LOTS - CARA/KAHLAN, CARA/DAHLIA

Significance

seven_3_oh (Amanda)

Title: significance

Part 4 of the contradiction mini series

Author: seven_3_oh (Amanda)

Pairing: Cara/Kahlan, Cara/Dahlia, referenced Kahlan/Richard, Kahlan/P. Fyren

Fandom: legend of the seeker

Rating: PG–13

Word Count: 8824

Summary: set after the episode 2.11 ‘Torn’. This is the forth & final installment in a short series. Please see ‘ILLUSION’ & ‘REALITY’ & ‘FUTILITY’

Disclaimer: “Legend of the Seeker”, its characters, and the situations depicted on the show are the property of ABC Studios, Disney, et all, as well as Terry Goodkind. This story cannot be sold or used for profit in any way. Copies of this story may be made for private use only and must include all disclaimers and copyright notices.

Author’s Note: this would be the end of the line.

Date: 10032010

DEDICATION

I am only as good as my muse, and the inspiration around me. I am blessed to have both in spades. Thanks go to my wonderfully supportive and brilliant gf and beta reader, fosforito4. Thank you for always encouraging my madness, and being exactly who you are.

Significance

seven_3_oh (Amanda)

Dahlia, inside the flesh and bone cage of the child was pacing, and if Cara closed her eyes she could feel the familiar cadence of that pace, of the frustration Dahlia was feeling. It reminded her of boots on cold granite floors, of Dahlia who always had more emotions than were wise, which even repeated breaking could not take from her. When surrounded by a problem Dahlia would pace. As she was now, even in this altered form, on the edge of these woods.

Cara would have preferred to continue traveling through the night, but it was foolish to do so over the thick blanket of leaves that could hide gnarled tree roots and send them toppling. Even walking in the afternoon’s brightness the rail thin father had tripped. At least his ankle had not been broken, and was easily mended by a touch from Zedd. Sitting around the camp fire, without Richard or Kahlan near was unnerving. It felt wrong, and her back seemed to burn, knowing that in the distance Kahlan was sitting beside a similar circle of flames, but with only Richard beside her. Richard, the Lord Rahl, who had not been in the best of moods when they parted. Richard, the man, who was very much in love with Kahlan Amnell and who no doubt would be thrilled that the two of them were. It was not jealousy that heated Cara’s skin, it was foreboding.

The child’s pacing did not help her mood.

“What I find confusing is that the child did not return to her village.” Zedd offered as he twirled the spoon in the pot that rested over the flames.

“We are not…the most forgiving people when it comes to Mord–Sith.” The father said. Berdine and Raina’s smirks did not go unnoticed by Cara, though they seemed to be by the father who continued on. “If she had returned I am certain she would have been chased away.”

“And you heard nothing?” Zedd asked and he shook his head.

“No.”

“What of you Dahlia?”

“I was confused after the spell. It was days of living in this body before my soul, or my mind, took a solid command. I would assume then the same was for the child.”

Cara opened her eyes slowly. She needed to stop thinking about Kahlan and Richard and focus on the task at hand. Finding Dahlia’s body. Then she could be rid of the clinging past. “Does this, Nessa, know how to read?” She asked the father.

“Yes. Very well. She would read stories to”–

“I had written orders in my pack. Perhaps she read them.” Dahlia said interrupting, understanding. “It is a good place to start at least.”

“Where were you headed?” Berdine asked.

“Nengah.” Dahlia said the name of the township, while her eyes fixated on Cara.

The implications made her sigh inwardly.

* * * * *

The rich colors of twilight and the silence along the forest edge seemed to make Richard’s pouting all the more pronounced. Kahlan tended the fire, while he began unpacking some of their dried goods for a small meal. He was in a hurry, as he wanted to walk until night set in, and didn’t want to hunt. This meant the moment the sky lightened in the morning they would be off again. Putting as much distance between them and the others as possible. While he never spoke it aloud, Kahlan knew him well enough to know that was exactly what he was doing. The darkness in his expression had thickened as they walked in silence, but now had receded to a pout.

Throughout the days of their travels, as they followed the ever changing direction of the compass Richard was never one to look away from a village or young maiden in need of assistance. But this time he was certainly looking away. Kahlan wondered just what Dahlia had said to him. She also wondered how to ask. Or if she should just tell him that things were changing.

“I never doubted Cara before.” He said randomly, as he sat down heavily beside her. Perhaps he still had more magic in him than they thought, for he seemed to have read her mind.

“Why now?” She asked.

“Dahlia.”

“Is not Cara.”

“No. She is not. But the thing is, Kahlan, she could be. I admit I forget at times, just what Cara is. I forget that she is a killer, trained and honed into the sharp weapon for Lord Rahl,”

It felt odd to remind him. “Who is you.”

He ignored her softly spoken reminder. “To use. Mord–Sith are smart. And deadly. They watch you; learn your weaknesses and attack.”

“So a small child attacked you?”

“She learned my weakness. Yes.”

Kahlan took the offered dry biscuit, and half the sausage. She pulled her dagger from her boot and silently sliced a small morsel. He was not done speaking. She could tell, and so she waited, as he put the kettle over the fire’s flames, to heat water for their tea.

“Cara is beautiful. And seductive. I know that better than anyone.”

It took quite a strong will for Kahlan not to choke on the piece of dried meat in her mouth. Her eyes watered with the effort.

“Her appeal to men was never in question. I just never assumed that it would…that it could.” He faltered for a moment. “The idea of two women just seems so,”

Kahlan held her breath.

“Wrong.”

And let it out in a rush of frustration.

“Perhaps it is that she is in the form of a child. I don’t know.” Richard ran his hand through his hair. “But for her to tell me that Cara meant something to her, something more than sisters just seems impossible. And yet. I know the seduction that Cara benefits from. I am sure she would make the most pious cleric reconsider his vows of chastity.”

Kahlan was gnawing on a new piece of meat, her mind reeling and demanding that she wait, that she hold her tongue before whipping Richard to a bloody pulp.

“Perhaps it is not so hard for me to see. Under the circumstances. Though for her to ask me to release Cara? That seemed strange.”

“She asked what?” Kahlan balked.

“That I release her, as Lord Rahl. That I allow Cara to return to the Mord–Sith temples, where she could lead others for our cause. Dahlia did mention that perhaps Cara shouldn’t be so close to…you.”

Kahlan could feel the corner of her lip twitch with contempt. There were a hundred scathing words that wanted to march from her lips, ranging from the intellectual to the most guttural language that would make even a tavern wench blush. “Richard, are you so very ignorant to listen to someone who you know nothing about? You know Cara. You vouched for her when I wanted to kill her. When others put her on trial. It was you who defended her.” Kahlan looked at him through the dark. “Do you doubt her?”

“No. I doubt my own eyes. She has changed, for the better. For the good. I trust her. I just…I know that when it comes to matters of the heart… that things have a tendency of happening. Regardless of what we know is best.”

“I dare say that is the first truth you have spoken all day!” Kahlan snapped.

“Kahlan?”

* * * * *

Her eyes born like icy hot needles into her gaze, her lips pulled tight so they began to lose color as her voice spoke in a hissing tone, leaving no room for misunderstanding the emotion laying behind her words. If Dahlia lied, there would be the severest of consequences. “Tell me the truth. Is this just some plan, some trick to get close to…Lord Rahl?”

Dahlia blinked before she spoke. “Of course not. It was happenstance. But Cara I cannot say that I am not, a part of me, pleased.”

“Why?”

“You know why. To see you again? To know you are well. Just to be close to you.”

“Stop.”

“No! You are always ignoring what is before you. You have feelings for me. Stop ignoring them.”

“I don’t ignore it; I merely put it where it belongs, away.” Cara snapped and then moved, her strong and stubborn steps taking her further and further away.

“So Dahlia. What will be the first things you will do when your body is returned to you?” Zedd asked as he handed her a small bowl of porridge and sat beside her.

“Crack her sanctimonious skull open.” She responded without pause for thought.

“Ah.” He chuckled.

“Or perhaps nothing.” She sighed, looking into the grey sludge that he had presented her with. She was in no mood to eat. She was in no mood for anything but more pacing. Or to be like a crow to follow Cara and Berdine out into the woods as they took watch. To be trapped in this body was more harm than good, and she felt it as it was meant to be. A punishment. A cell of irony. Weak and defenseless, yet with the full emotions of a woman. If they did not find that child and her body soon she would end this torment herself. “What does it matter? You forget Wizard? We are not women. We are nothing but Mord–Sith.”

“You are most certainly more than Mord–Sith. Each of you is unique and individual. Despite your creation and your circumstance.” He said with authority, and for one small moment, before she blinked, she believed him. But the moment passed.

“Shall you redeem us all?” She asked with a forced laugh, spoon twirling in the sludge.

His voice was a hard and sharp as D’Haran steel. “No. I would battle the lot of you if I needed to. If Darken Rahl were still ruler. But as it is, well, my grandson thinks you will be of use.”

“No. The Mother Confessor knows we are of use. It is her will alone that is working within the mind of Lord Rahl. You know it to be true. He does not understand the world which he now rules. It is her duty to teach him. As it should be yours.”

“Your point is valid. Yet there is much that Kahlan and I are ignorant to. Why do you not teach him?”

“I would rather not be near the Mother Confessor. Nor Cara. If I can help it.”

“Ahhh.”

“I hate that you say that.”

“Yes, well. It is what it shall be. Eat.” He bumped her bowl with his own, which was shockingly empty. Then he stretched his hands over his head with a low sound of contentment. “Perhaps you need to sort out what you want in this life, and look closely. I have heard and seen your words and deeds these days. I know that you are fighting the urge to lash out. But whatever you think you will accomplish in hurting them? In whipping them into a frenzy? It will backfire.”

“You don’t understand.” She mumbled.

“Oh Dahlia, I am afraid that I do.”

* * * * *

“Your anger is confusing me. As are your actions.” Richard said with his back to her as he lifted the boiling kettle from the hook over the flames. She watched as he sprinkled in the myriad of herbs and flowers that they collected on their journey into the scalded water. The Seeker of Truth was not only a skilled woods guide but she did have to admit that he made some of the most delicious teas she had ever tasted. Though at this point, even a delicious melody of chamomile, lemon grass and nettle could not cool the burning embers of rage in her throat.

“My actions? My anger? You decided suddenly that the quest to defeat the Keeper was more important than helping your friends.”

