LOTS - CARA/KAHLAN

The Path

Lurkete

Title: The Path

Author: Lurkete

Fandom: Legend of the Seeker

Pairing: Kahlan/Cara

Rating: E for everyone

Disclaimer: I don’t own them.

Beta: mudpiegirl.

LJ: http://lurkete.livejournal.com/

The prompt: “Cara is really happy that the Night Wisp survived, but she doesn’t know how to express it. Then, in the middle of the night, Kahlan feels someone snuggling with her…”

The Path

Lurkete

It’s the first morning in as long as she can remember where she wakes up feeling excellent.

Not just good, not just rested. Excellent.

Her eyes are still closed but she can feel the sun tickling that spot on her nose, gentle beams heavy and caressing on the top of her eyelids. The air smells alive, it nudges her still sleepy mind into conjuring an old memory of farmers clearing out wild and green vegetation for a new field on a pleasant summer day when she was younger, they stop to stretch and smile and wave at her and Dennee as the two of them ride by on their horses at a lazy four–beat gait.

She feels loved.

It’s an odd determination and she pauses to think of why she came up with it. Unhurriedly she moves her perception from her face to the rest of her body, exploring, trying to find the cause of this feeling.

It’s not that she regularly feels un–loved; she thinks few people have the sensation of actively feeling unloved - or loved for that matter – over any extended and consistent period of time, rather these are feelings that spike between long stretches of feeling busy.

She senses a shadow falling over her before she has finished her thought or properly taken stock of the rest of her body, and she realizes that it must be much later in the day than when they usually awaken.

She opens her eyes.

Richard is crouching over her balancing on the balls of his feet, elbows on knees, the sun hallowing his head, a cup of tea in one hand, wearing an expression that she just cannot define.

So she tries harder, but she still thinks she has never seen that look on his face. She furrows her brow and moves her gaze behind him to where Zed is sitting by the campfire stirring last–night’s embers with a stick. He is looking at her as well, his expression relaxed yet clearly focused – not staring so much as highly curious. It is odd to open your eyes to a crowd, and she realizes that they are both waiting for her to do something.

It is when she tries to rise to her elbow – a question on her tongue for the both of them – that she realizes that something is holding her down, or rather someone.

She twists her neck to look behind her and there is Cara, glued to her back with her face burrowed between her shoulder blades, deeply, deeply asleep.

Both her eyebrows rise.

She looks back at Richard still crouching very close, still with her morning tea in his hand, his other close to his mouth, a forefinger pressed to his lip signaling for her to be quite. It takes a couple of minutes to cautiously wiggle out of the embrace. Cara does not stir.

Kahlan helps pack up the camp and load the horses with the others. Around noon Zed wakes Cara up, she is furious that they did not wake her sooner; her flush of embarrassment at sleeping–in does not fade away for quite awhile.

The next morning it happens again, Richard once more wakes her with his presence and a cup of tea, he still looks like he doesn’t know what expression he should wear but she gets the sense that he is slowly settling on amused, she smiles back. Zed is already packing the horses.

This time Zed rouses Cara early enough that she does not feel as if she has been cheated out of her dignity, Though Cara still does not seem to realize that she is waking up more on Kahlan’s bed–roll than her own.

This goes on for a week, the first couple of days there are a few moments every morning where the atmosphere in their little camp ranges between apprehension and curiosity when they all expect Cara to wake up and realize that she has completely wrapped herself around Kahlan during the night, but by the end of the week the tension has for some reason dissipated and her morning ritual of gently wiggling out of a dead–to–the–world Cara’s embrace has become just that - a ritual.

They joke about it when the two of them, Kahlan and Richard, are out to gather fire–wood one night. Richard confesses that at this point he feels an urge to kiss Cara’s temple as if she were a child after every time Kahlan manages to successfully free herself from her morning embrace. They spend the walk back to camp guffawing and thinking up elaborate scenarios of how badly and in which manner Cara would hurt him if she were ever to wake up to that.

When they reach the camp they conspicuously quite down, both unable to not–look for a moment at Cara before tearing their gaze away. Cara get’s a suspicious look on her face and spends the time up until first watch glaring at them challengingly. When it is time to settle for the night she rises with a frustrated huff and wordlessly claims the watch - her glaring has been utterly ineffectual tonight; her once mighty stare has been met with nothing but fond looks and smiles by all of them.

On the third night of the second week since first Cara had started snuggling up to Kahlan, in the deepest hour of the night – when even the bugs stop humming – they get attacked by a dozen cut–throats.

Desperate, these bandits are smarter than the average thief and have waited for this hour to spring their assault, what they have not counted on is a wizard of the first order keeping watch. Zed’s loud and glowing ring of impulse is not as concentrated or as lethal as his fireballs, but it has the benefit of repelling all the bandits in a 360 degree manner as well as instantly waking up all those who slumbered.

The battle is short, even with their superior numbers and better–than–usual tactics, their assailants are no match for the shear battle experience that they have all accumulated individually and as a team.

They spend what’s little left of the night hulling the bodies for Zed to burn while sending sideways glances at Cara waiting for her to give them a queue as to how things are going to be with her from now on, for it is clear by her introverted disposition and even the way she just fought that Cara has been utterly baffled by the position in which she found herself in when waking up.

The rest of the day Cara moves between looking angry, distant, lost, embarrassed and aggressively pensive, but mostly angry and distant. Richard and Kahlan share worried looks over Cara, while Zeds eyes calmly advise them to relax; this is Cara after all and there is nothing unexpected about her reaction. Kahlan marvels at how much he can communicate with a lifting of an eyebrow and the smallest upward twitch of the corner of his mouth.

Cara doesn’t snuggle up to her the next night or the one after that, it is clear to all of them that she is remaining half awake to assure this. Zed compels them to remain patient, and they both take a deep breath and submit to his wisdom. It does not prevent Kahlan from feeling Cara’s loss as if it was a physical caress at her back.

On the third morning since the attack Cara is extra grumpy, looking frustrated with her inability to force the situation into a box – a classification in her mind – that is in alignment with how the world and a Mord’sith should be. By mid day they take a break by the side of the road. they are on a high pass overlooking a magnificent view of a quite valley. The sun is warm and there is a perfect gentle breeze, the air is so clear that Kahlan imagines she can see the most minute details on the farthest mountain ridge.

She spots Cara leaning on a bolder by the side of the road, eyebrows furrowed, mouth twisted in contemplation, hair gently moving in the breeze. she is gazing over the beauty of the valley though it is clear that she is not seeing any of it. Kahlan settles herself on the rock next to her and takes her time observing her, she looks edgy and thoughtful and stubborn and beautiful. She cannot help but smile when Cara truly does not seem to acknowledge her presence, so lost is she in her thoughts, so comfortable is her subconscious with Kahlan’s presence.

Kahlan kisses her cheek.

“Why did you do that?” Cara’s is so startled, she forgets to be angry.

“Because I can”.

Part 2

Lately, she’s been dreaming of trees. It is disturbing.

Not only that she had started dreaming at all. not only that she does not remember anything but the trees in her dreams – though she is positive that there is more to them, and not being able to remember is now added to the growing list of things she cannot or is not allowed to control anymore.

No, the thing that is bothering her the most is: why trees?

She doesn’t love them; she doesn’t hate them – she just doesn’t care. What would possess her sleeping mind to dream about trees?

On top of that, ever since the dreams started, her sleep has become so sound that about a week ago she actually slept in until noon. She was mortified with herself and had lashed out at Zed when he finally got around to waking her up – another loss of control. Zed assured her that she was not under the spell of some powerful magic; she took him aside and had him check and make sure anyways.

She has been feeling odd since the dreams started, more energetic yet more calm, focused – like the feeling one gets in the exact instance you shift your awareness from deep thought, or a book, or a battle map and into the immediate world around. it is as if her mind is sharper, quicker. She feels capable.

Not that she was not capable before – she looks around the camp – probably more than the rest of these clowns put together.

Earlier Richard and Kahlan came back from scavenging for firewood, giggling like school girls. They took one look at her and quitted down, it wouldn’t have bothered her if Zed hadn’t given them an admonishing look and then sent an apologetic one to her. Why was he apologizing for their behavior? That would imply that they did something wrong, that they have wronged her.

Her hackles had risen, where they still mocking her for sleeping in? True so far she has always been the first to rise, but she also always mans her watch at night a bit longer than them, hunts for their food, carries the heaviest backpacks. She is Mord’sith, she is incapable of lazy. If there had been no added benefit, she would never let herself sleep so soundly. but this deeper slumber has been making her… better, stronger – she can feel it. As such it is not a luxury but a tactical decision on her behalf, less awareness when she sleeps in return for better performance when she is awake.

She begrudgingly admits to herself that she would not have agreed to the trade–off a few months ago, and though her companions are not Mord’sith, they have all proven themselves to be decent fighters and responsible guardsmen at night, she… trusts them.

So why are they laughing at her? She glares at them all, Richard looks like he is amused by a secret that he is hording to himself, even Zed has a ting of superiority in his grin. Kahlan is the worst; she comes over and sits very close is if Cara’s glare is an invitation – She is wearing a look of utter fondness on her face. Cara is horrified to see Kahlan’s hand subconsciously creeping towards her own; she is still staring at Cara, her gaze somehow managing to look both intense and gentle.

They are all mad, the entire lot of them. She rises from her seat before Kahlan’s hand can reach its target and informs them that she is taking first watch. They all smile and thank her, is if she made an offer instead of a statement.

A few days later they are attacked by bandits. Cara wakes up to the sound of Zed’s magic, he is wise to use a repelling spell that affects all twelve assailants. It gives them all time to get their baring, including Cara. She woke up hugging Kahaln.

She is engaged with three bandits. Using her agiels to fence with two of them while staying in constant motion to keep the first two between herself and the third.

Zed has taken a more protective position and has just knocked down four bandits with stronger Magic.

The sound distracting one of her opponents and she lunges for his throat with an agile, it hits the spot. She knows she is now closer to the second bandit and she grabs his wrist when he swings his sword to attack her. the minute she has his wrist in a firm grip she pulls her agile from the first bandit’s throat knowing he is done for and twists under the arm she is grabbing, ending behind the second bandit with his arm still twisted in her grasp, he has dropped his sword half way through the maneuver and she is now expecting an attack from her third assailant.

She takes a second to look around, Richard is fighting with the two toughest looking bandits, he is in a bad position, they are flanking him. But he is too far away for her to assist.

Zed has two of the bandits burning at his feet, the smell is awful. He is engaged with one more but the fourth is creeping up behind him. She is about to shout a warning when she sees something shiny streak through the night, one of Kahlan’s daggers is now wedged in his throat. She woke up hugging Kahaln.

She almost get’s her spine skewered when her third assailant makes a lunging stab it her with his sword, she twists her entire body to avoid it, knowing the move will loosen the grip she has in the other bandit’s wrist. Sloppy, very sloppy on her part. She gets angry, and focused, her agiel’s whine crescendos, her grip tightening on the wrist she’s already holding, her anger allowing her to keep the hold when the bandit tries to free himself. She uses her weight as well is the grip on his wrist to switch their positions, he is now doubling is a shield against her other assailant. She wastes no time stabbing him in the stomach with her agile.

She turns her attention to her last bandit; over his shoulder she can see Richard has finally managed to maneuver his two attackers to both be in front of him, and she can see Zed moving in to help him.

She finally gets a good look at Kahlan, and sees that she has dispatched two of her foes as well, and is working on her third.

She woke up hugging Kahaln and she cannot even begin to articulate how much she doesn’t know what to think about that. She realizes she’s been staring at Kahlan when suddenly it is as if time has slowed down, Kahlan’s eyes widen in alarm, her body tightens as if to leap and her mouth opens to shout a warning. Cara spots the tip of a sword rushing towards her head from the corner of her eye. She just barley ducks the jab, crouching low which gives her a good opportunity to tackling her assailant to the floor. She hopes Kahlan isn’t paying the price for Cara distracting her. And she brutally finishes off her last attacker as fast as she can. She looks up to see Kahlan’s last bandit fall to the ground.

Kahlan looks up and gives her the sweetest smile.

This is unacceptable.

The back of her head and the tops of her ears suddenly tingle, the hair on her neck stands up. She has the sense of something colossal bearing down on her from within her own mind. It is a wave – about to crush a tree, the tree from her dream. She suddenly has an explicitly clear image – as if of a memory – of a dam, the biggest dam she has ever envisioned, a dam so big it cannot truly exist. She knows it is about to crack and she knows it will overwhelm everything in its way, leaving only a trail of destruction. She can see it in her mind twice at the same time, overlapping - the dam broken and spewing, as well as intact but with cracks slowly growing. She shakes her head. This is unacceptable.

Many months ago she had accepted the fact that the more time she spends under the will of the new lord Rahl, the less Mord’sith she will become, she has no choice he is Rahl. But she now realized that she was still holding hope that this would happen because he would guide her, teach her, and in his light she would thrive and be shaped her into something new, something better. This however, this is simply unacceptable. She refuses to sleep the next couple of days.

The first day she cannot think. obviously, all the heightened focus she has acquired from her new–found deep sleep are gone now that she refuses to slumber, but it seems her regular focus has abandoned her as well. Her mind is jumbled; thoughts scattering at a rapidly increasing rate, she is jumping from topic to topic, the pace to fast to be forming any sort of cohesive idea, she is not finishing the sentences in her head. So she focuses on her hands holding the reigns of her horse.

The second day she cannot think and now she has slipping into a bizarre kind of reflective stupor. She should be alarmed of losing herself in whatever this is that is happening to her, but she has stopped thinking in words even though the pace of her thinking has not slowed. She is curiously unworried.

She touches her agile, she both feels the pain and doesn’t. she grips it fully and tightens her hold. Her muscles are screaming, she clearly acknowledges the pain like little needles all the way up her elbow, radiating to her shoulder, and now on her neck – on the nape and beneath her ear, she is starting to get a headache. And yet it is all numbed, she both feels the pain and doesn’t.

It is as if her mind had disconnected from her body and her emotions, took a step back, and is now observing everything in a detached sort of way. With no anger, with now surprise, with no rush.

And suddenly this is familiar.

She is in shock.

This used to happen to her at the beginning, when she still wasn’t proficient in compartmentalizing physical pain, and so her body – so exhausted by the shear physicality of her abuse – instinctively did it for her. She knows this moment of clarity will soon fade, and that she should just relax and ride it out until her body heals. She looks down. Odd, she does not see wounds. She shrugs and goes back to focusing on her hands and the reigns.

Day three, she is leaning on a rock by the side of the road overlooking a valley, her hands crossed. Her mind is automatically and dejectedly cataloguing all the different ways an army could set up defenses in it, at the same time she sees an image in her mind’s–eye of the huge wave from the dam crushing through valley, ripping everything with it. She is both awake and dreaming.

There is something next to her, it is Kahlan.

Before she can fully turn her head to her, she kisses Cara’s cheek.

Cara wakes up from her three day–haze instantly, like the crack of a whip. suddenly, she is just so completely there.

“Why did you do that?” comes blurting out of her mouth.

“Because I can”.

I moment passes.

“You… you kissed me.” She says, her voice sounding scandalized to her own ear.

“Uh huh, wasn’t it nice?” Kahlan’s smile is too wondrous, and she can sense the wave getting closer. She closes her eyes and tries to quite it down.

Kahlan squeezes her hand and walks away. Their break is over, time to get back on the horses.

That night she decides that she will sleep properly, though she makes sure to put her bed–roll a safe distance from Kahlan’s.

She cannot fall asleep, an ach is forming at her chest, on the inside, radiating all the way to the backs of her elbows, it is not physical pain - though she feels it physically. It’s like a hole; it is as if one of the ancient wizards used subtractive magic on the concept of embracing. She cannot stand it, She moves her bed–roll closer to Kahlan’s, Zed who has the current watch is pretending not to notice, and for the first time she gets an appreciation for the subterfuge know as tact. She falls asleep.

The next morning Cara wakes up remembering her dream, but she will have time enough for that later.

Kahlan had awakened her. they are both on their sides Cara behind Kahlan, her arms around her, clasped lightly over Kahlan’s belly. The brunette has her own hands over Cara’s, slowly stroking them with her thumbs. Cara can only really feel the one thumb since her right hand is numb from having Kahlan lie on top of it for an unknown amount of time.

“Good Morning” she hears Kahlan softly whisper – quietly – as to not wake up the still sleeping Zed.

