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"You have been sleeping in his bed." She sounded almost surprised by her own words, as if the information had come to mind unexpectedly.
Nicci shrugged with satisfaction at Shota's ire. "So I have."
The slightest smile in turn curled the corners of Shota's mouth. "But you have not succeeded in bedding him yet." Her smile widened. "Have you tried, my dear? Or do you fear the sting of rejection?"
"I don't know, why don't you tell me how it felt, then I'll decide."
Richard gently pulled Nicci back from the edge of the step before the two woman did something stupid—like try to scratch out each other's eyes. Or reduce each other to ashes.
"You said you were here for a reason, Shota—this had better not be it."
Shota heaved a soft sigh. "I found your friend Chase. He was gravely injured."
"So you said. How was he injured?"
Shota's gaze didn't shrink from his. "He was hurt by a sword you would be quite familiar with."
Richard blinked in astonishment. "Chase was hurt by the Sword of Truth? Samuel attacked Chase?"
"I'm afraid so."
Zedd shook a bony finger at Shota. "This is your doing!"
"Nonsense." Shota, too, lifted a finger as Zedd stepped closer, but in warning rather than accusation. The gesture, and her words, kept Zedd from taking another step. "I need no sword to accomplish harm." She arched an eyebrow. "Like to see, wizard?"
"Stop it!" Richard descended the steps two at a time and put himself between Shota and his grandfather. He turned a glare of his own on Shota. "What's going on?" She sighed unhappily. "I'm afraid that I don't entirely know."
"You gave Samuel my sword." Richard tried to keep the heat out of his voice, to keep from letting his anger show, but he feared that it wasn't working very well. "I warned you about his nature. Despite my warning, you insisted that he have it. I want to know what he is up to. Where is Chase? How badly is he hurt? And where is Rachel?"
Shota's brow twitched. "Rachel?"
"The girl with him—the girl he adopted. The two of them were on their way back to Westland. Chase was going to bring his family back to the Keep. You mean to say that the girl wasn't there, with him?"
"I found him gravely injured." For the first time, Shota looked disconcerted. "There was no girl with him."
As he watched Rikka take the reins to the two horses and pull them toward the paddock, Richard tried to imagine what was going on, why Rachel hadn't stayed with Chase. He worried about the possible reasons, worried for what might have happened to Rachel. Knowing how resourceful and devoted she was, Richard wondered if she had gone for help and was now wandering around all by herself.
Another thought struck him. "And how was it that you just happened to come across Chase?"
Shota wet her lips. She looked reluctant to say something obviously distasteful to her, but finally she did. "I was hunting Samuel."
Surprised, Richard glanced at Nicci. Her expression showed no reaction and her features appeared so absolutely devoid of emotion that for an instant it reminded Richard of a similar look he had from time to time seen on Kahlan. A Confessor's face, she had called it. Confessors would occasionally shed all emotion in order to do the terrible things that were at times necessary.
"How is Chase?" Richard asked, considerably quieter. He wanted to know why Shota was hunting Samuel, but at the moment there were more important worries weighing on his mind. "Is he going to be all right?"
"I believe so," Shota said. "He'd been run through with a sword—"
"With my sword."
Shota didn't argue the distinction. "I'm not a healer, but I do have certain abilities and I was able to at least reverse his journey toward death. I found some people who could care for him and help him recover. I believe he is safe for the time being. It will be a while before he is on his feet again."
"And why didn't Samuel kill him?" Cara asked from the top step.
"He stabbed Tovi the same way," Nicci said. "He didn't kill her, either."
"Samuel is certainly capable of murder," Richard pointed out.
Shota clasped her hands before herself. "Samuel apparently couldn't muster the courage to kill with the sword. He has done so in the past?when the sword was his before—and so he knows the pain it causes when it is used to kill." She arched an eyebrow at Richard. "I'm sure you know well what I'm talking about."
"It's a weapon that does not belong in the wrong hands," Richard said. ; Shota ignored Richard's gibe and went on. "His is the way of a coward. A coward will often leave the person to die on their own, away from his Sight."
"They suffer all the more that way," Zedd pointed out. "It's more cruel. Perhaps that was his reason."
The witch woman shook her head. "Samuel is a coward and an opportunist; his goal is not cruelty but rather is entirely self-centered. Cowards don't necessarily think things out. They act on whim. They want what they want when they want it.
"Samuel will rarely bother to consider the consequences of his actions; he simply snatches something when he sees an opportunity, when he sees something he desires. He shrinks from the pain it would cause him to kill with the sword and so he fails to complete the killing he initiated on impulse. If the person he injures suffers an agonizing and prolonged end, it doesn't matter to Samuel because he isn't around to witness it. Out of sight, out of mind. That was what he did to Chase."
"And you gave him the sword," Richard said, unable to disguise his anger. "You knew what he was like and you still made it possible for him to do this."
Shota regarded him a moment before answering. "That's not the way it was, Richard. I gave him the sword because I thought it would make him content. I believed that he would be satisfied to have it back in his possession. I thought it would mellow his lingering resentment at having the sword so abruptly taken from him."
Shota cast a brief but murderous look at Zedd.
"So, you didn't consider the consequences of your actions," Richard said. "You simply wanted what you wanted when you wanted it."
Shota's gaze slid back to Richard. "After all this time, and everything that has happened, you are still as flippant as ever?"
Richard wasn't in a mood to apologize.
"I'm afraid that there is more to this," Shota said, somewhat less heatedly, "more than I realized at the time."
Zedd rubbed his chin as he considered the situation. "Samuel must have stabbed Chase and then kidnapped Rachel."
Richard was surprised by Zedd's suggestion; he hadn't thought of that. He had assumed that Rachel had gone to find help.
He turned a frown on Shota. "Why would Samuel do such a thing?"
"I'm afraid that I don't have any idea." Shota looked up at Nicci, still standing at the top of the granite steps. "Who is this woman you say he stabbed? This Tovi?"
"She was a Sister of the Dark. And it is no idle accusation. Tovi didn't know the person who stabbed her, didn't know who Samuel was, but she certainly knew the Sword of Truth; she was once one of Richard's teachers back at the Palace of the Prophets. Just before she died she told me how she and three other Sisters of the Dark had ignited a Chainfire spell around Kahlan to make everyone forget her. They then used Kahlan to steal the boxes of Orden from the People's Palace."
Shota's brow creased. She looked truly perplexed.
"The boxes of Orden are in play," Richard added.
Shota flicked a hand dismissively as she stared off in thought. "That much I have come to know. But I did not know how it came to be."
Richard wondered how much more of the story she knew, but he told it anyway. "Tovi was taking one of the boxes of Orden away from the People's Palace, in D'Hara, when Samuel jumped her, ran her through with the sword, and then stole the box she was carrying."
Shota again looked surprised, but the look was quickly banished by quiet fury as she silently considered what she'd been told.
"I've known Chase my whole life," Richard said. "While anyone can make a mistake, I've never known him to
be caught off guard by someone lying in wait. I can't imagine that Sisters of the Dark are much easier to ambush. Gifted people of their level of talent and ability have a sense of people being around them."
Shota looked up at him. "Your point?"
"Samuel was somehow able to surprise a Sister of the Dark, and a boundary warden." Richard folded his arms across his chest. "What's more, every time Samuel tries to accomplish something evil you always act all surprised and disavow any knowledge of what he was up to. What's your part in all this, Shota?"
"None. I had no idea of what he was up to."
