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“Tasks? Warren, what’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“His Excellency has a new prophet!” Warren cried out. “Please, stop the pain! I will serve! I will serve as I am commanded!”
Verna crouched over him. “Warren!”
It felt as if a white-hot steel rod slammed through her skull. Verna cried out as she clamped her hands to her head. Nothing in her entire life of one hundred fifty-six years had prepared her for the fount of pain erupting in her mind. The room went black. She felt the floor smack her face. Her arms and legs twitched with the agony.
Baleful laughter danced through the hot torture, like flames through a ruin.
Verna prayed to the Creator that she would black out. Her prayer went unanswered.
Above her, she heard a voice. Janet’s voice.
“I’m so sorry Verna. You should never have come here to try to rescue us. You will serve His Excellency, now, as his slaves.”
The blond one, Cara, followed him into the reception room. She stayed three paces behind, as he had ordered. She always wore her red leather, now, as he had ordered. He liked the way the red leather made them look like they were sheathed in blood. One of them was was always there, with him, a bloodred reminder of the slick, sticky debauchery to come.
Her blue eyes turned away when he glanced back over his shoulder. He knew that she stayed only to be near Kahlan. That was fine by him. That she stayed was all that mattered. She was harmless, now, but it looked better if the Lord Rahl had an escort of guards like her—a proper accoutrement of his rank.
And he was the Lord Rahl, now, as the whispers from the ethers had promised him. Only he had the intellect to perceive the voices, the wisdom to hear them, the acumen to heed them. It had brought him triumph. Attention to detail had brought him his rewards. His extraordinary insight had brought him to the place of power he had always deserved. His gift was his genius, and it would serve him better than mere magic.
He was a man above others, and for good reason. He was superior to others—a man of rare understanding, instinct, and rare ethics, unadulterated by the twisted excuses women put to their vulgar pleasures.
His own virtue intoxicated him.
Kahlan glanced up when she saw him striding into the room. Her face showed a blankness, an expression she wore almost constantly. She only thought it showed nothing. To him, it revealed a panoply of emotion. Immersed in the details of her bewitching face, he could discern the rich flux of emotions she tried to hide.
He saw the way she looked at him. He had caught her glances at his body in the past. He knew: she wanted him. She hungered for him. She wanted pleasure from him.
That she tried to deny it only excited him all the more. That she covered her hunger for him with harsh words only proved it to him. That she pretended revulsion only showed him the extraordinary depths of her need.
When she finally gave in to her lust, it would be all the more glorious for the wait, for the abstinence, for the yearning, for the delayed fulfillment. Then, at long last, he would give her what she wanted. Then he would hear her screams.
The general with Kahlan bowed. “Good morning—Lord Rahl.”
“What’s this?” he asked. He didn’t like it when the soldiers brought things to Kahlan without seeing to informing the Lord Rahl first.
“It’s just the morning reports, Drefan,” Kahlan said in that flat tone of hers.
“Then why wasn’t I informed? Reports should come to the Lord Rahl first.”
General Kerson stole a glance at Kahlan. He bowed again. “As you wish, Lord Rahl. I just thought—”
“I do the thinking. You do the soldiering.”
The general cleared his throat. “Of course, Lord Rahl.”
“So, what do the morning reports have to say?”
The general glanced to Kahlan again. Drefan saw the slight nod. As if the general needed permission from the Lord Rahl’s wife to report. Drefan let it pass, as he always did. He enjoyed her games, the way she thought he missed things. It amused him.
“Well, Lord Rahl, the plague is nearly over.”
“Describe ‘nearly over,’ if you would, please. As a healer, vagueness hardly does me any good.”
“In the last week, the deaths from the plague have dropped to only three confirmed cases last night. Nearly everyone who was sick when Lord”—he caught himself—“when Richard left has recovered. Whatever Richard did—”
“My brother died, that’s what he did. I am the healer. I am the one responsible for the plague ending.”
