Kahlan heard the air driven from Cara’s lungs with a grunt as she slammed into a bookcase on the other side of the room. The men on the other side of the door pounded into it, trying to break it down. The door wasn’t budging.
As books across the room were still tumbling and thudding to the floor, Kahlan sprang up and groped for the handle. Her knuckles struck the cold metal of the lever. She slapped her hand over it.
With a shriek, she was thrown back from a sudden flash and landed on her bottom. Like sparks from a flaming log struck with a poker, a shower of flashes from the handle filled the air. Her fingers stung and tingled from touching the shield. Small wonder the men couldn’t open the door. As she regained her feet, recovering from the shock, Kahlan could see again by the flickering sparkles of light that still slowly drifted toward the floor.
Suddenly Cara could see, too. She snatched a book and flung it at the man near the center of the small room. He ducked into a squat.
Quick as a slap, Cara spun, catching him off guard. The air resounded with a hard thud as her boot nailed his jaw. The blow drove him backward. Kahlan took aim to leap for him before all the sparks extinguished and it went dark again.
“You die first!” he railed in rage at Cara. “I’ll have no more of your trifling interference! You’ll taste my power!”
The air at his fingertips lit with glimmering flashes as he leveled his full attention on Cara. Kahlan had to deal with the threat now, before anything else went wrong.
But before she could leap for him, his curled fingers twitched up. With a contemptuous sneer, he thrust one hand toward Cara.
Kahlan expected Cara to be the one on the floor next. Instead, the young man crumpled with a cry. He tried to stand, but collapsed with a shriek, hugging himself as if he had been stabbed in the gut. The room went black again.
Kahlan reached for the door lever, taking a chance that whatever Cara had done to him had broken his shield. Wincing against the pain she feared might still be waiting, she seized the handle. The shield was gone. Relieved, she twisted the lever and yanked the door open. Light from behind the crowd of soldiers pierced into the dark room. Confounded faces peered in.
Kahlan didn’t need a roomful of men getting themselves killed while trying to save her from things they didn’t understand. She shoved the closest man back.
“He has the gift! Stay out!” She knew that D’Harans feared magic. They depended on the Lord Rahl to fight magic. They were the steel against steel, they often said, and Lord Rahl was supposed to be the magic against magic. “Give me a lamp!”
Men to each side simultaneously snatched lamps from brackets beside the door and held them out. Kahlan grabbed one and kicked the door shut as she turned back to the room. She didn’t want a pack of muscle-bound, weapon-wielding men to get in her way.
In the wavering glow from the lamp, Kahlan saw Cara squat down on the crimson carpet beside the man. He clutched his arms across his abdomen as he vomited blood. Her red leather outfit creaked as she rested her forearms on her knees. She was rolling her Agiel in her fingers, waiting.
Once his retching had ceased, Cara snatched a fistful of his hair. Her long blond braid slid across the back of her broad shoulders as she leaned closer.
“That was a big mistake. A very big mistake,” she said with silky satisfaction. “You should never have tried to use your magic against a Mord-Sith. You had it right for a moment, but then you let me make you angry enough to use your magic. Who’s the fool now?”
“What’s… a… Mord-Sith?” he managed between gasps.
Cara twisted his head upward until he cried out. “Your worst nightmare. The purpose of a Mord-Sith is to eliminate threats like you.
“I now command your magic. It’s mine to use, and you, my pet, are helpless to do anything about it, as you will soon learn. You should have tried to strangle me, or beat me to death, or to run, but you should never, ever, have tried to use magic against me. Once you use your magic against a Mord-Sith, it’s hers.”
Kahlan stood transfixed. That was what a Mord-Sith had done to Richard. That was how he had been captured.
Cara pressed her Agiel against the man’s ribs. He shivered as he screamed. Blood soaked through his tunic in a spreading stain.
“Now, when I ask a question,” she said in a quiet, authoritative tone, “I expect an answer. Do you understand?”
He remained silent. She twisted the Agiel. Kahlan winced when she heard his rib pop. He flinched and gasped, holding his breath, unable to scream.
