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After the horses were secured, the legate and Cara ushered the brides and bridegrooms to a crumbling, circular garden structure made up of curved stone benches on one side and broken columns on the other. The top piece, connecting the columns, was mostly missing, joining only four of the ten stone columns.
In the distance, in the fading light, Kahlan could still see the knife edge of the cliff, and the black swath of mountains beyond. Somewhere out there was the Temple of the Winds.
Kahlan was directed to sit on a curved stone bench beside Drefan, and Richard, two benches away, was told to sit beside Nadine. Kahlan glanced over, and saw Richard looking back, but then Drefan leaned forward and blocked her view of Richard. She turned her attention to the legate and Cara standing before them. The six sisters stood behind their husband.
“We are gathered here,” the legate and Cara said as one, “to wed Richard Rahl and Nadine Brighton, and to wed Kahlan Amnell and Drefan Rahl. This is the most solemn of rites; it binds in the most earnest of vows, and commits these mates for life. This marriage is sanctioned and witnessed by the spirits themselves.”
Kahlan stared at the weeds sprouting from the cracks in the disintegrating stone floor as she only partly listened to the words about loyalty, fidelity, and obligation. It was so warm and muggy that she could hardly breathe. Her white Mother Confessor’s dress was sticking to her back. Sweat trickled down between her breasts.
Kahlan’s head came up when Drefan started lifting her with a hand under her arm. “What? What is it?”
“It is time,” he said. “Come.”
And then she was standing before the legate and Cara, with Drefan beside her, and three of the legate’s wives at her other side as her attendants. She looked past Drefan to see Richard standing beside Nadine, with the other three Andolians serving as her attendants. Nadine wore a smile.
“If anyone has any objections to the wedding of these people, they must speak now, for once it is done, it cannot be undone.”
“I have an objection,” Richard said.
“What is it?” the legate asked.
“The winds said that this had to be of our own free will. It is not. We are being coerced into this. We are being told that people will die if we don’t do this. I don’t do this of my own free will; I do this only to save lives.”
“Do you wish to save the lives of the people who will die if the magic stolen from the Temple of the Winds is not stopped?” the legate asked.
“Of course I do.”
“This wedding is part of that attempt. If you do not go through with it, then they will die. You wish to save them. This qualifies as your free will as far as the spirits involved are concerned.
“If you wish to withdraw your agreement to this, then it must be now, before the vows. Afterwards, you may not change your mind.”
Muggy silence hung in the air.
She was plummeting helpless into the inky depths. It was all happening too fast. Too fast for her to get a breath.
“I wish to speak with Richard, if I am to do this. Before I do this,” Kahlan said. “Alone.”
The legate and Cara stared at her a moment. “Then hurry,” they said as one. “There is not much time. The moon rises.”
They both walked far enough away from the circle that Kahlan could be reasonably sure they couldn’t be heard. She stood close, facing him.
She wanted Richard to save them from this. He had to save them. He had to do something, now, or it would be too late.
“Richard, we’re out of time. Is there anything? Can you think of anything at all to stop this? Any way we can still save those people and not have to do this?”
Richard stood close to her, and yet a world away. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any other solution. Forgive me,” he whispered. “I have failed you.”
She shook her head. “No, you didn’t. Don’t ever think that, Richard. I don’t. The spirits have made it impossible for us to win. They wish this, and have put us in a double bind.
“But at least, if we go through with this, Jagang will not win. That is more important. How many lovers, like us, will be able to have a life, now, have happiness, now, have children, now, because of the sacrifice we make this night?”
Richard smiled that smile that melted her heart. “That’s one reason I love you so much: your passion. Even if I never see you again, I’ve known true happiness with you. True love. How many ever experience even this small taste?”
Kahlan swallowed. “Richard, if we do this, we have to be true to our vows, don’t we. We can’t… still be together… sometimes, can we?”
The way his jaw trembled, and his eyes filled with tears, was more than answer enough.
