AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Commander Fister scratched his head, clearly looking uncomfortable. “What is it you intend to do with Lord Rahl, if I might ask?”
Kahlan considered for a moment. She didn’t want to say too much.
“Whatever we can,” she said, leaving it at that.
She actually didn’t know much more herself. Nicci had brooded the entire way back to the citadel. She hadn’t wanted to share anything about what she was going to have to do. None of the rest of them were eager to hear exactly what it was that a Sister of the Dark did in regard to the underworld. Whatever it was, it unnerved Nicci, and Nicci was hardly one to be unnerved. Kahlan had left the sorceress to her own thoughts.
Kahlan paused at the door to the bedroom where Richard lay.
Two First File soldiers stood guard beside the door. Each held a pike upright. It was warm on the upper floor and the massive muscles of their arms glistened with sweat.
“The room is emptied, Mother Confessor,” one said.
Kahlan nodded her thanks.
“Is the rest of the floor clear?” Nicci asked.
“It is. We’re the last two up here.”
“Well, let’s go, then,” the commander said to him. He turned to Kahlan, trying not to let his gaze wander to the silent witch woman. “We will be downstairs if any of you ladies need anything.”
Cassia closed the door once they were inside. The three Mord-Sith quietly took up positions to guard the door, making sure that no one could come in, even though the commander had sworn that no one would disturb them. Mord-Sith rarely took anyone’s word for anything.
A stand with a dozen and a half candles as well as a lamp on a table softly lit a large, thick tapestry on one of the walls. The tapestry depicted a dark forest scene. It reminded Kahlan of the Hartland woods where she had first met Richard.
The room had one window that revealed only darkness outside the diamond-shaped pieces of leaded glass. Dark, rust-colored carpet muted the sound of their footsteps.
The canopy bed was covered with dark blue-green fabric embroidered with gold edging. Heavy draping of the same blue-green fabric was gathered with ties around the posts at each corner, making the bed look like a holy shrine.
Now, Richard lay dead on that bed as if he were lying in state. Kahlan supposed that in a way he was.
She stood numb at the foot of the bed staring at Richard lying there still in death. Her heart hammered so hard at seeing him that she swayed on her feet.
Red pushed the hood of her cloak back, letting the ropes of her red hair fall free.
“Do you mind?” she asked in a soft voice as she lifted a hand out toward Richard.
Kahlan shook her head, fearing to test her voice.
Red moved to the side of the bed and put her hand against his face, holding it there for a moment. She didn’t say anything. Kahlan suspected that she wanted to feel his flesh as well as use her gift to confirm what Kahlan had told her about how his body was preserved.
Once satisfied, she said nothing as she went to stare out the window into the darkness. Kahlan sat on the side of the bed.
“I’m back,” she whispered tearfully to him as she took up one of his big hands in both of hers.
“We’re coming for you, Richard. Be strong.”
CHAPTER
13
Nicci picked up the corner of the dark, rust-colored carpet and threw it back to reveal a plank floor beneath it.
“Can we help?” Cassia asked.
“Yes.” Nicci motioned with an arm. “Pull the carpet back out of the way. I need the floor to be clear.”
Cassia and Vale quickly rolled the heavy carpet up against the wall. Beneath was a bare pine wood floor marked with centuries of scratches, scrapes, and dents, its color muted with the patina of age.
Kahlan realized that this floor, this citadel, had been constructed back in the time the great wall had been built to contain the threat from Emperor Sulachan and his third kingdom. The citadel had been made as part of the defensive system to protect the world from the terror beyond.
“Time has been suspended in Richard’s body,” Red said back over her shoulder to Kahlan, “just as you said.”
“So then it will work?” Kahlan asked, hope rising in her voice.
Red shook her head. “I’m only saying that if it wouldn’t have been as you said, then there would have been no chance.”
“Which means there is a chance,” Kahlan pressed.
Red showed a polite smile. “A chance.”
Kahlan wished she knew what the woman saw in the flow of time. On second thought, she realized, maybe she didn’t want to know. Sometimes, the future only held pain.
A breathless Laurin rushed back into the room and with her foot pushed the door shut. She handed Nicci a scratched and dented metal bowl when the sorceress stood.
“Metal, like you asked for.”
Nodding, Nicci took the bowl and only gave it a cursory look before handing it to Kahlan.
“Three fingers deep should do.”
Kahlan blinked. “What?”
“I need some of your blood.” She seemed distracted as she pointed to a spot inside the bowl. “This much–up to here.”
Kahlan stood holding the bowl, not sure what to do as she watched Nicci carefully pacing off distances across the floor.
Red returned from the window. “I’ll help you.”
“No!” Nicci said, turning back suddenly. She went to the bedside table and extinguished the lamp. “No one but she must touch it.”
Red withdrew her hands and watched Nicci from the corner of her eye for a moment but didn’t say anything. Kahlan pulled her knife from the sheath at her belt.
Nicci, ch
ecking that the window was closed and latched, turned and saw what Kahlan was about to do. “Wait. There is a prophecy that says ‘Sacred is the sword when there is no hope but in the blade.’ I think it might have to do with this night.”
Kahlan glanced toward Richard and then the sword standing at the wall, leaning against the head of the bed. She looked back at the sorceress.
“Meaning?”
“Don’t use a knife. Use Richard’s sword,” Nicci said in a quiet voice as she went back to pacing off a distance on the floor.
Something about the words “Richard’s sword” gave Kahlan a chill. It was a weapon that had drawn so much blood in the defense of life.
Trying not to think about those connections, Kahlan replaced the knife and drew the sword from its elaborate scabbard, sending the soft, distinctive sound of the singular blade ringing around the stone walls of the room. She sat on the edge of the bed and set the bowl in her lap, trying not to think about how much of her blood Nicci needed, or what the sorceress intended to do with it.
Without giving herself any more time to consider it, she pulled the blade across the inside of her wrist. The blade was so sharp that she hardly felt it at first. As a copious flow of blood began to pump out, the cut began to hurt in earnest. Kahlan bent her wrist back over the bowl, turning her hand up out of the way so that the blood would all run into the metal bowl.
Nicci carefully paced off distances in several directions and placed eight candles on the floor in a large circle. With a quick gesture she used her gift to light the candles, then came over to the bed to check.
“That looks like enough,” she said as she peered into the bowl. She placed a hand over the cut. Blood ran out between and over Nicci’s fingers. Kahlan felt a hot jolt of magic sear into her arm. “That should close it.”
She was right. The wound stopped bleeding immediately, even if it did still throb with a sharp ache.
Nicci picked up the bowl and gestured with it. “I’d like you three to wait outside, please. Guard the door. Don’t let anyone in. Don’t open the door, no matter what you hear. Not for anything, understand?”