Cara thinks that that is really unnecessary since the wizard usually requires a decidedly ungentle kick in order for him fully awaken. Still, she is happy Kahlan chose to be quite, she knows that Richard is probably within ear–shot, calmly patrol around their little camp.

She likes the idea of having Kahlan a little longer to herself.

Part 3

The dream starts as a memory.

They are walking briskly – Cara leading, Kahlan chatting with the Wisp.

The creatures’ humming is seriously grating on her patience.

What is it anyways, an intelligent bug? A fleck of sentient magic? Whatever it is, the noise it is producing is incessant and invasive and she can feel her nerves frying and her anger rising.

She exhales all the air in her lungs, stiffens the muscles of her back and ribs – creating pressure on her chest. It doesn’t work to contain her irritation and she sighs audibly and rolls her eyes exaggeratedly, taking special care to make sure that Kahlan gets her point.

Kahlan just gives her an unimpressed look and continues cooing at the little thing.

The dream shifts.

They are in the woods, it is nighttime and the moon is full and bright, painting the forest in monochromes. It is peaceful.

Richard, Kahlan and Zed are standing to her right a few meters away. She looks down at her hands, the Wisp’s light is dimming and she is suddenly overcome with the sense of urgency.

“Good luck” Richard says. She looks up, Kahlan is waving her hand.

She turns and walks into the night.

The dream shifts.

The forest is both familiar and not. The sound of her leathers creaking and her footsteps crunching through the underbrush seem superimposed to her ears, maybe it is because everything else is so completely quite. She looks down it the Wisp and is relieved to see that its light is growing.

She is getting closer to her destination.

The dream shifts once more, though this time it feels more like she is actually present as opposed to a spectator. Her hand moves a branch that is in her way and she faintly acknowledges that the Wisp is gone.

Behind the branch she arrives at a clearing in the forest, in the middle of it stands a massive tree easily three times higher and wider than the rest. Tied to its branches on golden strings are hundreds upon hundreds of beautifully carved wooden boxes, all of them seeming to be glowing from within with yellow and orange lights.

She is moving closer to the trunk.

Around her are thousands of Wisps, slowly drifting around the tree in a grand circular pattern. Gently as if they are winged achenes floating in the wind.

She is under the canopy now – about ten meters away from the massive roots – when suddenly a sense of danger grips her and she stops. She is aware of something hiding in the shadows, in the mesh of protruding roots – watching her, coiled and ready to spring if she moves closer.

Chancing a look back from where she came, she notices that all the Wisps are gone save one.

It is shining bright and beckoning in the middle of her vista.

She looks back at the roots, the thing is still there. keeping a wary eye on the shadows she retreat. The farther she moves away, the less she can sense the malevolence until it is all but gone.

She tightens her jaw and walks up to the Wisp.

“I guess this is your doing?” she states.

It remains silent.

“What? No chirping?” she shifts her weight, hands instinctively going to her hips.

“Why am I here little bug? Why did you bring me to this place?” her words are angry, agitated. this is not helpful.

The Wisp does not answer and she turns to leave.

“I did not bring you here” it says from behind her, sounding almost sad.

It catches her by surprise. She had given up hope on getting a reply.

And suddenly she feels tired, overwhelmed. She turns around.

“What is happening to me?”

The Wisp seems to mull over the question.

“It is our ability to connect with others that allows us to connect with ourselves and vice versa, do you understand this Cara?” it asks gently.

“This conduit, this road stretches through both territories, it leads outside and it leads in.” its voice is imploring, willing her to comprehend the deeper meaning of the words.

“You have started traveling this path, seeking her out, and by doing so – both destinations opened before you. That is how you managed to arrive here, to me and to–”

“Seeking her out? Seeking who out?” She interrupts the wisps before it can get carried away.

The Wisp pauses and somehow manages to convey a lifting of an eyebrow even though it is shining too bright for Cara to make out any of its finer features.

Kahlan. The thought enters her mind, simple and perfect in its absoluteness.

Cara stubbornly folds her arms over her breast, she looks at the wisp and knows she does not need to say the name out load.

“I thought… I figured it was because of all of you – ever since your birth – My draw to her”, she says “I know how you wisps just adore the Mother Confessor” it comes out sounding defensive even to her own ears.

The wisp seems to smile, “Do not be ashamed of your pull to her, she is most magnificent, most worthy of notice.

But you are right, we Wisps have always loved her. Though it is not something inherent in our nature that makes her so beautiful in our eyes”.

“Oh?”

“It is her motion… movement, changing …” The Wisp hesitates, Cara can barely see the silhouette of its little head looking down as if deep in thought.

After a moment it looks up, “I am sorry child but there is no word in your tongue for the thing I am trying to tell you.”

Cara senses the importance of what the wisp is trying to say, so she grits her teeth and remains quite, letting the little thing find its tongue again – even if it is communicating more in riddles than in words.

Her ears perk and her eyes lift back when the wisp starts talking again.

“It is like the beauty of smoke” it finally replies.

“Kahlan is like smoke” Cara repeats in a deadpan tone.

“Yes, No. her… the inside, the way she controls” the Wisp hums happily, “unique, always different, always changing, harmony, beautiful!”

“Oh”, Cara thinks she understands, “Oh” she says again, “you mean her confessor magic”.

“No, no.” the wisp seams frustrated, “her… her Tree.” it agitatedly points over at Cara’s tree.

Cara shifts her gaze as well, it is still there, large and odd, boxes slightly swaying in the wind.

She turns back to the wisp with an eye roll, chin tucked in, head canted to the side – eyebrows raised in a look conveying annoyed disbelief.

“Soooo, Kahlan’s tree is smoke and wisps find that pretty” she says.

“Yes” the wisp answers with a note of relief.

“I thought wisps liked trees”.

She just knows it is frowning at her, she can feel it.

It makes her feel a little bit more in control and she smirks, though It doesn’t last long as another thought enters her mind and she frowns.

“So it is something in Kahlan herself that makes her special and other confessors, they do not have it?” she asks, a sliver of worry entering her mind.

“They might” The Wisp answers, “the best usually do, but none so beautiful is your Kahlan”.

“Why?”

And suddenly she is tense, there is something there – in the coming answer. She can hear a familiar noise growing stronger in the background, water rushing.

She didn’t mean to ask, her mouth formed the question without her consent and she is abruptly reminded that this is a dream.

Somewhere else her body is starting to wake but the rumbling of the water distracts her, it is almost deafening now.

closer, closer, rushing.

The Wisp’s gaze is boring into her, its light intensifying painfully,

“Because she is broken so beautifully” it answers, “because she continues to do so and always will”.

She looks up above the tree. The wave is raging and enormous, covering the sky.

Her eyes snap open,

Silence ringing in her ears.

It is later in the day. They are riding through the valley and Cara’s mind is ablaze.

Broken, Kahlan broken.

She chances a sideways glance at the Mother Confessor.

She looks beautiful, proud and tall, her hair long and wild over her back, white dress draped over her large dark horse.

Shafts of sunlight are penetrating the canopy of the forest that they are riding through, highlighting dark tresses when she passes through them.

The entire image looks as if taken from a fairy tale book Cara saw when she was very little. The white lady riding through her lands, splendid and noble.

Broken.

She is just astounded at how she never really thought of this before, how could this be?

She clearly remembers Kahlan telling her about how her father used to tie her hands, how he made her do things against her will, how he used her as a tool to hurt people for his own personal gain.

How old did Kahlan say she was when her mother died? Younger than Cara was when she herself was taken. She realizes that Khalan had, in a way, a parallel childhood to her own – Only Khalan was not taken away from her family, from her home, from a place of goodness and kindness to a dark Tower full of fear and Mord’sith.

She was not beaten and broken and made intimately acquainted through pain and abuse with the understanding that her former life was over and she is now to become something different, something opposite, something powerful.

No, she thinks. Khalan is not broken.

Kahlan does not have the clarity of breaking because she never was.

She simply grew up incomplete.

The subtlety of it horrifies Cara.

Kahlan never compartmentalized her pain, never detached herself from it so she can use it as a source of power both magically and mentally the way Cara was trained to do.

There was a reason why Cara was broken – it was to reshape her towards a specific end. It had a purpose.

As such it had been done by professionals – teachers and mentors – equipped with experience, facilities, rituals and traditions,

an entire sorority of guidance.

Kahlan the child grow up without a parent or mentor to channel and guide her manifesting psyche – her developing personality, and as such had internalized her pain and guilt, merged with them.

It is like an epiphany. Kahlan has no mental separation from her abuse; it lives in a big room inside her mind with the rest of what makes her Kahlan.

She takes a moment to acknowledge the irony that it is the Mord’sith in her that riles at the wrongness of such a state, at the lack of focus, at the waste of untapped potential. So unprofessional, so… thuggish.

It is beneath a person as impressive as Kahlan to have been treated this way.

Not for the first time she tries to wrap her imagination around what Kahlan could have been if she had received Mord’sith training.

Cara imagines that the Mother Confessor feels every inch the abuser when she confesses someone, unlike Cara who when breaking a new pet, was a tool doing the bidding of her lord and master, unlike Cara who was completely detached from her guilt and her empathy because a chasm was artificially beaten into her, separating her body from her will.

She realizes that this is what she sees in Richard’s eyes when he looks at her so earnestly, he expects her to bridge the chasm. She thinks back and realizes that the process had already begun, had started the minute his will as the new Rahl had asserted over her. He does not understand that what he is asking of her is just as arrogant, just as self–centered as all the abuse she received from his brother.

She feels Richard’s wish might – is – not only breaking her, it is shattering her.

She frowns, and wonders if Richard will ever understand that for her to remain Mord’sith is not only beneficial to him, but a kindness to her.

Irony strikes again when she detachedly feels her training reassert itself over her, telling her that the will of lord Rahl is her salvation, that her survival is inconsequential, only her obedience.

She thinks she might be feeling sad.

She turns her thoughts back to Kahlan.

From what she knows about confessor magic, an intimate connection with the target always manifests, empathy and love are what fuels a confession, and as such some sort of relationship with the victim is unavoidable.

She sighs.

Empathy. Could Mord’sith be guaranteed to be as efficient as they are in protecting their lord Rahl if they did not have that intrinsic human quality removed from them? Of course not.

So to have that very quality be the reason you successfully erase another human being, be the weapon you use to gain domination, power, justice.

The dichotomy of it is incomprehensible to Cara.

How can Kahlan live with herself? How does she maintain equanimity without her mind shredding its own self to pieces?

She must be a master of her feelings in order to survive. Does she ignore them? Does she reshape them? Does she lie to herself, convincing herself that what she does to her victims is not death, is not worse than death?

No. Confessors are instruments of truth, it is their purpose; they could not perform their task if they could lie to themselves,

especially not Kahlan.

It suddenly occurs to Cara that the Mother Confessor’s threshold for pain might be higher than her own. Just not on a physical level.

There is a click in her head and a new thought enters her mind,

Kahlan could be her mentor, her Mistress.

She could put her back together after lord Rahl breaks her.

Part 4

Lately, almost everything that Cara does makes her smile.

It’s hard to notice when you yourself are smiling excessively. Laughter is audible to one’s own ears, but exorbitant smiling is harder to be aware of.

Nevertheless, even with her attention constantly being occupied with important matters such as fighting, marching, surviving, worrying, stressing and an entire host of other concerns that a world–saving quest would entail – she cannot help be notice that her cheeks have literally started to strain with the pleasant effort of an overused muscle.

Her forearms tingle and her torso gives a happy little shiver; she can feel a smile take form on her lips just thinking about it. She sneaks a peak at Cara.

The Mord’sith is absentmindedly talking to the horses while she removes their saddles, complaining about Richard’s habit of stopping for every bird they pass and generally telling them about her day.

She wants to hold Cara’s hand, or at least give her forearm a squeeze. Something that would convey to the blond how endearing Kahlan finds her to be – her palms are tickling with the desire and she gives them a shake and wipes them on her dress. She does not think the gesture would be welcomed or even properly understood.

She finishes unrolling their sleeping pallets and stands up, spreading her fingers and stretching her arms to the sides as far as they can go, letting out a squeak of contentment at the end. That was a good stretch, now all she needs on order to feel perfect is a bath.

Richard wandered off a few minutes before so she informs Zed and Cara that she is leaving to take a dip in the nice little brook they past about half a mile back and suggests that they do the same.

She wonders if Cara wants to join her. The other woman has been so lost in thought the last few days; however, this morning she seemed to snap back to herself, though with an added edge, and Kahlan wants to ask her about it.

It would be a great opportunity to broach the subject if she could just persuade the blond to join her at the stream since Cara always seems more relaxed when submerged in water. She smiles and thinks that the other woman’s love of the decadence is probably a relic from her days of living in a Mord’sith temple equipped with very large and very luxurious hot baths; Kahlan always found it odd that a temple dedicated to pain would house such a soothing and calming amenity.

She looks to Cara with a question on her face, but the blond gives her a wide–eyed look and shakes her head in an almost frightened manner. She can see Zed grinning under his nose.

Oh well, she smiles again, baby steps.

She collects her gear – brush, mirror, soap, towel, clean shift – and heads out of camp, but not before using her little mirror to catch Cara staring at the back of her head with a confused look on her face. The expression is so endearing that she feels a smile blossoming on her face once again. She really wishes Cara would join her.

For a couple of days now she’s been walking around with a giddy sensation in her chest. It almost feels like a separate living thing, young and endearing – like an excited puppy or maybe a ball of sunshine that has been birthed just above her solar plexus and is merrily vibrating, trying to beam its happiness through her ribs.

She knows it’s because of Cara, because of the progress the other woman has been making.

The growing pains the Mord’sith has been going through have really started to pay off; she has substituted true impatience with snarky comments and eye rolling, violent rage with controlled frustration, and a frightening edginess and a sense of unpredictability with an air of competence and dependability. Kahlan trusts her with her life.

The brunette so wants to turn around and hug Cara back at night when the blond sneaks onto her bedroll, to tell her that she appreciates the changes that the Mord’sith is going through, that while she cannot imagine how difficult it is, she does have a bit of a clue – and that she does not take Cara’s efforts for granted.

So far though, she has yet to gather up the courage to do so less the blond flee again.

When she returns Zed heeds her advice and saunters off to take his own bath, though spirits know he always manages to retain a certain moldy sent to him. She is about to tell Cara exactly that, but the blond has grabbed their wood axe and started arranging for a large log to be chopped.

Oh well, she thinks disappointedly, better for the Mord’sith to do so before she takes her own bath.

When Richard returns from hunting with the loot of two rabbits and a pheasant, it is already dark and the temperature has dropped too drastically for him to clean himself in the freezing water without fear of getting ill. Instead, he moves his bed roll away, joking that he is so smelly the scent could probably put soot on marble and they are after all so clean and shiny.

Zed claims he smells the prettiest.

She has just dived into her bed roll when she realizes that it has gotten much colder than she originally thought and now Kahlan wishes she had grabbed an extra fur pallet from the saddle bags before she settled in.

Zed is busy drawing his magical protections around the camp and she doesn’t want to bother him because of her lack of foresight. She is busy weighing the pros and cons of having to slink out again wearing only her shift to get some extra covering, when Cara promptly dumps a heavy wolf fur on her and scoots her own sleeping roll even closer.

She catches Richard staring at them from his five meters of exile.

But Cara has already wordlessly climbed in behind her, and the heat the other woman is emanating coupled with the extra warmth of the wolf fur is too pleasant and she closes her eyes.

Part 5

Other than waking up wrapped around Kahlan and finally remembering what she dreams of at night, the rest of the day goes without anything more exciting than Richard spotting a rare bird and promptly going into forest–guide mode.

And while she could do without a 15–minute lecture about the Sharp–shinned Hawk, it is not enough of a delay to warrant her regular fuss so she lets it go.

True enough, the rest of the day they make good headway towards whatever end Richard’s compass has in mind. By the time they set up camp she almost forgets to feel awkward about the fact that the entire team is aware of the fact that she and Kahlan have basically been sharing the same pallet for the past…

…unknown number of nights.

Huh.

She sneaks a suspicious look over at Zed, who is pulling out food and cookware from the bags, of course.

He seems pleasantly concentrated on the task while humming an old tone in an off–key scale, looking for all intents and proposes as if nothing is amiss.

She wonders how long they have all bore witness to her – to this – this oddity of hers.

The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that there is no way she can ask any of them for the answer without the conversation potentially slipping into avenues so unwelcome that her mind cannot even anticipate what they may entail, let alone contemplate willingly traversing them.

She helps unload the gear from the horses. The clearing they have chosen for the night has enough longish grass that they will not need to search for feed, surely enough the horses start methodically munching while she removes the saddles.

