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More than anything, he hated to see her inconsolable grief.
They stared into one another's eyes, frozen in that instant that would be the last instant that the world existed.
Richard gasped in a cry of terror, anguish, and sudden sharp pain as he felt the blade bite flesh, felt it slice mortally deep into his throat.
It was the end of everything.
* * *
CHAPTER 18
"Stop it," Nicci growled.
Richard blinked. His mind reeled in confusion. Nicci had Shota's wrist in an iron grip, holding her hand away from him. But Shota still had an arm around his waist.
"I don't know what you're doing," Nicci said in a tone so dangerous he thought that surely Shota would shrink back in fear, "but you will stop it."
Shota did not shrink back, nor did she look the least bit fearful. "I am doing what needs to be done."
Nicci was having none of it. "Back away from him, or I will kill you where you stand."
Cara, Agiel in hand and looking even more displeased than Nicci, stood close on the other side of the witch woman, blocking her in. Before Shota could return the threat in kind, Richard collapsed heavily to the marble bench surrounding the fountain.
He was panting, gasping, and in a state of ragged terror. In his mind's eye he could still see Kahlan in the hands of those thugs, still feel the sharp blade slicing deep into him. His fingers lightly brushed across his throat, but there was no gaping wound, no blood. He desperately didn't want to let go of the sight of Kahlan, but at the same time it was so horrifying a glimpse of her hopeless dread that he wanted nothing so much as to forever wipe it from his mind.
He wasn't completely sure where he was. He wasn't sure exactly what was happening. It wasn't at all clear to him what was real and what wasn't.
He wondered if he was on the cusp of death and this was some confusing death-dream before all his lifeblood drained out of him, some final delusion to torture his mind as he passed from existence. He groped, trying to feel for other bodies there with him in the pit.
While Cara stood protectively before him, shielding him from the witch woman, Nicci immediately abandoned her altercation with Shota to sit beside him. She circled an arm around his shoulders.
"Richard, are you all right?" she leaned down, looking into his eyes. "You look like you've seen the walking dead."
Ignoring Cara, Shota folded her arms as she stood over them, watching Richard.
In his mind, the sound of Kahlan's screams still echoed, the sight of her as she cried out his name still tore at his heart. It had been so long since he had seen her. To see her again so suddenly, and like that, was devastating.
"Richard, it's all right," Nicci said. "You're right here, with me, with all of us."
Richard pressed a hand to his forehead. "How long was I gone?"
Nicci's brow twitched. "Gone?"
"I think Shota did something. How long was she… doing whatever she did?"
"I didn't let her do anything—I stopped her before she could begin. The instant she touched you under your chin I stopped her. She didn't have enough time to do anything."
Richard could still see Kahlan in his mind's eye, still see her screaming for him as the grimy hands of Imperial Order soldiers held her back.
He ran his trembling fingers back through his hair. "She had enough time."
"I'm so sorry," Nicci whispered. "I thought I stopped her soon enough."
He didn't think he could go on. He didn't think he could summon the strength to draw another breath. He didn't think that he would ever again be able to do anything but abandon himself to despair.
He could not hold back his anguish, his pain, his tears.
Nicci drew his face against her shoulder, wordlessly sheltering him in the refuge of her embrace.
It all seemed so futile. It was all ending. It was all over. He'd always said that they didn't have a chance to defeat Jagang's army. The Order was too powerful. They were going to win the war. There was nothing Richard could do about it, nothing left to live for but waiting for the horror of death to catch them all.
Shota stepped up on the side of him, beside where he sat on the short marble wall, opposite Nicci, and started to lay a hand on his shoulder. Cara snatched the witch woman's wrist, stopping her.
"I'm sorry to have to do that, Richard," Shota said, ignoring the Mord-Sith, "but you need to see, to understand, to—"
"Shut up," Nicci said, "and keep your hands off him. Don't you think you've brought him enough pain? Does everything you do have to be injurious? Can't you ever help him without trying to hurt him or cause him trouble at the same time?"
As Shota withdrew her hand, Nicci cupped hers to his face and with a thumb wiped a tear from his cheek. "Richard…"
He nodded at her tender concern, unable to summon his voice. He could still see Kahlan crying out for him as she tried to fight off the hands of those men. As long as he lived he would be haunted by that sight. At that moment he wanted more than anything to spare her the pain of seeing him executed and of her being in the cruel clutches of the Order. He wanted to go back, to do something, to save her from such inhuman abuse. He couldn't bear her world ending as she saw him murdered like that.
But it wasn't real. He couldn't have been there like that. Such a thing was impossible. He could only have imagined it.
Relief began to seep into him.
It wasn't real. It wasn't. Kahlan wasn't in the hands of the Order. She wasn't seeing him being executed. It was just a cruel trick by the witch woman. Just another of her illusions.
Except it had been real for all those people in Galea as w
ell as untold other places where the Order had been. Even if it hadn't been real for Richard, it had been all too real for them. That was what it had been like.
Their worlds had ended in just that manner. He knew exactly what they had suffered. He knew exactly what it felt like.
How many countless, unknown, unnamed, good people had lost their chance at life in just that way, all for the otherworldly ambitions of those from the Old World?
A new dread suddenly overwhelmed him. He had the gift. He was a war wizard. For most of those with the gift, it manifested itself in one specific area. But being a war wizard meant that he had elements of all the various aspects of the gift, and one aspect of magic was prophecy. What if what he had seen was really a prophecy? What if that was what was to happen? What if what he had seen was really a vision of the future?
But he didn't believe that the future was fixed. While some things, such as death, were inevitable, that didn't mean that everything was fixed or that one couldn't work toward worthy goals in life, couldn't avert disasters, couldn't alter the course of events. If it was a prophecy, it only meant that he had seen what was possible. It didn't mean that he couldn't try to stop it from happening.
After all, Shota's prophecies never seemed to come out the way she presented them. And anyway, what he had seen, what he had just experienced, was most likely Shota's doing.
Richard squeezed Nicci's hand in silent appreciation. Her other hand on his shoulder returned the squeeze. Her concern melted a little under the warmth of a small smile of relief at seeing him recovering his wits.
Richard rose up before Shota in a way that by all rights should have made her take a step back. She stood her ground.
"How dare you do that to me? How dare you send me to that place?"
"I did not send you anywhere, Richard. Your own mind took you where it would. I did nothing but release the thoughts you had suppressed. I spared you what would have otherwise come out in nightmares."
