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Kahlan’s head throbbed. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she shut her eyes.
“Nadine, as the good spirits are my witness, you have got to be just about the stupidest woman I have ever met.”
Nadine sprang up from the chair. “You think I’m so stupid? You love him. You want him.” She jabbed her finger at her own chest. “You know how it feels, in here, to want him. I wanted him no less than you. If you had to, you would do the same thing. Right now, as well as you know him, you’d do the same if you thought it was your only chance. Your only chance! Tell me you wouldn’t!”
“Nadine,” Kahlan said in a calm voice, “you don’t know the first thing about love. Love isn’t about taking what you want; it’s about wanting happiness for the one you love.”
Nadine leaned in with a venomous expression. “You’d do the same as I did, if you had to!”
The words of the prophecy whispered through Kahlan’s head.
Lightning will find him on that path, for the one in white, his true beloved, will betray him…
“You’re wrong, Nadine. I wouldn’t. Not for anything in this world would I chance hurting Richard. Not for anything. I would live a life of lonely misery before I would hurt him. I would even let you have him before I would hurt him.”
17
A breathless, beaming Berdine lurched to a halt as Kahlan watched Nadine storm off down the hall.
“Mother Confessor, Lord Rahl wants me to stay up all night and do work for him. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Kahlan’s brow twitched. “If you say so, Berdine.”
Grinning, Berdine ran on down the hall in the direction Nadine had gone. Richard was talking to a knot of soldiers just up the hall in the other direction. Beyond the soldiers, a ways further up the hall, Cara and Egan stood watching.
When Richard saw Kahlan, he left the guards and came to meet her. When he was close enough, she twisted a fistful of his shirt and pulled him close.
“Answer me one thing, Richard Rahl,” she hissed through gritted teeth.
“What’s that?” Richard asked in innocent bewilderment.
“Why did you ever dance with that whore!”
“Kahlan, I’ve never heard you use such language.” Richard glanced down the hall in the direction Nadine had gone. “How did you get her to tell you?”
“I tricked her into it.”
Richard smiled a sly smile. “You told her that I told you the story, didn’t you.”
His smile widened when she nodded. “I’ve been a bad influence on you,” he said.
“Richard, I’m sorry I asked her to stay. I didn’t know. If I ever get my hands on Shota, I’m going to strangle her. Forgive me for asking Nadine to stay.”
“Nothing to forgive. My emotions just got in the way of seeing that. You were right to ask her to stay.”
“Richard, are you sure?”
“Shota and the prophecy both mentioned ‘the wind.’ Nadine plays some part in this; she has to stay, for now. I’d better have her guarded, so she doesn’t leave.”
“We don’t need guards. Nadine won’t leave.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Vultures don’t give up. They circle as long as they think there are bones to pick.” Kahlan looked back down the empty hall. “She actually had the nerve to tell me that I would do what she had done, if I had to.”
“I feel a bit sorry for Nadine. She has a lot of good in her, too, but I doubt she will ever truly experience love.”
Kahlan felt the heat of him at her back. “How could Michael do that to you? How could you ever have forgiven him?”
“He was my brother,” Richard whispered. “I would have forgiven anything he did against me. Someday I will stand before the good spirits; I didn’t want to give them a reason to say I was no better.
“It was what he did to others that I couldn’t forgive.”
She put a comforting hand to his arm. “I guess I see why you want me to go with you to meet Drefan. The spirits tested you with Michael. I think you will find Drefan a better brother. He may be a bit arrogant, but he’s a healer. Besides, it would be hard to find two that wicked.”
“Nadine is a healer, too.”
“Not compared to Drefan. His talent borders on magic.”
“Do you think he wields magic?”
“I don’t think so, but I have no way of telling.”
“I will know. If he does have magic, I will know.”
Guards at their post near the Mother Confessor’s room saluted after Richard gave them instructions. Kahlan walked close at his side as they moved on down the hall. Cara stood up straighter when Richard paused before her. Even Egan perked up expectantly. Kahlan thought Cara looked tired and miserable.
“Cara,” Richard finally said, “I’m going to see this healer who helped you. I hear he’s another bastard son of Darken Rahl, like me. Why don’t you come along. I wouldn’t mind having a… friend, with me.”
Cara’s brow wrinkled together in near tears. “If you wish, Lord Rahl.”
“I wish. You, too, Egan. Egan, I told the soldiers that you all are permitted to pass. Go get Raina and Ulic and bring them along, too.”
“Right behind you, Lord Rahl,” Egan said with a rare smile.
“Where did you ask Drefan to wait?” Kahlan asked.
“I told the guards to take him to a guest room in the southeast wing.”
“The opposite end of the palace? Why all the way over there?”
Richard gave her an unreadable look. “Because I wanted him to remain here, under guard, and that’s as far from your rooms as I could get him.”
Cara was still wearing her red leather; she hadn’t had time to change. The soldiers guarding the southeast wing of the Confessors’ Palace saluted with fists to hearts and moved aside for Richard, Kahlan, Ulic, Egan, and Raina in her brown leather, but they backed away an extra step for Cara. No D’Haran wanted the attention of a Mord-Sith in red leather.
After the brisk march across the palace, they all came to a halt before a simple door flanked by leather and muscles and steel. Richard absently lifted his sword and let it drop back, checking that it was clear in its scabbard.
“I think he’s more afraid than you,” Kahlan whispered up to him. “He’s a healer. He said he came to help you.”
“He showed up to help on the same day as Nadine and Marlin. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Kahlan recognized the look in his eyes; he was bleeding a lethal flux of magic from his sword without even touching it. Every inch of him, every ripple of hard muscle, every fluid movement, bespoke the calm coiling death.
Without knocking, Richard threw open the door and stepped into the small, windowless room. Sparsely furnished with a bed, small table, and two simple wooden chairs, it was one of the more utilitarian guest rooms. To the side, the eyes of knots in a plain, pine wardrobe watched them. A small brick hearth provided a modicum of heat to the chill, scented air.
Holding Richard’s left arm from a half step behind, knowing better than to get in the way of his sword, Kahlan stayed close. Ulic and Egan stepped to each side, their blond hair nearly brushing the low ceiling. Cara and Raina swept around them, screening Richard and Kahlan.
Drefan knelt before the table against the far wall. Dozens of candles were set randomly about the table. At the sound of all the commotion, he rose smoothly to his feet and turned.
His blue-eyed gaze took in Richard, as if no one else had entered the room with him. Each absorbed in silent thoughts she could only imagine, they appraised one another.
And then Drefan went to his knees, putting his forehead to the floor.
“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”
Kahlan saw Richard’s two huge bodyguards and both Mord-Sith almost drop reflexively to their knees to join in the devotion to the Master of
D’Hara. She had seen countless D’Harans in Aydindril give the devotion. She had stood at Richard’s side when the Sisters of the Light had knelt and sworn fidelity to him. Richard had told her that at the People’s Palace in D’Hara, when Darken Rahl had been there, everyone went to devotion squares twice a day, for two hours each time, and said those same words over and over while touching foreheads to the tiled floors.
Drefan stood once more, assuming a relaxed, self-assured stance. He was dressed nobly in a ruffled white shirt open to mid-chest, high boots turned down just below his knees, and tight, dark trousers that displayed enough of the swell of his manhood that Kahlan could feel her cheeks flush. She forced her eyes to move. She could see at least four leather pouches attached to his wide leather belt, their flaps held closed with carved bone pins. Draped loosely over his shoulders was the simple flaxen cloak she had seen him in before.