Eventually though, the feeling of not knowing – coupled with repetitively coming up blank with solutions for gleaning the answer to the question – frustrates her to the point where her stomach starts to get upset with the acids of worry.

She is familiar with this sensation; it is the same one she would get when standing with her sisters, full of excited anticipation, tense and ready in the few minutes preceding the start of a grand battle – one that she had been ordered personally to strategize and oversee, and now all that is left is for her people to follow their instructions and not mess up her plan.

Yes, she does not like for things that she desires to be dependent on other people.

Richard left a few moments ago to go hunt for some meat to make dinner more interesting. Zed is still tinkering around the fire pit and Kahlan has just finished setting up all their sleeping pellets.

Cara’s stomach sinks and her heart pumps a single painful beat when she notices that Kahlan has already arranged for their bedrolls to be flush against each other.

Before she can say anything the Mother Confessor stands up and informs her and Zed that she is going to take a dip in the stream they passed by awhile ago – and that they should do so as well since at this point their collective stench can kill a Gar at 30 paces with its intensity.

She turns her head towards Cara with an “are you coming” expression on her face.

Cara’s eyes go wide while her brow furrows and she shakes her head in small panicked little quivers – which she regrets immediately.

Kahlan shrugs and leaves. If she noticed that Cara’s reaction was a bit excessive she does not let on. Cara sighs and looks over to Zed.

“Zed?”

“Yes, Cara.” He does not even look up from his cooking, and Cara just knows that the sly old goat probably witnessed the entire previous little interaction with Kahlan.

She does not know what she wants to ask let alone how to ask it, but hesitation is folly and over–thinking things has not improved the situation.

Plus, Kahlan might be back at any moment.

“Tell me about confessor magic,” she eventually blurts out.

Zed looks up; she thinks the request might have surprised him.

“I don’t know what I could tell you that a Mord’sith does not already know,” he finally answers.

“How…” she starts, “how does it pass – from the confessor to the confessed – does it travel through the blood, through the nervous system?”

“Not exactly.” Zed sits up from the stew he is preparing, he throws in another pinch of salt and then moves to a log that he has set up a little further away from the fire. The aroma that starts wafting from the pot is pleasant.

“In a way there are two types of confession,” he begins, “but both of them essentially use an invisible road – a path if you will, and although this path cannot be perceived in the strictest sense of the word, it is a natural conduit that exists between all people”.

Cara is alarmed at how much the vocabulary Zed is using is echoing the words of her Wisp.

“When Kahlan confesses a person she truly loves them. The stronger the ability for compassion – the stronger the confessor.

Perceivably, every creature capable of empathy – of love – is capable of confession.”

Cara has moved over to sit on the log next to Zed, leaning a bit towards him – palms on knees, legs apart at about shoulder width – giving her a slightly mannish slouch; her attention however is somber and complete.

“The difference of course is magic,” Zed says grandiloquently.

And Cara thinks that if he were not a wizard Zed would make a great bard.

His voice is gravelly, giving all his expositions a sagely quality – dipping low, growing light, emphasizing this part or that – subliminally clarifying to the listener which facets of the tale are important and which are merely build–ups for later.

“When a confessor uses her power in the aggressive way she is essentially hijacking the road, she controls it and forces her essence through the link – like a flash–flood in the spring, expunging a dried out river bank.”

Cara feels the muscles around her eyes tighten and her ears pull back. The image of the wave crashing through the valley and uprooting her tree is suddenly very clear in her mind. Her palms tighten around her knees.

“This is why confessors usually get exhausted following a confession,” Zed continues, not noticing how tense Cara has become.

“Anyways, after all barriers are removed, all mental defenses shattered, the confessed person – for the first time since they were a newborn – feels Everything: magnified and unhindered. And connected to them on the other side of the cleaned and stripped–downed road – shining, loving and benevolent – is their confessor.”

His hands spread from a point in front of him all the way to his sides, palms open and parallel to the ground, miming a path.

“Rarely can two people naturally become as intimately close as a confessor and her confessed.”

He lowers his hands and leans forward, “It is –” he pauses theatrically, “magical.”

He grins, pleased with himself.

Cara is not impressed.

“And this requires touch,” Cara states. “For the conduit to be tapped into,” she clarifies.

“No, of course not,” Zed says. “The touch of the confessor is required only if she wants to dominate the path, the first way, the aggressive way – so that she can clean it out and shift her essence through it in order to create the link that binds the confessed back to her.”

“But,” he explains, “Even if the road is not walked upon by touch, every person’s path is still available to a confessor – which is why they always know the truth.” He pauses. “Well, everyone except the Mord’sith of course.”

“Because our path is broken,” she adds.

“Because your path is broken,” he agrees.

Kahlan returns from her bath, and Zed goes next.

Cara is forced to spend the next fifteen minutes with a radiant and sweet–smelling Kahlan.

She chooses to chop wood.

When Zed returns she leaves without a word; it has already gotten dark but the freezing water is just what she needs.

Richard’s bath will have to wait until morning. He pulls his sleeping pallet a ways back out of consideration for everyone else.

When they finally settle for the night, Cara is exceptionally aware that everyone else is fastidiously ignoring the fact that she has glued herself to Kahlan’s back even before she has fallen asleep.

Richard is trying to air his shirt; Zed is using a stick to draw a big circle around the camp for his magical protection.

And Kahlan – though her eyes are closed – is very still in front of her, too still to be anything but acutely conscious. But Cara can still see from her position that the brunette is smiling.

And anyways, she’s on a mission tonight – she has questions for her Wisp and Kahlan’s presence seems to help her reach her tree.

She almost doesn’t notice when she falls asleep.

* * * * *

“So how do I do it? How do I get Kahlan to be my Mistress,” she asks the Wisp.

She is sitting on a largish rock next to a low hanging branch on which the Wisp is perched.

“How do Mord’sith do it?” the Wisp asks her.

“You do not choose a Mistress,” she answers. “She chooses you and then bequeaths you with pain until you submit, until you surrender, until she is Mistress.”

She pauses and then snorts, “I doubt Kahlan has the stomach for that.” She says with no small degree of complacency.

“Oh? Is she not doing that to you already?” asks the Wisp.

“Remember Cara, we are not talking about the traditions of the Mord’sith, Kahlan will not beat your submission from you. She will wait for you to give it freely.”

Cara narrows her eyes; she can feel her dignity taking up arms, her entire being rebelling against the idea of submitting without a fight.

“Ah, ah do not be stubborn child, is this not exactly what you want? What you need?”

She glares at the Wisp. “Suppose I agree to this, suppose I agree to create the bond of Mistress and student with Kahlan.” She crosses her hands over her breast. “How would I do it, Kahlan will not harm me, she cannot even confess me without bringing about my death. I cannot submit to her, it is simply not possible.”

She thinks she can feel the Wisp smiling. “Oh, it is possible child.”

It rises from the tree and floats closer to her face. “Know this Cara, while she cannot rip it from you – you on the other hand – are free to enter a bond with her, to initiate a Path.”

Cara uncrosses her arms, fidgets, places them on her hips while worrying her lower lip with her teeth.

“How?”

She now knows the Wisp is smiling at her. “The way all people have initiated bonds since the beginning of time and until the end of all days,” it says.

“Talk to her Cara. Just talk.”

She wakes.

Part 6

The weather has not been kind; it had started drizzling right after breakfast and has not stopped ever since.

Zedd hates such indecisive weather, if the skies could have put just a little but more effort – then they could have all found some shelter from the rain and written the day off. Alas, the troposphere has settled on a depressing gray that is neither here nor there, but is definitely not enough to present them with an excuse for languor.

And so they ride on, miserable and moist.

Well, he thinks, definitely moist.

As far as miserable – Some individuals in his party do not seem to exhibit the proper amounts of contrariness and acrimony that such moistness should evoke.

Zedd exhales a deep sigh. Kahlan who is riding next to him does not notice one bit.

Youth, He thinks.

While he is ever grateful to whichever spirits that have arranged for him and his grandson to partake in the same epic quest (where he can advise and keep a watchful eye on Richard, not to mention just spend time with his own grandson), and while it is a true pleasure and a benefit to have the lovely lady Kahlan Amnell as well as the less ladylike though not less lovely Cara both be a part of this same epic quest – Sometimes he really wishes that the prophecy had chosen slightly older candidates for its enigmatical purposes, rather than current Seeker and Confessor.

It’s not that his charges are immature or overly naive (well, he thinks avuncularly, at least not his girls), it’s just that in his experience people that are well into their 40’s or those lucky enough to have children tend to acquire a talent for self awareness that their younger counterparts simply do not posses. He reckons such a talent is naturally acquired out of simple necessity, after all – life only has oh–so–much patience for people that don’t get comfortable really fast with the concept of lucid interpersonal communication.

He slants his eyes to Kahlan; she’s been riding beside him for the better part of the last half–hour with her eyes glazed and wearing a silly smile.

Clearly, she is focused internally on some private thought. He is surprised she hasn’t fallen off her horse yet.

It has also not slipped Zedd’s notice that the Mother Confessor’s gaze, distracted is it may seem to be, has not wavered from staring at Cara’s back.

Richard – riding next to Cara a few meters ahead of them – has also caught on to the brunette’s dopey behavior and has been twisting back every 5 or so minutes to look at the brunette with a worried expression on his face.

Cara for her part has been staring straight ahead the entire time – though looking by how stiff she is holding her posture – he suspects that her attention might be just as focused backwards as Richard’s.

Youth, he groans again.

If what he suspects is indeed true than this all might very well end in tears, though – he concedes – that even without Cara in the picture, it was just a matter of time.

Yes, he thinks, it is good that the spirits had let him tag along with Richard; even The Seeker sometimes just needs a grandfather.

He sighs again. Kahlan remains blithely oblivious.

* * * * *

The skies clear up a bit after the noon–meal so they decide to give their horses a break and continue on foot, each person leading their respective horse by the reins. This time Richard and Kahlan are walking in front.

“I miss you” Richard says softly, waking the Confessor from what seems to be a pleasant day–dream.

Kahlan turns her head to him with a little frown and a gentle if bemused smile.

“I’m right here Richard” her eyebrows lift, her smile growing even more lovely, though her eyes still seem confused. She captures his hand in hers and starts swinging them while they stroll.

Richard can’t help but smiles too.

“So this… thing with Cara?” he tentatively asks, not really knowing what he’s fishing for.

“Thing?”

“You know… the… the cuddling” he murmurs somewhat abashed.

Kahlan laughs a joyous peel.

“I know!” she all but squeals “If you told me a year ago that my life would include a cuddly Mord’sith I’d confess you out of pity – to wipe your mind of its mental disease.” her voice is laughter, the cheeks stretching and dimpling with happiness.

“It is so wonderful Richard – the progress she’s made. And it’s thanks to you, you know – sometimes you see people more clearly than a Confessor “. She brings their joined hands to her mouth and kisses the back of his palm. “You are so wonderful” She adds happily – her eyes earnest, her face besotting in its radiance.

Richard marinates in the warm feeling spreading from his heart to the very tips of his toes. He adds a little push to the swinging of their hands as they mosey on.

* * * * *

Cara looks to be deep in thought; such has been the state of her being recently.

It is her turn to stare at Kahlan’s back as Richard and the brunette cavort in front of them.

“Wizard?”

“Yes Cara?”

“Have you ever had an apprentice?” the blond asks without dropping her eyes from Kahlan’s back.

These days Zedd never knows what the Mord’sith might ask him, but thus far he has found himself willing to answer her anything – mostly out of sheer curiosity for where their conversation might take them.

“You could say that Richard is my apprentice” Zedd suggests.

“And yet, I have not seen him cast a single spell” Cara deadpans so nonchalantly that Zedd thinks she might have whipped the rejoinder out of pure instinct.

“Are you critiquing my abilities as a teacher?” the wizard asks in an amused tone.

“No, no. it’s just…” The blond hesitates, searching for the right words.

Zedd cants his head towards her and lifts his eyebrows, is if to say that she can ask anything without any judgment on his part.

“Richard is your grandson is he not? Did you ever have students that you did not raise from birth?” she eventually asks.

“I did – several actually, when I was still living in Aydindril”.

“And did you like them?”

“My student?”

“Yes”

“Some more than others”.

Cara seems to think deeply before articulating her next question.

“Why did you like the ones you liked?”

Zedd privately wonders what it is exactly that Cara is trying to glean, so he soldiers on–

“Well, they tended to be more talented than their counterparts, but mostly they were more interesting and more curious than the rest. I learned from them as much as they learned from me”.

“So you did not just teach them magic?” Cara asks, and Zedd has a feeling that this is a rhetorical question, one that is only there as a lead to the real quarry – but for the life of him he still cannot figure out what the blond is after.

“No I did not just teach them magic”.

“What else did you do?”

“Honestly? Mostly we probably just ended up talking” .

And here Cara perks up.

“Cara, what is this about?” Zedd enquires gently.

“Nothing” the blond answers gruffly and for the first time since they embarked on this bizarre exchange she shifts her gaze from Kahlan’s back to her own horse, which is calmly walking beside her.

“I was just wondering how, hmm… –what you used to talk about” she quickly corrects.

Zedd stairs at her, trying to soak in and comprehend all the different layers of the conversation, but Cara’s gaze remains on her horse – her hand fidgeting with the reins.

“I have often found that the reason that I felt closer to some students rather than others is because our conversations regularly allowed for a degree of vulnerability and trust that other people were not privy to.” He finally says in a carful tone.

Cara finally turns her head to look at him fully.

“Vulnerability” she echoes, it sounds more like a sigh of resignation than a question, and Zedd is alarmed to realize that he has never truly seen the blond look defeated other than now.

“It is not such a bad thing, they felt comfortable enough to tell me things that they did not admit to anyone else, sometimes not even to themselves – until we discussed and processed these subjects”.

Cara turns her gaze back to Kahlan.

“You know you can talk to any of us Cara” Zedd says after a moment.

He can see Cara’s jaw muscles flexing.

“You can tell her anything, you must know by now that she would never intentionally hurt you”. He adds in his most gentle tone.

“I know”, she finally says, “but I might hurt her”.

* * * * *

Night has arrived and they have seen nary a D’Haran the entire day. Zedd muses that maybe they hate the rain as much as he does.

About two hours beforehand Cara had suddenly informed them that she knows of a hot spring nearby and that they should set up camp close to it so that they could all warm their clammy bones.

Zedd has a sneaking suspicion that the Mord’sith’s offhand suggestion stems from Cara’s newfound – though endearingly genuine – consideration of his aversion to dampness.

The evening seemed to be wrapping up swimmingly, which in retrospect – Zedd thinks he should have realized – was in fact life’s annoying habit of lulling you into a sense of security right before springing heartache and drama at your face.

It happens right before the girls take their turn at the hot springs.

Kahlan has just asked Cara if she would like to join her, the blond surprising the Mother Confessor by saying yes, which in turn causes the brunette to beam one of her sunny smiles and the two women share a moment – Kahlan grinning like a goof, Cara with her arms crossed and her brow frowning, but her expression looks more fearful than annoyed.

Unfortunately, that is the exact moment that Richard finishes putting the last of the saddle bags on the ground.

He straightens up, glances over at the women and rests his hand on the pommel of the Sword of Truth.

The blade glows orange.

The shine is almost unnoticeable since the sword is still sheathed at Richard’s waist. However, the seeker’s suddenly pale face and stunned expression are all the confirmation that Zedd needs.

The girls grab some towels and leave, Richard remains frozen at his spot.

The minute the Confessor and Mord’sith are out of sight he does a 180 on his heels and stiffly walks into the forest, his entire demeanor speaking of a deep shock.

Zedd sighs and follows him quietly.

Part 7

Zedd follows the sounds of timber being hacked.

True enough he finds the Seeker of Truth chopping away at the thickestly trunked oak he has ever seen. Zedd can’t help a small pained smile.

It just figures, only a true woodsman such as Richard – even in has agitated state – could possibly find such hulking tree to vent upon his wounded heart.

He finds an acceptably smooth bolder nearby and lowers himself to it with a groan, his knees creaking, some vertebrae popping – waiting with the patience of wise old wizards.

Richard noticed him, but chooses to continue cleaving at the poor tree.

“I hate. Hate! HATE! Being the Seeker of truth!” he eventually yells, punctuating every exclamation with a hack from the Sword of Truth.

“Richard” Zed cautiously starts, “you don’t actually know–”

“YES I DO ZEDD!” Richard screams while turning around suddenly, hands spread to his side, the left still holding the sword.

