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Nicci ignored those protocols. She was Death’s Mistress, the emperor’s Slave Queen. She stopped for no one. No one challenged her.
Jagang’s tent was set back in a grouping of larger tents but, unlike all the other tents in the camp, it had ample space around it. Sisters patrolling the area took note of Nicci, as did the gifted young men she saw, but their gazes fell away when Nicci fixed them in her glare. The guards, too, all watched her but tried to be less obvious about it.
Nicci was encouraged to see that none of these people saw her as anything but what she had been when last among them.
She saw then a strange sight. Besides a cadre of Jagang’s personal guards standing to either side of the heavy hanging covering the opening into his tent, there were other soldiers as well—regular soldiers. Pacing back and forth, they, too, appeared to be guarding the tent. She couldn’t imagine why in the world regular soldiers would be inside the emperor’s compound, much less guarding his tent. Such men had never before been trusted inside the command area.
Ignoring the curiosity of regular soldiers being there in the compound, Nicci headed straight for the heavy hanging over the opening into Jagang’s tent. The two Sisters, already lagging behind, reluctantly followed Nicci toward the emperor’s tent. Color drained from their faces. No one, least of all a woman, was eager to enter Jagang’s private sanctuary. While he was sometimes pleasant to some of his trusted officers, he did not treat others indulgently.
Two big men, each holding a pike, their faces tattooed with animalistic designs, drew back the hanging. The small silver discs attached to the lambskin made soft metallic ringing sounds, letting the emperor know that someone was entering his tent. She recognized both men holding the hanging out of the way for her but didn’t acknowledge them as she lifted her skirts to step over the threshold and into the darkness beyond.
Inside, slaves were busy clearing plates and platters from the emperor’s table. The aroma of all the food reminded Nicci that she hadn’t eaten. The knot of anxiety in her middle masked her hunger.
Dozens of candles gave the place a dimly lit, cozy warmth. Thick carpets covered the floor so that footsteps of slaves going about their work would not disturb the emperor. Some of the slaves, all with heads bowed, were new. Some she remembered. Jagang appeared to have already finished his meal and was not in the outer areas.
The two Sisters, having entered behind her, edged their way into the shadows toward the far walls of the tent. This was apparently as far as they were to go, and within the outer room they wanted to be as far away as possible.
Knowing where Jagang would be, Nicci headed across the room. Slaves scurried to stay out of her way. At the hanging over the opening into the bedroom, she lifted the covering aside and ducked through.
Inside the emperor’s bedchamber Nicci at last saw him. He was sitting facing away from her on the other side of the plush bed covered with gold-colored silk. Points of light from the candles and oil lamps reflected off his shaved head. His bull neck spread into broad, powerful shoulders. He was wearing a lamb’s-wool vest, and his massive arms were bare.
He was occupied with thumbing through a book, absorbed in scanning the text. While easily given to violence, Jagang was, in certain areas, an intelligent man who prized the knowledge to be found in books or sifted from the minds he inhabited. Emotionally convinced of the veracity of his beliefs, he never troubled himself to subject those beliefs to reasoning. In fact, he viewed such questioning to be heresy. Instead, his efforts were spent collecting information in narrow areas. He knew that the right kind of knowledge could be a valuable weapon. He was a man who liked to be well armed—with every form of weapon.
Something caught Nicci’s eye. She looked to her left.
That was when she saw her, sitting on the floor, resting on one hip and leaning on an arm. She was the most sublimely beautiful creature Nicci had ever seen.
She knew without doubt who this woman was.
It was Kahlan, Richard’s wife.
Their eyes met. The intelligence, the nobility, the life in those green eyes was riveting.
This was a woman the equal of Richard.
Ann had been wrong. This was the only woman who could by right stand at his side.
CHAPTER 23
Nicci saw that there was a Rada’Han around Kahlan’s neck. That would explain why she seemed to be planted on the faded blue and beige carpet. Her gaze didn’t miss the collar that Nicci wore. Nicci didn’t think that this woman’s gaze missed much.
A tentative look haunted Kahlan’s green eyes as they stared at each other. It was a ghost of cautious encouragement brought about by her awareness that Nicci could actually see her. They were instantly sisters in more than one way, sharing more than just having collars around their necks.
How lonely and forlorn it must be to exist unseen and forgotten at the center of such a wicked spell.
Unseen, anyway, by anyone other than Sisters of the Dark—and, apparently, Jagang. It had to be a cause for hope that another person, even a stranger, could see her.