He laughed angrily. “Those Mord–Sith are not my friends. Dahlia has been punished by magic, because she deserved it. Why should I help her? She is not an innocent caught in the middle of this battle between life and death.”

“She is a citizen of your realm. Of this world; the land of the living.”

“Kahlan, we don’t know her intent. She could… I am positive she is still beholden to my brother, and is therefore our enemy. Why should I help her do anything?”

“Yet you allow your grandfather and Cara to go off with her?”

“Cara.” He lifted his eyes to her, and they burned with resentment. An anger she knew that he felt but did not yet understand why. “Can take care of herself.”

* * * * *

As she returned to the camp, Raina leaned into her for just a moment, before decorum dictated she put space between them. Berdine’s eyes had flashed to the Wizard, who was wearing a smug smile on his lips. She hoped that the smile was indicative to the knowledge he now had. She was been quite sure Raina was ready to box him about the ears if he mentioned one more time that it would be good for them to find husbands and rear children. Berdine knew that the mere thought made her cheeks go numb with disgust.

“Cara?”

“There is a stream to the south east. She is refilling the water skins.” Berdine informed.

“Is that all?”

“Yes.” Berdine crossed her arms, and a false pout pulled at her bottom lip. “She did not want to play with me.”

“There there. You know how she gets sometimes.”

“Picky. I think she would prefer the company of a brunette.” Berdine winked.

“Well then I will see to all of my Mistress’ needs.”

“See that you do.” Berdine joked.

“The Wizard was talking to Dahlia.”

“And?”

“Nothing more.” Raina sighed, before walking away.

Berdine looked over the small camp. The Wizard was fiddling with a small carving knife and a hunk of alder, the father curled on his side sleeping. How that man could sleep so peacefully with all of them making so much noise was a bit of a wonder. But to each their own.

Heavily she sat on a small log, grinning as she felt it shift and lift the small body already on it up and then down twice as hard. Berdine had decided not to bother with asking, and yet, as the forlorn face moped beside her it seemed a better idea to make Dahlia uncomfortable, than to let her sit and stew throughout another evening. Rolling a small twig between her fingers, Berdine kept her voice causal as she attacked.

“You lied to them all, and I wonder why.”

“Excuse me?”

“To say that you just happened to be caught in a magical net, a random victim of happenstance is low, even for you. I know you are one of the more adept Mord–Sith when it comes to lying for the cause.”

“I was trained by the best.” Dahlia said with a devious smirk that on a child’s face looked far to dark.

“Mistress Snake had her talents.” Berdine smiled.

“That is true.”

“Did you lie to save face before Cara, or merely to ensure they helped you.”

“Both.” She sighed. “You know as well as I how Cara feels about.” Dahlia did not say children, or training, though both were implied.

Berdine’s eyes flicked over to the Wizard. He seemed very content in his carving, but she knew wizards. They were a shifty lot. If he was listening, she did not care. Let him. This was not about stopping him from helping Dahlia; it was about making Dahlia as uncomfortable as possible, and adding to her punishment. Berdine knew Cara well, knew that she was a Mord–Sith of few words, but a ferocious spirit. To see her the way she was now, though not all Dahlia’s doing, was something that made the inside of Berdine’s skin itch. She wanted to lash out at the cause, to correct it, if possible. Not that she cared for Cara, but she respected her, and wanted to continue to do so. She wanted to respect her passions, and her decisiveness. Not find she could not look up to her because she was a morose and sad eyed woman.

“She is Mord–Sith, no matter what has changed in her over the course of her life’s journey, she still knows who she is, and she still wears the leather, and carries the Agiel. With pride.”

“Pride, yes. Acceptance, forced.” The child turned, her borrowed eyes showing some of the stubbornness Dahlia herself possessed. “What would it gain me to tell them that I was the one who killed the child? That I left angered and somewhat ashamed that of my first attempt at becoming a trainer failed. Of my trainees’ only one had survived. Out of six, only one.”

“That is rather shameful.” Berdine offered, snapping the twig between her fingers.

“Children now are not as they were then. It is not.”

“Make no excuses to me, Dahlia. They do not matter. Why would you train anyway? Your gift is in combat. In archery.”

“With the Lord Rahl’s war on the Midlands, you well know our numbers have been greatly reduced. There is hardly enough trainees to service the temples.”

Berdine clenched her jaw. “I know.”

“So you know that we cannot be stubborn in what we do. We are ordered and we obey.” She hissed.

“Obey. The orders you obey are not from our Lord Rahl.”

“Aren’t they? To protect, to prepare. For the day when the Seeker takes his place at the helm of D’Hara, or another steps forward.” She confirmed.

“So you killed the daughter of a witch. It is not the first time. Nor the last. The girl, this Nessa? Why were you speaking with her?”

“No longer matters.”

“You were going to take her.”

“Yes.” Dahlia voice was loud with her frustration.

“Your lies have tied your hands. All because you were afraid of what Cara would think of you? What wouldn’t she think of you? You killed together, trained together, tortured together, lay together. Do you think so little of her?”

“I think the world of her, and you know it.”

Punishing Dahlia seemed silly and childish suddenly, as Berdine realized that nothing she could do would ever be as harsh as the pain of reality. “Shame and guilt are heavy cloaks to wear.”

“I am aware.”

“Nothing is to be gained from lying, nor from the truth. She is far from you, and she will not return. Not in the way you want her to.”

“I’ve seen the way she looks at her.” The child’s voice spoke a woman’s words, “She will never look at me that way.”

“No.” Berdine stood. “She won’t.”

* * * * *

Arms wrapped around her, and she could feel a warmth on her neck before the press of lips and the roughness of his beard. Then the press of his body against hers, his intent very evidently pressing into her backside. His lips pressed to her neck again, and his erection followed suit.

Kahlan was very much awake now, and tried to turn, but his arms held her firmly. “Richard?” she questioned.

“I miss you.”

“You are supposed to be standing watch.” She chastised and again tried to move away.

“It’s quiet. It is just you and I. And I miss you so much. I need you Kahlan. What we shared, I can’t stop thinking about it.” His lips kissed long her neck as he spoke, his hands moved from her arms to her belly and over her breasts. Her body became cold and chilled.

“You know we can’t.”

“But we can. I know we can. There are ways…that we can… be together without… confession.” He whispered into her ear, his lips mapping out what he assumed was pleasure, but in truth made her stomach roll with unease. Her mind flashed back on the image of one such way, her body felt the memory as her mind played it out for her. A memory of a moment forgotten. Or ignored. In a well appointed stateroom in the Confessor’s Palace. Kahlan closed her eyes roughly, her mind merging and swirling with images from that night. Memories of her time with Richard fell onto memories of moments with Cara and with Prince Fyren. Her mind grew dizzy with the overlap, with the emotions her body felt. So much emotion it rolled inside of her like the turbulent sea. What made it more disconcerting was all of the emotions were real. The two sides of her had felt passion, and desire, for different reasons. Confession and frustration went hand in hand, and not for the first time Kahlan wished that she was a blank parchment. That those nights were gone from her mind. She did not want to know what had happened, as much as she wanted to retain those memories. It was a contradiction and painful. She wanted to embrace the memories, and look at them objectively. To see what they truly meant to her heart, now that she was one being again.

“I could tell you in detail, graphic… thorough… detail about how you and I were together before. What I would like to do again.” His pauses were punctuated by rough open mouthed kisses on her neck, and the flexing of his hands on her breasts. Her insides were rolling with unease and the burning flames of anger. Not at all what he had intended she was sure. “I love you Kahlan.”

“Detail?” She asked, turning her head, her blue eyes felt as though the were burning with white hot flames of discontent as she looked at him and hissed. “Such as what happened that night in Aydindril?”

He blinked at her.

“Tell me in detail Richard, all about what happened that night after I confessed myself and was sent to your rooms. Tell me what it was that happened between us, as I followed the orders of the Mother Confessor.”

“You confessed yourself, Kahlan; you were ordering yourself to do what you wanted to do.”

“Oh? Do you think so Richard? Is that what you told yourself? As I kneeled before you? As you took your pleasure from me, with each thrust you told me you loved me, but you took what you wanted. You gained pleasure at my body’s expense, knowing that you could? You treated me like a common woman from one of those bawdry taverns on the road. You did not treat me like Kahlan Amnell, the woman you claim to love.”

“You … remember?” His voice was thick with remorse.

“Such a pale expression Richard? Did you think I would not? Is that what your mind told you? That I would not remember? And here you are, staining against your britches, no doubt wanting the same release as you had before. You have determined that if I do not reach the pinnacle of release that you will not be confessed, so it should be simple. You, Richard, Lord Rahl, Seeker of the Truth, can take your pleasure with my body. Congratulations for figuring out that mystery. Why don’t you replay in detail those events in your mind and stroke yourself into contentment, because I will not be the one to do it for you.”

“I merely want to be with you. To show you how much I love you.” He whispered, but his hands moved off of her body, and his cheeks were sallow. Understanding of some sort was gaining momentum.

Kahlan pushed away from him, and sat up. “Love is consummated and expressed physically between two people when they both need and they both want. To show someone you love them it takes far more than sweating and thrusting. I know you feel love for me Richard. I don’t need your seed in me to prove the point.”

“Perhaps I misspoke, said something wrong. Kahlan I never meant. You remember? You remember everything?”

“I do. I remember you. And I remember the others.” She swallowed back her venomous words, words and truths that she wanted desperately to reveal, but her temperance kept them from being spoken. This was not the way, to lash out at him merely to hurt him was not in her nature. Though neither was giving into him merely because he wanted her to. “To give into your needs as a man is not how I should need to prove anything to anyone.”

“Do you still love me?”

She sighed. Love and sex seemed to go hand in hand suddenly, and she had always believed Richard understood the difference. Kahlan understood the difference, and the cold realization came over her that Cara understood the difference as well. Cara, who Kahlan was quite sure, was sitting beside a fire somewhere in the night, knowing that Richard would be attempting this very thing. Kahlan wished for a journey book, or some means of communication, so that she could ease the tumultuous thoughts that she knew Cara was feeling in this moment.

Thoughts of Cara were quieted when Richard’s hand tenderly cupped her cheek, and in an act of instinct and routine she leaned into his touch. Part of her heart ached, knowing that she should not give him false actions. Knowing that she needed to tell him and possibly show him that she had seen another world, a world where she felt that she belonged. “Richard, I care for you. Things are… different now.”

“That is a no.” His hand fell into his lap.

