“Children?” he said, leaning forward as much as the restraints allowed, as if staring with his bloody eye sockets.
“Yes, children,” she said. “Those children will carry the power of the Rahl line and the Confessors. That’s how it has always worked. That is how it was passed down to us. That is how magic will go on to survive in our world. Our magic will continue unbroken through them. It will always help to keep her kind away from our people. Magic will pass on and always protect our world.”
Again he shook his head. “She sees that you have been together for enough time to have reproduced. She sees that you have failed to breed successfully and bring forth successors as others of our kind have. As mates, you both have proven to be barren. She sees that your lines of magic are dead ends, that your world is nearly ripe for the taking.”
Seeing Kahlan standing there, in a dungeon, discussing such personal matters with this man who had tried to kill her made Richard feel profoundly sorry for her. The war had robbed them of the chance to have children. She never mentioned it, but he knew how devastated she had been to have lost the child the one time she had been pregnant. And then the world had nearly come apart. With their lives drawn into so much terror and death, they could hardly bring a child into the world.
He had been hoping that the new golden age would finally provide that opportunity for a family, but now, with this dire threat from the Golden Goddess… it looked like their chance for children had just slipped away.
“Just because we haven’t had children yet,” Kahlan said, “doesn’t mean that we couldn’t still have children to carry on our lines.”
“She does not care.”
Kahlan blinked. “Why wouldn’t she care—that would ruin her whole plan to outlive our gift?”
“She does not care because the young of any species are commonly helpless, ours especially so. You may be hard to kill, but young ones are easy to kill. They do not yet have magic that can protect them. Infants are even easier to slaughter. Her kind lusts to kill the young of any species because they more easily succumb to helpless terror.
“If you were to have children that would only serve to excite their prey drive even more. Your children would be irresistible to her. She would come for them, magic or no magic, and she would kill them the way we would step on a cockroach.”
Tears welled up in Kahlan’s eyes, fury twisted her features as her hands fisted at her sides. “I want your Golden Goddess dead! I want you dead!”
Richard straightened, not expecting her sudden proclamation.
At her words, blood began to run from the man’s ears. His body shuddered violently, and then he slumped heavily in the restraints. Once touched by a Confessor’s power, a person lived only to serve her. If she wished them dead, they complied without hesitation.
She had just wished him dead. It was as an execution.
This man had tried to kill her. He had driven his knife into her chest in the hope of stabbing her through the heart, even if with the Golden Goddess commanding him. For that, Richard wasn’t at all displeased that he was dead. But he had the larger picture in mind.
He stepped close to put a hand on her shoulder. “Kahlan, why would you kill him? He may have been able to provide more information.”
“The goddess will grant no mercy,” she said as tears ran down her cheeks. “Neither will I.”
That was the iron will that inspired them all and had helped win the war. Although he would have liked to have access to more information, Richard wouldn’t change her for anything.
He could see that the ordeal, both physical and emotional, had drained what strength she had left. Her face grew ashen.
And then he saw a wet red stain at her side spreading through the white dress.
Shale rushed forward to help him just as Kahlan collapsed.
17
Even though she knew she was in a deep sleep, Kahlan could hear herself screaming.
The pain was unbearable. She wanted to die just to end the agony, but in the strange, confusing landscape of dreams, death eluded her.
She had been in this place before, in this strange, twisted world of abject agony that distorted everything into one single, focused fixation on wanting the pain to stop. She begged for the pain to stop, but the blanket of sleep only helped to keep her immobilized and helpless.
Her hands gripped fistfuls of the bedsheets. She twisted her fists as the pain twisted in her. She panted as fast as she could, trying to get the air she so desperately needed but failing. She thought she might suffocate in that state of powerless burning need.
Somewhere in the distance she heard a comforting voice reassuring her. It sounded like a good spirit. That thought jolted her with a new fear—a fear that she was already dead.
She realized, then, that in death such worldly pain would be a thing of the past. She knew firsthand that death held its own agonies, but physical pain was not one of them.
Kahlan began, then, to feel the suffering starting to wane. It was the greatest blessing possible to have the pain ease, even if only a little. Gradually, her screams died down to moans until after a while she could begin to catch her breath. Even through the haze of sleep, she was aware of at last being able to breathe again.
As the pain abated bit by bit, it allowed her to drift off into a deeper, more normal sleep, where everything faded away into a dream world of every worry, every bizarre, warped fear all blended together into the kind of stark fright unique to dreams.
Her deepest personal fears, fears that were new to her, would not leave her be, even in sleep. Not after what Nolo had told her.
After a seeming eternity spent in that suspended dream state, her eyes finally opened. She was covered in a sheen of sweat. She pulled the neck of the nightdress up, trying to cool herself. She knew she had been asleep for quite some time, but she had no idea how long it had been. The heavy drapes were drawn, so she didn’t know if it was day or night, but at least she was in their bedroom, where she was safe.
Kahlan lifted her head a little and saw that Shale was sitting close by in a comfortable chair, her head slumped, her eyes closed, her breathing even. The woman was gallingly beautiful, with that kind of feminine voice that made Kahlan think she sounded like a frog in comparison. How was it fair that such an alluring woman could have a voice like that?
Kahlan wondered if Richard thought the sorceress was beautiful. She knew he had to.
She smiled to herself then, knowing that Richard thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Sometimes she thought she must have tricked him into thinking that. It was a wonderful feeling, though, having him be obsessed with her. It was a wonderful feeling being obsessed with him.
She wanted nothing more right then than to hold him, than to tell him. But how could she? She wished more than anything that she hadn’t yelled at him.
When she tried to sit up and an unexpected pain made her gasp, Shale’s eyes opened. The sorceress rushed to sit on the edge of the bed.
Kahlan felt a keen sense of comfort to have the woman close.
Shale put a compassionate hand on Kahlan’s arm as she smiled down at her. “There you are.” She smoothed Kahlan’s hair back from her forehead. “There you are.” She looked relieved and radiantly happy to see that Kahlan was alive.
Kahlan took up the sorceress’s hand in both of hers and held it against her cheek. Her gratitude for Shale saving her life seemed unable to be expressed in any other way.
“Where’s Richard?” Kahlan finally asked. “Where are the Mord-Sith?”
“I made Richard go get some sleep by threatening to use a spell to put him down if he didn’t do it voluntarily. He grumbled but complied. The Mord-Sith wanted to stay, but I find it an uneasy feeling to do a healing that makes people scream in pain when their protectors are nearby with Agiel in their fists. I made them go get some sleep, too.”