“What does this Golden Goddess want with our world?”
“She is a collector of worlds.”
Kahlan could only stare at the man.
“Where is she,” she finally asked. “What land?”
Nolo looked a bit confused. “She is the Golden Goddess.” His confusion turned to a glare. “She must be obeyed.”
Kahlan pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. Nolo was going around in circles. Diplomats, and the consul general of Estoria in particular, were experts at obfuscation. Kahlan wasn’t having any of it.
“I need a great deal more information than that. You need to explain this whole thing to me. All of it.”
Nolo shrugged, as if perplexed. “I have told you everything you need to know, Mother Confessor. There is nothing more to tell or anything more you need to know. You have the command from the Golden Goddess and you must comply.”
Kahlan showed him a humorless smile. “I’m afraid that there is a whole lot more I need to know, and one way or another you are going to tell me.”
He looked mildly amused. “I’m afraid you fail to understand your position.”
Kahlan’s smile, as humorless as it had been, left. “What, exactly, do I fail to understand?”
“The Golden Goddess is going to have your world.”
“Yes, you’ve already said that. But there is no force left powerful enough to challenge the peace that the D’Haran Empire has brought to the world. Wars that had burned for thousands of years have been ended. Lord Rahl ended them. There is no one left strong enough to challenge the empire or his rule.”
“Yes, but what you fail to understand, Mother Confessor, is just how fragile that empire really is. You and Lord Rahl are the power that holds the empire’s might together. Without you both, the empire—your world—crumbles. The Golden Goddess has merely to wait for you both to die, of old age if nothing else. So you see, should you both manage to somehow survive, the Golden Goddess will have this world in the end, one way or another.
“She would prefer not to wait for your eventual death, so she wants you both to surrender your world now. You can’t win in this. It is time you recognize that and surrender.”
“What the Golden Goddess fails to understand is that the House of Rahl has stood for thousands of years. It will continue to stand and to rule.”
Nolo looked even more amused. “I think not. But I have an alternative for you, although not for Lord Rahl.”
“Are you making a proposal of some kind?”
He showed her a devious smile. “Yes, a proposal. I would like to put forward a private negotiation just between you and me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Lord Rahl is not the only one at the dead end of his lineage. You are the last Confessor, the last of your line.”
Kahlan folded her arms and peered down at him, but didn’t answer. The line of Confessors was none of this man’s business.
“You have been with Richard Rahl for what—years, now?”
“If you have a point, you had better get to it soon.”
“The point, Mother Confessor, is that Richard Rahl has failed in his duty as a man.”
She frowned. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“He has failed in all this time to give you a child to carry on not only the Rahl line, but the Confessor line as well. In all the times you have given your body to him, he has failed to put you with child. He is not a real man. He is weak, and his seed is obviously worthless. Your empire is on the verge of crumbling because of that and you don’t even realize it.”
Kahlan had been pregnant before, but had been severely beaten and as a result lost the baby. That was none of this man’s business.
Nolo twirled a hand in the air, making his false chins jiggle. “In all this time he has failed to continue the Rahl line, and now his inability to father a child also threatens to be the end of the Confessor line as well. So you see, Mother Confessor, what you need—if you are to carry on the line of the Confessors—is a man who can give you a child.”
He abruptly pumped his hips toward her in a lewd fashion, leaving no doubt as to what he meant. “I am here to negotiate for the service you need to continue your line. I am here to offer you my seed so you may conceive.”
Kahlan’s arms came unfolded in disbelief as her fists dropped to her sides. She thought that Richard must be right—this man was simply deranged.
“Even if I did need someone else to father a child,” she said, her anger driving her to ask, “what in the world makes you think for a second that I would pick you?”
An arrogant smile further plumped his already plump cheeks. “I think you would be wise to select me for this task because I could negotiate with the goddess to allow you to live.” He flicked a hand dismissively. “Lord Rahl, of course, would have to die.”
“Is this what your goddess suggested?”
“No, of course not. This is simply my idea of sparing you the suffering that is to come if you don’t agree to her terms. A way out, if you will, for yourself. I might be able to see to it that you could live to raise your Confessor child—the child I sire.”
“You must be out of your mind,” Kahlan said. “I would die first.”
“That’s hardly a wise negotiating position.”
“There is nothing to negotiate.” At the end of her patience, Kahlan gritted her teeth. “It is the threat from your goddess we are here to discuss, and nothing else. I have heard enough of your own nonsense and I will hear no more of it.
“Surely you must realize that, as a Confessor, I am going to insist on your cooperation in telling me everything you know about this Golden Goddess. This is not a negotiation, Consul General. You will not leave this room alive unless you tell me every bit of what you know.”
He paced off a few steps, then turned back. “You are correct, Mother Confessor… in that one of us is not going to leave this room alive. You have made a foolish mistake in turning down my generous offer to negotiate on your behalf to spare your life. Since I am the only one who could have helped you and you are turning me down, you have sealed your fate.
“You are the one who will not leave this room alive.”
Kahlan had a hard time believing that an Estorian would make such an open threat.
She believed it when he pulled a knife from a sheath at his waist under his cloak.
He charged toward her with the knife.
As he came crashing in on her, Kahlan thrust her hand out, her palm turned up.
It may have all seemed lightning fast to him, seemed that he had the advantage—but not to Kahlan. She had known that he had the knife and had let him keep it to see if he would dare to try to use it. Even with a knife and even had he been more agile and a great deal faster, he still would have had no chance against a Confessor. None.
But in the attempt, he had erased her last shred of doubt and sealed his own fate.
As the very tip of the razor-sharp blade touched the palm of her upturned hand, her Confessor power had already slammed time to a stop.
The tip of that blade felt less than a feather touching her palm.
Time was hers, now.
This man was hers, now.
While some of the other Confessors had needed to deliberately invoke their power, Kahlan never had. Her birthright was always there deep inside her, a coiled fury that had to be continually restrained rather than occasionally summoned. She had always had to tightly contain it lest it slip its bonds unintentionally. To use it, she had only to withdraw that restraint. It all happened in an infinitesimal glimmer of an instant.
This man had condemned himself when he pulled a knife intending to kill her. Worse than that, in her eyes, he had threatened Richard’s life as well as the lives of all the people she and Richard protected.