“That is an I do not know.”

“Who?”

It would be so easy, she realized. To tell him. To give the Seeker his truth, and say to him that it was Cara. It was her wounded heart, it was her penetrating green eyes, it was her steadfast honesty that had reached inside of Kahlan and made her understand what true want was. What desire felt like. His eyes were pained and angry, and Kahlan seemed to know that if she spoke the words she felt the need to say at this moment, if she declared her heart’s true intent that things would be irreparable. He knew the truth, but until he was able to understand it, it would only become a burning rage. Uncontrollable and murderous. She sighed heavily as she realized that once again she would have to hold back what she truly felt. “Richard? Why must it be one or the other?”

“What else can I think? You don’t want to lay with me.”

“Can’t you merely accept that I don’t want to give into your needs? What of my needs?”

“Tell me what they are and you shall have them fulfilled. I will allow you to experience everything you want.”

“Stop.” She stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t have this conversation now.” Which was as honest as she could be at the moment. With each passing word from Richard it was harder for her to not give him what he needed. Not what he wanted, but what he needed, which was the truth.

* * * * *

This particular feeling was worse than the cutting pain of a blood soaked steel barbed cat–o’–nine–tails repeatedly raining against her back. It provoked longing, and made breathing difficult. Cara reached her gloved hand to her chest, and pressed her palm hard against the bone and cartilage over her heart. It was fear. And she did not like fear. It weakened resolve, and elicited hesitation.

She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cedar tree beside her. Closing her eyes did little, because the clouds above had already removed the glow of the moon and stars from the expanse of sky. But it did give her the added torture of seeing Kahlan’s face. Seeing her eyes rounding with honesty as her lips silently formed the words, “I want you.” Memory replayed Kahlan’s voice saying those words. Her saying them beside a solitary fire in their camp when Richard was away in the Old World. Her saying them in the plush Confessor’s Chamber. Her saying them in the forests. Kahlan had confessed her want many times. To the point where Cara no longer felt disbelief. She believed. Kahlan did want her.

Fear was knowing that Kahlan was with Richard. Who equally wanted. And who had a temper, and a weapon that increased that temper.

Richard would never purposefully hurt Kahlan.

Nor would Kahlan purposefully hurt Richard.

Fear grew into bile as Cara understood that too avoid the hurting Kahlan would give into Richard’s pleading. And it was like taking a dozen steps backward from the distant possibility that Cara would want Kahlan too.

“Never one to stand alone in the dark without just cause, yet I don’t need to wonder what the cause is. Do I?” A familiar voice spoke softly beside her.

“Go away Berdine.”

“Are those tears in your eyes?” Berdine asked as Cara’s eyes opened slowly.

“Your humor is not as amusing as you believe.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Why would I be?”

“The woman you love is off somewhere with the man who loves her. Doing…things.”

“Doing quest like things.” Cara snapped. “And what right have I to feel anything?”

“You are correct. I mean imagine how hard it was on her, to see Dahlia, even in the wrong form, fawning over you for the past few days. If anyone has the right to feel jealous, it is the Mother Confessor.”

“You are trying my patience.” Cara walked back towards camp, hiding her smirk. She had missed this banter with her fellow Mord–Sith.

“You have patience?”

* * * * *

The ghostly fingers of rain clouds pulled and separated clung along the peaks of the foot hills and the smaller mountains that were the portents of the higher glacier capped ones surrounding Aydindril. The mist danced and moved across the thick green evergreens alive with the need to drop its weighted burden of rain, but holding back for a little while more. Kahlan felt the tension in the air around her, as well as inside of her, and allowed the feeling of kinship to the clouds to surround her. A long sleepless night did not weigh on her as heavily as the strain from not telling Richard that her heart had changed its course. She was a patient woman, but she was not sure how much longer she could hold back her own personal torrent of truth.

Turning slightly away from the beauty before her she looked back, through the thinner trees and the lines between them, where cattle and sheep grazed, thick grass that they had walked through. Further behind would be Cara. The air was warm down here on the valley floor, and Kahlan wondered if they would encounter frigid weather once they crossed higher. Once over the mountains it felt as though some impenetrable divide would be between them, thicker than the silence they knew, and harder to return from.

Again just as in recent weeks she did not want to go. She did not want her duty to the Seeker and the quest and to her kingdom to come between her passion and her desire.

Richard stood, his jaw muscles working hard as he looked down at the compass on his palm.

She noticed the anger in his face.

She also noticed that the glowing blue lights of the compass were pointing in the other direction. Pointing to where they had come from.

The compass was magic and temperamental, but Kahlan knew suddenly that it was not so much so that it would have led them in one direction to merely spin them around again the very next morning. This had all been merely a ruse.

“How long were you going to lie to me?” She asked him.

“I thought you may not notice until we crossed the mountains.”

“Your own selfishness, for whatever reason, was going to be a better solution than defeating the Keeper?”

He shrugged. “I had thought.”

“You wanted to be away from them.”

“I wanted time with you.” His voice strained.

“Richard? This is not like you. To turn your back on your duty.”

“The way you look at her is not like you either.” He snapped harshly, before adding in a softer tone. “You needed distance.”

Kahlan turned away and looked back at the hills, and their garland of rain clouds. It would be such a release to let go, to allow the emotions and the feelings inside her to rain down upon them. To find the calm in the heart of the storm she would be creating. Softly she chastised him. “You are a foolish man.”

“I am a man in love.”

“Proving my point.” Kahlan shook her head, and then took a slow breath before turning back to Richard. His hand closed over the compass and his face took on the hard set look of a man who would not back down. Kahlan knew that he would have no choice. “We are going back, Richard.”

“Let us circle back. We can have more time together. Which I know that we need. We need to talk Kahlan.”

“Richard I will make this very simple for you. We are going back. Now. There is smoke in the distance. Which means there is a home, or a village. There we will find horses. And we will borrow them, in the name of the Mother Confessor, and we will continue this quest.” She adjusted her pack as she took a step closer to him, feeling the comfort of her cold Confessor’s mask. “Your duty as the Seeker is to find the Stone of Tears and defeat the Keeper. If that compass leads us back to the others, then that is where we will go. Your personal agenda is no longer going to sway the quest.”

“It isn’t as if.”

“How many people died last night Richard?”

“What?” He blanched.

“How many people died?” She growled at him. “How many people were attacked by Banelings? By Screelings? By those rogue members of Lord Rahl’s army still in the Midlands? How many died?”

“I…don’t.”

“No. You don’t. You have wasted time. Too much time. Following me to Aydindril, and”–

“We saved you!”

She ignored his whine. “Demanding we leave the others, all so you could what? Woo me in some way? There can and will be another Seeker named, Richard, if you are not up to the task. I traveled to Westland to find the First Wizard, to get him to name a Seeker to defeat the Lord Rahl. The First Wizard can name another.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

Kahlan began walking, heading away from the mountains, and towards the smoke in the distance. “You are making it very necessary.”

“As you wish, Mother Confessor.” He grumbled, and Kahlan could not help the slight smile that pulled at the corner of her lip.

* * * * *

A dozen bodies were strewn about the small field around them. Berdine was tightening her braid that had come loose when it was entangled in the hooked fingers of one of the larger banelings. Of course he was now without that hand, having it hacked off by her dagger.

It had been a nice morning, and the three Mord–Sith all wore silly smiles on their lips. Nothing better than a small skirmish to release some tension. She was even certain Cara had said a blessing to the Creator as the horde of banelings rushed through the mists and trees.

What Berdine did not understand was the concept of these creatures. Alive but not. Dead but not. She had witnessed banelings as she moved across the land in the form of a crow, but seeing, and alas smelling them up close was new. It made her wonder, not for the first time how the Lord Rahl could be so cavalier. She threw her braid back over her shoulder as the Wizard moved beside her, dragging one of the bodies closer to the pile Raina and the father Jarren were making. “It’s been a long time since the Keeper managed to gain a foothold here in this world.”

“That is true.” Zedd offered.

“But why?”

“Why what, Berdine?”

“Why is it taking so long? To battle him back? From what I have heard you need the Stone of Tears. As it is a mythical thing, I understand how it is not merely laying about in the center of a field with a great bright light from the Creator on it. But, should it take this long?”

“Things happen.” Zedd shrugged.

“Oh. Things happen.” Berdine huffed. “Well thank goodness, that things just happen. It isn’t as though the Keeper wants to end all life.”

“Why is she being so argumentative?”

“It is in her nature.” Raina offered dropping a body on the pile.

“And is she always this… talkative?” Zedd asked, and Raina shrugged.

“We all have burdens we must bear, First Wizard. Some of us talk, some of us mope, some of us need to eat seven large meals a day.” Berdine smiled. “There seems to be lots of things happening that distract Lord Rahl from his quest. I would assume that if he stepped up into his birthright he could have the whole of the D’Haran Army searching for this Stone of Tears.”

“That has been mentioned.”

“He rejects his place.” Cara said coming to stand between them. “He was not raised in D’Hara, or the Midlands. To control a vast army, one he has spent time battling; that he views as his enemy…his hesitancy is to be expected.”

“But isn’t it the end result that matters?”

“Not always. Sometimes the journey is just as important,” Zedd said as he extended his hands and released the rush of Wizard’s fire which licked at the dead flesh and garments that with a whoosh caught and began to burn.

* * * * *

He had not meant the words he said to come across in such a way, but as they rode their borrowed mares hard across the valley floor they did resonate inside of her.

“Mord–Sith do not love.”

Even Cara herself had told her before that love was seen as a weakness, it was something repeatedly told and taught. While Kahlan argued the point many times with Cara, now, as the horse became lathered beneath her, as the wind pulled at her hair, her heart wondered if it wasn’t a truth she didn’t want to admit. They had been close once before, in the throes of intimacy, where Kahlan’s voice had cracked with the emotion she was feeling for Cara in that moment. But was it just that moment? Could she love a woman? And more over, could that woman love her?

Her hair whipped her face as she turned her head, to see Richard coming along with her, riding relentless and focused.

He loved her. He proclaimed it. He meant it. Was she wrong to turn away from the love given, to want a love that perhaps could not be returned?

Kahlan swallowed for a moment.

In her memory saw Cara’s eyes filling with tears. Saw her smile. Saw her looking away ashamed at being caught watching Kahlan. And she remembered the sound of Cara’s voice as she whispered, when kneeling beside the Mother Confessor’s bed, that she was sorry.