Kahlan felt as if she were frozen in place, unable to move a muscle. Richard had told her that Denna, the Mord-Sith who had captured him, had liked to crack his ribs. It made each breath agony, and screaming, which she soon provoked, excruciating torture. It also left the victim that much more helpless.
Cara rose. “Stand.”
The man staggered to his feet.
“You are about to find out why I wear blood-red leather.” Unleashing a mighty swing, launched with an angry cry, Cara clouted his face with her armored fist. As he went down, blood sprayed across the bookcase. As soon as he hit the floor, she straddled him, a boot to each side of his hips.
“I can see what you’re envisioning,” Cara told him. “I saw the vision of what you want to do to me. Naughty boy.” She stomped a boot down on his sternum. “That was the least of what you will suffer for that thought. You had better learn real fast to keep ideas of resistance out of your mind. Got it?”
She bent and drove her Agiel into his gut. “Got it?”
His scream sent a shiver up Kahlan’s spine. She was sickened by what she was watching, having once felt the profoundly painful touch of an Agiel, but worse, knowing that this was what had been done to Richard, and yet she didn’t make a move to stop it.
She had offered this man mercy. If he had had his way, he would have killed Richard. He had promised to kill her, too, but it was that threat against Richard that kept her silent, and prevented her from stopping Cara.
“Now,” Cara said with a sneer. She jabbed her Agiel against his cracked rib. “What is your name?”
“Marlin Pickard!” He tried to blink away the tears. A sheen of sweat covered his face. Blood frothed at his mouth as he panted.
She pressed her Agiel against his groin. Marlin's feet kicked out helplessly as he wailed.
“The next time I ask a question, don’t make me wait for an answer. And you will address me as Mistress Cara.”
“Cara,” Kahlan said in a quiet tone, still seeing the vision of Richard in place of the man, “there is no need to…”
Cara looked over her shoulder, glaring with cold blue eyes. Kahlan turned away and with trembling fingers wiped a tear as it rolled down her cheek. She lifted the glass chimney of the lamp on the wall and used the one she held to light it. When the wick took to flame, she set her lamp down on a side table and replaced its chimney. It was frightening to see the cold look in those Mord-Sith eyes. Her heart pounded at the thought of how many weeks Richard had seen only cold eyes like that looking back as he begged for mercy.
Kahlan turned back to the pair. “We need answers, nothing more.”
“I’m getting answers.”
Kahlan nodded. “I understand, but we don’t need the screams along with them. We don’t torture people.”
“Torture? I have not yet even begun to torture him.” Cara straightened, casting a glance to the shivering man at her feet. “And if he had managed to kill Lord Rahl first? Would you wish me to leave him be, then?”
“Yes.” Kahlan met the woman’s eyes. “And then I would have done worse to him myself. Worse than you could even conceive of. But he didn’t hurt Richard.”
A cunning smile curled the corners of Cara’s mouth. “He intended it. The canon of the spirits says that intent is guilt. Failure to successfully carry out the intent does not absolve the guilt.”
“The spirits also mark a distinction between intent and deed. It was my intent to take care of him, in my way.
Was it your intent to disobey my direct order?”
Cara flicked her blond braid back over her shoulder. “It was my intent to protect you and Lord Rahl. I have succeeded.”
“I told you to let me handle it.”
“Hesitation can be the end of you… or those you care about.” A haunted look passed across Cara’s face. Iron quickly repossessed her countenance. “I have learned never to hesitate.”
“Is that why you were provoking him? To get him to attack you with his magic?”
With the heel of her hand, Cara wiped the blood from a deep cut on her cheek—a cut Marlin had given her when he had struck her and slammed her into the bookcase. She stepped closer. “Yes.” She took a long lick of the blood from her hand while watching Kahlan’s eyes. “A Mord-Sith can’t take a person’s magic unless they attack us with it.”
“I thought you feared magic.”
Cara tugged the sleeve of her leather, straightening it down her arm. “We do, unless it is specifically used by the one who commands it to attack us. Then it’s ours.”
