The distant howl of a wolf woke Richard from a dead sleep. The forlorn cry echoed through the mountains, but went unanswered. Richard lay on his side, in the surreal light of false dawn, idly listening, waiting, for a return cry that never came.
Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to open his eyes for longer than the span of a single, slow heartbeat, much less gather the energy to lift his head. Shadowy tree limbs appeared to move about in the murky darkness. It was odd that such an ordinary sound as the distant howl of a wolf should wake him.
He remembered that Cara had third watch. She would no doubt come to wake them soon enough. With great effort, he summoned the strength to roll over. He needed to touch Kahlan, to embrace her, to go back to sleep with her in his protective arms for a few more delicious minutes. His hand found only an expanse of empty ground.
Kahlan wasn’t there.
Where was she? Where had she gone off to? Perhaps she’d awakened early and gone to talk to Cara.
Richard sat up. He instinctively checked to make sure that his sword was at hand. The reassuring feel of the polished scabbard and wire-wound hilt greeted his fingers. The sword lay on the ground beside him.
Richard heard the soft whisper of a slow, steady rain. He remembered that for some reason he needed it not to rain.
But if it was raining, then why didn’t he feel it? Why was his face dry? Why was the ground dry?
He sat up rubbing his eyes, trying to get his bearings, trying to clear his foggy mind as he fought to herd together scattered thoughts. He peered into the darkness and realized that he wasn’t outside. In the faint gray light of dawn coming in through a single small window he saw that he was in a derelict room. The place smelled of wet wood and damp decay. Dying embers glowed deep within the ash in a hearth set into a plastered
wall rising up before him. A blackened wooden spoon hung to one side of the hearth, a mostly bald broom leaned against the other side, but other than that he saw no personal items to distinguish the people who lived there.
Daybreak looked to be still some time off. The incessant patter of the rain against the roof promised that there would be no sun this chilly and damp day. Besides dripping through several holes in the tattered roof, rain leaked in around the chimney, adding yet another layer of stain to the dingy plaster.
Seeing the plastered wall, the hearth, and the heavy plank table brought back spectral fragments of memories.
Driven by his need to know where Kahlan was, Richard staggered to his feet, clutching at the lingering pain in the left side of his chest with one hand and the edge of the table with his other.
At hearing him stand in the dimly lit room, Cara, leaning back in a chair not far away, shot to her feet. “Lord Rahl!”
He saw his sword lying on the table. But he had thought—
“Lord Rahl, you’re awake!” In the somber light Richard could see that Cara looked exuberant. He also saw that she was wearing her red leather.
“A wolf howled and woke me.”
Cara shook her head. “I’ve been sitting right there, awake, watching over you. No wolf howled. You must have dreamed it.” Her smile returned. “You look better!”
He recalled not being able to breathe, not being able to get enough air. He took an experimental deep breath and found that it came easily. While the ghost of terrible pain still haunted him, the reality of it had nearly faded away.
“Yes, I think I’m all right.”
Short, disjointed memories flashed in fits before his mind’s eye. He remembered standing alone and still in the eerie early light as the dark tide of Imperial Order soldiers flooded through the trees. He remembered bits of their wild charge, their raised weapons. He remembered releasing himself into the fluid dance with death. He remembered, too, the hail of arrows and bolts from crossbows, and, finally, other men joining the battle.
Richard lifted the front of his shirt out away from himself, looking down at it, not understanding why it was whole.
“Your shirt was ruined,” Cara offered, noticing his puzzlement. “We washed and shaved you, then we put a clean shirt on you.”
We.
That one word rose up above all others in his mind.
We.
Cara and Kahlan. That had to be what Cara meant.
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Kahlan,” he said as he took a stride away from the support of the table. “Where is she?”
“Kahlan?” Cara’s features meandered into a provocative smile. “Who’s Kahlan?”
Richard sighed with relief. Cara would not be needling him in such a way if Kahlan were hurt or in any kind of trouble—that much he knew for certain. An overwhelming sense of relief purged his dread and with it some of his weariness. Kahlan was safe.
