A glorious classic fantasy combining the magic of Ursula Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea with the epic mastery of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody one young boy will become a walking enigma. Born on the wrong side of the sheets Fitz son of Chivalry Farseer is a royal bastard cast out into the world friendless & lonely. Only his magical link with animals
- the old art known as the Wit
- gives him solace & companionship. But the Wit if used too often is a perilous magic & one abhorred by the nobility. So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household he must give up his old ways & embrace a new life of weaponry scribing courtly manners; & how to kill a man secretly as he trains to become a royal assassin.