Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

Kahlan slid the shutter on the lantern open all the way to provide more light. She saw Tom, hand resting on the silver-handled knife at his belt, rise from the nearby rock where he’d been sitting as he watched over both the camp and the man Kahlan had touched with her power. The man still lay on the ground at Tom’s feet where Kahlan had ordered him to stay.

“What is it?” Jennsen whispered as she appeared at Kahlan’s side, hastily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“I’m not sure, yet. Cara signaled, so she must have someone with her.”

Cara walked in out of the darkness, and, as Kahlan had suspected, she was pushing a man ahead of her. Kahlan frowned, trying to recall where she’d seen him before. She blinked, then, realizing it was the young man they had come across a week or so back—Owen.

“I tried to get to you sooner!” Owen cried out when he saw Kahlan. “I swear, I tried.”

Holding him by the shoulder of his light coat, Cara marched the man closer, then yanked him to a halt in front of Kahlan.

“What are you talking about?” Kahlan asked.

When Owen caught sight of Jennsen standing behind Kahlan’s shoulder, he paused with his mouth hanging open for an instant before he answered.

“I meant to get to you earlier, I swear,” he said to Kahlan, sounding on the verge of tears. “I went to your camp.” He clutched his light coat closed at his chest as he began to tremble. “I, I saw…I saw all the…remains. Dear Creator, how could you be so brutal?”

Kahlan thought Owen looked like he might throw up. He covered his mouth and closed his eyes as he shook.

“If you mean all those men,” Kahlan said, “they tried to capture us, to kill us. We didn’t collect them from their rocking chairs beside their hearths and bring them out into this wasteland where we slaughtered them. They attacked us; we defended ourselves.”

“But, dear Creator, how could you…” Owen stood before her, unable to control his shivering. He closed his eyes. “Nothing is real. Nothing is real. Nothing is real.” He repeated it over and over, as if it were an incantation meant to protect him from evil.

Cara forcibly dragged Owen back a bit and sat him down on a shelf of rock. Eyes closed meditatively, he mumbled “Nothing is real” to himself continually while Cara took up a position to the left side of Kahlan.

“Tell us what you’re doing here,” Cara commanded in a low growl. Although she didn’t say it, the “or else” was clear enough.

“And be quick about it,” Kahlan said. “We have enough trouble and we don’t need you added on top of it.”

Owen opened his eyes. “I went to your camp to tell you about it, but…all those bodies…”

“We know about what happened back there. Now, tell us why you’re here.” Kahlan was at the end of her patience. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

“Lord Rahl,” Owen wailed, tears bursting forth at last.

“Lord Rahl what,” Kahlan demanded through gritted teeth.

“Lord Rahl has been poisoned,” he blurted out as he wept.

Gooseflesh prickled up Kahlan’s legs. “How can you possibly know such a thing is true?”

Owen stood, clutching twisted wads of his coat at his chest. “I know,” he cried, “because I’m the one who poisoned him.”

Could it be? Could it be that it wasn’t really the runaway power of the gift killing Richard, but poison? Could it be that they had it all wrong? Could it be that it was all caused by this man poisoning Richard?

Kahlan felt her sword’s hilt slip from her fingers as she started for the man.

He stood watching her come, like a fawn watching a mountain lion about to leap.

Kahlan knew there was something strange about this man. Richard, too, had thought there was something unsettling about him, something not quite right.

Somehow, this quaking stranger had poisoned Richard.

Richard barely hung to life. He was suffering and in pain. This man had been the cause of it all. Kahlan would know why, and she would know the truth of it.

Kahlan closed the distance quickly. She would not risk his escape. She would not risk his lies.

She would have his confession.

Her hand started coming up toward him. Her power was recovered—she could feel it there, in the core of her being, at the ready.

This man had tried to kill Richard. She intended to find out if there was a way to save him. This man could tell her.

She committed herself to taking him.

It was not necessary for Kahlan to invoke her birthright, but merely to withdraw her restraint of it. Her feelings about what this man had done faded away; they no longer mattered in this. Only the truth would serve her now. She was a being of raw commitment.

He had no chance. He was hers.

She saw him standing frozen, watching her come, saw his blue eyes widen, saw the tears running down his cheeks. Kahlan felt the cold coil of power straining for release, demanding to be freed. As her hand rose toward this man who had harmed Richard, she wanted nothing so much as what she would have.

He was hers.

Cara abruptly jumped in between them.

Kahlan’s sight of the man was blocked by the Mord-Sith. Kahlan tried to brush Cara aside, but she was ready and firmly held her ground. Cara seized Kahlan by the should

ers and forced her back three paces.

“No. Mother Confessor, no.”

Kahlan was still focused on Owen, even if she couldn’t see him. “Get out of my way.”

“No. Stop.”

“Move!” Kahlan tried to shove Cara aside, but the woman had her feet spread and couldn’t be budged. “Cara!”

“No. Listen to me.”

“Cara, get out of—”

She shook Kahlan so hard that Kahlan thought her neck would snap. “Listen to me!”

Kahlan panted in rage. “What.”

“Wait until you hear what he says. He came here for a reason. When he finishes, you can use your power if you want, or you can let me make him scream until the moon covers its ears, but first we need to hear what he says.”

“I’ll find out soon enough what he says, and I’ll know the truth. When I touch him he will confess every detail.”

“And if Lord Rahl dies as a result? Lord Rahl’s life hanging in the balance. We must think of that first.”

“I am. Why do you think I’m going to do this?”

Cara pulled Kahlan close to hear her whisper. “And what if using your power on this man kills him for some reason we don’t yet even know about. Remember when we didn’t know everything in the past? Remember Marlin Pickard announcing he had come to assassinate Richard? It was too easy then, and it’s too easy this time.

“What if your touching this man is someone’s design—a trick, with this man sent as bait of some sort? What if they want you to do it for some reason? What if you do what they intend you to do—then what? It won’t be a simple mistake that we can work to fix. If Lord Rahl dies we can’t bring him back.”

Cara’s fierce blue eyes were wet. Her powerful fingers dug into Kahlan’s shoulders. “What can it hurt to hear him first, before you touch him? You can then touch him, if you still think it’s necessary—but hear him first. Mother Confessor, as a sister of the Agiel, I’m asking you, please, for the sake of Lord Rahl’s life, wait.”