His chest is sweaty and heaving, His face is red and wet with a runny nose and copious tears that are still streaming down – teeth, nose and brow scrunched in a look of utter pain and heart break.

“Yes I do” he says again with a cry.

“I know it utterly. Completely. I know it without the ability or protection of denial. And you know what the worst part is Zedd? Do you?”

He walks over to where Zedd is sitting, stabs the sword into the ground next to him so that it is left upright, and then crumbles to his knees in front of the old wizard, arms snaking around his grandfather’s waist, face tucked against Zedd’s stomach.

“The worst part is that she doesn’t”.

Zedd’s one hand cradles Richard’s head, the other slowly petting the top of his back.

“What am I going to do?” Richard keens in a small lost voice. “She loves her so much”.

* * * * *

The moon is full and the hot springs look glorious.

In fact they are so appealing the Kahlan is buck–naked and inside before she even notices that Cara has not followed her and is instead sitting still fully dressed by the side of the water with her knees tucked to her chest and her arms wrapped around them, an apprehensive look etched on her face.

“Cara?” Kahlan glides to the side of the pool close to where the Mord’sith is sitting; she folds her arms on the ledge and rests her chin on them, the steam of the water slowly rising around her in lazy smoky patterns.

“What is it?” the brunette tilts her head on her arms, trying to catch Cara’s eye’s under the curtain of her blonde hair.

“I lied” the Mord’sith moves her forehead to rest on her arms, obscuring Kahlan’s view of her face.

“About what?”

“After the tomb, I lied; I wasn’t delirious from lack of air”.

“Oh Cara” Kahlan smiles tenderly “I know that–”.

“No you don’t” Cara snaps angrily. She rises and starts pacing a small path back and forth by the ledge.

“Okay” Kahlan dips her voice in a manner conveying amused patience, “Then tell me.

But first, come into the water we might as well get comfortable”.

Cara huffs and strips matter–of–factly.

Kahlan spins around sharply the minute she begins. The blond just rolls her eyes.

They pool they are in is not large, maybe 5 meters in diameter. The bottom seems to be made of one large lightly textured rock with smaller egg shaped ones strewn about the floor making for convenient sitting spots. The two of them are seated not too closely but still technically side by side on the largest egg shaped bolder with their backs resting against the ledge, Kahlan has her eyes closed.

“I care for you” Cara says after a few minutes.

Kahlan opens her eyes with a snap and looks over at the blond, her fond half–grin slowly blooming on her features.

“I’ve never truly cared for anyone in my life before you”.

Kahlan’s smile is slowly replaced with a confused frown.

“What about your parents, your childhood friends?”

“I loved them, I was a child – of course I loved them. But you can hurt the ones you love.

I… I love Richard too, and you and Zedd” Cara chokes out.

Kahlan has gravitated closer lifting her hand to Cara’s shoulder, gently touching. Cara can see the other woman’s heart pounding wildly at her throat.

“but with you, I also really like you Kahlan, and… and I don’t want to hurt you–”

“You won’t hurt me Cara” Kahlan grabs the Mord’sith’s face with both her hands, staring intently into her eyes.

“I trust you; I trust my life to you”.

“It’s not your life I’m afraid for”.

“Tell me, Please”.

Cara sinks on her spot into the water and stays there for a long moment; Kahlan patiently awaits her emergence knowing that the other woman probably needs the intermission to collect herself.

When she finally surfaces, her hair is beautifully slicked back but her face is impassive – dead. Nevertheless she starts talking.

“I was twelve when I got my cycle”.

Kahlan frowns, she actually does not know what to expect so she sits tight and braces herself for whatever is to come.

“The Mord’sith were created to protect the lord Rahl, that is our purpose our reason to exist –

Our devotion is a necessity derived from that purpose,

Our breaking is a necessity derived from that purpose ”.

Cara lowers her head and her shoulders stiffen even more.

“The lord Rahl however, does not need to be devoted to his protectors.

And Darken… he… he smeared the two concept together and exploited them, devotion and breaking, obedience and pain.

He demanded both even when he already had them, even when it was unnecessary, inefficient, even detrimental…

He enjoyed it even more, knowing that he could take without hindrance… gloating, but he had to have both… he had to have the pain too…”

“Cara?”

“I was twelve when I got my cycle, and Darken had decreed that all Mord’sith where to be sampled by him when they turned woman”.

Cara slants a peek at Kahlan; the brunette has a look of horror on her deathly pale face, the hand at her shoulder is clawing into her skin so she concentrates on the pain there to center her, focus her so she can carry on.

“I quickly became one of his favorites, for I exhibited the two things he craved the most, obedience and suffering.

I hated him, I hated him and I did everything he commanded with a D’Haran devotion playing off my lips.

He couldn’t get enough of me”.

Kahlan leaves, she simply stands up and hurriedly exits the pool.

Cara lifts her knees to her chest again, her hands cradling her head, a feeling of suffocating misery emanating from every poor of her being.

She feels weird, heavy, alone.

In the background she can hear Kahlan retching.

And then Kahlan returns, her entrance parting the swirling steam rising from the water – bringing a cool breeze to Cara that wakes her from her introverted state.

Kahlan looks like she’s been crying, a lot. Cara is surprised that she hadn’t noticed it until now.

The brunette cradles her face with both her hands again and opens her mouth as if to say something, but nothing comes out. So she just stokes Cara’s cheeks again and again, trying to squeak out a word, a sound, anything.

Cara just stairs at her, not knowing what to do, her heart spasming in tingly painful waves.

“Don’t… don’t cry Kahlan – It was considered an honor to be chosen by lord Rahl”, she tries by way of appeasement.

Kahlan touches her forehead to the blond’s, her crying becoming quietly audible.

“Cara, it is okay to cry, it is allowed” The brunette finally manages.

Cara’s eyes remain completely dry. And they stay like that for many minutes.

Eventually the blond notices that her hands are pruning and she mentions it to Kahlan, when she receives no answer she slowly lowers the Mother Confessors hands from her face and turns to lift herself to the ledge of the pool. She suddenly stiffens. Kahlan has lunged forward and glued herself to her back – the brunette’s hand snaking around her waist to hold her tight, her face pressed to the spot between Cara’s neck and shoulder.

“Please don’t leave yet” she whispers in her ear.

And Cara thinks she’s never felt so alive. Her ears are ringing, her skin is humming, every nerve ending pressed to Kahlan sending her overwhelming amounts of information about every aspect of the contact – from the soft smoothness of the brunettes breasts that are pressed to her back, to the distinct coarseness of Kahlan’s pubic hair tickling the topmost curve of her ass.

Her breath turns shallow and she concentrates on surviving the next few moments.

“I can’t cry Kahlan” she says at last.

“That’s okay”, she kisses Cara’s shoulder “I’ll cry for you”.

Part 8

This is happening too fast.

She can feel panic skirting the edge of her mind, circling like a crafty vulture. If she lets her concentration slip for a second she will surely drown. And so she breathes – every inhalation inviting the wave, every exhalation a victory. In between her mind races to make sense of the emotions that are besieging her.

She compartmentalizes, dividing herself into manageable segments that she can then shut out.

Her body is sending her enormous amounts of minute details gleaned from her sense of touch. If anything, she knows how to deal with that – and so she reverts to her well–practiced state of feeling–not feeling.

Next comes the peripheral part of her thoughts, simple sentences and questions communicating themselves in a disjointed and useless stream whose only purpose is to vent some of the pressure the panic is creating in her mind: what is going on? What should I do? Should I do anything? Why does my voice sound so weird in my head? What a stupid observation, this is pointless. Enough.

And with that she shuts out that part as well.

Finally, she has enough elbow room to deal with the deeper parts of her thoughts – the observations composed by the truly thinking element of her mind. What is it about Kahlan’s embrace that is overwhelming her so?

She breathes again, closes her eyes and tips her head back on the brunette’s shoulder; she relaxes and truly takes stock of herself for the first time.

It isn’t Kahlan at all, it is her own reaction.

She wants to turn around and… touch Kahlan, just touch her. Not in a sexual way, not in a possessive way, not even in a comforting way. It is so strong, more than a need, more than an ache.

She is attracted to Kahlan. This is nothing new. What is surprising is the quality of the attraction – like a magnet, like the true meaning of the word.

Her mind keeps conjuring images of simple actions that are at the same time so intense that her torso and upper thighs are shivering with the sensation one gets when peering over an incredibly tall cliff. Images like turning around and pressing her forehead to Kahlan’s, or touching her lips to the taller woman’s pulse point with mouth slightly open – not a kiss, just contact. Images of hugging back, of simple intimacies, of worship and reverence.

Eventually Kahlan lets her go. Cara’s body involuntarily sways back – missing the contact, and she catches herself.

After that she does turn around, only to find the brunette looking at her with the most adoring and pained look Cara has ever seen anyone ever wear. What is even more alarming is that the Mother Confessor’s irises are completely black. She assumes Kahlan is unaware of the fact, and so she keeps her reaction under wraps. It doesn’t matter anyway; obviously Kahlan didn’t do anything, she just got slightly carried away.

After all, Cara thinks, I’m still alive.

They get dressed awkwardly, and head back to camp. Surprisingly enough, the walk back is silent and peaceful; the Mother Confessor seems preoccupied with her own thoughts and Cara is grateful for the reprieve. When they near the encampment Cara notices that Richard is gone. She sighs and turns to Kahlan to tell her that she needs to search for him only to find the brunette already smiling at her with understanding.

Kahlan is sad; the blond can sense it underneath the front the Mother Confessor is putting up. The Mord’Sith finds herself once again standing like a fool, rooted to the spot by her inexperience with dealing with such situations. Kahlan must think she has gone daft.

The brunette just squeezes her arm.

“Go, do your duty – I am fine, really.”

Cara stares at her for a moment longer and then leaves to find her wayward Rahl.

* * * * *

This day is turning out to be very difficult, Zedd thinks, while rubbing at the middle of his brow. He has returned from the forest without Richard, his grandson electing to stay behind to calm down a bit.

He is just putting the finishing touches on the wholesome stew he has been working on – one made to ease a broken heart – when Kahlan returns from the spring without her companion.

“Where is Cara?” the wizard asks with a creeping sense of alarm. “I don’t think she should be bothering Richard right–”

“Zedd?” the brunette looks at him. Her eyes are watery, her eyebrows delicately scrunched up in a look of such misery and distress that he feels the strings of his heart immediately vibrate is if they were pulled taut between his chest and Kahlan’s and she has just plucked them with her finger.

He moves to rise but she immediately rushes to sit on the log next to him.

“What is it child?” he gently asks, holding her pale hands in his warm, leathery ones.

When Richard was much younger – a baby, he got an ear infection one winter and Zedd remembers how he was absolutely beside himself. There he was, holding in his arms this most precious, poor, darling little thing, whose crying and hurting and tiny–little–ears scratching utterly broke his grandfather’s heart.

Zedd knew that baby Richard would be all right, that many infants get ear infections and this was not a huge deal. He knew that soon the warmed up olive oil he dribbled down Richard’s little ears would sooth the child to sleep – but it still did not stop him from feeling an overwhelming sense of empathy, of wondrous bittersweet love. It was the love of a parent, wanting to spare this singularly beloved being in his arms all the woes and realities of life – even knowing full well that such a wish is not only impossible but also ultimately detrimental to the child himself.

This is how he feels now, looking at Kahlan’s blue, blue eyes, her utter loveliness making the misery on her features ever more heart wrenching.

“Cara is hurt,” she finally blurts out. “Bad. Cara is hurt bad, and I don’t–“ her voice breaks and a tear escapes each of her eyes. “I don’t know how to… I don’t know what–“ her face scrunches even more and she lowers her head. Zedd scoots over and gathers her to him, hugging her with both arms as tightly as he can.

“I am a Confessor,” she hitches through her tears, “I know justice, and fairness and peace; I can help with these things. But I…” she buries her face deeper in his shoulder

“I don’t know how to heal such… how to help…” She takes two staccato inhalations, trying to get enough air into her lungs to continue talking past her breathing’s shattered tempo.

“Why is this hurting me so much?” she finally keens, bewildered and utterly breaking, her eyes pouring and her breathing hyperventilating with gulping hiccups.

Zedd just holds her. Not rocking, not talking or humming. Just holding, warm and stable.

After many minutes Kahlan quiets down, though she doesn’t let go or move her face from under his chin. Zedd waits a few more moments and then kisses her brow and pulls back a bit.

“What did you do?” he asks gently.

She lifts her head, eyes looking up at him uncomprehendingly.

“When you found out?” he elaborates.

“I cried,” she finally says. “I told her I would cry for her since she cannot.”

“And now you are doing it,” he smiles gently. “You are not just leaking fluids from your face my dear, you are crying – properly, out of emotion, out of pain and suffering – her suffering.”

Kahlan seems to pause and think about it.

“Do you think it helps?” she asks with a voice suddenly young and innocent. And Zedd is assaulted all over again with the feeling of parental love. He hugs her tightly to himself once more.

“Yes,” he says with a smile in his voice, “most definitely yes. And I will be here for you Kahlan Amnell, to share in your tears and lighten your burden, and so will Richard and Dennee, and all the people who love you dearly,” he adds, and pulls away again to put his hands on her shoulders to make sure he has her eye.

“That, my dear, is what family is for.”

* * * * *

Cara finds Richard with his head in his hands sitting by an enormous oak tree whose trunk looks lightly scarred from chopping. She comes up behind him and puts her hand on his shoulder.

“I know it has been getting a little colder these past nights, but isn’t this a little bit excessive even for a Lord Rahl?” she teases him with a slight grin.

Richard springs to his feet and grabs her by the throat. Cara is so surprised that he manages to turn her around and slam her against the tree before she even has time to grab the hands at her neck.

“What–”

“Don’t you dare hurt her!” he yells, his face inches from hers.

“What–” she tries again, her voice pitching higher, her hands scratching at his.

“I am your Lord Rahl, and I command you, no matter what you do… Don’t. You. Hurt. Her,” he growls, low and dangerous.

Cara has never seen him so serious, so spiteful.

“Of course my lord, as you command.” She relaxes her body, allowing her neck muscles to go limp. Richard’s fingers sink in right away and Cara’s brow breaks out into sweat while the veins at her forehead and temples pop out spectacularly.

Richard immediately lets go, his eyes wide with horror – he has forgotten once again that she would resist nothing he does. All right, she thinks, now I just need to figure out what on earth he wants from me.

“My lord?”

“No Cara, don’t call me that, I’m… I’m so sorry.”

Cara patiently stares at Richard; he is bent over with his hands on his knees looking even more winded than she is, which is not a dignified reaction for the person who did all the choking, at least in Cara’s opinion.

“There is no need for forgiveness Seeker, you know this.”

He gazes up at her with a stricken look.

“No, Cara, please, I’m sorry. Don’t let a moment of my utter stupidity ruin all the–”

“Fine, I forgive you.”

“What?”

“I forgive you; and now all is well, your actions today will not be the catalyst that will push me into a spiraling decent that ends with me being a heartless, malicious monster that enjoys eating babies.”

Cara crosses her arms and shifts her weight to her other leg.

“Well, at least not the baby part,” she smirks.

“Cara, please don’t make light of this.”

“Look, I’m not completely thick Seeker; it is obvious that something is bothering you – something that you need to get off your chest. Your… enthusiasm does not faze me, so speak and let’s get this over with, I’m sure by the end of it I’d rather you be choking me anyways.”

Richard blinks at her rather stupidly.

“Richard. Speak.”

After a few more moments he straightens up and takes a deep breath.

“Please don’t hurt Kahlan, you know I care for her dearly.”

“Of course not,” Cara says, and Richard is surprised to see an almost hurt look on her face. “Richard, I’m not angry, you could choke me a whole lot more and I would still never lay a finger on her.”

“No, no, Cara this is not about right now… and anyways I didn’t mean… look, I’m not talking about you physically assaulting her, you know that.”

“I do?”

“Well… Yes. No?”

“What?”

Richard frowns. Cara frowns even more.

“Is this a test?” the blond asks.

“What? No.”

“Only a test of my patience…” she growls under her breath.

“Look Cara, Kahlan cares for you,” Richard finally says, looking at her as if he is expecting her to fall dead from the revelation.

“Kahlan cares for everything, what’s your point?”

“My point is that she cares for you.”

“You said that.”

“I know! Why… How can you not understand this?” he yells while turning around and throwing his hands up in the air.

He swirls back and glares at her. Cara lifts an eyebrow.