“You always claim not to know anything about magic, and yet now you command his? You can use his magic?”
Cara glanced down at the man groaning on the floor. “No. I can’t use it, like he uses it, but I can turn it against him—hurt him with his own magic.” Her brow twitched. “Sometimes, we feel a bit of it, but we don’t understand it the way Lord Rahl understands it, and so we can’t use it. Except to give them pain.”
Kahlan couldn’t reconcile such contradictions. “How?”
She was struck by how much Cara’s emotionless expression was like a Confessor’s face, the face Kahlan’s mother had taught her, showing nothing of the inner feelings about what had to be done.
“Our minds are linked,” Cara explained, “through the magic, so I can see what he’s thinking when he is thinking of hurting me, or fighting back, or disobeying my orders, because it contradicts my wishes. Since we are linked to their minds through their magic, our will to hurt them makes it happen.” She looked down at Marlin. He suddenly cried out anew in agony. “See?”
“I see. Now stop it. If he refuses to give us answers, then you can… do what it takes, but I won’t sanction doing anything that isn’t required to protect Richard.”
Kahlan looked up from Marlin's torment to Cara’s cold blue eyes. She spoke before she thought. “Did you know Denna?”
“Everyone knew Denna.”
“And was she as good at… at torturing people as you?”
“Me?” Cara said with a laugh. “No one was as good at it as Denna. That’s why she was Darken Rahl’s favorite. I could hardly believe the things she could do to a man. Why, she could…”
With a glance at the Agiel hanging at Kahlan’s neck—Denna’s Agiel—Cara suddenly caught the meaning behind Kahlan’s questions.
“That was in the past. We were bonded to Darken Rahl. We did as we were commanded. We are bonded to Richard, now. We would never hurt him. We would die to keep anyone from hurting Lord Rahl.” Her tone lowered to a whisper. “Lord Rahl not only killed Denna, but he also forgave her for what she did to him.”
Kahlan nodded. “So he did. But I have not. Though I understand how she did as she was trained and commanded, and her spirit has been a comfort and an aid to both of us, and I appreciate the sacrifices she has since made on our behalf, in my heart I can’t forgive her for the horrifying things she did to the man I love.”
Cara studied Kahlan’s eyes a long moment. “I understand. If you ever hurt Lord Rahl, I would never forgive you, either. Nor would I ever grant you any mercy.”
Kahlan held the woman’s gaze. “Likewise. It is said, that for a Mord-Sith there a is no worse death to be had that by the touch of a Confessor.”
A slow smile came to Cara’s lips. “So I have been told.”
“It’s fortunate we’re on the same side. As I’ve said, there are things I won’t, I can’t, forgive. I love Richard more than life itself.”
“Every Mord-Sith knows that the worst pain comes from one you love.”
“Richard need never fear that pain.”
Cara seemed to consider her words carefully. “Darken Rahl never had to fear that kind of pain; he never loved a woman. Lord Rahl does. I have noticed that where love is concerned, things sometimes have a way of changing.”
So that was the heart of the matter.
“Cara, I could no more hurt Richard than could you. I would lay down my life first. I love him.”
“As do I,” Cara said, “if in a different way, but with no less ferocity. Lord Rahl freed us. In his place, anyone else would have had every Mord-Sith put to death. He instead has given us a chance to live up to his expectations.”
Cara shifted her weight to her other foot as her eyes withdrew their cold assessment. “Perhaps Richard is the only one of us to understand the good spirits’ principles—that we can’t truly love until we forgive another their worst crimes against us.”
Kahlan felt her face flush at Cara’s words. She never thought of a Mord-Sith as having such depth of understanding in matters of compassion. “Was Denna a friend?” Cara nodded. “And has your heart forgiven Richard for killing her?”
“Yes, but that’s different,” Cara admitted. “I understand the way you feel about Denna. I don’t blame you. In your place, I would feel the same.”