Kahlan knew it was not one or the other. It was not Richard or Cara. It was never that simple. Loving was not about pleasing either of them. Love was selfish in a way.

Richard’s jaw was set, his eyes watering from the wind assaulting them. But Kahlan felt emotion for him. She turned back to see the valley opened before her and she thought of Cara. And her heart increased its beating.

Her answer.

Not simple.

And yet so very simple, instinctual really.

* * * * *

“This is more a town than a village.” Zedd announced as they passed through the open gates of Nengah. There was one old crone keeping watch, though he was so bent over his walking cane Berdine doubted he could move fast enough to shut the gates if a horde of evil turtles were making their way into town. She smirked. Not that this town would need its gates closed. There were plenty of cut throats as well as retired D’Haran soldiers who made this town their home. While they seemed to be a collective of the castaways, those missing limbs or common sense, there was also a stench of warning lingering in the evening air. The citizenry of Nengah did not abide those who wanted to cause trouble. Three Mord–Sith moving into town was nothing new to them, and not even the hunched old man batted a grey eyelash.

“Well, it is what it is Wizard. Shall we begin looking?” Cara asked.

“The sun has set, I dare say we would do better first to find accommodations for the night.” Zedd said evenly, clearly testing to see how adamant Cara would be.

Berdine watched as her darkening blue green eyes moved over them all, skipping over Dahlia who was standing between the two men. Cara heaved a sigh. “And a dining hall to feed your belly?”

“There is the ring of truth in there, yes.” He smiled.

“An Inn.” Raina said next to her softly, and she looked down into her dark brown eyes.

She could see wonderful implications taking root in Raina’s eyes and Berdine expanded, “A bed in an inn.”

* * * * *

The bed in the next room was not going to live through the night. Not the way it was thumping on the floor nor banging into the wall. Cara wondered if Zedd could hear it, even from the rooms he took a floor above and to the back of the inn, at her urging. She knew Berdine and Raina too well. And she knew that little sleep would be had this night.

She rolled the back of her skull along the wooden planks of the wall, trying to ignore the way the noises from next door perked her breasts, the way they made her think of Kahlan. Her eyes glowing brightly, the way her mouth dropped open with breathlessness as she moved closer to climax.

Growling she rose from the bed, her Agiel in her hand and stormed from the room.

Her palm slapped the shared wall as she passed it, and was rewarded with a louder moan of Raina’s name from the other side.

She could not help her smile.

* * * * *

She rubbed the nose of her dark brown mare, apologizing softly for the hard ride the day before, and the one she was sure to come today. The horse seemed to understand Kahlan’s urgency, blinking its acceptance. She looked over at Richard as he tied his pack to his horse’s back. The night had been cold and long, with few words spoken between them. His face shown with the stress and his own sleepless night.

“Richard?” She questioned and he looked up at her. “We should…talk.” Kahlan relented.

* * * * *

Her body felt strong and sure, as though a night sitting in the main room of the inn, beside the roaring fire had been as rejuvenating as sleep in the softest feather bed. The promise of today seemed to be all the fuel her body had needed. She waited until the others gathered in the dining hall, before she announced, only meeting Zedd’s eyes, that they should split up and search the town for Dahlia’s body. Her reasoning was that they could cover more ground. But in truth it was so that Cara could have some peace. Away from the stares. The pressure and the pain in her chest she felt when Dahlia looked at her with expectations that could not be fulfilled.

Through the muck of the stables, and the harsh smell she moved. A roan cow was in a pin alone, being milked and she huffed as Cara approached. The woman sitting on the small wooden stall did not look up. She did not need to. Even with her long hair down, and tangled with filth, even wearing the thick burlap apron over the faded gingham print in light blue Cara knew her shoulders. The line of her neck and jaw. She pulled her glove from her right hand and touch the cow gently, feeling the softness of her fur, the thickness of her muscles. The cow blinked her large brown eyes.

“Nessa?” Cara asked, and Dahlia’s face, a line of muddy sweat drawn over her brow looked up.

“You know my name?”

“I do.”

“You are one of them.” The girl said. She stopped milking and set her hands on her lap. “Are you here to kill me?”

“No.” Cara tried to think of words to say, to put the child at ease. It would not be a fun morning if the child became afraid and ran off. Now that she was found, Cara did not want to lose this opportunity. “We have a Wizard. And your father.”

“I can…you can fix me?”

“He believes that he can.” Cara said.

“Is Father angry?”

“No. But I think the woman whose body you are in is less than pleased. Why did you run away?”

“I was… confused, and then once I was here? I … I don’t know the way home.”

“Well. You will now.” Cara offered her hand. “Shall we?”

* * * * *

Her hands looked older. As Kahlan looked at her palms, and then turned them over to see the lines on the backs, the rise of the veins, she noticed for the first time that her hands looked so much like her mothers. Older. They looked like the hard weapons that they were. Her body was the deadliest weapon she would ever know. Her hands, her Confessor’s power, and her voice.

“So.” Richard breathed.

Looking at him, knowing she should, seemed like a terrible idea. Knowing there would be no going back, not now. That no matter what happened in this day, there would be nothing that could take back what she had said.

“Do you understand?” Kahlan asked.

“No.”

Instinctually she did look up, as he stood, and brushed his hands on his thighs.

“Your feelings have changed. I do not understand how that is possible. But I do understand that you went through a surreal experience, when you were torn in two. That you remember all that happened, to both bodies, to both selves.” He shrugged. “I can see how that would make you question your devotion. As while you swore your love and affection to me, another side of yourself was free to experience others. And in that experience, Kahlan you were left with the result. Which are feelings that confuse you to the point where you do not think you should honor your feelings for me.”

Her hands tightened as they held onto one another, and she felt her Confessor’s power straining inside of its prison. Not that she was angry; no she felt the power because she was merely feeling…everything.

“I can wait. I will wait.” He said and softly smiled. “See the world. Experience what it has to offer you. I will still love you, and be waiting for you.” The smile did not reach his eyes. “Unless you know that you cannot returned my affections. Can you say that Kahlan? Can you tell me now that you no longer love me?”

* * * * *

“I… I don’t know.” Her voice was thick with confusion. “I came here thinking there would be some sort of answer. But all I found was fear, and desperation.”

“Where they. Has anyone here harmed you?” Zedd asked.

“No… They gave me these clothes, and the priestess in the village told them and me that perhaps this was a sign from the Creator.” She looked at her dirty hands. “I didn’t believe them, because the Creator wouldn’t be so cruel.”

“Cruel?”

“This body hurts.” She said softly.

“They believed you when you told them you were trapped in this body?”

“I never told them.”

“Then how?”

“Does it matter Wizard?” Dahlia spoke gruffly.

“Everything matters. It is in the details where reality lives.”

Cara watched as Dahlia rolled her eyes. “You are insufferable. An Agiel to the throat may make you more understanding.”

“Dahlia!” Cara snapped, and her shoulders drooped. “Tell him.”

“I…my presence? My form? Is known to these people. They do not fear me. Look around, do you see them hiding their children from us? Three Mord–Sith come into any other village with a Wizard and there would be chaos.”

“I had noticed.” Zedd looked around, and crossed his arms. “Why?”

Dahlia looked to Cara, who nodded.

“There is a place here. An…” Dahlia looked away, shame coloring the borrowed eyes.

“The orphanage. We bring children here.” Berdine said, walking between the glance of child Dahlia and Cara. “Dahlia used to lead the deliveries from the People’s Palace.”

“You mean to say.”

“Zedd, I think that explains it enough, don’t you?” Cara’s fingers went around the hilt of her Agiel, the pulse and reminder of pain calmed her.

“I understand now, yes.”

“Will you change me back?” the child within Dahlia asked Zedd.

“Of course child. Of course.”

* * * * *

Blue eyes looked at her from beneath filthy hair. But the lips said nothing. They did not have to. They eyes said it all.

“Father!” The child cried and flew into the open arms of her father, who joyously spun her around.

The magic ebbed away, and Cara turned her back to the scene, and faced the Wizard who was smiling happily.

“Now there is a happy sight.” Zedd said crossing his arms.

“Oh Wizard, how can we ever thank you.”

“Zedd, is it done?” Cara asked in a strained whisper.

“It is.” He was still smiling.

“Good, then let us leave.”

“Leave?” His smile faltered and he looked to Cara with intensity. “Cara?”

“We did what we set out to do. Now we can leave. Return to Richard and… and the quest.” A chill moved over the back of her neck and before she could stop herself she shuddered.

“Come Sister, the little one told us where she hid your leathers.” Berdine’s voice floated into Cara’s ear.

“Alright.” Dahlia said sadly. Firmly Berdine took her arm, and lead her away.

“Cara, are you alright? You look pale.” Zedd stated.

“We are done, Zedd. Let us leave.”

“We can’t just run off. There is the matter of helping Jarren find work here.”

“Here?” Her mouth dropped open and her eyes rolled. She was aghast. “This is D’Hara. He is a Midlander. He needs to return.”

“We stole away the child. He cannot return to his village, and it would only be a kindness to help him make a life here for him and his daughter, Nessa. Was that not the reasons for all this? To bring the girl back to her father.”

“Mm.”

“So you see, there is still much to do.”

“Must we?”

“Yes, Cara.”

She looked over her shoulder. Raina and Berdine were escorting Dahlia away, and they were quite far down the street. But even so, when Dahlia turned and looked over her shoulder at her, Cara felt the skin on her body jump with agitation. She sighed in anger.

* * * * *

“Keeper’s Wrath.” Dahlia cursed.

“What is wrong now Sister?” Raina asked as she pulled the braid tighter as she worked Dahlia’s freshly washed hair. “You complained of the tightness of your leather, the bite of the Agiel. What more is there for you to complain about?”

“Just glad I was in that other body when I saw her.” Dahlia mumbled.

“And why is that?” Berdine asked, yanking harder than she needed to on the leather corset. The pain of her second skin was becoming familiar yet again. And still she felt things strongly. Things that she had almost forgotten.

“This body? Reacts. Strongly to Cara.”

Berdine smirked, Raina chuckled knowingly, and Dahlia could only shift uncomfortably.

* * * * *

“One more day?” Kahlan asked again.

“That is what the man said. One day until the town of Nengah.” Richard walked back from the small stream where the horses were drinking. “We can board the horses there, and send word to their owner. I am sure that the others did not travel further than Nengah. Certainly not on foot.”

Kahlan nodded.

“Are you feeling alright?” Richard asked.