Looking at her now, Nicci could hardly believe that she could ever have forgotten this woman, even with the Chainfire spell. She could clearly see why Richard had never for an instant given up on finding her.
This woman, even discounting her exquisite beauty, had a presence about her, an insightful awareness, that Nicci instantly recognized from the statue that Richard had carved. That statue, called Spirit, had not been meant to look like Kahlan, but to represent her abiding strength, her inner courage. It did that in a way that, seeing the real thing, nearly took Nicci’s breath.
She was beginning to see why, even at her relatively young age, Kahlan had been named the Mother Confessor. Now, though, there were no other Confessors. She was the last.
At first surprised to find Kahlan there, Nicci realized that it only made sense. Sister Armina had been one of the Sisters who had captured Kahlan and ignited the Chainfire spell. Sister Tovi had told Nicci that they had managed to evade Jagang by using the bond to Richard. While she supposed that Jagang might have somehow managed to get past that bond, Nicci thought that it made more sense that the bond had never actually protected them in the first place.
If Jagang had captured Sister Armina he would have Sisters Ulicia and Cecilia as well. That had to be why Kahlan was there; she had been held by those Sisters so she, too, would have been swept up in Jagang’s net.
Nicci saw that Jillian was there as well. The girl’s copper-colored eyes blinked in surprise to see Nicci standing there before her. While it made sense for Kahlan to be there, Nicci couldn’t fathom why Jillian was.
Jillian leaned in close to Kahlan, cupped a hand to her ear, and whispered something—undoubtedly Nicci’s name. Kahlan responded only with a slight nod, but her eyes revealed a great deal more. She had heard Nicci’s name before.
When Jagang tossed the book he was studying on a bedside table, Nicci quickly pointed with two fingers between Kahlan’s eyes and her own, then used one to cross her lips, urging silence. Nicci didn’t want Jagang knowing that she could see Kahlan, or even that she knew Jillian. The less he knew, the safer those two would be—if being a captive of Emperor Jagang could in any sense be said to be safe. Without waiting for confirmation, Nicci looked away from Kahlan and Jillian to face Jagang.
When he turned around, fixing his black gaze on her, Nicci thought she might faint. It was one thing to remember him, quite another to be standing there before him.
To once again find herself under the scrutiny of those nightmare eyes crushed her courage.
She knew what lay ahead for her.
“Well, well,” Jagang said as he made his way around the bed, his gaze fixed on her. “Look who has returned at long last.” He smiled broadly. “You are as beautiful as every dream I’ve had of you since you were last here with me.”
Nicci wasn’t surprised by the approach he’d taken, nor did it indicate anything meaningful. Never knowing how he would react kept
those around him in a state of constant dread. His anger could be sparked at any time by the smallest thing, or nothing at all. Nicci had seen him strangle a slave to death for dropping a breadboard, and yet on another occasion she’d seen him pick up a dropped plate of lamb and casually hand it back to the servant who had dropped it without missing a beat in his conversation.
In no small sense, this capricious quality in the emperor only reflected the same irrational, unpredictable, incomprehensible behavior of the Order itself. The virtue—the very adequacy—of one’s self-sacrifice for the cause was measured against unseen, inscrutable, unknowable standards. Fortune or misfortune always seemed to hang on a whim. For a population, that perpetual gnawing doubt was debilitating. The deadweight of constant tension left people ready to accuse anyone of sedition—even friends or family—if only it would keep the talons of fate at bay.
Like any number of other men, Jagang also thought he could win Nicci’s affection with a little empty flattery. He liked to imagine that he could be charming. The form his praise took, though, revealed more about his values than hers.
Nicci did not bow. She was acutely aware of the metal collar around her neck that prevented her from using her gift. While she had no defense against this man, she wasn’t going to pretend respect by bowing, nor would she fawn at his finely framed lust.
In the past, despite her ability to use her Han, her real safety had always been her indifference to what he might do to her. During those times when he had been able to enter her mind, and she’d had no collar around her neck, her abilities as a sorceress had been of no help to her, just as his other captive Sisters were now helpless despite the fact that none of them wore a collar.
Her protection had always been in her attitude, not her gift.
Before, Nicci simply hadn’t cared if he hurt her, or even if he might at any time decide to kill her. She thought she deserved any suffering he might inflict and she didn’t care if she died. That left her indifferent to the ever-present possibility that the whim of murder might strike him.