“Please, choke me.”

“Ugh! Fine, you know what, just do me a favor,” he says while rubbing at his eyes. “Just try not to make her sad, okay?”

He is expecting a snarky reply, a condescending word, even a “Yes Lord Rahl,” but all he is met with is silence, he slowly lowers his hand from his eyes.

Cara’s face is flushed; her eyes are downcast and glossy from what looks like unshed tears, the veins at her forehead once again protruding. Richard is floored.

“I’m sorry Richard; I think I might have already failed you.” And he thinks the Mord’Sith might cry.

* * * * *

“Go to sleep my boy, it’s been my watch for half a mark already, tiredness will not ease your feelings.”

Richard is sitting on the ground staring at the dying fire. Across from him, about a body length from the opposite side of the fire pit, are Kahlan and Cara – asleep, content, and messily wrapped around each other and their sleeping furs – not unlike a litter of puppies.

The night sky is bright and peaceful, the last embers of the fire are crackling, the crickets are chirping and nearby an owl hoots, such a contrast to the stilted awkwardness that ruled their little camp a few hours ago.

“They don’t know Zedd, neither of them.”

Zedd comes and sits on a log next to Richard, patting the man’s shoulder before he finishes settling his old bones down.

“They say it to each other so clearly with their actions, they feel it so strongly that my sword nearly lights up without me even touching it every time they are in orbit of each other. And yet they don’t know it.”

Zedd remains silent, letting Richard reach his conclusions without interruption. Richard’s gaze remains on the fire pit and the sleeping pallets beyond it.

“Kahlan knows she adores Cara, she even recognizes that Cara makes her happy – these are all truths – she just never thinks to follow them to their logical end. And Cara, she thinks she needs something from Kahlan – also a truth – but Spirits, it is so much more.”

He turns to look at Zedd; the old wizard is looking at him, his right arm perched on a bony knee, his face resting on the palm – a wise and bittersweet smile gracing his features.

“You know all this,” Richard says in a somewhat betrayed voice. “Why didn’t you tell me? No, don’t answer that, a part of me still wishes I did not know myself.”

Zedd rises and pats his shoulder once again.

“Go to sleep my boy, tiredness will not ease your feelings.”

* * * * *

Cara moves the last branch and steps into the clearing. She is about to continue towards the tree when she spots a figure crouching next to the river. She drops to the grassy ground and starts stealthily crawling closer, trying to get a better glimpse of the thing.

About halfway to her destination she stops. Since when is there a river next to her tree? Was it always there? Trying to hold on to memories in her dream is like trying to hold on to sand underwater. Never mind, she will just have to ask her Wisp – but first she needs a better look at the creature, she is sure she’s never seen it before.

It is a child, she observes when she gets closer – dirty, beaten and in rags. She cannot see its features yet as it is crouched away from her over the river. Strewn by the youngster’s feet are tens of the wooden boxes that usually decorate her tree, all of them open, empty and haphazardly discarded.

She can see the child working on another one, beating the wooden container into a rock until the lid breaks off and then pouring the contents into the river. She shudders when she sees the yellow–orange light spilling into the water, mingling with it like fluid, like blood.

“Child?” she calls in a tone she hopes is not too frightening. The child turns around and then flees towards the roots of the tree, Cara remains frozen and dumbfounded.

The child looks like a younger version of herself. It is a younger version of herself.

How can she exist in two places at once? She needs more answers so she rises to give chase, but before she can do that the last unopened box catches her eye and she hesitates.

She looks to the tree; she can feel the child’s eyes on her from between the shadows of the roots, hurt, savage, malicious. She grabs the last box and waves it over her head to make sure that the other her can see it, she then throws it to the ground with brutal force. The thing shatters with a sickening shriek. She then grabs it and pours the light into the river before it can contaminate the grass. When she is done she discards the box next to its depleted brethren.

“Where has this river come from?” she asks her Wisp, who is suddenly beside her.

“From the other side of the path,” the Wisp answers.

She inhales a shaky breath.

“Kahlan.”

Part 9

It is very early in the morning and the world is cold. From her cocoon of furs and heat Cara observes a grayish sunrise.

The skies have once again started drizzling in a half–hearted manner, though apparently it is not enough to wake her sleeping companion. The blonde scoots back a bit to get a better look at the woman sprawled half on top of her. Kahlan’s face is puffy with deep sleep and her cheek is indented with the lines of her makeshift pillow. Cara has the urge to trace the funny pattern that is making its way over nearly half of the brunette’s face. Kahlan’s body is giving off lots of heat, as if she has a fever. Cara gently puts her chin to the other woman’s forehead. No, not a fever; the temperature is not high enough and she isn’t really sweating. Cara settles for smoothing back a long strand of dark, silken hair and sighs.

Here, in her very arms, lays the answer to questions she has not yet even articulated. She doesn’t know if she is more frustrated or depressed at her inability to see the elusive bigger picture. It is like searching for a name that is on the tip of her tongue – only in reverse – the name is known, the context is missing.

She sighs again and gently starts waking Kahlan. Nearby a crow caws.

* * * *

The day is shaping up to be quite a gloomy affair both in weather and in disposition. Zedd takes a moment to survey his younger companions. They have all adopted an air of quiet introspection – not tense, but definitely somber – and he fights the urge to intervene.

Alas, he has not become a wizard of the First Order by forgetting the rules, especially not the second one. And so he refrains, after all the greatest harm truly can result from the best of intentions.

Luckily the bubble of brooding the group has been riding in finally pops about two hours after noontime.

They are about to exit the forest that they have been riding through these past few days when, just before the end – a crow cries warily – causing Richard to look up into the raining skies to see the treetops brimming with bandits whose ambush just got ruined. They all scuttle for cover and spend the next few minutes shooting the poor bastards out of the trees with the help of superior skill and wizard’s fire. Eventually, enough of bandits manage to scramble to the ground and the skirmish turns into a face–to–face ordeal.

* * * *

There are many qualities about Kahlan that impress Cara despite herself; things like Kahlan being too emotional, too prone to distraction, too kind, too smiley, too tall; things that Cara used to see as weakness but annoyingly enough Kahlan manages to – again and again – somehow subvert into advantages. Yet without a doubt, the most worthy quality to impress the Mord’Sith is Kahlan’s fighting style.

The brunette’s attacks are circular as befitting a user handling a smaller weapon, and fluid as is appropriate when both the fighter’s hands are holding weapons. But they are also beautiful, really beautiful.

Kahlan moves like a dancer – adding unnecessary little twirls and serifs to her movements – actions that are superfluous and uneconomical for the kill, yet always succeed in awing the beholder.

The Mother Confessor did not just learn to fight like that, rather it is the elusive and coveted quality that some people are simply born with and others aren’t: talent.

Her style is like water to Cara’s earth. And the Mord’Sith really can’t help but be impressed.

She and Richard have both just finished off their last bandits and have stopped to take a moment to appreciate Kahlan in action, knowing that if the brunette suddenly gets overwhelmed they can always step in to assist.

The Mother Confessor is fending off two attackers at the same time, twirling and slashing at the two larger men without giving them a chance to rest. She has them both on their defenses but the two are obviously too dumb to realize that they are out–matched.

The rhythm of Cara’s heartbeat suddenly spikes when she sees the bandit on the right prepare for a lunge at the back of the Confessor’s head, but Kahlan has anticipated the move and she seamlessly bends her body forward low enough to dodge the blow – her hair tracing after the rounded motion in an impressive curtain and her knife swiping at the second bandit’s Achilles tendon. He falls to the ground screaming and Kahlan finishes the move by rising and turning back to face her initial foe. But before she even finishes the maneuver she is throwing her newly bloodied dagger straight up in the air – a move that catches the first bandit’s attention and he lifts his chin to follow the weapon with his eyes, and Kahlan takes the opportunity to stab him in the throat at point blank range with her remaining dagger. Good girl, Cara thinks with a smirk.

The brunette catches the tossed dagger on its way down with practiced ease and uses the momentum to hurl it at the prone bandit before he can try anything else. The weapon hits his rib cage with a satisfying ‘thwack’ and a disturbingly familiar burst of yellow and orange lights.

Cara’s eyes bug out and she turns to Richard with alarm.

“Did you see that?”

“Yes,” Richard grins, “nice touch with the dagger tossing, I’ll have to remember that.”

“No, not that. The lights.”

“Lights?”

“Yes, the… ” Cara looks at Richard’s uncomprehending face and pauses. “Never mind.”

She turns to leave but Richard grabs her elbow.

“Cara, are you alright? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

“I’m fine Richard.” She shakes his hand off and turns to leave again.

“You know I’m still your friend.” Richard stops her with his words, and she slowly turns around. “I’m still your friend Cara, I just need… it’ll just take me a little bit more time to get over this.”

“Get over what Richard? Stop speaking in riddles, you sound like a Night Wisp,” she barks. Richard just pats her shoulder affectionately with an ‘oh Cara’ expression.

Night Wisp? He mouths to himself after she leaves.

* * * *

The atmosphere has almost completely cleared up after the afternoon skirmish, both in the group and up in the heavens. The two environments are only slightly marred – the skies stained by a murder of crows that have been lazily following the little company for a while – and the mood in the group by Cara.

Zedd is surprised by the blonde’s disposition; usually a fight puts her in high spirits. He was honestly expecting her to be snarking away at Richard at the head of their little procession; instead she has chosen to brood beside him while he holds the tether to both their horses.

“Tell me about Night Wisps,” she suddenly says without warning.

Zedd lifts both his eyebrows and looks quickly at Kahlan who is walking only a few paces ahead of them. Richard has the reins to her horse as well as his own and is walking the two beasts at the lead.

Zedd wonders if he should bring the Mother Confessor into the conversation since – honestly – Night Wisps are one of the few subjects that he is positive the brunette is more familiar with than himself.

“Zedd?” Cara asks again.

“Indeed,” he begins, “what do you want to know? I can tell you the obvious: Night Wisps are a race brimming with Powerful Magic, they are small, they glow blue, they only come out at night…”

“Yes, yes, we all know that… tell me what makes them unique, different from other magical races.”

“Well, there is their language; Night Wisps don’t so much as speak as they communicate…”

“A–ha. So the little pains are mind–readers,” she says while narrowing her eyes and Zedd gets the impression that she finds the allegation rather fitting.

“Not quite,” he disappoints, “they cannot know what you are thinking, no; but they do listen to you in ways you may not even know you are speaking, in an odd way it ties to their sense of sight of all things. Apparently Night Wisps have a different spectrum in which they see…”

“They see the inside,” Cara cuts him off and Zedd looks at her strangely. “They see how we arrange ourselves on the inside.”

“Yes,” Kahlan says. She has been covertly listening in on the discussion even as she’s been slowing her pace to close the distance between them and Cara is surprised to suddenly find her walking to her left. The brunette graces her with a small frown, looking both puzzled and interested.

“On the inside?” Zedd echoes.

“Yes,” Cara turns her attention back to Zedd on her right, “how we look. You know… like a tree or…” she looks over towards Kahlan again, “or a river.”

There is a pause where Kahlan’s frown deepens, she takes a quick and audible breath and asks, “Cara, what is going on?”

“Have you ever been present at the birth of a Night Wisp?” the blonde asks.

“No.” Kahlan looks pained and Cara knows that she still feels guilty for not being able to help more when… that happened.

“Actually,” Zedd sounds surprised at whatever thought just passed through his head, “I don’t think I’ve heard or even read of anyone who has ever witnessed the birth of a Night Wisp, especially seeing as how rare these occasions are.”

“Why are they so rare?” Cara asks.

“Because Wisps are creatures of balance,” Kahlan answers, and Cara thinks she might get a whiplash before this talk is over from turning her head back and forth between the two. “Wisps are connected to nature and their environment through Powerful Magic,” the Mother Confessor continues, “and as such they naturally maintain a strict population limit. A new Wisp is born only when an older one dies, and although they are very fragile, they are also essentially immortal.”

“So you see Cara,” Zedd continues now, “for you to observe the birth of a Night Wisp, let alone the entire repopulation of the species is something quite wondrous.” He smiles at her.

Not quite the answer she was looking for, Cara thinks, but she is definitely planning on having some words tonight when she meets her little friend….

* * * *

“I saw orange lights coming out of Kahlan, my orange lights that were in the boxes, the boxes that the other–me poured into this river – Kahlan’s river!” she points her finger angrily at the slowly moving water.

The Wisp hums happily, her tree gently sways in the moonlight, and from between its massive roots she can feel little eyes on her and a sense of curiosity emanating. Whatever.

“Richard didn’t see it.”

The Wisp just continues to frolic about in the air as it hums its cheerful tune.

“Why are you so happy? You stupid bug.” She crosses her arms and sits down on the grassy bank in a huff.

They stay like this for quite a while, Cara pouting and the Wisp merrily dancing around her head.

“So what, I’m part Wisp now?” she finally grumbles.

“No, no, not part. Hmm… This is more akin to being a child of…” it unexpectedly announces.

Cara lifts her eyebrows while displaying the most sarcastic expression she can possibly muster as she awaits further explanation. A long moment passes.

“Okay, I’ll bite, why is the distinction so important?”

The Wisp seems pleased with her question.

“Although it is true that an offspring is made up from the sum of her parents; the mixture and combination creates something completely unique,” it beams. “While you may often recognize pieces of a child’s characteristics in the procreator – indeed, sometimes entire swathes that seem as if they have been transported whole – ultimately what controls the ensemble is a completely new personality, a new will!” The Wisp’s light grows excitedly brighter towards the end of the oration.

“You are not ‘part Wisp’ Cara.” The little creature’s light shines brighter still. “Neither are you Mord’Sith or even human anymore.”

The Night Wisp’s glow is intense now; as if trying to impart upon Cara the knowledge and gravity of the situation via light beams.

“What am I then?” Cara asks, squinting furiously while holding up her hand in front of her face.

“I don’t know.” The Wisp’s light subsides with uncertainty, but then immediately brightens. “Something new,” it says happily. As if the state of newness is a joyous one instead of the aggravation and trouble she just knows this will bring.

But then Cara is reminded that the Wisp is a newborn itself – and if such a fragile and weak little creature is unafraid of uncertainty, neither will she be.

The Wisp seems to approve of her decision and she wonders if it truly can’t read minds, but before she gets a chance to ask she senses the pull of consciousness.

“Until next time then, sister Day Wisp,” her little friend manages to pipe before Cara’s mind surfaces and her eyes open.

Part 10

“Should we do something about our shadow?” Richard says quietly, rubbing his cold hands and holding them against the early morning fire.

Later in the day it’ll warm up, but for now he is crouching with a blanked wrapped around him, warm mists puffing from his mouth as he speaks.

“You mean the crow?” Cara asks. She is already working on packing the horses.

“I wonder where its friends are,” Kahlan mumbles and looks up from her morning porridge. Her face peers from the huddle of her own blanket that is wrapped around her back and shoulders like a hooded cloak – trying to spot the animal.

“The flock turned around yesterday,” Zedd answers. “She is alone – now would be a good time to set a trap.”

“You’re sure it’s a Mord’Sith?” Richard asks him.

“Yes.” Cara is the one to answer, her voice is sure and Richard nods.

“I can set up a spell around us, it will force her to take human form and continue by foot, but I have to maintain it constantly so the rest of you will have to take her down without my help.”

“We can do that. Zedd set up the enchantment after we reach the next village, we’ll sell our horses there – we need the money for supplies, plus that’ll give our tail a chance to catch up to us. Hopefully the momentary success will override her suspicion and she won’t call her friends for backup.”

“Very well my boy,” Zedd says and adds another helping of porridge to his bowl.

Kahlan looks over at Cara; the blonde’s eyes are narrowed in a weary expression.

* * * * *

They lay waiting behind some trees, Richard and Cara at either side of the road, Kahlan keeping guard over the mumbling wizard as he chants his counter–spell.

From her vantage point Kahlan can see red leathers getting closer to their ambush and her heart starts racing as a lump lodges itself at the top of her throat. She has gotten so used to Cara and her attire that she had almost forgotten what a Mord’Sith really is; now the familiar tension is back with a vengeance.

She can see the monster clearly now, thin and tall and arrogant; walking calmly, her eyes constantly scanning the sides of the road. Kahlan’s heart skips a beat when the tall woman passes Cara’s hiding spot but the beast just carries on. Able as the Mord’Sith are, they are no match for Richards’s woodsman skills – the hiding spots he had chosen for all of them proving the fact once again.

