Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth 6)

“What’s this about?”

“I want you to take it.” Kahlan cleared her throat to keep her voice. She could only manage a whisper. “I know what she wants of you—what she will make you do.”

“No, that’s not what…” He shook his head. He said, “I’m not taking this,” as if turning it away would somehow deny the possibility.

Kahlan put her hand to the side of his face. His face wavered before her in a watery blur.

“Please, Richard. Please take it. For me. I couldn’t bear the thought of another woman having your child.” Or even the thought of the attempt at its creation—but she didn’t say that part of it. “Especially not after mine…”

He looked away from her eyes. “Kahlan…” Words failed him.

“Just do it for me. Take it. Please, Richard. I’m doing as you ask and will endure your captivity; please honor my request in return. I couldn’t stand the thought of that bewitching blond beast having your child—the child that should be mine. Don’t you see? How could I ever love something I hated? And how could I ever hate something that was part of you? Please, Richard, don’t let it come to that.”

The cold wind lifted and twisted her hair. Her whole life, it seemed, was twisting out of her control. She could hardly believe that this place of such joy, peace, and redemption, a place where she had come to live again, could be a place where it would all be taken away.

Richard held the necklace out to her, as if it were a thing that might bite him. The dark stone swung under his fingers, gleaming in the gloom.

“Kahlan, I don’t think that’s what this is about. I really don’t. But anyway, she could simply refuse to wear it and threaten your life if I didn’t…”

Kahlan pulled the gold chain from his fingers and laid it all in a small neat mound in his palm. The dark stone glimmered from its imprisonment behind the veil of tiny gold links. She closed his fingers around the necklace and held his fist shut with both of her hands.

“You’re the one who demands we not ignore those things that are painful to contemplate.”

“But if she refuses…”

Kahlan gripped his fist tighter in her trembling fingers. “If it comes to a time when she makes that demand of you, you must convince her to wear the necklace. You must. For me. It’s bad enough for me to think she might take my love, my husband, from me like that, but to also fear…”

His big hand felt so warm and familiar and comforting to her. Her words came choked with desperate tears. She could do no more than beg. “Please, Richard.”

He pressed his lips tight, then nodded and stuffed the necklace in a pocket. “I don’t believe those are her intentions, but if it should turn out to be so, you have my word: she will wear the necklace.”

Kahlan sagged against him with a sob.

He took her by the arm. “Come on. Hurry. I have to get whatever I need to take. I’ve only got a few minutes, or all this will be for nothing. I can take the shorter trail and still catch up with her at the top of the pass, but I don’t have much time.”

Chapter 23

Kahlan was aware of Cara, wearing her bloodred leather, standing in the doorway to their bedroom watching Richard cram his things into his pack. Kahlan nodded as she and Richard exchanged brief, stilted instructions. They had already come to terms with the life-and-death issues. It seemed they both feared to say anything of consequence for fear of disturbing the delicate, desperate, difficult agreements they had reached.

The meager light coming in the small window did little to brighten the gloom. Cara, over in the doorway, blocked some of the light. The room had the feel of a dungeon. Richard, dressed in dark clothes, looked like a shadow. So many times, as she lay in bed recovering, Kahlan had thought of it that way—as her dungeon. Now it had the palpable sense of a dungeon, but with the clean aroma of pine walls instead of the stench of a stone cell from where trembling, sweating prisoners were taken to their death.

Cara looked forlorn one moment and the next like lightning seeking ground. Kahlan knew that the Mord-Sith’s emotions had to be as torn as her own, balancing on a knife’s edge with despair and grief on one side and rage on the other. Mord-Sith were not used to being in such a position, but then, Cara was now more than simply Mord-Sith.

Kahlan watched Richard pack the black trousers, black undershirt, black and gold tunic, silver wristbands, over-belt with its pouches, and golden cloak into his pack, where they took up a good portion of the available space. He was wearing his dark forest garb; he didn’t have time to change. Kahlan hoped a time would soon come when he would escape and again wear the clothes of a war wizard to lead them against the Order. They all needed him to lead the D’Haran Empire against the invading horde from the Old World.

