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“Shh,” Kahlan urged. “I know it hurts, but try to stay quiet. You need to try to take a drink. You need water. When you’re hurt your body needs water so you can get better.”
As much as he had choked her while he railed in fury, it was a miracle that Jagang hadn’t crushed Nicci’s windpipe. His powerful hands had left behind lurid bruises, though, and not just on her neck.
Nicci’s blue eyes slowly opened, focusing on Kahlan’s face. Kahlan was down low, sitting on the floor beside the bed. She was leaning in close to Nicci, trying to keep her voice low so that it wouldn’t carry to those outside the bedchamber. She didn’t want anyone to hear her talking to Nicci. Nicci hadn’t wanted Jagang to know that she could see Kahlan. Kahlan thought it wise to never let an enemy know anything more than was absolutely necessary. Apparently, Nicci thought much the same thing.
As awkward as it was leaning over the edge of the bed, Kahlan didn’t dare get up off the carpet. She knew the consequences of getting up when Jagang had told her to stay on the floor.
A jagged gash at Nicci’s scalp line on the right side of her forehead was still bleeding. A glancing blow from Jagang’s ringed fist had ripped up a flap of scalp. Kahlan snatched up a small cloth, folded it, and gently pressed it against the wound on Nicci’s forehead, fitting the loose chunk of flesh in place as she applied pressure to stop the bleeding. In mere moments the cloth soaked through with blood. As much as she ached to help, there was little more she could think to do other than try to stop some of the bleeding and offer a drink of water.
The wound from the gold ring pierced through Nicci’s lower lip still oozed, leaving a trail of blood down her jaw and the side of her neck, but it wasn’t serious, like the wound on her forehead, so Kahlan didn’t try to do anything for it.
She carefully pulled a lock of blond hair back off Nicci’s face. “I’m so sorry for what he did to you.”
Nicci nodded slightly, her jaw trembling slightly as she held back tears.
“I wanted so much to stop him,” Kahlan said.
With the back of a finger Nicci caught the tear running down Kahlan’s cheek.
“There was nothing you could do,” the woman managed. “Nothing.”
Her voice was weak but, despite that, it still carried the same silken grace as before. It was a voice that matched the rest of her perfectly. Kahlan would never have guessed that such a lovely voice could also carry such righteous contempt as she’d shown Jagang.
“Nothing any of us can do,” Nicci whispered as her eyelids slid closed. “Except maybe Richard.”
Kahlan studied the woman’s blue eyes a moment. “You really think that Richard Rahl can do something?”
Nicci smiled to herself. “Sorry. I didn’t realize that I’d said the last part aloud. Where’s Jagang?”
Kahlan checked and saw that the wound under the cloth she had pressed to Nicci’s head had at last stopped bleeding.
“You didn’t hear him when he left?” she asked as she set the blood-soaked cloth aside.
Nicci rocked her head side to side to say that she hadn’t. Kahlan lifted the waterskin in question. Nicci nodded. She winced as she swallowed, but she drank.
“Well,” Kahlan said when Nicci finished drinking, “someone called out for him. He went to the doorway and a man spoke to him in a low voice. I couldn’t hear all of it, but it sounded like he said that they’d found something. Jagang came back and put on his clothes. As fast as he got dressed, he was obviously in a hurry to have a look at the discovery. He told me to stay where I was.
“Then he put one knee on the bed, leaned over you, and whispered to you that he was sorry.”
Nicci huffed a laugh, but it was cut short when she winced in pain. “He isn’t capable of feeling sorry for anyone but himself.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Kahlan said. “Anyway, he promised to bring back a Sister to heal you. He ran a hand down your face and again said that he was sorry. Then he paused, looking down at you with a worried look. He leaned a little closer to you and said, ‘Please don’t die, Nicci.’ After that he rushed away, telling me again to stay on the floor.
“I don’t know how long he will be gone, but I suspect that a Sister, at least, will be in at any moment.”
Nicci nodded, not seeming to really care if she was healed or not. Kahlan could understand, in a way, how Nicci would rather slip into the dark forever of death than face what would be her life from now on.
“I’m terribly sorry that you’ve been caught up by him, but you don’t know how good it is to have another person be able to see me—someone who isn’t with them.”
“I can only imagine,” Nicci said.
“Jillian said that she’s seen you before. With Richard Rahl. She told me a little about you. You’re as beautiful as she said you were.”
“My mother used to tell me that being beautiful was only useful to whores. Perhaps she was right.”