The woman takes a few more steps before Cara springs forth and tackles her to the ground. Kahlan can’t help her sense of dread and she leaps out of her hiding spot before even Richard can get to the two prone Mord’Sith. Cara winds her right arm to deliver a debilitating blow to the other woman, but before she gets the chance the woman speaks.

“Cara, it’s me!”

Kahlan’s heart sinks further when she sees her friend’s surprised look.

“Dahlia?”

* * * * *

She is angry at Kahlan; angry at her for always agreeing to Richard’s idiotic escapades. Angry that one compassionate blue–eyed look made her feel guilty for not telling the brunette the entire story about Darken Rahl and her son; angry at her for the pins and needles that rushed up and down her arm when the other woman squeezed it.

How is she supposed to learn to master her growing feelings when her Mistress and Lord go off traipsing into the great green yonder? She kicks Zedd’s sleeping form; the wizard snores a bit louder but continues to slumber.

She glances over at Dahlia; her old friend is eyeing her with a look that seems to be a cross between an arrogant smirk and hunger, and she wonders what this is really about.

“If I were a wizard traveling with two Mord’Sith… I’d sleep with one eye open.”

“Zedd trusts me.”

“He doesn’t question your loyalties.”

“He has no reason to.”

Dahlia moves closer. “I’m glad you decided to come with me.”

“I came because Richard ordered me to,” she answers and once again her hackles rise at her lord’s thoughtless abandonment.

“Are you sorry you did?” Dahlia asks, and something about the other woman’s tone triggers a sense of recognition in the back of Cara’s mind, it speaks to her on a frequency that Mord’Sith do not use, and she finds herself automatically answering on the same level.

“No.”

Dahlia grabs her chin and turns it towards her. Cara is amazed to see her old friend’s eyes glistening as if they were filled with moisture; impossible she thinks, but before she has time to further investigate, the look disappears and Dahlia is smirking at her knowingly.

“Neither am I,” the taller Mord’Sith says and kisses her.

Cara knows this dance; its familiarity is comforting and stabilizing in the vacuum that has been left inside of her by Richard’s and Kahlan’s departure.

She kisses Dahlia back and quickly takes charge. Maybe a little physical release will quiet down the warning lights that have been constantly blinking at the back of her mind – warning lights that oddly seemed to be colored wisp–blue instead of the customary red.

* * * * *

Richard is smiling, he is feeling relaxed, at peace; he knew the Spirits wouldn’t let this go without giving him a chance to be alone with Kahlan, to straighten things out – to convince her of their love.

“This isn’t so bad,” he says.

“Sleeping in a cold dark cave,” Kahlan states with a sarcastic smile.

“Being alone together,” he answers.

Her smile wanes.

“I can’t remember the last time, it’s nice,” he adds hurriedly, and is pleased to see her smile return even though it seems to be a bit confused.

She fiddles with her bag, clears her throat. “I…uh… hope Cara’s all right,” she says, looking at the cave floor.

Richard’s happy energy is dwindling.

“–and the boy,” she adds almost as an afterthought.

“If anyone can take on the Sisters of the Dark, it’s the son of Cara and Darken Rahl,” he says seriously, trying to convey a subliminal warning in his tone.

“Can you imagine what that child is going to be like?” she stops her fiddling and looks at him.

“Smart,” he says worriedly.

Kahlan huffs, sounding half exasperated, half fond.

“Stubborn,” she adds with a smile almost gracing her lips, she then shakes her head.

“Powerful,” Richard continues, scenarios running through his head, his mind completely diverting to the serious matter at hand.

“Enough to take over the world,” Kahlan adds sadly, “who could stop him?”

Richard suddenly smiles; this was exactly the opening he was hoping for.

“Our child,” he says softly. He knows how much the idea charms Kahlan.

She looks at him unsurely, but then smiles and plays along.

“Well, our child would have to be… a girl,” she tests him.

“A girl that could take out a dozen D’Haran soldiers just like her mother,” he replies – the answer well prepared. She seems pleased.

“Well, I’d want her to have a good heart…”

Inadvertently the image of Cara enters her mind and her eyes stray from his face.

“…like her father,” she finishes weakly, the sentence sounding more like a question than a statement.

Where did that come from? She thinks while her heart gives a painful lurch, a slight panic suddenly rises within her.

“Well, I’d want her to have her Mother’s eyes,” Richard nears her and she recognizes his mood, he wants to kiss her. That’s exactly what she needs, she thinks, Richard’s familiarity is comforting and stabilizing.

“No… no… I’d want her to have your eyes,” she says, giving in to the reassuring and familiar play between them.

And they kiss. She pours herself into it but there’s something missing and she thinks she might cry.

“Richard,” she stops him, wanting to tell him of her growing panic – that something has changed, that something is wrong – he is after all her dearest friend – but she can’t find words to articulate it.

“We can’t,” she settles, the excuse sounding lame to her own ears, but she needs to physically distance herself from him for a while, to figure out what’s going on.

“It’s all right – it’s just a kiss,” he says, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice, “Zedd and Cara aren’t here,” he adds and tries to go in for another one.

“That’s–” she stops him, “the problem.” He looks at her in surprise, and suddenly she fears she said too much.

“When they’re with us it’s easy for me not to grab you and kiss you, but–” she knows she’s back–pedaling, but she can’t come up with anything better.

“Without them… there’s nothing stopping us except… good judgment,” she tries to convey her growing confusion in the sentence, but he doesn’t seem to understand.

“When we kiss like that… I feel that judgment slipping away.”

Which is the truth, she thinks, only not for the reason you think, my sweet Richard.

But Richard understands her even better than she does. Looking into her confused eyes he can see the unavoidable truth that his sword alluded to.

Following her departing back and jittery movements with his eyes, a heavy sadness settles over him. He closes his eyes and finally concedes, exhaling – he lets her go from his heart.

* * * * *

Why do they never listen to her? Of course it was a trap, Cara thinks while her aching body swings tiredly off the chains attached to the ceiling.

She is hurting, she is tired, and she is running a fever. They have been at it for so long that she does not perceive time anymore, when Darken tires Dahlia takes his place. She knows both her torturers are at the end of their rope.

Creator, she misses Kahlan.

She opens her less swollen eye and peers at the slim woman who is circling her. Dahlia is wearing her “domination smile” Cara calls it, a minute curling of her lips that does not reach her eyes – her signature feature. While other Mord’Sith tended to use more direct and savage methods of intimidation, Dahlia had always exhibited an eerie calmness that would unnerve even the most confident of pets.

It is as if she knew your fate was so intrinsically placed in her hands that she could afford to offer civility out of the magnanimity of her power. She is the most polite Mord’Sith Cara has ever met, and effectively one of the scariest.

Self control, Cara thinks, that was always the key to Dahlia’s technique. She effectively manages to give the impression of a cat lazily eyeing its prey – body relaxed for the moment – but one can sense the focus, the eyes rapidly shifting back and forth, plotting, plotting… <br />If cats could smile they would sport Dahlia’s dead grin just before they went for the kill.

“You think her beautiful,” the other Mord’Sith says, bringing Cara out of her musings. “The Mother Confessor”.

“I do not think her beautiful,” Cara sneers, “it is not an opinion, it is the way her flesh is sculpted, the way her skin is stretched over bone, the quality of her muscles. You have eyes Dahlia, I do not think Kahlan is beautiful – she is.”

“How very poetic,” Dahlia mocks, her eyes narrowing for a moment – the only indication Cara has of her dissatisfaction with the answer, seeing as how her peculiar smile is still firmly in place.

Why? Cara thinks all of a sudden; why did you develop such terrifying self–restraint Dahlia? Other sisters did not turn out so… constipated; she frowns at the other woman. Dahlia’s head moves back a little and her smile leaves her face as if she heard Cara’s silent question.

“Such an odd expression. What are you thinking now my Cara?” Dahlia asks, her hands coming up to pet the side of her captive’s jaw and hair. She once more starts dropping feather light kisses at the coroner of Cara’s bruised mouth, where she knows it’ll hurt the most.

This is entirely the Wisp’s fault, the sarcastic thought enters Cara’s mind, she never would have stopped to contemplate the nature of her fellow Sisters when she was a proper Mord’Sith. The notion tickles a newly discovered deposit of humor she did not know she possessed, she half smiles – she’s been hanging around Zedd for too long.

Dahlia feels the grin and stops to look at the bruised face and suddenly Cara knows how she’s going to win this, this thing – this game that Dahlia is playing. She knows how to shatter the other woman’s self–control.

“She doesn’t hide herself behind masks,” the blond says.

“What?”

She’s so tired of this, she’s so tired period.

“You asked me why I think Kahlan is beautiful. It is because she doesn’t wear masks,” Cara says while closely watching for the other Mord’Sith’s reaction. “She does not need to fake her true self, and you know me – I have always appreciated directness.”

She leans forward to whisper in her captor’s ear. “That’s why even Triana, as oafish and simple–minded as she was, was more attractive to me than you.” She pulls back with the cruelest smirk she can muster.

“Poor little Dahlia, all your quiet plotting was ever so tiring,” she sing–songs to the rapidly angering Mord’Sith. “You could never amount to the others and the sheer magnificence of their rage,” she adds sharply. “You really think I’d want to come back? To what, to you?” she spits on the ground.

“You’re wasting my time Dahlia, please call Darken back,” she sees the other woman’s eyes widen in surprise, and suddenly she feels powerful, she’s on a roll, she can’t stop, nobody wins these games when playing against her – she’s the best there ever was. And so she twists her voice to the most malicious and dismissive pitch she can manage.

“You are so unattractive to me, I’d rather have him abuse and take me right here and now than spend another second of my time on you, for Keepers sake, I’d rather spend my time in the company of a Confessor!”

Nobody has done this before; nobody has confronted Dahlia head–on since she joined the Mord’Sith. She had always managed to intimidate, bluff, or avoid the notice of anyone who could single her out – masterfully dancing between any direct lines of battle, maintaining a safe mediocrity – jealously protecting her secret.

Though apparently in the end her sacrifices had cost her the respect of the only person she had ever craved notice from.

After days of torturing Cara without reprieve, days of seeing the other woman literally dangling before her – so close yet still just out of reach, remembering seeing her with that whore of a confessor, after hearing those hurtful words come out of her childhood friend’s mouth, after a lifetime of being repressed behind magically enforced emotional barriers, Dahlia finally snaps.

Her walls crumble in the face of a horror, a horror not trying to get in – but trying to get out. A feeling, so large, so painful that she cannot hold back a sob as she starts waling blows on the bound woman before her.

Betrayal, that’s what Dahlia is feeling, Cara can sense it through the beating she’s receiving – all out and violent, pure violence – there is no attempt at aiming in her ministrations, no finesse.

Cara thinks that she might very well die in the next few moments from the sheer amount of blunt trauma she is receiving. She thought she’d get at least two more days before they needed to administer the breath of life.

Cara’s nose is broken and her lips are busted, both showering a steady waterfall of blood on the floor. A few more cracks from an agiel and she thinks her cheekbone might cave in.

So much anger, she marvels. She herself has tasted the bitter flavor of betrayal when her sisters had left her for dead, but the emotion festered into a feeling of revenge, it focused her – not ripped her apart like what’s happening right now in front of her to Dahlia.

She squints through her swollen eyes between the poundings, trying to get a better look at her abuser.

Why is your reaction to betrayal so different? Her mind woozily thinks, she wishes that she could see what was going on in her lost sister’s head.

Wait a minute; her swollen eyes widen fractionally, maybe she can.

Cara takes a deep breath and surrenders to unconsciousness.

* * * * *

She opens her eyes to a rainless storm; the black clouds are swirling into several ominous tornados in the distance, their tails touching upon a dark fathomless sea.

In front of her she sees a small ragged island protruding from the waters. It’s entirety is composed of one jagged rock upon which – half carved from its surface – is a looming Mord’Sith tower.

Lightning flashes inside the belly of a distant cloud, its muffled rumble reaching her after a few seconds.

“I need to get in there, I need to see what’s inside,” she tells the wisp who is floating next to her.

She starts rowing the rotting little row–boat she is in.

By the time she’s braved the enormous black waves her arms are so tired that she can barely tie the dinghy to a rocky column in the naturally formed marina she had docked in. The skies have darkened further and it starts to rain. Behind her she can hear the boat’s wooden sound is it bumps into the rocks with every push of the angry surf.

“How will I get in there, I could not see a door, only one high window.”

The wisp’s white light is comforting, its halo slightly shimmering in the raindrops. It points to the side of the natural steps she’s been climbing to where a length of rope is coiled, complete with a three–pronged hook at its end.

“Thank you,” she tells it. “What’s your name anyways?” she asks while moving the cord over her head and settling it crosswise on her back.

“Yeda,” the wisp answers her.

“Well Yeda, here goes nothing.” The wisp follows her silently as she traverses the remainder of the steps.

By the time she gets to the base of the tower she is soaked through and through. She looks up at the structure’s looming visage. There is no way her rope can reach that far – she is getting dizzy just trying to spot the window.

“It will work,” Yeda says from her shoulder.

She takes a few steps back and starts twirling the edge of the rope that has the hook attached to it, after the spin gets sufficiently fast she lets go with an extra heave and watches the cord fly upwards in an endless arc.

Eventually she hears a metallic clink and she tugs on the rope several times.

“It is secure,” Yeda informs her.

She takes a moment to stare at the glowing creature.

“Are you a boy or a girl?”

“I am female.”

“Alright. Let’s go.”

It takes her forever to climb, she knew the wall was higher than she thought, but even still, it should not take her this long.

She has almost fallen every time she’s tried to look down. The thought makes her eyes stray downwards and she slips a bit on the damp masonry. Eventually though she reaches the window but just before she peeks in she gets apprehensive.

“What will I find inside?”

“A truth,” her wisp tells her.

She takes a deep breath and lifts her face over the windowsill.

Inside the tower is Dahlia. She is wearing a black confessor dress and is crying uncontrollably over the body of a young filthy–looking child.

“Why is she wearing a confessors dress?” she asks Yeda.

“It is Dahlia’s truth, but it is your eyes that are seeing it.”

She frowns and turns back to the scene and tries to swing a bit to the left to get a better look at the body in Dahlia’s arms.

When she does her eyes suddenly widen. It is her, her–younger self from between the tree’s roots, staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

The rope slips in her hand and she plummets down.

* * * * *

She wakes with a yelp that is half pain, half bloody gurgle. Dahlia stops the barrage of abuse to stare at her with wild tear–filled eyes.

“You love me,” Cara says in wonderment, “after all they’ve done to you, you’ve managed to stow away a pure feeling underneath all that brainwash. You were even aware of it all this time!” And now she laughs; a bitter mirthless chortle.

“Oh Dahlia, you would have made such a better wisp than I.”

Dahlia looks at her as if she is mad. “You understand then why I had to bring you back,” she half says, half pleads.

“Dahlia, if you love me, please let me go, Zedd and I have to get back to Kahlan and Richard, this is important.”

“Why would I let you go, I have you now in body, and after the Lord Rahl breaks you I’ll have your love as well.”

“Dahlia, it doesn’t work that way, trust me, I know.”

“How do you know?” the tall Mord’Sith shouts angrily, “Did this Richard fellow teach you about it? Or was it your precious Kahlan? No Cara, you will be mine, there are things in this world – magical things – that are more powerful than hope, more powerful than will, and one of these things is the Lord Darken Rahl. Even as we speak he’s got a group of those Sisters of the Dark chanting around one of your agiels, and when it’s over he will come down here and he will break you, and then you will be with me again like you once were.” She says the last part resolutely, her calm appearance marred only by the tear marks on her cheeks.

“Dahlia, look at yourself, you know it’s not true, you know that whatever Darken does in the next few hours will result in something that is no–longer me.”

“Well,” the other woman straightens, “apparently it’s the most I’m ever going to get,” she says and then turns around and leaves the chamber.

* * * * *

She has lost consciousness again, she knows because she is sitting on her favorite rock at the edge of her tree’s canopy.

The first thing she does is stand up and run to the trunk to check on her other–self. The wild–child growls at her from between the roots.

Good, she sighs in relief, the apparition in Dahlia’s tower was a part of the other woman’s psyche and not the real child. Well, at least as real is her other–self truly is.

She goes back and sits heavily on her rock.

“Yeda, I think we’re in big trouble.”

“Indeed.”

“Dahlia says that in a few hours Rahl will come down to my cell and use some powerful magic to break me, do you think that’s possible?”

“Sadly, all beings can be broken given enough time and the right leverage,” her little friend answers.