For reasons that weren’t always entirely clear, Richard had become the linchpin of their struggle. Kahlan knew his feelings about that—that people must be willing to fight for themselves and not only for him—were valid. If an idea was sound, it had to have a life beyond a leader, or the leader had failed.

As he threw other clothes and small items into his pack, Richard told Kahlan that maybe she could find Zedd, that he might have some ideas. She nodded and said she would, knowing Zedd wouldn’t be able to do anything. This terrible triangle was not liable to be susceptible to influence by outsiders—Nicci had seen to that. It was just a hope Richard was giving her, the only bouquet he could offer in the desolate void of reality.

Kahlan didn’t know what to do with her hands. She stood twining her fingers together as tears dripped off her chin. There must be something to say, something important, some last words while she had the chance, but she couldn’t think of them. She supposed he knew what she felt, what was in her heart, and words couldn’t add anything to that. She pressed her fist against the aching knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

A sense of doom crowded in the room like a fourth person, a grim guard waiting to take Richard away. This was the heart of terror, being controlled by what you couldn’t see, couldn’t reason with, couldn’t persuade or battle. The doom waited, implacable, immune, indifferent.

As Cara vanished from the doorway, Richard pulled a fistful of gold and silver from an inside pocket in his leather pack. He hastily dropped roughly half back in the pack and then held out the rest.

“Take this. You might need it.”

“I’m the Mother Confessor. I don’t need gold.”

He tossed it on the bed for her anyway, apparently not wanting to argue with her in their last moments together.

“Do you want any of the carvings?” she asked. It was a stupid question and she knew it, but she had to fill the awful silence and it was the only thing to come into her head, other than a hopeless plea.

“No. I’ve no need for them. When you look at them, think of me, and remember I love you.” He rolled a blanket tight, wrapped it with a small patch of oiled canvas, and tied it with leather thongs to the bottom of his pack. “I guess if I were to want any, I could always carve some.”

Kahlan handed him a cake of soap.

“I don’t need your carving to remind me of your love. I’ll remember. Carve something to make Nicci see that you should be free.”

Richard glanced up with a grim smile. “I plan on seeing to it that she knows I won’t ever give in to her and the Order

. Carvings won’t be necessary. She thinks she has this all planned out, but she’s going to find out I’m bad company.” Richard jammed a fist in his pack, making more room. “Very bad company.”

Cara rushed back in, carrying small bundles with the corners tied in knots at the top. She plopped them down one at a time onto the bed.

“I put together some food for you, Lord Rahl. Things that will keep for traveling—dried meat and fish and such. Some rice and beans. I… I put a loaf of bread that I made on top, so eat it first, while it’s still good.”

He thanked her as he put the small bundles into his pack. He put the bread to his nose for a deep whiff before packing it away. He gave Cara a smile of appreciation.

Richard straightened. His smile evaporated in a way that for some reason made Kahlan’s blood go cold. Looking like he was in the throes of committing himself to some last, grim deed, Richard pulled the baldric off over his head. He held the gold-and-silver wrought scabbard in his left hand and drew the Sword of Truth in his white-knuckled right fist.

The blade rang out with its unique metallic sound, announcing its freedom.

Richard drew his sleeve up his arm and wiped the sword across his forearm. Kahlan winced as she watched. She didn’t know if he cut deeply accidentally, or on purpose. With an icy sensation she recalled that Richard cut very precisely with any sharp steel edge.

He turned the blade and wiped both sides in gouts of vivid red blood. He bathed the blade in it, giving it a voluptuous taste, wetting its appetite for more. Kahlan didn’t know what he was doing or why he was doing it now, but it was a frightening ritual to witness. She wished he had drawn it before and cut down Nicci. Her blood, Kahlan would not fear seeing.

Richard picked up the scabbard and slammed the Sword of Truth home. Blood running over his hand left greasy red smears across the scabbard as he slid his hand down the length of it, to the tip, and then seized the sheathed weapon at its center point in his fist. His head bowed, his eyes on the dull silver and gold reflections lustrous even through his own blood, he loomed closer to her.