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“I couldn’t agree more,” Richard muttered.
“You can’t stop him if you are off chasing phantoms,” Shota said.
Richard halted his pacing and stared at her. “Shota, you can’t just tell me all this without at least telling me something that will help.”
“You are the one who came to me asking questions. I did not go looking for you. Besides, I have helped you. I told you what I know. Maybe by using the information you now have, you can live another day.”
Richard had heard enough. The blood beast had no nature, but not to have a nature, in a way, was its nature, so it had one as far as he was concerned. It may be true, as Shota had said, that there was no accurate way to predict what it would do next, but lack of understanding or knowledge did not constitute a lack of a nature. It was, however, a point that was not worth arguing. He thought that it might be an important distinction sooner or later, but right then it didn’t matter much. Everything Shota had said largely confirmed what Nicci had already reported. While she had added facets and details that Nicci hadn’t known about, Shota hadn’t provided any solutions.
In fact, it seemed to him that she had gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure she had painted a hopeless picture.
Richard almost rested his hand on his sword. He stopped and ran his fingers through his hair, instead. He was at his wits’ end. He turned and stared off at the trees spread across the valley, their leaves shimmering in the late-day sun.
“So, there is nothing I can do to protect myself from the blood beast.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Richard spun back around. “What? You mean there is a way?”
Without emotion, Shota studied his eyes. “I believe that there is one way to keep you alive.”
“What way?”
She clasped her hands, twining her fingers together. She looked down at the ground a moment, as if considering, and then met his gaze with steady resolution.
“You could stay here.”
He saw Samuel come to his feet. Richard returned his attention to Shota’s waiting gaze. “What do you mean, I could stay here?”
She shrugged, as if it were a trivial offer. “Stay here and I will protect you.”
Cara straightened, her arms coming unfolded. “You can do that?”
“I believe I can.”
“Then come with us,” Cara suggested. “That would solve the problem.”
Richard already didn’t like Cara’s idea.
“I can’t,” Shota said. “I can only protect him if he stays here, in this valley, in my home.”
“I can’t stay,” Richard said, trying to make it sound casual.
Shota reached out and gently grasped his arm, not allowing him to so easily dismiss the issue. “You can, Richard. Would it be so bad, staying with me?”
“I didn’t mean it that way….”
“Then stay here with me.”
“For how long?”
Her fingers tightened ever so slightly, as if she feared to say it, feared his reaction, but at the same time was steadfast in her course.
“Forever.”
Richard swallowed. He felt like he’d walked out onto thin ice without realizing it, and now he found that it was a long, long way back to safety. He knew that if he said the wrong thing he would be in over his head. His flesh tingled as he realized how dangerous the late day air had suddenly become.
At that moment, he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t rather face the beast than Shota’s scrutiny.
Richard spread his arms, as if to ask her understanding. “Shota, how can I stay here? You know that there are people counting on me—people who need me. You said so yourself.”
“You are not the slave to others, chained to them by their need. It’s your life, Richard. Stay, and have a life.”
Cara, looking more than suspicious, tapped a thumb to her own chest. “And what about me?”
Without looking over at Cara, without taking her gaze from Richard’s, Shota said, “One woman in this place is enough.”
Cara glanced between Richard and Shota as they stared into each other’s eyes, but she then did what Richard had earlier advised: she turned cautious and said nothing.
“Stay,” Shota whispered intimately.
Richard could see a terrible kind of vulnerability laid bare in Shota’s eyes, in her hungering expression—an open look he had never seen on her before. From the corner of his eye, he could also see Samuel glaring at him.
Richard tipped his head, indicating her companion. “And what about him?”
She did not shy from the question—in fact she seemed to have expected it.
“One Seeker in this place is enough.”
“Shota—”
“Stay, Richard?” she pressed, cutting him off before he could turn her down, before he crossed a line he hadn’t known was there until right then.
It was both an offer and an ultimatum.
“But what about the blood beast? You said yourself that you can’t know its nature. How can you know that we would be safe here if I stayed? A lot of men near me were killed when the beast attacked the first time.”
Shota lifted her chin. “I know myself, know my abilities, my limits. I believe that I can keep you safe, here, in this valley. I can’t be completely certain, but I sincerely believe it to be true. I do know that if you leave here you will have no protection. This is your only chance.”
He knew that the last part had more than one meaning.
“Stay, Richard…. Please? Stay here with me?”
“Forever.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Yes, forever. Please? Stay? I will take care of you, forever. I will make sure you never regret it, or ever miss the rest of the world. Please?”
This was not Shota, the witch woman. This was simply the woman, Shota, desperately laying herself open to him in a way she never had, offering her unprotected heart, taking a chance. The naked loneliness he saw there was terrifying. He knew, because he felt the same anguish of being so alone that it hurt.
Richard swallowed and took the step out onto the ice.
“Shota, that’s probably the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me. To know that you respect me enough to ask such a thing means more to me than you will ever understand. I have more respect for you than you know—that’s why when I needed answers I thought of no one but you.
“I sincerely appreciate all you are offering…but I’m afraid I can’t accept. I have to go.”
The look that came to her face made Richard go as cold as if he’d been plunged into icy water.
Without another word, Shota turned and started away.
Chapter 42
Richard caught Shota’s arm, stopping her before she could leave. He couldn’t allow it to end in this way—for more than one reason.
“Shota, I’m sorry…. But you said it yourself; it’s my life to live. If you consider me—even a little—to be a friend, someone you really do care about, then you would want me to live my life as I think I must, not as you might wish I could.”
Her chest heaved. “Fine. You have made your choice, Richard. Leave. Go and live what is left of your life.”
“I came to you because I need your help.”
She turned around fully toward him and cast him as forbidding a look as he had ever seen on anyone. It was the unmistakable mask of a witch woman. He could almost see the air around her sizzling.
“I have given you help—gained through an effort on my part that I seriously doubt you can begin to imagine. Use that help as you wish. Now, leave my home.”
As much as he wanted right then to do as she asked, as much as he wanted not to press her, he had come for a reason and she had not yet addressed it. He wasn’t leaving until she did.
“I need your help to find Kahlan.”
Her look turned even colder. “If you are wise, you will use the knowledge I have given you to stay alive as long as you can to help to defeat Jagang, or to g
o chasing after phantoms—I don’t care which anymore. Just go, before you find out why wizards fear to come into my home.”
“You said that your ability helps you see events in the flow of time. What does your ability see about me in the future?”