Cara quiets down and tries to think of a plan to get her body out of its current predicament, but her thoughts seem to have a difficulty grasping at anything pragmatic or real.

“You are in a dream Cara, your mind is going to have trouble understanding anything superficial, let alone come up with analytical plans,” the wisp says.

“I don’t think being tied up and beaten in a Mord’Sith dungeon, awaiting some powerful magic to erase my will can be classified as superficial,” she growls at her friend.

“Nevertheless, it is not the way you will attain your answer.”

“Fine,” she huffs and they sit like that for a few more moments. After a while she slumps her shoulders and turns back to the wisp.

“Dahlia thought that I would love her back after I was returned to the fold.” she rubs at her forehead. “I… think I used to love her, but not the way she loves me, at least not the way she wants me to, I was Mord’sith. Still it is more than I can say about anyone else I knew back then.” She lowers her hands and raises her eyebrows in a tired expression.

And once again they sit quietly.

“Yeda…” Cara cautiously begins again, “tell me about love. Real love, you know – like what Richard and Kahlan feel for each other.”

The wisp seems to hesitate for a moment, as if it wants to say something but then changes its mind. Eventually it floats to the edge of the branch that it was perched on and starts explaining.

“Very well, but if I am to speak about Love, then I mustn’t forget to include her sister Hate. Love and Hate are in a lot of ways the different faces of a same coin; they both describe a relationship with a person that becomes very close and very important to us, having said that, these sides are very, very opposed to each other. Have you ever truly hated someone Cara?”

Cara lowers her eyes to her hands and tenses.

“Darken Rahl,” she finally says; her voice very quiet and very bitter.

“Your lord and master? Are the Mord’Sith not supposed to love their owner?” the Wisp says in a rhetorical sort of tone.

“Adore, yes. Worship, yes. Love? I guess we’re supposed to do that as well, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a Mord’Sith that has loved Darken Rahl. At least not real love – the mere thought of it is preposterous.”

“Preposterous? Why is that? And in any case, how can you be so sure?”

“I… I don’t actually know.” Cara looks up in surprised confusion, “I’ve never really thought about it until now. I guess… the obvious answer would be that the Mord’Sith ways do not foster an environment that allows for love.”

“That is very true, which makes Dahlia’s achievement even more impressive. Let me tell you then about Hate and Love – The twin serpents, the most rare and powerful of emotions.

“We wisps classify them as shaping energies, for they both require so much room inside a person’s essence that most often the will–scape needs to be rearranged to accommodate their largeness. The energies that are required for such a reshaping are more than one person usually has in their arsenal, and as such they need to be taken from other parts of the will–scape. That is why more often than not, these emotions become all consuming.

But unlike other shapers, like depression, trauma, mania, epiphany and such – these energies also constantly travel the corridor to and from your will–scape: the Path. In fact their largeness means that they inhabit both your own will–scape, the Path, and the person to whom you are connecting.

If not for the opposing quality of their energies, these emotions could easily be confused as one and the same. But as I said, their quality is very different: One is aggressive, and the other passive. One is war, and the other is surrender. One is a defense–mechanism used to protect your sense of self from a perceived enemy, the other a willful and dangerous yielding – the ultimate risk.”

“So my hate for Darken Rahl protected me from completely being subjugated to his will, and Dahlia’s love for me has cost her part of her mind.”

“Yes, the amount of effort that both of you had to dedicate to these emotions has literally changed your will–scape – who you are.”

“That is terrible,” Cara breathes, “I will never fall in love.”

“Hmm…” Yeda hums and Cara gets the feeling that her friend is biting her shiny little tongue.

“Have you miraculously stopped hating Darken Rahl?” Yeda asks.

“No.”

“Then you have no choice about who you love either. These are powers that are nearly impossible to prevent or disuse.”

“But it has nearly destroyed Dahlia.”

“Nonsense, it has not. Cost her – yes – but it has also saved her, it preserved a piece of her humanity in the face of all the abuse that she has been subjected to from the moment she was taken, not even you can claim that.”

“I guess you’re right.” And suddenly it hits her “Wait! If a shard of Dahlia’s heart could survive for so long, then that means that maybe there’s a way for me to preserve a piece of myself in the face of what Darken plans to do – this way I might relay a message to Richard and Kahlan the next time I see them – maybe I’ll be able to tell them what’s happened and that they are not to trust me.”

“Cara, you’re trying to think analytically again, this will not solve the greater problem,” Yeda warns.

“Is there some magic you know of? Maybe like the maternity spell Nicci once cast on Kahlan–”

“Cara, we are Wisps, our powers stem from the natural realm, things that are. I cannot cast a spell on you, I can only guide you to things that you already–”

“Yes, but maybe Zedd can. If I can just reach him in time then–” she rises from her rock and smacks her bunched fist into her open palm.

“Listen to me!” Yeda shouts, her light flashing as she bellows. Cara shuts–up from the mere surprise of it.

“Love is the ultimate surrender,” the wisp stresses, “let us talk then of the concept of surrender. Have you ever surrendered Cara?”

Cara looks towards the wisp with an angry frown, but she still sits down with a huff.

“I don’t have time for this, and anyway Mord’Sith would rather die than surrender,” she answers gruffly and crosses her arms. “Even when we retreat, it is only to regroup.”

“Yes, that is true. But what about you Cara, have you ever surrendered? Remember, you were not always Mord’Sith, and you haven’t truly been one since our birth.”

Cara turns her head angrily away from the wisp which causes her eyes to land on the lazily flowing river. Her eyes widen in shock.

“Yes?” Yeda asks.

“Kahlan,” she whispers.

“You said that a Mord’Sith environment does not allow for the fostering of love, you also said that a Mord’Sith never surrenders. The two aspects are connected.”

“I was incorrect, Mord’Sith do not surrender to an enemy, but we do surrender to our Mistresses and of course to the Lord Rahl.”

“Do not confuse forced submission with true surrender Cara, for one is the outcome of someone breaking you and the other a product of you accepting a great truth.”

Cara demeanor quiets in contemplation, her shoulders relax and she leans forward towards the wisp.

“Let us talk then on the concept of acceptance, for that is what Love is when one surrenders with grace.”

“With grace,” Cara echoes, “you mean with trust.”

“Trust, yes, blind trust even – to the degree where one could call it faith. Faith that our sacrifice will be acknowledged in our beloved’s eyes, that they will be kind, benevolent in the power they hold over us. It is a vulnerability we give without guarantee of survival.

But if it is accepted, if it is reciprocated, oh day–wisp! It can trump the most powerful of wizard’s magic because its essence, like us the wisps, is anchored in the natural world; in what is not what might be or what might cease to be.”

“So a third type of magic then, not subtractive or additive.”

“Yes, do you see Cara? You have at your disposal a force more powerful than all of Rahl’s magic.”

“…You think that I love Kahlan,” Cara states in amazed understanding.

“I know that you love Kahlan. You know you love Kahlan.”

Yeda drifts to float in front of the river so that Cara’s gaze is facing it as well.

“You let her in so completely that she has become a permanent fixture in your will–scape. You knew it the minute you saw Moppet releasing your pain from the boxes and into the waters, and then witnessed Kahlan’s stress and sadness the next day.”

“Moppet,” she echoes the name, “the child?” She looks over at the roots of the tree. “My Father used to call me that…” she murmurs to herself.

She rises from her perch and walks towards the trunk of the tree with purpose; she now knows what she must do.

When she gets close to the mass of protruding roots she kneels beside them, ignoring the aggressive vibe directed at her from the frightened being hiding in the shadows.

“Please come out Moppet, I promise I won’t hurt you,” she coos at the skittish child in as gentle a tone as she can.

The child just hisses at her.

She looks down at herself; she is wearing her Mord’Sith leathers and so she slowly and very visibly starts stripping down, all the while talking to the child, explaining what she’s doing, presenting every item before discarding it to the grassy ground. By the time she’s struggling to wiggle out of her pants, the child’s vibe has run the gamut from aggressive, to apprehensive, to curious to amused. She finally manages to free her foot from the pant–leg with an annoyed expletive, and hears a giggle emanating from between the shadows.

“Oh, so you think that’s funny do you?” she narrows her eyes in mock offence, the expression marred by a smile.

The child has scooted close enough to the edge of the shadows that she can make out a dirty blond head nodding at her with a cheeky grin. She doesn’t want to ruin all the progress she’s made, so she sits and waits patiently and naked with her legs crossed Indian–style on the grass.

After she senses that they’ve both gotten sufficiently accustomed to each other’s presence, she slowly opens her arms. The child runs in to them and she braces a hand behind her before the momentum can tip the both of them over backwards.

Her other–self is younger than she thought, three – maybe four years of age. Large green eyes, button nose, bare feet and dirty face.

She rises with Moppet still in her arms and slowly walks towards the bank of the river.

“Have you ever been inside?” she asks the youngling. The child shakes her head in denial.

“Let’s try okay?”

Moppet looks alarmed for a second, but then tentatively nods her head yes so Cara slowly wades inside.

The water is surprisingly warm, not hot, but definitely more temperate than a normal river should be.

When they wade far enough for the water to reach just under her breasts, she dunks them in up to their chins and starts cleaning her charge.

“Listen.. Kid, uh… Moppet.” She tucks wet strands behind now clean ears and takes a deep breath. Looking into the unnervingly familiar green orbs that are staring at her, she thinks of what the wisp has been telling her, of what she must do now, and of what awaits her in the future.

“I… I love you, you know,” she blurts awkwardly, her voice scratching and she coughs, but the sincerity cannot be mistaken by either of them.

The child wraps her arms more firmly around her neck and ducks her head under Cara’s chin in an instinctual hug, the tiny weight feeling more like a sprawling on her shoulders than a formal embrace.

The Mord’Sith breathes deeply and closes her eyes, holding herself steady while trying to process the wonderful ache in her chest. After a while she realizes that it will probably not abate any time soon, though the sensation does not seem to be debilitating, so she carries on.

“Listen to me Moppet,” she whispers into tiny ears. “Something bad is about to happen.” The arms around her neck tighten and the little body stiffens.

“I’m going to do my best to try and stop it, but I don’t think the tree is strong enough to protect you anymore.”

The child gives a frightened whimper.

“If something does happen, something unusual, if you see fire – especially if it’s green fire, I want you to run to the river and stay inside okay?”

The child just buries her face more tightly into Cara’s shoulder.

“This is really important Moppet, the water will protect you. Fire can’t cross into water, okay?” She leans back to look into frightened green eyes.

“Okay?” she asks again.

The child nods with an upset pout.

“Good, Yeda will help you too, right Yeda?”

“Of course,” the wisp says worriedly, “we will do all that we can.”

Part 11

Darken Rahl sneers at the bound woman and unceremoniously shoves the enhanced agiel into her stomach.

Cara’s body bows back in tension and she lets out a terrible scream.

* * * * *

She does not usually remember her dreams, and if she does the memory is usually akin to a vague impression of a situation or idea, certainly not something that she is emotionally connected to. She rarely has nightmares, which is a surprising quality for a person of her background and experience. That is why when she gets a dream that is exceptionally vivid or prophetic – she pays attention.

It is nighttime; the moon hangs full and larger than it should be in a sky tinged sickly–green.

She is running through a forest and the forest is burning, burning, burning with the fires of the underworld.

She is terrified and lost and in constant fear that the flames licking at her feet will catch the long trailing sleeves of her white confessor dress. She does not know why she’s here, and she does not know how to get out, and the lack of knowledge is slowly crushing her last shreds of calm as if it were a physical thing.

“Help!” she screams in a long throaty cry to the sky. “Somebody please help me! What is going on?!”

She is crying while she runs aimlessly through the woods, her tears streaking down her cheeks unabashed. All around her the forest is falling apart – slowly succumbing to the ever multiplying green flames.

From the corner of her eye she sees a bluish light streaking next to her at eye level. She tries to turn her head to fully look at it.

“Calm yourself Kahlan! And don’t stop running! She is terrified and in pain, what you are feeling is her panic projected into you.”

“What?” Kahlan almost trips as she sobs – she’s at the ends of her wits – though the sudden appearance of the wisp has given her something else to focus other than the overwhelming confusion and fear that are threatening to overcome her.

“Just follow me, I will guide you to where you need to be, and please try to understand – these are not your feelings, you need to be strong and separate yourself from them, you need to contain the chaos because her regular barriers have been shattered by a most sinister magic and she is no longer capable of doing it herself.”

Kahlan hears the words coming out of the wisp’s mouth but none of it is making the slightest sense. Regardless she suddenly finds herself focused again, in control, as if she were previously being manipulated by an invisible puppeteer and has all of the sudden regained autonomy.

“What is going on?” she yells at her tiny guide while they both dash madly through the woods, leaping over burning logs, skirting falling branches. If this was not a dream, she would be foaming at the moth and spitting blood a long time ago from her lungs exploding under the stress. As it is, she can feel every pull and burn of her raging muscles but none of the exhaustion. She feels powerful all of the sudden and, impossibly, picks up her pace.

“Good,” says the little wisp. “We will be there shortly.”

They reach a clearing – the heart of the forest. To her left is a misty river and it is the only thing she’s seen so far that has not reflected the green lights casted by the fires. In fact, the waters seem to emanate their own shimmering blue light from deep within – the calming color playing with the swirling vapors as they lazily rise off the liquid surface. The river’s pace and serenity stands in sharp contrast to the colossal burning tree located to its right.

“Hurry!” the wisp says. “She can’t last much longer!”

“You mean there’s someone there? Spirits!” She rushes to the tree.

When she gets closer she is horrified to see a small child trapped beneath the tree’s massive roots. The child is bawling. Her little body is packed tightly into a ball and pressed into a massive root that has yet to be touched by the fire.

Kahlan tries to get closer but there are many fallen branches that are burning in her way.

“Mommy,” the youngster keens, “I want my mommy,” sobbingly stretching the word in a childish plea.

“Please honey, I can’t reach you, you have to come to me!” Kahlan cries. She is on her stomach, trying to crawl underneath the fallen branches.

The child has not heard her, her little eyes are scrunched up tight and full of tears, her small body shaking with terror.

“Oh please, Spirits!” Kahlan exclaims as she feels a new panic rising within her. She grabs the long sleeves of her dress and wraps them tightly around her forearms, then with a deep breath she starts crawling forward.

The fire’s heat is like nothing she’s ever felt before. It is beyond the sense of burning; it is beyond the pain of an agiel, but her eyes are firmly locked on the rocking body in front of her.

Eventually she reaches her target. She swiftly grabs the small blonde and starts pulling back. Her heart sinks when she turns her head and sees that the meadow between their current position and the river is completely engulfed in 10–foot flames.

She tucks the child closer to her breast and prepares to shield her with her body until the bitter end, when suddenly she sees a cloud of blue–white dots shimmering towards her location like a sideways gust of rain.

“Quickly Kahlan, we will make a path for you to the river,” a wisp says, she does not know if it is the same one from before – there are so many of them.

They swirl in one great mass, moving as one entity, and Kahlan’s heart weeps at the sight of the thousands of wisps at the edges of the cone who have fallen to the ground in little bursts of green fire.

She runs, the child pressed tightly in her arms. The distance is not that far, but it seems like forever. They crash into the water in a terrible splash. The host of wisps tiredly settles on its surface.

“We must accompany you,” says a wisp from somewhere near her, “we cannot survive for long without the presence of our sister to ground us, our forest is simply too far for us to reach in time in our weakened state,” it sighs as it floats on the gentle waters.

Kahlan still does not understand their weird riddles, but she has more pressing matters to attend too. She looks down at the terrified little bundle in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she hears the little voice mewling from her chest.

“For what little one?” Kahlan asks gently.

“I didn’t run in time, I got stuck by a log and then I got scared.”

“It’s all right,” the brunette coos, “we’re all right see?” she nudges the little head with her chin, trying to coax the tiny face to look up at her.

The child lifts her eyes to Kahlan and the brunette nearly dies on the spot from the violent lurch her heart gives, because staring at her are the unmistakably familiar green eyes of–

* * * * *

“Cara!”

Kahlan wakes with a start.

“What?” Richard groggily wakes as well.

“Cara! Oh Richard we need to go back, now!” she violently shakes the frazzled man.

“What?” Richard asks again, still not comprehending his companion’s dead seriousness.

“We have to leave. Now Richard. Cara is in great danger.” She rises and starts packing their bags, her hair still in complete disarray from her previous slumber.

“Kahlan, what’s going on?” Richard rises to his elbow, squinting and rubbing his eyes.

