Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)

Sister Greta, holding Nicci tightly around the middle, twisted to the side, easily throwing her face-first to the ground. Nicci flipped over to kick Sister Greta away.

Sister Armina, blood running down her face, planted a boot on Nicci’s chest. Sister Greta rose up next to her, catching her breath.

Before Nicci could struggle to get up, a jolt of pain seared up through her body, exploding at the base of her skull. The shock of it drove the air from her lungs. The two of them joining their gift was enough to incapacitate Nicci.

“Not a very gracious way to greet your Sisters,” Sister Greta said.

Nicci tried to ignore the pain. Her arms flailed as she tried to get up, but Sister Armina put more weight on her foot and at the same time expanded the sharp barbs of pain. Nicci’s vision blurred down to a small spot at the center of a dark tunnel of blackness, her back arched as her muscles convulsed into knots. Her fingers clawed at the floor. She thought that she might do anything to make it stop.

“I suggest that you stay where you are,” Sister Armina said, “or, if you prefer, we’ll remind you just how much more agony we can deliver.” She arched an eyebrow at Nicci. “Hmm?”

Nicci couldn’t speak. Tears of torment streaming from her eyes, she instead nodded.

Sister Julia stumbled close, both hands held tightly over her mouth as she bawled in pain and anger. Blood hung in strings from her chin, covered the front of her faded blue dress, and dripped from her elbows.

Sister Armina, her foot still on Nicci’s chest, leaned down, resting an arm across her knee.

In a voice only partly her own, she said, “Returned to us at long last, darlin?”

Nicci’s blood flashed icy cold.

She realized that it was Jagang’s gaze looking down at her.

Had she not been in such agony, had it not been all she could do just to breathe, she surely would have run, even if it would have meant sudden death. Sudden death would be preferable.

Unable to run, she instead envisioned gouging out Sister Armina’s eyes—Jagang’s window.

“I’m going to kick your teeth in for this!” Sister Julia said in a muffled voice from behind the hands clamped over her mouth. “I’m going to—”

“Shut up,” Sister Armina said in that terrible voice only half her own, “or I’ll not allow them to heal you.”

Sister Julia’s eyes flashed with terror at recognizing Jagang addressing her. She fell silent.

Sister Armina held a hand out to her. “Give it to me.”

Sister Julia slipped bloody fingers into a pocket and brought out something unexpected, something that made Nicci’s breath catch with fright. Sister Julia handed it to Sister Armina.

Sister Armina removed her foot and went down on one knee, leaning over a prostrated Nicci. Nicci knew what was coming. She struggled with all her might, all her panic, but she couldn’t manage to make her body respond. Her muscles were locked rigid with the tingling power searing through her nerves.

Sister Armina bent forward and forced the blood-slicked collar around Nicci’s neck.

Nicci felt the Rada’Han snap closed.

In the same instant, she lost the link to her Han.

She had been born with the gift. Most of the time she never gave it any thought. Now she was cut completely off from her ability. Like her eyesight or hearing, it had always been there, always been something she used without thought. Now there was only a terrifyingly unfamiliar void.

Such an abrupt separation from her gift stunned her. To be without it was to be without a part of her, without the very core of her, of who she was, of what she was.

“On your feet,” Sister Armina said.

When the pain at last eased off, Nicci’s whole body sagged against the floor. She didn’t know if her muscles would work, or if she would have the strength to get up, but she knew Sister Armina well enough not to hesitate. She flopped over and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. When she didn’t move fast enough for Sister Armina, a stunning shock of pain slammed into the small of Nicci’s back. She sucked back a scream. Her arms and legs shot out straight involuntarily and she dropped flat to the floor.

Sister Greta chuckled.

“Get up,” Sister Armina said, “or I will show you some real pain.”

Nicci pushed herself up on her hands and knees again. She gasped, getting her breath. Tears dripped onto the dusty floor. Knowing better than to delay, she struggled to her feet. Her legs wobbled, but she managed to stay upright.

“Just kill me,” Nicci said. “I’m not going to cooperate, no matter how much you make it hurt.”

Sister Armina cocked her head, peering closely at Nicci with one eye. “Oh, darlin, I think you’re wrong about that.”

It was once again Jagang speaking.

A blinding shimmer of agony, delivered by the collar around her neck, cascaded down through Nicci’s core. The pain was so stunning that it dropped her to her knees.

She had endured pain from Jagang before, when he had been able to enter her mind, before she learned how to stop him. It was her devotion to Richard—the bond—that had protected her just as it protected those from D’Hara and those who followed the Lord Rahl. But before that, when he had been able to enter her mind, just as he could enter the minds of these Sisters, now, he had been able to make it feel like he was pushing thin iron spikes deep into Nicci’s ears, then send the pain ripping downward through her insides.

This was worse.

She stared at the floor, fully expecting blood to run from her ears and nose and begin carpeting the stone. She blinked as she gasped in utter agony, but she saw no blood. She wished she did. If she bled enough she would die.

She knew Jagang well enough, though, to know that he would not allow her to die. Not yet, anyway.

The dream walker didn’t like a swift death for people who angered him. Nicci knew that there was probably no one Jagang wanted to make suffer more than her. He would eventually kill her, of course, but he would extract his vengeance first. He would no doubt give her to his men for a time, just to humiliate her, then send her to the torture tents. That part of it, she knew, would last a very long time. When he eventually became bored with her suffering, she would spend her final days having her intestines pulled slowly out of a slit in her belly. He would want to be there to see her finally die, to make sure that the last thing she saw before the end was him smiling in triumph.

The one thing that she regretted at that moment, in the realization of what was about to befall her, was that she would never see Richard again. She thought that if she could only see him one more time she could endure what was to come.

Sister Armina stepped closer, close enough to be sure that Nicci could see her superior smile. She was now in control of the collar around Nicci’s neck. Jagang, too, could now dominate her through that connection as well.

The Rada’Han was meant to control young wizards. It acted on the gift. Though the People’s Palace diminished her gift—prevented the projection of power—it would not impede the collar, because the Rada’Han worked internally. The device could cause unimaginable pain—enough pain that a boy would do anything to make it stop.

Nicci, on her knees, trembled as she gasped in agony. Her vision went darker and darker until she could hardly see anything. Her ears rang.

“Do you now fully understand what will happen should you disobey us?” Sister Armina asked.

Nicci couldn’t answer. She had no voice. She managed a slight nod.

Sister Armina leaned down. The blood had finally stopped running from her scalp. “Then get to your feet, Sister.”

The pain finally lifted enough for Nicci to be able to stand.

She didn’t want to stand. She wanted them to kill her. Jagang was not going to allow that, though. Jagang wanted to get his hands on her.

As her vision began to clear, she saw that Sister Greta was back across the hall, rummaging through Ann’s pockets. She pulled something from a pocket hidden unde