He couldn’t help being cheered, too, by Cara’s impish expression. He loved to see her with a lighthearted smile, in part because it was such a rare sight. Usually when a Mord-Sith smiled it was a menacing prelude to something wholly unpleasant. The same was true when they wore their red leather.
“Kahlan,” Richard said, playing along, “you know, my wife. Where is she?”
Cara’s nose wrinkled with seldom-seen feminine mirth. Such an extraordinary look was so uncommon on Cara that it not only surprised him, but spurred him into a grin.
“A wife,” she drawled, turning coy. “Now, there’s a novel concept—the Lord Rahl taking a wife.”
That he found himself to be the Lord Rahl, the leader of D’Hara, at times still seemed unreal to him. It was not the kind of thing a woods guide growing up in far-off Westland would ever have dreamed up in his wildest imaginings.
“Yes, well, one of us had to be the first.” He wiped a hand across his face, still trying to clear the web of sleep from his mind. “Where is she?”
Cara’s smile widened. “Kahlan.” She tilted her head toward him, arching one brow. “Your wife.”
“Yes, Kahlan, my wife,” Richard said offhandedly. He had long ago learned that it was best not to give Cara the satisfaction of seeing her mischievous antics get to him. “You remember her—intelligent, green
eyes, tall, long hair, and of course the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
The leather of Cara’s outfit creaked as she straightened her back and folded her arms. “You mean the most beautiful besides me, of course.” Her eyes were luminous when she smiled. He didn’t rise to the bait.
“Well,” Cara finally said with a sigh, “the Lord Rahl certainly seems to have had an interesting dream during his long sleep.”
“Long sleep?”
“You’ve been asleep for two days—after Nicci healed you.”
Richard raked his fingers back through his dirty, matted hair. “Two days…” he said as he tried to reconcile his fragmented memories. He was becoming annoyed with Cara’s game. “So where is she?”
“Your wife?”
“Yes, my wife.” Richard planted his fists on his hips as he leaned toward the irksome woman. “You know, the Mother Confessor.”
“Mother Confessor! My, my, Lord Rahl, but when you dream you certainly do dream big. Smart, beautiful, and the Mother Confessor as well.” Cara leaned in with a taunting look. “And no doubt she’s also madly in love with you?”
“Cara—”
“Oh, wait.” She held up a hand to stop him as she abruptly turned serious. “Nicci said that she wanted me to go get her if you woke. She was really insistent about it—said that if you woke she needed to have a look at you.” Cara started toward the single closed door at the back of the room. “She’s only been asleep for a couple of hours, but she’ll want to know that you’re awake.”
Cara was in the back room for no more than a moment when Nicci burst out of the darkness, pausing briefly to grasp the doorframe. “Richard!”
Before Richard could say anything, Nicci, her eyes wide with relief at seeing him alive, dashed to him and seized his shoulders as if she thought he were a good spirit come to the world of the living and only her firm grip would keep him there.
“I was so worried. How are you feeling?”
She looked as drained as he felt. Her mane of blond hair hadn’t been brushed out and it looked like she’d been sleeping in her black dress. Even so, the contrast of her disheveled appearance only served to highlight her exquisite beauty.
“Well, all right for the most part, except that I feel exhausted and light-headed despite having had what Cara tells me was quite a long sleep.”
Nicci dismissively waved a slender hand. “That’s to be expected. With rest you will have your full strength back soon enough. You lost a lot of blood. It will take time for your body to recover.”
“Nicci, I need—”
“Hush,” she said as she put one hand behind his back and pressed the flat of her other to his chest. Her smooth brow drew together in concentration.
Though she appeared to be about his age, or at most only a year or two older, she had lived a very long time as a Sister of the Light at the Palace of the Prophets, where those within the walls aged differently. Nicci’s graceful manner, the keen appraisal of her blue eyes, and her singular subdued smile—always delivered with her knowing gaze locked on his—had been at first distracting and then unsettling, but was now merely familiar.
Richard winced as he felt Nicci’s power tingling deep into his chest, between her hands. It was a disconcerting penetration. It made his heart flutter. A mild wave of nausea coursed through him.
“It’s holding,” Nicci murmured to herself. She looked up into his eyes then. “The vessels are whole and strong.” The look of wonder in her eyes betrayed how uncertain she had been of success. Some of her reassuring smile returned. “You still need to rest, but you’re doing well, Richard, you really are.”
