Assassin's Apprentice

The narrator tells Galen’s backstory: He was part of Queen Desire’s royal retinue and chosen as an apprentice to the Skillmaster, Solicity, so that when she died, he could take her position. He is only a year or two older than Chivalry and Verity.

Patience and Fitz slowly grow to appreciate each other; she teaches Fitz her odd skills, including splicing plants, tattooing, and making paper. Fitz is happy for a month and then begins to take lessons with Galen. Burrich warns him that Galen is a brutal teacher and hates Fitz particularly—acknowledging Fitz’s innocence would force him to acknowledge Chivalry’s mistakes. Burrich warns Fitz to keep the Wit secret from Galen, who can read minds with the Skill. He is sure that Galen has murdered people with the Wit before, even if there is no proof of it. 

Fitz goes to the Queen’s Garden, atop a circular tower, and waits for lessons with the other royal teenagers, including August, the King’s nephew, and Serene, a woman in her mid-twenties. When Galen appears, he is opulently dressed but seems miserable. He forces the students to clear out the garden and then separates them into two lines according to their gender, proceeding to completely ignore the girls. He treats all the students cruelly, especially Fitz, and tells them that they must physically deprive themselves to master the Skill. 

After forcing them through a day of bizarre exercises, he sends them to bed exhausted, but they return early the next morning. Galen abuses them randomly and pits them against each other; the students quickly succumb to his charisma and isolate themselves, determined to prove their value even though they are learning nothing.

One day, Galen gives a speech about people with a sense of superiority and then pushes Serene to the ground and beats her with his riding crop. He beats Fitz next for taking extra food from the kitchen, refusing to believe Fitz’s insistence that it was for Smithy. Fitz isn’t sure how to feed Smithy without attracting Galen’s ire, but the Fool appears that night with food. He promises to take care of the pup but insists that Fitz must stand up for himself since the training—and Galen—will soon prove dangerous.

The narrator explains that the Skill is about connecting thoughts between people. The Skill allows people to influence others and even speak to the Elderlings, the beings beneath the gods, even though doing so is extremely dangerous. Using the Skill connects people to the lifeforce of others, which can be addictive and even kill those who overindulge.

The students grow crueler under Galen’s cruelty, shunning students who leave the training so much that they must leave Buckkeep entirely. Fitz hates Galen enough to persevere through the training, growing addicted to even the slightest praise from him and believing Galen’s hateful words about him to be true. The group becomes a unit built on their sense of superiority and yet inferiority (to Galen), and Fitz grows isolated from his friends, even Chade and the Fool.

After three months, eight students remain, and Galen begins to give them real training and tiny luxuries. He finally touches their minds with the Skill, and Fitz realizes that one of the reasons why Galen hates him is that he is afraid of Fitz’s abilities. Fitz begins to fight Galen’s entries into his mind, hiding his secrets and growing stronger in the Skill. Galen furiously attacks him after one such failed attempt to penetrate his mind, but Fitz repels him, and Galen is forced to admit defeat.

That night, the Fool tells Fritz that Galen will never let him be successful and might even harm him if he continues to persevere. The Fool is convinced that Fitz is a vital thread in the future but doesn’t know more than that. Fitz snaps at him to shut up, hurting the Fool enough to make him leave.

The next day, Galen allows the students to reach their minds out to him, but when he joins minds with Fitz, they fight for power as Galen rifles through Fitz’s thoughts. Fitz attacks him but loses control and succumbs to the pleasure of the Skill. Galen escapes and beats him, and when Fitz returns to his mind, he is overwhelmed with shame and agony. Galen and the others leave, kicking him as they go. 

Fitz decides that he must die by suicide by throwing himself off the top of the tower, overwhelmed with self-hatred and isolation. Smithy reaches out to him, overwhelming him with love and forcing him back from the edge of the tower. Fitz is ashamed that he cannot give Smithy anything more than not harming himself, but Smithy insists that his life is enough of a reward.

Later, the Fool, Burrich, and Smithy find Fitz and carry him to bed. When Fitz wakes up, he tells Burrich what happened. Burrich berates Fitz for believing himself deserving of a beating. He also pushes back when Fitz tells him that he must’ve inherited weakness from his mother, insisting that Chivalry had better taste in people than that. As Fitz recovers, he realizes that Galen’s hatred of others has seeped into him—he now feels the same worthlessness that Galen viewed everyone else with. Burrich, however, suddenly becomes high-spirited, confusing Fitz. 

After recovering, Fitz goes to town and walks with Molly. Before he leaves, she kisses him on the jaw, startling him. When Fitz goes back to Burrich, Burrich insists that he must go back to Galen and learn the Skill. Fitz refuses until Burrich assures him that he hasn’t missed any lessons. Burrich insists on caring for Smithy during the day and sends Fitz back to his quarters in the keep.