Kahlan stared off. “When I told Denna—her spirit—that I couldn’t forgive her, she said that she understood, and that the only forgiveness she needed had already been granted. She told me that she loved Richard—that even in death she loved him.” Just as Richard had seen in Kahlan the woman behind the magic, he had seen in Denna the person behind the fearsome persona of a Mord-Sith. Kahlan could understand Denna’s feelings at having someone finally see her for herself. “Perhaps the forgiveness of one you love is the only thing in life that really matters—the only thing that can truly heal your heart, heal your soul.”
Kahlan watched her finger as she traced the scoop of a curled leaf carved in the banding of the tabletop. “But I could never forgive anyone who hurt him.”
“And have you forgiven me?”
Kahlan looked up. “For what?”
Cara’s fist tightened on her Agiel. Kahlan knew that it hurt a Mord-Sith to hold her Agiel in her hand—part of the paradox of being a giver of pain. “For being Mord-Sith.”
“Why should I have to forgive you that?”
Cara looked away. “Because if Darken Rahl had commanded me instead of Denna to take Richard, I would have been as merciless as she. As would Berdine, or Raina, or any of the rest.”
“I told you, the spirits mark a distinction between the might have been and the deed. So do I. You cannot be held responsible for what others have done to you, any more than I can be held answerable because I was born a Confessor, and no more than Richard can be held guilty because that murderous Darken Rahl fathered him.”
Still Cara didn’t look up. “But will you ever truly trust us?”
“You have already proven yourselves, in Richard’s eyes, and in mine. You are not Denna, nor responsible for her choices.” With a thumb, Kahlan wiped oozing blood from Cara’s cheek. “Cara, if I didn’t trust you, all of you, would I allow Berdine and Raina, two of you, to be alone with Richard right now?”
Cara glanced again to Denna’s Agiel. “In the battle with the Blood of the Fold, I saw the way you fought to protect Lord Rahl, as well as the people of the city. To be Mord-Sith is to understand that you must sometimes be merciless. Though you are not Mord-Sith, I have seen that you understand this. You are a worthy guardian to Lord Rahl. You are the only woman I know worthy of wearing an Agiel.
“Though to you that may sound reprehensible, in my eyes, it is an honor that you wear an Agiel. Its ultimate purpose is to protect our master.”
Kahlan offered a sincere smile, understanding Cara just a little bit better than she had before. She wondered what the woman behind the appellation had been like before she was captur
ed and trained to became a Mord-Sith. Richard had told her that it was a horror far beyond anything that had been done to him.
“In my eyes, too, because Richard gave it to me. I am his protector, as are you. In that way, we are sisters of the Agiel.”
Cara smiled her approval.
“Does this mean that you’ll follow our orders for a change?” Kahlan asked.
“We always follow your orders.”
With a wry smile, Kahlan shook her head.
Cara nodded toward the man on the floor. “He will answer your questions, as I promised you before, Mother Confessor. I won’t practice my skills on him any more than is necessary.”
Kahlan squeezed Cara’s arm in sorrow and sympathy for the warped role the woman’s life had been twisted into by others. “Thank you, Cara.”
Kahlan turned her attention to Marlin and the problem at hand. “Let’s try it again. What were your plans?”
He glared up at her. Cara shoved him with a foot.
“You answer truthfully, or I’ll start finding some nice, tender places for my Agiel. Understand?”
“Yes.”
Cara squatted down, fanning her Agiel before his face. “Yes, Mistress Cara.” The sudden threat in her tone seemed to annul everything she had just said. It frightened even Kahlan.
Wide-eyed, he swallowed. “Yes, Mistress Cara.”
“That’s better. Now, answer the Mother Confessor’s question.”
“My plans were as I told you: to kill Richard Rahl and you.”
“How long ago did Jagang give you these orders?”
“Nearly two weeks.”
Well, there was that. It could be that Jagang had been killed at the Palace of the Prophets when Richard destroyed it. That was what they had been hoping, anyway. Perhaps he had given the orders before he was killed.
“What else?” Kahlan asked.
“Nothing else. I was to use my talent to get in here and kill the both of you, that’s all.”
Cara landed a kick on his cracked rib. “Don’t lie to us!”