Kahlan lost the calm look. Her expression twisted to tightly controlled rage. He wondered how her face would twist were it pain, were it terror. He would know, in the end.
“Richard went to the Temple of the Winds. He sacrificed himself to save everyone. Richard! Not you, Drefan, Richard!”
Drefan dismissed her tirade with a casual flip of his hand. “Nonsense. What did Richard know of healing? I am the healer. It is Lord Rahl who has saved his people from the plague.” Drefan raised a finger to the general. “And you had better see to it that that everyone knows it.”
Kahlan gave her slight nod to the general again.
“Yes, Lord Rahl,” the general said. “I will personally see to it that everyone knows that it was Lord Rahl himself who stopped the plague.”
Kahlan’s face showed the slightest hint of a smile at the general’s ambiguous response. Drefan let it go. He had more important business than her disrespect for her husband.
“And what else have you to report, general?”
“Well, Lord Rahl, it seems that some of our units are… missing.”
“Missing? How can troops be missing? I want them found. We must have the army together to defend against the Imperial Order. I won’t have the D’Haran empire fall to the Imperial Order because my officers fail to maintain discipline!”
“Yes, Lord Rahl. I have already sent scouts to find the troops who have… wandered off from their stations.”
“It’s the bond, Drefan,” Kahlan said. “The D’Harans aren’t bonded to you. The army is breaking up, wandering off aimlessly because they have lost the bond, lost their leader. They don’t know what to do. They are without a Lord Rahl—”
He struck her. The sharp sound reverberated through the room. “Stand up!” He waited until she regained her feet. “I’ll not have insolence from my wife! Do you understand?”
Kahlan pressed her fingers to her nose, trying to halt the flow of blood. The crimson tide flooded over her fingers and lips and down her chin. The sight of it nearly drove a gasp from him. The sight of the Mother Confessor with blood on her made his hands shake. He longed for the slicing, for the sight of blood everywhere on her, for her screams, for her terror.
But he could wait until she begged for it. As had Nadine. He had enjoyed Nadine’s perverted hunger. He had relished her surprise, her terror, her agony, before he cast her over the side of the mountain, still alive, so she could think about her vile nature
all the way down. It had sated him—for now.
He could wait until the Mother Confessor’s true corruption finally surfaced once again, as it had the first night. Richard must have been horrified to discover how much she really wanted his brother, that the woman he had loved was as impure as any whore. Poor, innocent, stupid Richard. He never even looked back over his shoulder as he walked away.
Drefan could wait. She would need time to recover from the shock of causing Richard’s death. Drefan could wait. It wouldn’t take her long, as badly as she wanted him.
He swept Kahlan up in his arms. “Forgive me, my wife. I didn’t meant to hurt you. Forgive me, please. I was only worried for our safety from the Order—distraught that these worthless soldiers won’t follow orders and in so doing endanger us all.”
Kahlan wrenched herself out of his arms. “I understand.”
She lied so poorly. From the corner of his eye, he could see the coiled form in red leather. If she moved to strike, he would slice her down. If she didn’t, he still had use for her.
Kahlan twitched a finger in caution to Cara. Cara reluctantly relaxed. Kahlan thought she was so clever, thought he didn’t see the way she gave orders to people. For now, it didn’t matter.
“General Kerson,” Drefan said, “I want those derelict troops found. We must have discipline in the army, or we are lost to the Order. When they are found, I want the officers executed.”
“What? You want me to execute my own men because they have lost the bond—”
“I want you to execute them for treason. When the rest of the men learn that we won’t tolerate such negligence to duty, they will think twice about joining with our enemy.”
“Our enemy, Lord Rahl?”
“Of course. If they don’t do their duty as D’Harans, to serve and protect the D’Haran empire, to say nothing of their Lord Rahl, then they are aiding the enemy. That makes them traitors! It endangers the life of my wife! Of everyone!”
He glided his fingers over the raised gold letters on the hilt of the Sword of Truth—his sword. He wielded it by right. “Now, do you have anything else to report?”