“Yes. Why do you ask?” Kahlan blinked.

“You keep rubbing your palm over your heart.”

Suddenly she realized he was correct, she was, absently rubbing, and she felt the dull ache that was deep inside of her chest. Her ears buzzed and her head pounded. It was as though she was being pulled, or perhaps cracked down the center. Her mind could not think beyond her need to see Cara. And see her soon. What was born as a light caress of desire, was turning into an intense pain of foreboding.

Part 2

“Cara.” She sighed her name.

Her eyes moved over her face, seeing the imploring in her blue eyes, her long lashes, and the intoxicating dimple in the center of her bottom lip.

“You have…aged well.” Cara said, feeling awkward. Half of her mind listened to the reunion of the father and child, but the other half was focused on the flashes of moments in the past that seemed to be displayed as if my magic in Dahlia’s eyes.

“You will look at me now?”

Her mind reverberated with the groan of leather, as Dahlia crossed her arms over her chest, causing the thick leather corset worn by the others. That sound that was so familiar and yet distant to her now. She had once only known that sound. Of leather as it was pushed and pulled to the limits. But since she shed the hard confines of her uniform, she had also banished familiarity of sound, even scent. She had abandoned her life, the only one she knew in the service of her Lord Rahl. Or so she thought. “Yes. Now. You are. As you should be.”

Dahlia swallowed. “Cara if you only knew.”

“Well, now you look more like yourself. “Raina said, as she and Berdine flanked Dahlia. “Doesn’t she Berdine?”

“Tall, strong, stubborn. The Dahlia we remember.”

“We do good work in a rush. Perhaps too rushed. I thought we had been clear.”

“Sisters.” Dahlia said, her eye lids lowering with forced respect. “We were just.”

“Finished.” Berdine stressed. “It is time to discuss the future. Not the past.”

“Future did you say?” Zedd asked coming closer, and Cara looked at him and nodded.

“What they will do now.”

“I see. Well, perhaps they should all return to the People’s Palace, to do good.”

Berdine laughed. “Do good? Oh Wizard. You are amusing.”

“Did you.” Dahlia stopped herself. And for a moment Cara thought she understood enough to not speak, but as she watched her shoulders droop, and then look at her gloved hands she knew Dahlia would continue. That she would say what was motivating her. “Did you ever wonder if you would see me again?”

Cara looked away, down the street, her eyes never moving above hip level. She was not afraid to answer. She could answer, that no, she had not. She had thought that world was finished. Completed. When her Sisters of the Agiel struck her down, taking her hair, her pride and her bond to them she did not think she would ever know that life again. Nor anyone from it. She never thought she would see Berdine or Raina. Nor Triana. Or Garren. Or Rikka, and certainly not Dahlia.

But she did not reply aloud. There was no need to.

“I see.” Dahlia sighed. “I never thought I would see you. I hoped I never would.”

Her eyes trembled, moving high enough to see Dahlia’s lips.

“And I hoped I would equally.”

She needed to change the subject, to stop Dahlia, this burningly beautiful Dahlia, from making her mind cloudy with memories. “There was an artist. In Aydindril.”

Dahlia smiled. “There may be one or two artists in residence in the People’s Palace at any given time. As you well remember.”

“But Darken Rahl is no longer issuing orders. So who would be?”

“Cara, what Garren may or may not be ordering doesn’t matter.” Dahlia corrected.

“It will matter, and you will go to the People’s Palace and either get her to stop, or watch her closely.”

“Oh. We get to be your spies?” Berdine asked.

Zedd corrected. “You get to serve Lord Rahl.”

The eye roll Berdine responded with was one that was so over exaggerated it made Cara crack the smallest smile. “It sounded more fun when she said it.”

As they walked along the narrow alleyway between the tannery and the tailor, making their way as if the four Mord–Sith were the elite guards of the small man and his daughter while Zedd searched out work for him, Cara was failing in her attempts at not catching Dahlia’s eye. She would scan the crowds around them, before looking to Dahlia, who always seemed to be looking over her shoulder, or even turned and looking openly at Cara.

The thick lashes seemed to pull her gaze deeper into her blue eyes, into the need she could see written there. Eyes that spoke of promised whispers that filled torture rooms; which had caressed Cara once, a long time ago in her private chamber. Promises that at the time meant nothing to Cara, but in looking back now with understanding; Dahlia had meant every word. Every vow. While Cara used her attentions and abused her body, Dahlia was always honest and pure. She was weak for Mord–Sith, because in breaking she still retained part of her heart.

“I almost forgot how expressive her eyes were.” Berdine said softly into Cara’s ear, causing her to turn sharply. “And the pout of her lips. Perfect for the biting.”

“Whatever you think you may be doing to help, it isn’t working.” Cara said. “Unless you are trying to get me to agree with you, to help you make a case to Raina for why you should stray.”

“Oh no!” Berdine gruffed. “I have more than I require with Raina. I was merely noting… the loveliness of that woman dressed in leather.”

“She is Mord–Sith.”

“She never had the stomach to truly be a deviant Mord–Sith.”

“I’ve seen her do things that even you would have difficulty with.”

Berdine’s eyes sparkled with indignation. “Perhaps, but I never cried at night once my duties were fulfilled. Not like her… Nor like you.”

Cara’s fingers went around Berdine’s neck and pressed her back to the cold wall. “What are you getting at?”

“Who? Me?” She fluttered her eyelashes, smiling.

“Berdine. I am warning you.”

“No. You need to warn yourself. Don’t look at Dahlia with such need in your eyes if you don’t mean it. Don’t confuse what was with what is. Don’t throw away your heart for your passion.”

“You know not what you speak of.”

“Mmm.” Her lips pursed together. “I think I do.”

“Then take her. And all of you leave. Now. I don’t want you here.”

“Of course you don’t.” Berdine replied, but her eyes burned with familiarity.

* * * * *

Kahlan sat up, her heart again trembling inside of its cage of bone and muscle. The darkness of night was calming in that she knew it would keep the secrets of her pale tear stains cheeks. Wiping her face roughly she felt with every cord of muscle in her body that she had to see Cara, and she had to see her before the sun rose.

Richard was sitting by the low flames of the fire, and as her heart beat out of control she rose from her bedding.

“You are exhausted Richard. Lie down and rest. I will keep watch.”

“Are you sure?” He asked, screening a yawn behind his hand.

“I shall not sleep any more on this night.”

* * * * *

The full moon overhead was a startling blue, like that of thick glacier ice, something Cara had seen once before, in the far north of D’Hara. She took a step backwards, as the moon cast the thick shadow on the ground. The shadow almost had more form and solidity than the body that cast it. The rich black of the shadow, and the lightness in the night sky triggered a memory. A memory where her heart pounded in her chest, where fear filled her. The last time a shadow was this thick and the moon so brightly blue it had fallen into her cell, through the moss covered bars, the symphony of rats on the hunt in the sewers beneath the Temple floors, making their way to her, to torment her. And she had seen a shadow, moving closer to her.

Just as this one was now.

Her back pressed against the cliff wall, and her breaths were coming in and out with the weight of her panting.

They had left the village, and left the father and child to their new life. On horses purchased with the threat of Agiel and D’Haran gold they had ridden out of the town, and sharply headed north. Zedd had been confident that they would find Richard and Kahlan in a day’s time, in the rocky foothills. Much closer than Cara had expected, and being so close she had been unable to sleep. Knowing the Mother Confessor was near, but still too far to see her, to touch her. To be reassured that her eyes glowed in a certain hue of blue. That her voice was full of a specific resonance that could clear the cobwebs from Cara’s mind, and bring her into the now. Into what could be. The others refused to leave until commanded by Lord Rahl, and giving up she had left camp, looking for the quiet solitude up here in the rocks and the giant slumbering boulders.

Alone she had thought she could take clean air into her, and force away the confusion, but then the shadow came. Her heart was slamming along the insides of her chest, hard enough that her body shook slightly. The shadow moved closer. It moved over her feet, slithered up her legs. The shadow pressed upon her, and her throat choked on the words she needed to say, but there was no sound, there was nothing to be heard but the rushing of blood in her ears.

The shadow covered her face, smothered her eyes.

They closed.

Warm and corporeal lips whispered against hers. Lips that parted as hers parted. A sigh caressed her cheek, before a hand moved over her skin, finger tips forcing their way through her hair.

She was consumed and surrounded by the shadow

By the memory of being in that small cell, and feeling arms slipping around her, a whisper in her youthful ear, “I will protect you Cari.”

“I will guard your heart.” Whispered now.

Her eye lids lifted, to look into the deep blue eyes staring back at her, offering understanding and comfort. Offering the taste of a reality that she knew. Offering moments of expected, known. Leaning forward she pressed her lips firmly against Dahlia’s. The fingers in her hair tightened, and she could feel the Mord–Sith sigh against her, pressing into her, melting against her body as their kiss began to intensify. Desire and longing burned from deep inside of Cara’s center, scalding her and blistering her hope to be anything more than what she was.

Her arms wrapped around Dahlia, as she deepened their kiss and she just gave into the women before her.

“Spirits I missed the flavor of your skin.” Dahlia whispered between presses of her lips along Cara’s neck, and collarbone. The cold air caressed her cheeks. Her hands pressed into the rock behind her as her back arched, and her head fell back with the choking moan coming from her lips. Feeling the press of lips and the urgentness of her fingers on her skull Cara wanted to order Dahlia to not speak, but she did not trust her voice.

“I missed you.” Dahlia filled the silence.

The tone in her voice, so achingly familiar made Cara lean away. Her eyes burned, and she felt a certain loathing rising behind her eyes.

As if seeing it, Dahlia blinked, and then smiled. “Don’t. Don’t think like that.” Forcefully she kissed Cara, and she was defenseless, and kissed her back, with a hunger that surprised herself. “She could try to love you.” Dahlia whispered, again her lips moving down her neck, her fingers pulling aside leather so she could leave open mouthed kisses on her shoulder. “But she will never love you like I do. She could never break because you want her to. She could never be to you what I can.”

Cara closed her eyes, “And what are you?”

“Anything and everything you ever wanted. In me you have it. And you know that to be true.”

“I know you make desire roar in my blood.” Cara confessed softly. “But I never felt safe with you. You are everything I know. I understand. She… she offers me the world I wished for, but never thought I was good enough to have.”

“I can give you that. Take it. Take the power Cara. I offer you everything you know and everything you should have.” Dahlia pleaded.

