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Shota shrugged. “I know no more how to start a plague than to cure it. I know magic started this one. If magic started it, then it would stand to reason that magic could halt it.”
Kahlan straightened. “Then there is hope we can stop it, and save all those people from dying.”
“Possibly. If we were to put the pieces together, it would at least suggest that Jagang stole from the Temple of the Winds magic to start the plague, and that the temple is trying to warn Richard of the violation.”
“Why Richard?”
“Why do you think? What makes Richard different from anyone else?”
Kahlan felt transfixed by Shota’s small, sly smile.
“He’s a war wizard. He has Subtractive Magic. It’s how he defeated the spirit of Darken Rahl and stopped the Keeper. Richard is the only one with the power to do whatever it is that can help.”
“Keep that in mind,” Shota whispered into her teacup.
Kahlan was suddenly getting the feeling that she was being led down a path. She dismissed the feeling. Shota was trying to help.
Kahlan gathered her courage. “Shota, why did you send Nadine?”
“To marry Richard.”
“Why Nadine?”
Shota’s lips spread in a sad smile. It was the question for which she had been waiting.
“Because I care about him. I wanted it to be someone in whom he could find at least some small comfort.”
Kahlan swallowed. “But he finds comfort in me.”
“I know. But he is to marry another.”
“The flow of the future tells you this? Your future… memory?” Shota gave her a single nod. “It wasn’t your idea? You didn’t simply want to send someone to marry him so I wouldn’t?”
“No.” Shota leaned back in her chair and stared off into the trees. “I saw that he will marry another. I see great pain for him in this. I exerted all my influence so that it would be someone he knew, someone in whom he would find at least some solace. I wanted to spare him as much pain in it as I could.”
Kahlan didn’t know what to say. She felt as she had when she was struggling against the flow of water down in the drainage tunnel when she was fighting Marlin. She remembered the weight of the water, the way it pinned her in place.
“But I love him,” was all she could think to say.
“I know,” Shota whispered back. “It was not my choice to have him marry another. I was only able to influence who it would be.”
Kahlan struggled to pull a shaky breath as she looked away from the witch woman’s ageless eyes.
“I had no say,” Shota added, “in who would be your husband.”
Kahlan’s gaze returned to Shota. “What? What do you mean?”
“You are to be wedded. It is not Richard. I could not influence that part of it. That is not a good sign.”
Kahlan felt stunned. “What do you mean?”
“The spirits are somehow involved in this. They would only accept limited influence. They have their reasons for the rest of it. Those reasons are veiled from me.”
Kahlan felt a tear run down her cheek. “Shota, what am I to do? I’ll lose my only love. I could never love anyone but Richard, even if I wished it. I’m a Confessor.”
Shota sat still as stone as she watched Kahlan. “The good spirits have granted us all they could in allowing me to have a say in who will be Richard’s bride. I searched, and could find no other woman for whom he feels even this limited empathy. She was the best I could do.
“If you truly love Richard, then you should try to find comfort in the fact that he will have Nadine, a woman he knows and for whom he at least has some feeling, however small. Perhaps, with a woman such as this, he will someday find happiness and come to love her.”
Kahlan put her trembling hands in her lap. She felt sick to her stomach. It would do no good to argue with Shota. This wasn’t her doing. The spirits were involved.
“To what purpose? What good will it do for him to marry Nadine? For me to be mated to one I don’t love?”
Shota’s voice came soft and compassionate. “I don’t know, child. Just as some parents, for a variety of reasons, choose their children’s spouses, so have the spirits chosen for you and Richard.”
“If the spirits were involved, why would they desire our misery? They took us to that place so we could be together.” Kahlan struggled against the weight of the floodwaters. “Why would they want to do this to us?”
“Perhaps,” Shota whispered as she watched Kahlan, “it is because you will betray him.”
Kahlan’s throat clenched shut, locking her breath in her lungs. The prophecy screamed through her head.
… for the one in white, his true beloved, will betray him in her blood.
Kahlan shot to her feet. “No!” Her hands balled into fists. “I would never hurt him! I would never betray him!”
Shota calmly sipped her tea.
“Sit down, Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan fought to keep the tears back as she sank into her chair.
“I don’t control the future memories any more than I control the past. I told you, you must have the courage to hear the answers.” She tapped a finger to her temple. “Not only here”—She tapped the finger over her heart—“but here, too.”
Kahlan made herself take a deep breath. “Forgive me. It’s not your fault. I know that.”
Shota lifted an eyebrow. “Very good, Mother Confessor. Learning to accept the truth is the first step to gaining control of your destiny.”
“Shota, I don’t mean this to sound disrespectful, but seeing the future does not provide all the answers. Before, you told me that I would touch Richard with my power. I thought that would destroy him. I tried to kill myself to prevent your words from coming to pass, to prevent myself from hurting him.
“Richard wouldn’t allow me the chance at suicide. As it turned out, your seeing of the future was true, but there was more to it, and it turned out differently than we thought.
“I touched Richard, but his magic protected him, and my touch didn’t harm him.”
“I didn’t see the result of the touch. Only that you would touch him. This is different. I see you both being wedded.”
Kahlan felt numb. “Who is it to be that I will marry?”
“I see only a misty form. I cannot see the person. I do not know his identity.”
“Shota, I was told that a witch woman’s seeing of future events is a form of prophecy.”
“Who told you this?”
“A wizard. Zedd.”
“Wizards,” Shota muttered. “They don’t know what is in a witch woman’s mind. They think they know everything.”
Kahlan pushed her long hair back over her shoulder. “Shota, we were going to be honest with each other, remember?”
Shota let out a dainty grumble. “Well, I guess that in this case, they may be mostly right.”
“Prophecy does not always turn out how it seems. The dire dangers can be avoided, or changed. Do you think there is any way I can change the prophecy?”
Shota frowned. “The prophecy?”
“The one you mentioned. Betraying Richard.”
Shota’s frowned deepened into suspicion. “Are you saying that this was also foretold in a prophecy?”
Kahlan’s eyes turned away from the witch woman’s intense gaze. “When the wizard came, with Jagang possessing his mind, Jagang said that he had invoked a prophecy to trap Richard. It, too, says I will betray him.”
“Do you remember this prophecy?”
Kahlan rubbed her finger around the rim of her teacup. “It’s one of those memories that we spoke of, the memories we wish we could forget, but we can’t.
“‘On the red moon will come the firestorm. The one bonded to the blade will watch as his people die. If he does nothing, then he, and all those he loves, will die in its heat, for no blade, forged of steel or conjured of sorcery, can touch this foe.
“‘To quench the inferno, he must seek the remedy i
n the wind. Lightning will find him on that path, for the one in white, his true beloved, will betray him in her blood.’”
Shota leaned back, taking her teacup with her. “It is true, as you say, that the events in prophecy can be altered, or avoided, but not in a double bind prophecy. This one is such a prophecy, a trap that ensnares its victim. The red moon proves that the trap has sprung.”
“But there must be a way—” Kahlan pushed her hands back into her hair. “Shota, what am I to do?”
“You are to be wedded to another,” she whispered, “as is Richard. What is beyond, I don’t see, but this much of it is the future.”
“Shota, I know you’re speaking the truth, but how can it be that I would betray Richard? I’m telling you the truth; I would die before I would betray him. My heart won’t allow me to betray him. I couldn’t.”