Just before they fell into each other’s arms, Cara was there, between them.
“It is time. What are your wishes?”
“I have a lot of them,” Richard said with sudden venom. “Which do you want to hear?”
“The winds wish to know if you will do this, or not.”
“We will do it,” Richard growled. “But the spirits had better know that I will have revenge.”
“The winds are simply doing the only thing they can do to stop the death caused by what was stolen from them,” Cara said with sudden compassion, but still with that haunting quality that told Kahlan that it wasn’t Cara speaking, but the winds. “They do not do this out of animosity.”
“A wise man once told me that dead is dead, no matter the how,” Richard said.
He defiantly took Kahlan’s hand and walked with her back to the circle of stone, where they each took their places beside their chosen.
Kahlan wore her Confessor’s face as she stood beside Drefan. She felt pain for Richard; he had not grown up being taught how to subjugate his emotions, his longings, his desires—for duty. She had had a lifetime to prepare for this final torment. He had had a lifetime to prepare for the opposite, expecting he would have happiness. Kahlan had only briefly felt the warmth of that flame.
With deliberate care, she ignored the words spoken to Nadine, and then to Drefan, words of loyalty and devotion to their mate. Kahlan instead focused her mind on Richard, hoping to pass to him some strength, hoping that he could get through this, so that they could save those stricken and stop the plague. Richard still had to get into the Temple of the Winds. He needed strength.
Soon, the ceremony would be over, and they would head back to Aydindril. Perhaps they would have to wait until Richard went into the temple, and did what he had to do, and then they would return to Aydindril. In any event, it wouldn’t be long, and she would be going home, home to the place she had grown up, to a life of duty to which she had been bred.
“Yes or no?” the legate said.
Kahlan looked up. “What?”
He glanced up at the threatening clouds and then took a hurried breath. “Do you swear to honor this man, to obey him as the master of your home, to care for his needs when he is well, and when he is ill, and to be his loyal wife in this life as long as you both live?”
Kahlan glanced up at Drefan. She wondered what he had sworn to.
“I swear to whatever it is that is required of me to stop the plague.”
“Yes or no?”
Kahlan let out an angry sigh. “Is this what is required of me to stop the magic stolen from the winds from killing people?”
“It is.”
In her mind, she swore the oath, but to Richard, not Drefan. She would swear words aloud to Drefan, but her heart would always be Richard’s. Kahlan’s fists tightened. “Then, yes, I swear to do what is required to stop the plague. I swear not one stitch more, nor for one breath longer, than that required of me.”
“Then in full view of the spirits, and by the power of the spirits, you are now pronounced husband and wife.”
Kahlan doubled over in sudden pain. It felt as if her insides had been torn apart. She tried to pull a breath. It wouldn’t come. She saw swirling color before her wide eyes.
Drefan put his arm around
her waist. “What is it? Kahlan, what’s wrong?”
Her legs buckled, but he held her up.
“It is the spirits,” came the legate and Cara’s voice together, “they have bound her power. She is to live this marriage as any woman wed to a man. Her power would have interfered.”
“You can’t do that!” Richard screamed. “She’ll be defenseless! You can’t take her power!”
“Her power was not taken, but walled away so she cannot use it for the term of her vows to her husband, Drefan Rahl. It is done,” the two said together. “You will now swear to the vows, or you will lose your chance to help the winds.”
Kahlan stared at the ground, feeling a swirl of emptiness, feeling the void between her mind and her power, as she listened to similar words spoken before Richard. She couldn’t hear his answer, but he must have said what was required because the legate pronounced him and Nadine husband and wife.
They had not only taken her love, but her Confessor’s power, as the price of the path. The emptiness threatened to smother her. The profound and sudden sense of loss clouded her mind with blackness darker than the falling night.
Drefan took her arm. “Here, you’d better sit down. Even in this light, as a healer I can see that you are not well.”