He nodded, relieved to hear that he was healthy, even if she sounded a little surprised by it. But his other concerns needed to be put to rest, as well.
“Nicci, where’s Kahlan? Cara’s in one of her moods this morning and won’t say.”
Nicci looked to be at a loss. “Who?”
Richard took hold of her wrist and removed her hand from his chest. “What’s wrong? Is she hurt? Where is she?”
Cara tilted her head toward Nicci. “While he slept, Lord Rahl dreamed himself up a wife.”
Nicci turned an astonished frown on Cara. “A wife!”
“Remember the name he called out when he was delirious?” Cara flashed a conspiratorial smile. “That’s the one he married in his dream. She’s beautiful—and smart, of course.”
“Beautiful.” Nicci blinked at the woman. “And smart.”
Cara cocked an eyebrow. “And she’s the Mother Confessor.”
Nicci looked incredulous. “The Mother Confessor.”
“Enough,” Richard said as he released Nicci’s wrist. “I mean it, now. Where is she?”
It was immediately apparent to both women that his indulgent sense of humor had evaporated. The intensity in his voice, to say nothing of his glare, gave them pause.
“Richard,” Nicci said in a cautious tone, “you were hurt pretty bad. For a time I didn’t think…” She hooked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and started over. “Look, when a person is hurt as seriously as you were, it can play tricks with their mind. It’s only natural. I’ve seen it before. When you were shot with that arrow you couldn’t breathe. Not getting air, like when you’re drowning, causes—”
“What’s the matter with you two? What’s going on?” Richard couldn’t understand why they were stalling. His heart felt as if it were galloping out of control. “Is she hurt? Tell me!”
“Richard,” Nicci said in a calm voice obviously meant to settle him down, “the bolt from that crossbow came perilously close to going right through your heart. If it had, there wouldn’t have been anything I could have done. I can’t raise the dead.
“Even though it missed your heart, the arrow still did serious damage. People just don’t survive a wound as grave as you had. I wouldn’t have been able to heal you in the conventional manner because it couldn’t be done. There was no time to even try to get the arrow out in any other way. You were bleeding inside. I had to…”
She faltered as she stared up into his eyes. Richard bent down a little toward her. “You had to what?”
Nicci shrugged one shoulder self-consciously. “I had to use Subtractive Magic.”
Nicci was a powerful sorceress in her own right, but she was infinitely more exceptional in that she was able to wield underworld forces as well. She had once been committed to those forces. She had once been known as Death’s Mistress. Healing was not exactly her specialty.
Richard’s caution flared. “Why?”
“To get the arrow out of you.”
“You eliminated the arrow with Subtractive Magic?”
“There was no time and no other way.” She again clasped his shoulders, although more compassionately this time. “If I hadn’t done something you would have been dead in mere moments. I had to.”
Richard glanced to Cara’s grim expression and then back to Nicci. “Well, I guess that makes sense.”
At least, it sounded like it made sense. He didn’t really know if it did or not. Having been raised in the vast woods of Westland, Richard didn’t know a great deal about magic.
“And some of your blood,” Nicci added in a low voice.
He didn’t like the sound of that. “What?”
“You were bleeding into your chest. One lung had already failed. I was able to perceive that your heart was being forced out of place. The major arteries were in danger of being ripped apart from the pressure. I needed the blood out of the way in order to heal you—so that your lungs and heart could work properly. They were failing. You were in a state of shock and delirium. You were near death.”
Nicci’s blue eyes brimmed with tears. “I was so afraid, Richard. There was no one but me to help you and I was so afraid that I would fail. Even after I did everything I could to heal you, I still wasn’t sure you would ever wake again.”
Richard could see the toll of that fear in her expression and feel it in the way her fingers trembled on his arms. It spoke to how far she had come since she had given up her belief in the cause of the Sisters of the Dark and then the Imperial Order.
The haunted look on Cara’s face confirmed for him the truth of how desperate the situation had been. For all the sleep he’d apparently gotten, neither of them appeared to have had much more than brief naps. It must have been a frightening vigil.