“Perhaps she was jealous of you. Or just a fool.”
Nicci smiled so broadly that it looked like she might laugh. “It was the latter. She hated life.”
Kahlan’s gaze drifted away from Nicci as she picked at a loose thread on the bedcover.
“So you know Richard Rahl pretty well, then?”
“Pretty well,” Nicci said.
“Are you in love with him?”
Nicci looked over, gazing into Kahlan’s eyes for a long moment. “It’s more complicated than that. I have responsibilities.”
Kahlan smiled a little. “I see.” She was glad that Nicci hadn’t tried to lie by denying it.
“You have a beautiful voice, Kahlan Amnell,” Nicci whispered as she stared at Kahlan. “You really do.”
“Thank you, but it doesn’t seem beautiful to me. Sometimes I think I sound like a frog.”
Nicci smiled. “Hardly.”
Kahlan frowned. “You know me, then?”
“Not really.”
“But you know my name. Do you know anything about me? About my past? Who I really am?”
Nicci’s blue eyes watched her in a most curious fashion. “Just what I’ve heard.”
“And what have you heard?”
“That you are the Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan hooked some hair behind her ear. “I heard that myself.”
She checked the doorway again and, seeing the hanging still in place and hearing no voices close, turned back to Nicci. “I’m afraid that I don’t know what it means. I don’t know very much at all about myself. As I’m sure you can probably imagine, it’s pretty frustrating. Sometimes, I get so dispirited by not being able to remember anything…”
Kahlan’s voice trailed off as Nicci’s eyes closed against a pang of agony. She was having trouble breathing.
Kahlan laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Hold on, Nicci. Please hold on. A Sister will be in to heal you any moment. I’ve been hurt by them before—hurt terribly—and they healed me, so I know they can do it. You’ll be all right after they get in here.”
Nicci nodded slightly, but she didn’t open her eyes. Kahlan wished that one of the Sisters would hurry. In the absence of anything she could do, Kahlan gave Nicci another drink, then wet the piece of cloth again and gently mopped her brow.
Kahlan was torn between staying where she’d been told to stay and rushing to the opening out of the bedchamber to demand that someone go get a Sister. She knew, though, that the collar she wore around her neck would drop her before she would be able to take two steps. It was somewhat surprising that there wasn’t a Sister already outside. There was usually at least one of them at hand.
“I’ve never seen anyone stand up to Jagang the way you did,” Kahlan said.
“It wouldn’t really have mattered if I did or not.” Nicci paused to get her breath. “He was going to do what he wanted to do. But I wasn’t about
to agree to it.”
Kahlan smiled at Nicci’s spirit of defiance.
“Jagang was already angry at you long before you arrived. Sister Ulicia told him how you’re in love with Richard. She was going on and on about it.”
Nicci’s eyes were open, but she said nothing as she stared up at the ceiling.
“That’s why Jagang was questioning you—because of what Sister Ulicia told him. He was jealous.”
“He has no reason to be jealous. He should be more concerned that someday I’m going to kill him.”
Kahlan smiled at that. Then, she wondered if Nicci meant that Jagang had no reason to be jealous because there was nothing between her and Richard, or because there was but the emperor had no right to have a claim on her heart.
“Do you think you will ever get a chance to kill him?”
In frustration, Nicci lifted a hand just a little bit, then let it drop back down to her side. “Probably not. I think I’m the one who is going to be killed.”
“Maybe we can think of something before that happens,” Kahlan said. “How did he manage to capture you, anyway?”
“I was in the palace.”
“They found a way in?”
“Yes. Through forgotten catacombs that run underneath the Azrith Plain and under the plateau. The underground chambers and tunnels appear to have been abandoned millennia ago.
“I think it was a reconnaissance expedition that caught me. They haven’t begun to invade the palace, yet, but as soon as they have what they need in place I’m sure they will.”
Kahlan realized that that was what had been discovered buried in the pit. With a way in, it was only a matter of time until they stormed the palace and slaughtered everyone up there. She knew that when that happened all hope would be lost. Jagang would have defeated the last holdout against the Imperial Order. He would rule the world.
At least, he would if he could get his hands on the third box of Orden. Kahlan didn’t doubt his word, though, that he would soon accomplish that as well. It seemed that time was not just running out for Richard Rahl, but for any hope of freedom surviving.
Nicci, her chin trembling, looked over at Kahlan. “Please, cover me?”