“Could you.” Cara asked but stopped herself with a wince, again reminded of words and actions. Liberties she took with Dahlia when she never felt the emotions behind them. To talk of emotions; tenderness and love was abhorrent to Mord–Sith, even one as capable as Dahlia. It was a worthless emotion to them. To what a Mord–Sith was. Love was a weakness, and in love they could torture and break their pets. Mord–Sith do not feel.

“Anything.” Dahlia purred and kissed her throat.

Cara’s eyelids lowered. Love was not required or requested. Not with Dahlia. No matter how much the younger woman may allude to it, it was never truly wanted. There was only ownership; dominance and submission. There was a sense of belonging to another that chased away the dark clouds of solitude. Her eyes opened into a grimace. Angrily, Cara spun her around and shoved her hand roughly between Dahlia’s legs. Her palm slapped against her center. Dahlia cried out as her hips moved forward. Cara began rubbing roughly against her leather covered crotch. “This. This is what you want.”

“Yes, Cara. Touch me, take me like you used to. Own me. Make me belong.”

Her hand moved rougher, knowing the pain that was emanating from Dahlia’s center was also creating the heat of pleasure. Her hips began to move in a counter thrust to her forceful rubbing. “Cara. Come back to me.”

“Don’t.”

“I won’t.” Dahlia head turned, and her blue eyes burned in the darkness. “Pretend I am her if that helps you.”

“Speak again and I stop.” Cara promised.

Dahlia bit her lip and Cara could feel as she arched her back, pressing her backside against her. Dahlia’s desire was a clear sign of weakness, begging and asking to be hurt. Just as Cara had declared, the desire and the familiarity of taking her pleasure from Dahlia moved through her body, it consumed her reason. It had been too long since she had let go, been her true self. She had held back with Leo, and held back with the nameless men and women she bed on the road. And she certain was restrained with, “Kahlan.” She wailed her name and ripped her hand from between Dahlia’s legs and took a step back. Her gloved hands covered her face.

“Don’t stop. Please.” Dahlia pleaded and turned to face her, her breathing heavy. “Call me her name if you must.”

“No.” Cara shook her head. Behind her closed eyes she saw Kahlan’s smile, her burning blue eyes that seemed to hold the answers to questions not yet asked. The lips that could scald her and freeze her, and in looking through her heart at the image of Kahlan in her mind she knew that was the woman she wanted; Kahlan. And being with Kahlan Cara knew she could be the woman she wanted to be. “No. I can’t do this.”

“You can. You were. Don’t let foolish sentimentally stop you Cara. This is who you are. Do you want to beat me first? By all means. Hit me.” She moved closer. “I remember how much you loved the sound of my cries of pain and my moans.”

Cara swallowed the emotion in her throat. “That…person? That Mord–Sith you remember? I am not her.”

“You will always be her. A few months running around the country side.”

“Dahlia, you just don’t see. I am not the same person.”

“We do not change.”

“I have.” Cara confessed, and walked away. Not back down the winding trail to the camp, but further up, hoping for redemption in the silence. She needed to be as far away from Dahlia and the temptation of her as possible.

“Don’t walk away from me Cara! You can’t deny what you are!”

* * * * *

She was beautiful.

While all Mord–Sith were beautiful there was a bitter melancholy to Dahlia’s face that made her seem more radiant than the others. Perhaps it was the way her eyes held back tears, or how her one arm moved across her chest to hold herself as if there was actually feelings inside of her. She was different. There was something about her that Kahlan understood. It was emotion. And it was longing. This woman loved Cara. Perhaps Dahlia loved her in a way that Kahlan couldn’t, through shared pain and a life so very similar. But, as she watched Dahlia standing in the thickness of the night’s shadows, as her face set with determination Kahlan understood something deeper. She understood that while Dahlia and Cara may have had a past, Cara would have a future with Kahlan. If she stopped being so afraid of her own emotions, and stopped keeping those feelings to herself.

Even watching as Cara had roughly touched Dahlia, even seeing the passion sparking between the two of them Kahlan knew that Cara did not love this other Mord–Sith. And it was proven in the pained expression on Cara’s face as she backed away from her. As she spoke unguarded to Dahlia.

Riding through the night, without a care of the consequences, the pain in Kahlan’s chest had increased, but the moment she heard Cara sigh her name, the pain vanished. All she felt now was the trembling in her limbs, their need to feel Cara.

She turned away from the bitter beauty of Dahlia standing alone, and moved to follow after Cara.

* * * * *

Angered she pulls her gloves from her hands, throwing them to the ground. The pride she once felt at the leather armor around her was stifling and she wanted to just feel the night air. She wanted to feel free from the chains of pain and blood and the numbness that it all taught her. Cara wanted to brush her tears from her cheeks with her naked fingertips.

She heard the loose gravel and leaves under foot behind her and was about to growl out Dahlia’s name, ready to give her the beating she had asked for, when she froze. She did not turn. Because the foot falls behind her were not Dahlia’s. They were wider spaced. That of a taller person. And then on the faint breeze the scent of skin.

“Kahlan.” Cara sobbed, as hands rested on her shoulders. The touch was firm, telling her that she had been right. The scent of Kahlan’s hair, her leathers and skin moved around Cara comfortingly, as she walked around, to stand before her.

* * * * *

Kahlan’s finger tips moved across her neck to her cheek, and as she felt the texture of Cara’s skin her body sighed and seemed to relax and tightened again, for a different reason.

“How did you?”

“Been racing across the countryside. I knew I…I needed to.”

“To? Is everything alright?” Cara’s hand, rested atop Kahlan’s and she shuddered slightly feeling Cara’s naked palm on her hand. She was used to feeling the smooth and soft leather. But to feel her skin, that was so very soft made this moment all the more real.

“No. Not alright. Not yet. Not until I.” Kahlan kneeled, and leaned closer, brushing their lips together, feeling Cara’s open with surprise, but also burning with the intensity that Kahlan herself was feeling.

“How did you know, that I was here?”

“I woke… from a dream.”

“Are you sure this is not the dream?”

“It may be. And if it is? This is the most vivid dream.”

“I… Kahlan you need to know that I.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She said truthfully.

“When you know you may feel differently.”

“No. I won’t. It doesn’t matter.”

“The truth always matters.”

“Oh? Such as the Mord–Sith I killed.”

“You don’t need to explain.” Cara argued.

“I am not. Not really. But you see? It does not matter. What you did or didn’t do with Dahlia? To me it doesn’t matter. Because I know.”

“You know what?”

“The Mord–Sith I killed.”

Cara’s eyes narrowed.

“I killed her because she wanted to die. But I also …used her.”

Cara looked expectantly at her.

“I wanted to understand. At the time, I was confused and lost… not understanding that I was torn, halved, why I was craving you. I needed you, Cara, and in her I found a glimmer of a replacement. In her I had a version of you that I could force to open up to me.”

“Did that work for you?” Cara’s brow quirked with mirth.

“No.” Kahlan said firmly taking her hands and urging Cara up to stand in front of her. Cara’s eyes moved across her face, before her gaze settled with determination and permanence, as they looked into one another’s eyes. “What she told me just proved how very unique you are. How you may be Mord–Sith but you are more than that. You are beautiful. Inside. The rays of light that shine from your soul through your eyes when you look at me? Beautiful. You are Cara.”

Cara’s eyes were still bright, and still the expressive blue green even in the darkness of this night. And she seemed to burn from the inside out. Kahlan’s thumb brushed across her full bottom lip.

“There was once a time when I was confused, wondering if my attraction was to the mystery of the Mord–Sith. My sworn enemy. But it was more. It is more. It is you, Cara.”

“And it is…the Mord–Sith, or is …it…Cara…that you ….want?” Cara whispered.

“You, Cara are the one I want.”

* * * * *

To Kahlan it felt like a warm night, the cold did not touch her. It was part of reality but reality was far away from her, and could not intrude on what she was sharing and feeling with Cara. Her fingers pulled and the belt and Agiels fell to the ground. Her fingers attached lines of lacing at Cara’s hip, as Kahlan’s back was pressed into the ground, and the leaves and rocks felt like the softest bed. It was perfect, seeing the moonlight in Cara’s hair, glistening on her wet lips as her body moved on top of Kahlan.

The touch was so faint she could almost discount it, fingertips running along the inside of her thighs. But then, there, the slightest pressure more just before the fingers reached the apex of her thighs, the place that throbbed for Cara to touch, the soft caress pulled from her chest a low moan as they pulled away, stroked back down the length of her trembling muscles.

“So soft.”

Cara’s whisper make her skin tighten and tremble, made her mouth open as she felt her body respond to the soft contact of Cara’s naked fingers on her inner thigh. Cara had touched her before, like this, but never with her naked hand, and never with the reverence she was displaying now.

Full lips pressed against her breasts, which as her chest heaved with need, became more and more exposed. Fingers pulled and yanked against Kahlan’s corset and as the tightness was released, and her breasts were exposed to the air, her left nipple was consumed by Cara’s warm mouth.

Kahlan’s hips bucked against Cara as her thigh moved between her legs, and wantonly her hands reached for Cara. She wanted desperately to get her hand underneath the leather waistband, and as she managed to loosen the ties, as her fingertips roamed down across firm and soft skin she arched her back up pressed her breasts into Cara’s mouth as she hissed her name. Her fingers moved through the thick curls and pouring wetness between them.

“You are so gentle.” Kahlan whispered.

Panting Cara pulled her mouth from Kahlan’s breasts. “No. Mord–Sith cannot be.”

“You think that is all you are and all you can be.”

“I hold not romantic disillusions, Kahlan. I know what I am. And I know what you are.”

“And that is?”

“You are a Confessor.”

“Am I not a woman?” She asked her fingers moving through Cara’s wet folds, stroking her, “Are you not a woman.”

“Spirits, yes. I am. I… you are… oh Kahlan.”

“Women. A Mord–Sith. A Confessor.”

“Yes.”

“We are so much more than destiny planned for us to be. Enemies in love.”

“Love?”

“Yes. Love. That feeling you have. That emotion that drives you. Moves you. That makes your eyes shine the way they are right now.”

* * * * *

Cara knew the taste of her skin and the scent of Kahlan’s arousal, but there was something distinctly different now. The way her skin seemed to smolder under her kisses, and as Cara’s fingers moved between her wet nether lips, fingertips finding the swollen and dripping inner folds her voice crackled with emotion as she spoke, “I…am not…capable of.”

“Tell me you love me.”

