhears her captors’ conversation about her. Bee also hears the effects the environment is having on said captors, some of whom hear voices from the Skill-stones surrounding them. Despite that, she despairs of escape, but Wolf-Father continues to urge her to work towards it regardless. He also relates the circumstances under which he came to know Fitz. Echoes through the Skill continue to beleaguer Bee’s captors, although Dwalia cannot hear them, and she orders harsh treatment for Bee.

To her credit, Bee stifles her impulse to resist, conserving her strength. Too, assisted by Wolf-Father, she catches the scent of her father, not long gone from the place where she now is. Emboldened, she returns to the work of effecting her escape again.

I do delight in the pun of the present chapter’s title. One of the great pleasures of my life has been word-play; one of the many benefits of being a father is that I have justification for it since Ms. 8 came to my wife and me. And the pun at work in the present chapter’s title bears little explication–except, perhaps, to point out where it fails. For bees tend to die after they sting, and Bee has survived inflicting hers upon her captors, even if she suffered to do it.

I note, too, that the present chapter does what first chapters are apt to do, whether of new books or of new books in existing series: explicate the situation. It is clear Hobb expects readers who pick up the book to be familiar with the Realm of the Elderlings novels that precede it; even the explications in place make reference to things not necessarily present in the text as presented. But she does remind readers of how matters stood at the end of the previous volume–and there was some span between publications, with Fool’s Quest emerging onto shelves in 2015 and Assassin’s Fate in 2017. Two years is enough time to forget quite a bit, and I do not think I am alone in appreciating a refresher after even that time. After all, even if I am rereading the novels on a fairly consistent basis, I am rereading them at this point; I did pick up my copies shortly after they hit print, so I did have the gap then that I do not now.

No, at this point, my memory has other gaps. Some of them will fill back in as I reread. Some, I can patch by looking at other things I have written, both in and out of this webspace. Some, alas, are gone forever, or are at best dimly recalled, shadows moving in the night.

I don’t think I’m afraid of the dark, though.

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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An extended excerpt from Bee’s dream journals serves as a prologue for the novel. It speaks of children playing and singing while one, blindfolded, rages in snippets. Wind rises, bursting from the blindfolded child and scattering all. The blindfold remains, its painted eyes staring.

This is it, the beginning of the end…of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy. Fifty chapters remain to reread for this part of the Robin Hobb rereading series…which I seem not to have reviewed or commented on as I had earlier volumes of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus. It’s strange that such is the case, although I will note that I had some…things…going on when the novel emerged into the world and I read it. But not having gone on about the book before, I have the opportunity to approach it more nearly afresh now, and I’m grateful for that opportunity.

More firmly about the text: it is clear that one of the primary narrative foci throughout the Realm of the Elderlings corpus is foreshadowing. Beloved, in whatever guise, is easily the protagonist of the sixteen novel series culminating in the present volume, and Beloved’s core identity is as a prophet who must work to ensure that their prophecies come to pass; foreshadowing could hardly not be a focus in such a case. What is foreshadowed in the present passage, in Bee’s dark dreaming, I recall in broad strokes from my few earlier readings of the text. (What can I say other than that I’ve been busy?) Even without that recall, however, it’s clear that much is set to happen, and most of it will be unpleasant for those involved–but that’s Hobb, whose work I’ve loved across decades.

So, moving ahead…

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