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“Without Richard we are all lost,” she said again, as if hammering the final nail into a coffin.
Nicci swallowed back the lump in her throat. “Richard wouldn’t ever abandon us.”
“Maybe not intentionally. But if he goes into this battle alone, having lost love and hope, he may make the kind of decisions that he wouldn’t make if he held in his care the heart of a woman he loved. That love could be the stitch that holds the whole thing together, holds him together.
“That kind of love can be the single thing, the only thing, that keeps a man from giving up when he has no strength to go on.”
“That all may be true, but it still does not give you the right to decide his heart.”
“Nicci, I don’t think—”
“What are we fighting for, if not the sanctity of life?”
“I am fighting for the sanctity of life.”
“Are you? Are you really? Your whole life has been devoted to molding others to what you wanted, not to what they wanted. While it might not be out of a hatred for the good, it certainly has been out of your notion of how others ought to live, and what they should live for. You molded novices into Sisters so that they could serve in the duty you assigned them. You used Sisters to shape young men into wizards who would likewise follow what you believe the Creator wants.
“Everyone you’ve had control over has been forced to your vision of how they ought to live their lives and what beliefs they must follow. You rarely let people make reasoned choices for themselves. You often didn’t allow them to learn about life; you instead told them what aspects of it mattered and how they would live it. The only partial exception that I know of is Verna, when you sent her away for twenty years.
“You have been planning Richard’s life for hundreds of years before he was even born. You laid out plans for how he must live out his existence—his only life. You, Annalina Aldurren, based on your own interpretation of what you read into prophecy, decided how Richard would spend his existence in the world of life. Now you are planning his emotions for him. You’ve probably even planned his place in the spirit world.
“You imprisoned Nathan nearly his whole life, even though he spent centuries helping you to your ends. Even though you came to love him, you condemned him to a life of imprisonment for the crime of what you feared he might possibly do.
“Ann, what are we fighting for, if it is not the ability to live our own lives? You simply can’t decide what others will do or not do. You can’t set yourself up as the good version of Jagang, the flip side of the same coin.”
Ann blinked in sincere surprise. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“Aren’t you? You’re deciding Richard’s life for him now the same as you did before he was even born. It’s his life. He loves Kahlan. What good is his life to him if he can’t have sovereignty over his own heart, if he must do as you say? Who are you to decide that he must abandon what he wants most and instead love me?
“How could I be the kind of woman he really could love if I were to manipulate him in the way you want? If I did what you ask I would automatically invalidate any emotions I created in him, make a sham of any such feelings.”
Ann looked disheartened. “But I don’t want you to love him against your will. I only want what is best for you as well.”
“I would give anything to be able to use your urging as an excuse to do this, but I would never again respect myself. Richard loves Kahlan. It is not for me to replace that love with anything. It is because I love him that I could never betray his heart.”
“But I don’t think—”
“Would you be happy to have Nathan’s love as a prize for a calculated trick? Would that be satisfactory to you? Would that bring you happiness?”
Ann’s gaze drifted away, tears starting to fill her eyes. “No, it wouldn’t.”
“Then how can you think that I would be satisfied to seduce Richard at the expense of my self-respect? Love, real love, is something you earn for who you are; it’s not a prize for your performance in bed.”
Ann’s gaze searched without settling. “But I only…”
“When I took Richard down to the Old World, when I took him captive, I wanted to force him to accept the Order’s beliefs. But I also wanted to make him love me. To that end I thought to do something very similar to what you are asking me to do now. Richard refused.
“That’s one of the reasons I so respect him. He was unlike any of the men I’d known who simply wanted me in their bed. I thought I could have him by the same means. He proved that his mind was what ruled him. He wasn’t an animal like others who allowed their passion to rule them. He is a man ruled by reason. That is why he is our leader, not, as you seem to think, because you have pulled the proper strings.
“Had he given in to me I would never have respected him in the same way I do now. How could I truly love him if he would have proven such weakness of character? Even if I were to agree to your plan, Richard would not. He would remain the same Richard now as he was then. All that would happen is that he would lose his respect for me. In the end the plan would fail. It would fail because, ultimately, you failed to respect him as well.
“But would you really want it to work? Would you really want a man who is ruled by passion rather than reason to be our leader? Do you want merely to install a puppet of your wishes?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Me neither.”
Ann smiled then, and took Nicci’s arm, starting her down the white marble corridor.
“I hate to admit it, but I see your point. I guess that I have been guilty of allowing my passion for doing the Creator’s work to get carried away into believing that I alone could decide how that should be accomplished, and how others should live.”
They walked in silence for a moment, accompanied by flickering light and the soft hiss of the torches.
“I am sorry, Nicci. In spite of me, you have turned out to be a woman of true character.”
Nicci stared into the distance. “It seems destined to be a lonely path.”
“Richard would be wise were he to love you for who you are, just the way you are.”
Nicci swallowed, unable to bring forth words.
“I guess that, in all the urgency of everything, I started to forget much the same lesson I’d already learned from Nathan.”
“Perhaps all this really isn’t your fault,” Nicci allowed. “Perhaps it has more to do with Chainfire, and how much of what we knew is being lost to us.”
Ann sighed. “I’m not sure I can blame my actions of a lifetime on a spell that has only recently happened.”
Nicci glanced over at the former prelate. “What lesson from Nathan are you talking about?”
“He one day convinced me of very much the same things you have just brought back to my attention. In fact, he used much the same reasoning as you have just used. I misjudged Nathan, just as I have misjudged you, Nicci. You have my apology, child, not just for this, but for so much more I have robbed you of.”
Nicci shook her head. “No, don’t apologize for my life. I made the choices I made. Everyone, to one extent or another, must face life’s trials. There will always be those who try to influence or even dominate us. We cannot allow such things to be an excuse for making the wrong choices. Ultimately, each of us lives our own life and we are responsible for it.”
Ann nodded. “The mistakes that we spoke of before.” She laid a hand tenderly against Nicci’s back. “But you have made amends for yours, child. You have come to be responsible for yourself. You have done good.”
“While I’ve come to see the grievous errors in my thinking, and I’ve tried to correct my mistakes, I don’t think that counts as amends, but I promise you, Ann, if Richard needs anything, he will have it from me. That is what a true friend would do.”
Ann smiled. “I guess you really are his friend, Sister.”
“Nicci.”
Ann chuckled. “Nicci, then.”
They wal
ked in silence past a dozen torches. Nicci was relieved that Ann had finally understood. She supposed that one could never be too old to come to new understandings. She hoped that Ann truly did understand, and that this was not just another strategy, another way to wield her influence over events. Maybe Nathan had actually changed her, as Ann had suggested.
To Nicci, it felt sincere. It also felt like this had been a conversation with Ann that she had been waiting her whole life to have.
“Which reminds me,” Ann said, “in regard to Nathan and the terrible thing I had intended for him just before he helped me come to my senses. There is something important I left down in the dungeons.”