“I” Cara choked and then pressed her hips down as two fingers slid deep inside of her. “Kahlan!”

“I love you Cara.” She vowed.

Breathless Cara moved her wrist and teased her fingertips at Kahlan’s opening, feeling the wetness that was gathering there, feeling how very hot her soft flesh was becoming, and how the muscles seemed to throb and open for Cara. As if beckoning her inside.

“And I am so much more than duty and responsibility. I am who I am because of the life I have lived, and I will be the woman I am because of these moments, and all the moments left to come. I am not perfect, I am alive. Ever changing.” Kahlan was panting now, in time with Cara as she thrust deeper into her, and as Cara still teased, just the tips of her fingers moving in and out of Kahlan.

“Stop talking.”

“Not until you.” Kahlan moaned deeply as Cara pressed inside of her, as she filled her tight center with her two fingers, as her own inner muscles clamped with need around Kahlan’s probing.

“I love you. Please. Stop talking now.”

“Mmhm.” Kahlan leaned her head up to capture Cara’s lips, to kiss her with a hunger and a need that Cara had not expected. And yet it filled her body with the charge of it, the strength of it, and she pulled and sucked Kahlan’s tongue deep into her mouth as her hips and fingers began their match rhythm. The tongue inside her mouth tasted of promise and completeness. The fingers inside of her curled and moved in and out with strokes that made her insides turn to molten steel.

* * * * *

Coming around the corner, and pushing aside the branches of the bush her teeth pressed into her tongue so sharply that the rich blossom of blood greeted her senses. Cara burned like a beacon in the night as the moonlight glistened on her red leather, as her thigh moved between the spread legs of the Mother Confessor. Her hand moved along her neck, as her other hand moved between their writhing bodies, and Dahlia watched as Kahlan’s mouth opened as she panted, “I love you Cara.”

It was as Cara made a noise that Dahlia had never heard, one of deep longing and perhaps emotion that she noticed that the Mother Confessor’s hand was moving slowly between Cara’s legs, that her leathers were very lose around her hips.

“I love you.” Cara whispered, as their bodies moved together. “I love you Kahlan.”

The way they moved together, in perfect synchronicity was foreign to Dahlia. In all the times she had laid with Cara, moved with her, they never did this; never moved to race to that painful pleasure together. Suddenly Dahlia understood why. For all the times she professed her love to Cara, Cara never felt it back. But she did for the Mother Confessor. The one woman Cara was trained to hate, she loved.

“Cara, oh Spirits, Cara.” The Mother Confessor sang her name, and through it Dahlia swallowed her blood, and tried to ignore how she heard Cara whispering, “Kahlan, I love you.”

The grinding of her teeth against one another overtook the sound of their voices, and the tears that filled her eyes took from her the vision of them coming together, of Cara thrusting into the Mother Confessor, of them kissing in a way that did in fact break Dahlia’s heart. She had never known passion and emotion as she was seeing displayed before her.

She was sure that she was dying, and felt her soul leaving her body, leaving her cold and empty.

With an explosion of breath the Mother Confessor’s voice ordered, “Stop. Cara. Stop.”

Closing her eyes, Dahlia turned and began walking away on hollow legs.

* * * * *

“Cara, oh Cara, you need to stop.”

“No.”

“I am close.”

“Good.”

She thrust firmer into the Mord–Sith, reaching deeper. “Cara I can’t hold it back much longer.”

“Then don’t.”

Kahlan blinked, her eyes growing wider, and she knew blacker as she looked up into Cara’s face with disbelief.

“You are here, with me. Stay with me Kahlan. Be with me.”

“If I.”

“Then you do. Don’t hold back. Don’t lock yourself away. Give me everything. Give me all of you.”

“Cara I love you, I can’t.”

* * * * *

“You can. Because you do. Because you love me.”

“Cara!” Kahlan tried to argue.

She silenced her protests with the press of her lips and the curling of her fingers deep inside of the Confessor. Tears boiled in Cara’s eyes, held back by her own stubborn walls. Walls that were so much like those that retained the Confessor’s magic.

Panting their lips wrenched apart and blinking, feeling her own release so close, feeling her tears cutting her cheeks she breathed against Kahlan’s skin.

“I love you.”

* * * * *

The dawn stretched out infinitely before them, and there was a silence to the thick morning mist on the rolling hills in the distance. There was perfection in the breaking of the night; in the slipping away of the shadows where in Kahlan was sure that Cara had allowed her mask and her shell to slip ever so slightly to let her inside. But now with the coming day, the light and the brightness of the sun she was more convinced that the hardness of Cara would return with a vengeance, and she would be left alone, on the outside looking in. She would not let that happen without a fight. As she pulled on her boots, her eyes were firmly on Cara’s naked hands that moved with practice to tighten her belt around her waist. She noticed one of her daggers was missing, but then she noticed the glimmer of steel in the top of Cara’s boot, and part of her felt a hope that perhaps they would not pretend as though the night did not happen. That there could be a future for them together. Taking a foolish chance she spoke.

“Do you think we will ever have another morning like this? Where we can appreciate it for what it is and what it brings?”

“When this is finished? I think you will have a thousand such mornings.”

“With you?” Kahlan asked.

“That is not what you want.”

Kahlan rose to her full height and stepped so close to Cara that she could feel the warmth emanating from her skin. “What I want? Ask me what I want Cara. Ask me if I want this battle to be finished. Ask me what I want at the end, whether that end is with us on the victorious side or facing death itself.”

“So long as your pure heart beats, he will not win.”

“But my heart… is… no longer pure.”

“Meaning?”

“I am turned inside out. I don’t want to be pure. I want to be dark. I want to be a warrior for passion.” She looked at her. “I want you.”

“Kahlan.” Cara almost seemed to shake as she said her name, and the look of intensity in her eyes moved Kahlan forward and their lips came together in a rough and violent kiss. A kiss that spoke of love and spoke of passion. That stole the air from Kahlan’s lungs and made her body ache to know Cara’s touch anew.

Not wanting to, she pulled back slightly. “I have to get back. We will meet up later today.”

Painfully she watched as Cara took a step back, and her eyes seemed to darken with sadness. “Kahlan…. I know we can’t.”

“We can, Cara. We will.” Kahlan reached out, to allow her fingers to caress Cara’s cheek.

“Richard.” A name. An idea. A whole conversation summed up in one name.

“Will learn to understand. And if he doesn’t? Well…. I.”

“He could kill me. You would never kill the Seeker.”

“He would banish you before he killed you. And honestly, Cara, once the Keeper is bested? When I return to Aydindril… I would like it if you returned with me.”

“Do you mean?”

“I mean.”

“Even after all I have done?”

“Because of who you are. And because of what you have done.”

* * * * *

“Where is she?” Raina asked quietly to not wake the snoring Wizard.

“She? Better question is where are they.” Berdine was seething. She had thought better of Cara. Perhaps that was her own mistake, but she had been sure that Cara’s heart was still beating in her chest and had been true in its affections for the Mother Confessor. But for both Cara and Dahlia to be gone all night was an insult to everything Berdine had tried to do.

“Should we go look for them?”

“Damn them both into the care of the Keeper. I am through. If this is the life she wants? Then she can have it.” Berdine kicked at the First Wizard’s feet. “Oi! Wizard. Wake up. We are leaving.”

* * * * *

Cara had waited until Kahlan had mounted her horse and left, and then she waited a little while longer. Her lips were still swollen from the intensity of the kiss Kahlan had left her with, and she slowly moved her finger across her lip as she watched the sun coming over the horizon. She felt as though for the first time she belonged. That there was a reason to live to see the sun set, and to watch it rise again. Her soul felt calm, and there was this warm tingling inside of her that could only be explained away by emotions. Emotions that perhaps made her stronger, not weaker as she had believed. She did feel strong. Strong enough to battle a platoon of hungry banelings, or perhaps even the Keeper himself.

Taking a deep breath in she felt the smile on her lips.

A noise sounded behind her. Too close.

She spun around, to stare into the angry face of Dahlia. Cara’s eyes moved down, just as the blade, the familiar dagger, slammed painfully hard into the center of her chest.

“You want her in your heart over me? Then fine. She is there.” Dahlia spat. “Cold and hard steel that would kill you in time. Well, I will not let that happen. You deserve an honorable death. I am the one giving you that Cara. I love you. One day, you will tell me you love me in return.”

Cara’s eyes went wide, her mouth moved like a fish. She wanted to speak, but could not pull in air to form words, could not even swallow as the pain expanded, followed by the numbness, and the warmth of blood slipping down her chest.

“They can’t hear you. You are almost a league from where they are. Berdine will not find you, or the Wizard. You are dead Cara. The true death. At my hand.”

Dahlia removed her hand from the dagger, and Cara felt her knees weaken, and as she fell backwards her eyes became clouded, and then darkness prevailed, before the bright screams of the Underworld erupted around her.

* * * * *

“I was beginning to worry” Richard said from where he sat beside the smoldering fire.

“There was no need.” Kahlan said, and slipped down from her horse. The ride was hard over the rocky ground, but she made it back quickly. He looked as though he was just about to have breakfast. And he looked well rested.

“But you know me.” Richard smiled up at her. “I worry about you.”

“I know.” She said, wondering how best to explain. She knew that she should do it now, before they met up with the others, before she knew a glance at the two of them together would be more than enough for Richard to know the truth.

“Did you find them?” He asked, and she was surprised, but kept her expression even.

“I did.”

“Good. Let me check the traps I set last night and we will be off. Knowing Zedd as I do if we were to come back empty handed.” He laughed, and she tried to smile for him. She honestly did. But it refused to reach her eyes, and probably wouldn’t until the secrets she harbored were released.

Kahlan set about getting water for her horse, as Richard left, and then gathered up her sleeping blankets and her pack. A twig snapped behind her, and she thought it was too soon for Richard to be back. “Nothing in the traps?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

Kahlan stood up to see Dahlia standing behind her, Agiel in her hand. She took one step closer and backhanded Kahlan with the weapon, and she felt the pulsing sting of its pain.

* * * * *

The look of surprise in her blue eyes was beautiful, and Dahlia knew it would only blossom and grow into something even more alluring.

She kicked out at the Mother Confessor, and she fell onto her back. She spoke harsh words, and asked idiotic questions, but all Dahlia could hear was Cara’s voice vowing her love for this woman. This enemy.

Her Agiel slammed into the Mother Confessor’s thigh, and she growled in pain. Dahlia looked deep into her blue eyes and spoke very plainly.

