Hobb's facility with prose is enviable, creating a rich and engrossing fantasy world. Events boil over at the book's ending, which features a powerfully emotional moment of catharsis (arguably still the highlight of the entire sixteen-volume Elderling series to date) and setting the scene for the final confrontation in Assassin's Quest. Regal hopes to undermine and destroy Fitz, but Fitz's willingness to lead from the front and throw himself into battle against the Red Ship Raiders stymies him, as do Fitz's growing magical powers (in both the animalistic Wit and the telepathic Skill) and his canny support of Verity's bride, the Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken. He hopes to woo his childhood love, but King Shrewd wants him to marry for political advantage instead. Royal Assassin continues the storyline of Assassin's Apprentice, with FitzChivalry Farseer trying to overcome his status as the illegitimate son of a dead prince and a secret assassin to become a respected member of the court. In this endeavour, the author is mostly successful. As such, Royal Assassin tries to work as its own self-contained story in the structure of both the larger trilogy and the much larger Realm of the Elderling sequence beyond that. The middle volume of The Farseer Trilogy is Robin Hobb's attempt to avoid 'middle book syndrome', that annoying situation where a book has no real opening or ending.

King's assassin robin hobb