I opened myself to the Skill and let it stream through me like water through a sieve, and still I found no trace of the Prince. I stretched myself beneath the flow of the Skill like a hillside full of tiny grasses under sunlight and let it touch each blade of me, and still I could not sense him. I wove myself throughout the Skill, twining over it like ivy, and still I could not separate the lad from its flow.
He had left a sense of himself in the Skill, but like a bootmark in fine dust on a windy day that trace was crumbling to meaningless grains flowing with the Skill. I gathered what I could of him, but it was no more Prince Dutiful than the scent of a flower is the flower. Nevertheless, I took to myself the bits that I recognized and held them fiercely. It was becoming more difficult for me to recall what exactly was the essence of the Prince. I had never known him well, and the body that my body held was rapidly losing its connection to him.
In an effort to find the boy, I engaged completely with the Skill. I did not surrender myself, but I stepped free of all the safety holds that always before I had clung to. It was an eerie feeling. I was a kite cut free and flying, a tiny boat with no hand on the tiller. I had not lost my sense of self, but I had given up the absolute certainty that I could find my way back to my body. Yet it put me no closer to finding Dutiful. It only made me more aware of the vastness that surrounded me and the hopelessness of my task. It would have been easier to net the smoke from an extinguished fire than to gather the boy together again.
And all the while the Skill plucked at me, whispering promises. It was only cold and rushing so long as I resisted it. If I gave in, I knew it would become all warmth and comfort and belonging. If I surrendered to it, I would subside into peaceful existence without individual awareness. What would be so terrible about that? Nighteyes and the Fool were gone. I'd failed in my mission to bring Dutiful back to Kettricken. Molly did not wait for me; she had a life and a love. Hap, I told myself, trying to stir some sense of responsibility. What about Hap? But I knew that Chade would see to Hap's needs, at first out of a sense of duty to me, but before long for the sake of the boy himself.
But Nettle. What of Nettle?
The answer was terrible. I had already failed her. I knew I could not recover Dutiful, and without him, she was doomed. Did I wish to return and witness that? Could I be aware of it and stay sane? Then a worse thought came to me. In this timeless place, it had all already happened. Even now, she had perished.