The way the Mother Confessor’s blue eyes turned color, thick with knowledge did not disappoint. The pain and anguish in them was one of the most beautiful things Dahlia had ever seen.

* * * * *

Dahlia’s eyes told the story that words could never articulate properly. Still her lips pulled into thin lines and the words were spoken yet Kahlan Amnell did not hear them. All she knew was the pain in her chest, the inability to take in breath as muscles constricted, and locked around her.

She did not even feel it when Dahlia’s hand grabbed her hair and pulled her to her feet. Nor did she feel the Agiel that slammed into her stomach. She could not feel anything beyond the panic and the pain radiating from her heart.

When she collided with the tree, and sunk to her knees, and the flavor of blood tickled her tongue she was able to take in a gasping breath for the first time since Dahlia’s words.

But breathing made the pain in her heart worse.

* * * * *

“Where is she?” Cara asked in a hiss as she became aware of her surroundings. As the pain of the Underworld still radiated from her skin, and as the ache in her chest still took her breath with the pain. She had not expected to return, and it felt like years since she had looked into Dahlia’s eyes as she felt herself dying. But now looking up at Berdine she knew she was returned to the living, and she had a promise to keep.

To make Dahlia suffer.

And to protect Kahlan.

“We don’t know. She wasn’t here when we found you.”

“Kahlan.” Cara groaned pushing herself away from Berdine, and off the ground.

“You’re welcome.” Berdine pouted.

“If she.” Cara felt the tightness in her bowels and the pain lancing itself across her chest, and she turned sharply and vomited. Thinking about what could be happening, Cara dry heaved and her eyes burned with the pressure of it. “If she dared to kill me. Then.” Cara panted.

“She would seek out the Mother Confessor.” Raina said softly, setting her hand on Cara’s back, but she shrugged it away angrily.

“If she dares, I will destroy her.” Cara vowed as she stood straight, the pain and anguish thundering in her heart.

“I am sure the Mother Confessor will prevail.”

“I’ll follow Dahlia to the Underworld, just to hurt her.” Cara growled, moving towards the two horses loitering nearby. She mounted the first, and felt a hand on her thigh. Annoyed she looked down at Berdine, who offered her a sad smile and her hand.

“You may want this.”

In her palm was a bloody dagger. Kahlan’s dagger. She took it but vowed, “My hands will do just as well.”

* * * * *

Her mind raced in a thousand terrifying directions, all thoughts flying down the path of possibilities, all merging together in an explosion of searing pain and becoming a hatred that hurt like nothing she had ever experienced before. Cara was dead.

She flew at the Mord–Sith, landing a punch to her neck that sent her staggering backwards a step, which was enough for her to reach for her dagger. But in her haste, Kahlan reached for the dagger that was not there. The blistering pain of the Agiel rammed into her side and she felt more than heard her rib bone snap.

Her hand wrapped around Dahlia’s throat, and Kahlan was so enraged and so focused that the Agiel pressing into her side was an afterthought.

“I will kill you, before you even have the chance to.”

Kahlan tightened her fingers, silencing her.

Her eyes bulged and she felt her mouth become dry, causing her words to sound brittle and scorched. “Perhaps you don’t understand what a Mother Confessor is capable of, Dahlia. I don’t care if you kill me. You took my heart from me. You killed Cara. For that I will end you.”

“So you would die alongside me.”

“Gladly, there is nothing for me now. Not without her. This world will not be the same without her.”

Dahlia tried to laugh. “You think you love her.”

“Of course I do.” Kahlan growled back. “Just as she loves me.”

“You would be wrong. She willingly came to me.” Dahlia spat.

“Willingly turned you down. I was there. I saw.”

“You…did…”

“I was there and when she shoved you away? She came to me.”

“Maybe so but you could never truly be with her. Not without destroying her.”

Kahlan mocked her openly. “Oh, you are wrong. I was with Cara. Completely.”

“You are lying.” Dahlia pressed her Agiel into Kahlan’s shoulder, but it felt like a pinprick, nothing more.

“I have no reason to lie. I am the Mother Confessor. She is my lover, and.” Blue burned amid the red of her eyes as Kahlan’s fingers dug into Dahlia’s neck. She could feel it coming. Her own rage and desperation boiled in her blood. “You took her from me.” Kahlan hissed vehemently.

“Better death by my hand than death by your love.” Dahlia replied.

“You ignorant fool.” Kahlan said, and felt her magic begging to be free. To avenge Cara.

“Stop.” Cara’s voice was rough as she stomped toward them, Berdine and Raina trailing behind her. The Agiel trembled in Dahlia’s hand; it wanted to press into Kahlan again.

“Richard, back away.”

Kahlan blinked, suddenly realizing he was standing behind Dahlia. Looking she saw that The Sword of Truth was buried two inches into Dahlia’s back.

Kahlan’s eyes widened.

She had been so consumed with killing Dahlia, exacting her revenge she had not seen past her own anger and her eyes. Richard had heard everything.

And Cara was alive.

She released Dahlia, who fell away, and further onto Richard’s sword with a pained moan. Kahlan did not care, as she wrapped her arms around Cara and pressed her face to her neck, releasing the sob from her lips along with Cara’s name.

* * * * *

He was sitting beside the lake, the Sword of Truth resting on his lap. Being in the shadows she could watch unobserved as he ran his fingers over the length of the steel, before the back of his hand roughly moved against his eyes and nose. Crying. She had never seen him cry before. She moved to take a step forward, her instinct to comfort him, before she had taken a moment to think. But she was stopped in her tracks as he lifted the sword and slowly pulled the blade against his forearm. The smallest cut remained, and he ran the flat of the blade through it. She seemed to know he was feeding it, giving it a taste of something, of blood. And perhaps whatever he was feeling. Rage, vengeance, even sorrow. She could not be sure.

She took a step back as red leather entered the clearing behind him.

“There is no need for such a ritual.”

“No need? Things are spiraling out of control.” He said softly.

Cara stood behind him, close enough to set her hand on his shoulder, but she did not.

Kahlan held her breath and waited.

“In the chaos of the moment, when things are out of control they are, perhaps aligning as they should.”

“That’s more words strung together by you than I have heard in a very long time.”

Cara shrugged, and Richard stood, slipping the sword back into its sheath.

“The Keeper is playing games.” Richard said crossing his arms.

“That would be the easiest answer.”

“You disagree?”

“Life…gives us what we can handle. Even when it seems to be too much? It is not.” Cara crossed her arms as well, mirroring him. “You are alive. Kahlan is alive. You will defeat the Keeper and peace will return to the land.”

“You say those words, but your tone is one of resignation.”

“I gave my life to Lord Rahl when I was a child. And for now my life is still yours.” She turned to face him. “So of course I am resigned.”

“To.”

“Everything.”

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

Kahlan’s brow furrowed, confused as to what they were talking about. It seemed as though so much more was passing between them. Yes, Cara served Richard, but between them there was more than master and servant. There was respect, but there was also a kind of love.

“Doesn’t it?”

“Life.” Cara smiled at him. “In it there is good and there is bad. And I have learned, that the good? It survives.”

Confused, Kahlan stepped back into the shadows.

* * * * *

“Command me and I will snap her neck.” Berdine offered as Kahlan came back into the clearing. The two Mord–Sith were standing over Dahlia, who was without her Agiel, and who Zedd had healed. She no longer looked like a threat. She looked resigned as well. To whatever fate awaited her.

“No you won’t. You will look after her, like you look after Raina, and Cara.”

Berdine growled and crossed her arms.

“Go attempt to scare some chipmunks with your false bravado. I would like to talk to Dahlia.”

Berdine’s eyebrows rose, but she did not argue. Instead she reached for Raina’s hand, and they stepped away.

“You should just let them rip me apart. Or perhaps allow the Lord Rahl too. I can see that he is not very fond of those of us in red at the moment.” Dahlia said.

“What happened to wanting me to end your life?” Kahlan asked, sitting beside her.

Her blue eyes looked up, rounding with shock and expectation. Her hand went around her throat. “Dahlia, I know you love her, and I know that if you love her, truly, you will let her be happy.”

She felt her swallow against her hand. “But the true death.”

“Cara will not die the true death. Not by my hand.”

“You are a Confessor. She is Mord–Sith. How?”

“I love her.” At her words, tears began falling from Dahlia’s eyes. “I would never kill her.” Kahlan’s hand slipped down to her shoulder. “Not like that. I will never confess Cara.”

“And… you are sure?”

“As sure as the sun rising.”

Dahlia worried her bottom lip, harshly, and the pause became longer, deeper. Filled only with the sounds of Dahlia’s crying.

As her breathing evened out she finally spoke again. “You are so susceptible to distraction. Do you not think that is what the Keeper is counting on?” Dahlia asked tears still coming down her cheeks.

“And that is why we need women like you. To help us in this battle.”

“To win. Perhaps I am not the sort who can be better than I am.”

Slowly, Kahlan wiped a tear from Dahlia’s cheek. “We do what we do not to be better, and not to win. It is so that the children and the senile can wake tomorrow, and who can live a boring and simple life. That is why we do what we do.”

* * * * *

“If I asked, would you tell me what that was about?” Kahlan asked, referring to her and Richard, as she felt Cara near.

“If you asked, I would tell you everything, and anything.” Cara honestly replied.

Kahlan took a moment to pause, to allow her eyes to look over the foothills and mountains before them. The lush green of the valley they would cross, before the distant thickness of the trees. Her eyes moved to Cara beside her, and she felt a soft smile emerge as she realized that Cara’s answer was the only one she truly needed. Whatever transpired between Richard and Cara was between them. Details were inconsequential.

“What now?”

“Now?” Cara said softly. “Now they will go back to the People’s Palace, back into the arms of pain and desperation. And they will keep an eye on things, and on Dahlia, and if there is cause, Berdine and Raina will stand for Lord Rahl.”

“And?”

“And you will save the world with Richard.”

“What of you Cara?” Kahlan asked.

“I will be at your side.”

Kahlan took her hand and squeezed it tenderly. In that touch she felt that come what may, it would be worth it.

Cara returned the touch, and as their hands released, Cara’s voice harshly critiqued, “You need to take care to sharpen your daggers more.”

“What?” Kahlan asked shocked.

“It took me far too long to die.” Cara said, bumping their shoulders together before she turned back to camp.

Kahlan smiled and shook her head. That was her Cara.

::: fin :::