The Fool finds Fitz early the next morning and tells him that he must go back to training now that he has survived the Fool’s prediction of doom. Fitz apologizes for insulting him. The Fool holds his hands and asks him to return to training, if only because he is asking. As Fitz gets ready, the Fool reveals that Burrich dragged Galen to the Witness Stones—holy sites for determining conflict permanently—and fought him in hand-to-hand combat to avenge Fitz. Burrich beat Galen badly and forced him to admit that he was wrong to refuse to teach Fitz and abuse him as he had.

The narrator explains that once, Skilled people were grouped in coteries of six, usually royalty who were not line to inherit the throne. The best coteries were bound to each other and could channel strength directly to their rulers. The most famed coterie, Crossfire’s coterie, were all people with disabilities who died to strengthen Queen Vision during a vital battle. When peace came, however, the coteries were abandoned. Galen’s choice to force a coterie’s formation rather than allow a coterie to choose one another, as well as his harsh training, was looked down upon because it made the Skill users into a weapon rather than a team.

Fitz returns to training but finds himself despised by the other students. Galen arrives late, still wounded and bandaged, startling the other students, who had believed him invincible. Galen is defeated and strangely gentle that day, not even cruel to Fitz. 

Fitz and Smithy go to town, but Molly is tending to a customer—a flirtatious, handsome sailor named Jade—and nearly refuses to join them on a walk. Molly reveals that she’s heard that Regal is hunting for a bride for Verity, shocking Fitz, who is sure that Regal will never pick a woman whom Verity can love. Fitz says that he loves women who can do things, like Patience and Hod. When Molly says that she can’t ride or read, he extensively praises her many skills and good qualities. When she pushes him to express his feelings, however, he pulls away.

In the kitchen, everyone talks about Verity’s possible impending marriage and the values that the princesses from different regions could bring to the royal house. Fitz, thinking about Molly, reflects on how capable of understanding politics and nuance the commoners are, contrary to Galen’s beliefs and what he taught his students.

As time goes on, Fitz continues his training, but the rejection of the other students means that he cannot improve in the Skill: They close their minds to him, and Fitz struggles to let others inside. Fitz’s fear of physical and emotional intimacy—especially the probing demands of Galen’s mind—closes him off from others, and his relationship with Molly weakens. Meanwhile, the fear of being Forged continues to increase in the kingdom as the Forged people wreak havoc across the countryside. In addition, Verity’s wife is chosen from the Mountain Kingdom to the north.

Galen announces that he intends to evaluate his students one final time to decide if they can be part of the coterie. He intends to present them to the King at Springfest as a gift. As a test, the students will be scattered across the kingdom and must return home as a group, using only their minds to find each other in specific patterns. As Fitz leaves, Galen tells him that he should die rather than continue to shame Chivalry’s blood.

The narrator mentions the mysterious Man ceremony, which not all receive; 12 men must sponsor a 14-year-old boy for a mysterious ritual. Fitz received his ceremony sometime after Galen’s test and chose not to kill any animals at his ceremony. He received a name in the old tongue, which means Catalyst.

The night before Galen’s test, Fitz seeks comfort from Sooty. The next day, he is carried blind to a grassy hillside a day and a half away. He quickly realizes that he is close to Forge and might be in very real danger. He figures out his location and realizes that the road home goes right through Forge. He knows that Galen is not going to help him or let him connect with anyone else’s mind. 

Fitz dreams that night of all the people he has disappointed but wakes up when he realizes that he is joined with Smithy’s mind. Through it, he watches a dark figure attack Burrich and stab Smithy. Fitz experiences the night as Smithy does, including calling desperately for Fitz’s help; when he loses connection, he realizes that Smithy has been mortally wounded. Even though it ruins any chance of passing Galen’s test, Fitz begins to sprint home.

On the journey home, the Forged attack Fitz, but he fends them off. As he passes through Forge, he spots a Red Ship pulling into the town’s harbor and hides. Fitz escapes but is confronted by three more Forged ones, and Smithy’s presence dies in his mind as Smithy dies. Furious, Fitz brutalizes the Forged ones with his staff and bare hands, killing all three and feeling no remorse for doing so.

Fitz reaches Buckkeep two days after Springfest, surprising everyone, who thought he had died. He goes to Burrich in the infirmary; Burrich is relieved to see him alive, telling him that the other students returned home faster because Galen gave them horses. When Burrich lies, telling Fitz that Smithy died quickly, Fitz corrects him. Burrich is angry that Fitz used the Wit instead of the Skill and witnessed the event through Smithy’s mind. He tells Fitz to go away and not come back, even when Fitz expresses that he cares for him.

Fitz isolates himself over the next few weeks; he has lost Burrich, Molly has begun courting Jade, and the Fool and Chade ignore him. He treats Patience impatiently, and she stops summoning him. In grief, Fitz gets drunk and wakes up on the side of the road.