“Get up Richard! We don’t have time for this,” she yells it him impatiently.

“Kahlan, calm down, you’ve had a bad dream.” Richard sits up, still rubbing at his eyes. Kahlan just continues packing.

“Kahlan.” Richard gets up, he stops her and rubs her arms. “Calm down, tell me what’s going on,” he prods in a patient voice. He ducks his head to try to get a look at her eyes, and is alarmed to see her crying.

“Kahlan,” he now firmly grabs both her shoulders and stairs into her eyes. “What – is going on?”

“Richard, Cara… she’s… something happened, please, I don’t know, we have to go back.”

He pauses and takes a deep breath and doesn’t continue until she’s taken one as well.

“Are you sure?” he asks her in a serious tone.

“Yes.” She answers just as seriously, her jaw tightens resolutely.

“All right, let’s go,” he says and grabs his backpack.

When they get to the wall of the cave Kahlan grabs Richard’s hand.

“You continue back, you’re too close to stop now.”

“But Kahlan, if what you say is true then you’ll need all the help you can get. If Cara’s in trouble then Zedd must surely be incapacitated as well…”

“I know,” she squeezes his hand, “but your mission is more important than any of this. I have to try to help our friends, but you must get to the Stone of Tears in time.”

Richard sighs. “I hate splitting up. You’ve all helped me so much on this quest, it seems completely wrong for none of you to be there when I find the Stone.”

“Don’t worry, Richard, we’ll meet up at the Pillars, you’ll see.” She smiles a sad smile at him.

He suddenly grabs her in a crushing hug.

“Listen to me,” he whispers hoarsely, “we are going to win this, and we will all be alive coming out the other side, I will not accept anything less.”

She smiles again and pulls away and presses her forehead to his with her eyes closed. He on the other hand does not close his eyes, and takes a moment to observe her at close range.

“I want you to be happy Kahlan, after we win this – and we shall – I just want you to be happy.”

“All right.” Her smile turns confused, but he does not smile back, only nods.

“Time to go,” he says.

They step through the hidden cave door; the compass’s whine seems to escalate in protest. Once on the other side, they both take a deep breath, hug and kiss each other on the cheek, and then turn around and head in opposite directions – Richard back into the cave, and Kahlan off into the nearby forest.

* * * * *

Cara was right, Dahlia acknowledges with a sinking feeling in her gut – whatever Lord Rahl did to her has erased her old friend and put a monster in her place.

It has been three days since Lord Rahl’s special torture session. The tall Mord’Sith is walking stiffly to the lower bathhouse, her body aching from the painful intercourse she and the blonde have just shared.

‘Share,’ she sarcastically berates herself, there was no sharing involved in this session.

She does not mind roughness, like all Mord’Sith she can hardly enjoy anything if there’s not at least a small degree of aggression involved. No, what disturbs her about all their recent activities is how dead she is left feeling afterwards, and the psychotic glint in Cara’s eye – like a cruel child ripping the wings off a butterfly – detached, analytically curious, taking pleasure in the sense of power, but not in the dying creature’s pain.

Cara was not connecting with the pain she was inflicting; she was not reveling in the blood, in the physicality of her ministrations, in the sweat, in the screams, in the life of it all. Even the harshest forms of torture were based upon a certain give and take.

Cara was not taking – not pleasure, not excitement – her entire demeanor seemed bored and superior. Cruel.

She was definitely not giving – at least not in the traditional sense of a Mistress and her subordinate. The dynamic was… simply not there. And Dahlia was always left with nothing but the most cleverly painful cuts she had ever experienced, ones that were given to her as if she were a corpse on the autopsy table – passionless and effective.

Like a sociopathic child ripping the wings off a butterfly.

What has she done? The thought troubles her the entire rest of the day.

* * * * *

When night comes she dreams of a dark tower with a single window from which she can see the entirety of the world.

She looks out at the view. In an incomprehensible distance she can see the image of a tall woman in white walking in a dark forest, beside her floats a night wisp.

“Help her,” says the wisp, suddenly floating right there – next to her by the windowsill.

She looks back at the forest, at the woman and the wisp, and a looming sense of inevitability descends upon her shoulders.

When she wakes the next day she feels heavy and sad, but not empty.

Part 12

Kahlan has no idea what to do and she wishes Richard were there to share in her growing sense of panic, his unrealistic optimism always manages to blunt the harshness of reality to a manageable level.

Sometimes you really do need a fantastical and irrational kind of hope to keep you going.

But the truth is, she’s walking aimlessly.

She has no clue as to where Cara and Zedd are. Truthfully, she doesn’t even know if they are really in trouble, she might have just made the most dangerous and irresponsible mistake of her life – one that might cost the world its Seeker – all based on a feverish nightmare in a lonely cave. Well, not lonely, after all Richard was there too – but the feeling was present nonetheless.

Odd, it has been a while since she felt lonely. It’s still there, right now. She unconsciously slows down her march and rubs at her chest right above the solar plexus.

She frowns.

Bah, there is no time for wool–gathering. That Mord’Sith snake said Cara’s son was taken to a Sister of the Dark stronghold in the hills of Eritrean; Kahlan hastens her steps once again and hooks her thumbs under the straps of her backpack. Eritrean it is, it’s as good a location as any to start her search she thinks. Her Jaw tightens and her chin sticking out resolutely, first she needs faster transportation.

By nightfall she reaches a village and manages to purchase a barely–decent horse with what little is left of her money. Her pack is considerably lighter now, no provisions – she’ll have to hunt for her food for the rest of the journey. This assessment makes her realize that she hasn’t had to hunt since she met Richard. Or Cara.

Cara.

What a terrible vision to have dreamt, it was so real – the pain she felt when rescuing the girl from the burning tree was as genuine as anything she’s ever experienced. She looks down at her forearms, half expecting them to be blistering red and black. But no, just goose bumps.

She pats her horse’s head as she leads him to the town’s edge.

“Sorry old boy but we ride through the night. This might all be a horrendous blunder but if I’m going to do it, might as well do it whole–heartedly.”

Her mount snorts and shakes his mane but nevertheless starts galloping at the break–neck pace she sets out for them. She figures she can reach the town of Eritrean in three days if they keep a good rhythm. Her steed can rest then.

* * * *

“My lord, the last merchant we’ve caught claims there’s a special artifact to the north of here, may I have your leave to retrieve it?” she asks after wiping her mouth with the back of her gloved hand.

“Do you really think this is the right time to go traipsing after trinkets Dahlia? We are about to spring our little trap on the Seeker. Your lack of focus is a bit alarming,” Darken Rahl says while he pets her head.

He is sitting on a throne; she is kneeling between his thighs, re–tying the laces at the crotch of his pants. She wonders if his reluctance to let her go is to do with the unimportance of the mission or because he just doesn’t want her to leave. Lately she’s been taking more and more of the duties involving the entertainment of their lord; usually a task that Cara would fulfill – her being renowned as one of the Lord Rahl’s favorites – but ever since her re–breaking and the subsequent… changes to her demeanor, the lord has been coming to her for his needs. He only seems to take Cara when there is another sister involved in the activity. She can’t blame him really, he might have not noticed his own subconscious preference yet, but Dahlia had finally managed to articulate the problem a few days ago, at least in her own mind.

Cara has become a reverse baneling. Instead of an anguished living soul residing in a dead body, she is an apathetic dead soul living in a live one. Maybe not even that.

Regardless, Lord Rahl’s new fondness for Dahlia – as flattering as it is – is putting a kink in her own personal mission. How ironic, that she should choose to betray him now, now that he is on the cusp of success, now that she is favored in his eye.

She looks over to Cara.

Are you worth it? she asks her in her mind.

The blond looks bored; she is leaning against the wall and using a vicious looking knife to clean some blood from under her fingernails.

“What do you think Cara?” Lord Rahl asks the uninterested Mord’Sith.

“Let her go, I’m the only one you need to retrieve the Stone of Tears, and since I’m going to succeed you might as well have the other Mord’Sith do something useful,” she says, still looking at her fingernails.

Lord Rahl chuckles. “Ah, such confidence, yes, I am so very pleased that you are with us once again Cara.” He looks hungrily at the blonde, and Dahlia, who is still level with his crotch, notices that his interest is growing physically as well. But when Cara finally lifts her eyes to look at him, her smile manages to be both queerly intense and dead at the same time. Dahlia is close enough to her lord to notice the small shiver that runs through his body as well as the shrinking of his excitement.

“Hmm… when you give me that smile I never know whether or not that mind of yours is plotting my demise,” he muses out loud. “It’s a good thing that the agiel that broke you was magicked – ensuring your loyalty.”

He grabs Dahlia’s braid close to her head without looking at her. “Leave us,” he tells Cara. The blond turns around and sashays out the door. When they are alone he finally looks down at Dahlia and shoves her head back towards his groin.

“Please me again pet, and you can go on your little field trip.”

“Of course Master Rahl,” Dahlia smiles coyly at him. In her head she is already making preparations. Plotting his demise.

* * * *

Kahlan’s horse started frothing at the mouth two miles back. She can see the poor beast’s muscles shaking through the regular movements of his gallop. She pets his sweaty neck and leans in close.

“Soon old boy, hold out just a bit longer.”

Luckily they are on a straight dirt road surrounded by low vegetation and the occasional oak tree. Any other time she would enjoy the pastoral scenery, but right now her mind can only appreciate the fact that the terrain is lowering her horse’s chance of tripping and that she has a decent view of anything that may come at them from any side.

And true enough, she can see someone in red sitting in the middle of the road about a thousand spans away from her. Fool, if whoever it is does not move soon they will get trampled.

Maybe they are deaf? Or hurt.

But as she gets closer, details of the distinct clothing become more apparent and Kahlan reaches for her dagger and urges the horse faster. They will indeed trample the bitch and if she survives she’ll get a blade through the heart as well.

Why isn’t she moving? Obviously the Mord’Sith has seen her. And yet she remains seated cross–legged in the middle of the road.

They are only moments from being within dagger–throwing reach of the leather clad woman when Kahlan pulls harshly on the reins of her horse to stop him. The beast screeches to a dusty halt with a neigh of protest and a flickering of his tail.

“Dahlia,” Kahlan says in a low, dangerous voice once she recognizes the woman.

“Mother Confessor,” the Mord’Sith answers calmly and looks to a spot just in front of the hooves of Kahlan’s steed. Kahlan follows her gaze and sees an agiel resting in the middle of the road. She looks back at the other woman and sees that hers is missing from its holster.

“Where is Cara?”

“Cara has been captured, tortured and broken; I am here to help you fix that.”

“I accept the first part of your sentence and none of the rest,” Kahlan informs her.

“Nevertheless it is the truth.”

“You expect me to believe you?”

“No, and you cannot read me, I know. But there are other ways to get the truth out of someone – I submit to anything you would demand of me.”

“I have neither the time nor the patience to torture you, tell me where Cara is. Now.”

Dahlia starts smirking at her, but her face reverts back to its neutral expression when she sees the Mother Confessor’s hackles rise.

“Cara is in a tower east of here, filled to its full capacity with Mord’Sith – since Lord Rahl is there as well.”

“Darken Rahl has her…” Kahlan breathes.

The brunette suddenly throws her dagger at Dahlia; it lodges itself in her upper chest with a satisfying sound. Dahlia has not moved, has done nothing to resist.

“I am afraid your blow will not kill me Confessor,” Dahlia informs her from between gritted teeth.

“I know, it’s a clean throw, nothing major is punctured. It will, however, make you lose consciousness long enough for me to transport you to the town of Eritrean without me having to worry about being stabbed in the back. If you remain weak for several days after, well, that just makes things easier for me, doesn’t it?” Kahlan’s foggy voice informs Dahlia as the image of the Mother Confessor blurs in front of the Mord’Sith. Once again Dahlia wonders if this was all worth it before she passes out.

* * * *

Dahlia wakes up in a cozy low ceilinged room – an inn by the looks of it. She is only wearing a pair of underwear and a large peasant shirt that is very loosely closed at the front with some string. Underneath the shirt she can feel her chest and shoulder bandaged. Both her wrists and ankles are bound to the bed and to her right she can see the Mother Confessor and a weasely looking man peering at her.

“Why are you here?”

“To help you free Cara.”

“Why?”

“We could not break her the regular way, so Lord Rahl had her agiel infused with dark magic – courtesy of the Sisters of the Dark. The outcome however has changed her in an unexpected way, a way I am now trying to fix.”

“Unexpected way, hah, tinker with dark magic for the first time and everything is unexpected…” Kahlan angrily murmurs under her breath.

“Ah–ah, only questions, sentences will confuse her and the effect will wear off faster,” the man whispers to Kahlan.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Dahlia wonders what they’ve done to her, she instinctively resists, but then remembers her promise to submit to anything the Mother Confessor demands of her. Regardless, whatever they gave her is so strong, she thinks she couldn’t resist it even if she wanted to.

“Does Darken Rahl know you are here?”

“No.”

“Does Cara know you are here?”

“No.”

“Do you intend to harm me?”

“Only after Cara is freed from the spell.”

“Why do you need me?”

“I had a dream.”

Kahlan stiffens. The man next to her looks at the brunette curiously.

“What is it?” he asks the Mother Confessor.

“Were you alone in the dream?” Kahlan ignores him and trains her gaze on Dahlia.

“No – I could see you as well, from afar.”

Kahlan relaxes.

“There was also a night–wisp,” Dahlia adds. And Kahlan stiffens again and grows pale.

“You can release her Sebastian,” she tells the man.

“Are you sure?” he asks the brunette, who is still staring holes into the wounded Mord’Sith.

She doesn’t answer him so he starts working on the binds at Dahlia’s wrist.

“Will you harm others when you help me?”

“Only if they get in the way.”

Sebastian finishes untying her and moves to leave the room. Dahlia watches the Mother Confessor rise to thank him, praising the spirits that allowed her to meet him again at this town and for him to have a truth potion among his wares.

A truth potion then, very rare. She guesses the Mother Confessor really wasn’t planning on torturing her. Pity, she was hoping to know this Kahlan Amnell in that capacity – there is much one can learn about a person when being tortured by them – maybe that way she could have understood what Cara sees in her. Alas, that experience does not seem to be written in her cards.

So she settles on studying the other woman. She is attractive, no doubt – tall, fit, strong in both body and mannerism, possessing a natural authority over people by the example of her interaction with that merchant, Sebastian.

She is also classically beautiful, as Cara pointed out. Dahlia squints her eyes; she does not know how to look for the other part that Cara found so attractive,

For how does one look for a lack of a mask?

Kahlan is about to leave the room, her back is to Dahlia while the Mord’Sith is busily scrutinizing her retreating form. That is perhaps why she is completely ill–prepared for the last question the Mother Confessor throws at her from over her shoulder.

“Why do you care if Cara is fixed or not?”

“Because I’ve been in love with her since we were eight.”

Dahlia’s eyes grow wide and to her further mortification she actually clamps her hand over her mouth.

Kahlan whirls around sharply and stares at her. She does not look disgusted, or pitying or even surprised; she just… looks at her.

“Very well,” she tells Dahlia, “get some rest. Tomorrow I will try to get someone to take a better look at your wound; we leave the day after.” She then exits the room.

No masks.

It is a strange feeling – this absolute knowledge, not opinion – that the Mother Confessor will never use her newly discovered information about Dahlia’s vulnerability – her most crucial vulnerability – against her. Furthermore, she is positive that the Confessor will not tell a soul about it either. Not because they have a pact, not because she was ordered not to, not because it is beneficial for the brunette to keep it a secret; but because that is simply how the Mother Confessor handles things and she has no need to hide her methods with deception or subterfuge.

Another Mord’Sith might see this as a weakness but Dahlia is too conniving and shrewd to underestimate the veiled power she had just witnessed.

Kahlan Amnell is clearly capable; point in fact – she found a way to Dahlia’s deepest truth without the need for any brutality. The Mother Confessor does not wear a mask because she can afford not to, and all those who surround her can lean on the stability that that axiom provides while still being assured that the brunette can get the job done.

What a novel concept, how very unsustainable – and yet here they are – the last confessor and a wounded Mord’Sith, preparing to rescue the Lord Rahl’s favorite from right under his nose. Not to mention the fact that said favorite might possibly be magically insane and not willing to be rescued.

Nevertheless, she feels that they can do it. Kahlan Amnell can do it – she herself will surely die – but the Mother Confessor will survive and will take care of Cara. Dahlia knows this; it is once again this strange knowledge – not opinion.

Trust. It eases Dahlia’s mind.

Yes, this was worth it.