“Today, when I drew the bow and called the target, I also called something else: magic.

“When Zedd touched me before, to heal me, and when you touched me when you were in the Con Dar, I felt the magic. This was something like that. I knew it was magic. It felt different from yours and Zedd’s, but I recognized the texture of magic. I could feel the life of it, like a second breath. Alive.” Richard put a fist in the center of his chest. “I could feel it coming from inside me, building until I released it to call the target.”

Kahlan recognized in herself the feelings he was describing. “Maybe it has something to do with the sword.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I suppose it could be. But I couldn’t control it. After a while, it simply went away, like a candle blown out in the wind. It felt like suddenly being in darkness, as if I was suddenly blind. And the headache came back.

“I couldn’t hit the target, and I couldn’t call it to me, so I just let the others shoot. The magic would come and go. I could never tell when it was going to happen. Then when the men started eating meat, I felt sick, and had to go away from them. I shot while they ate, and sometimes I could summon the magic and the headache would go away.”

“What about when you caught the arrow out of the air?”

He cast her a sidelong glance. “savidlin told you about that, did he?” She nodded. Richard let out a deep breath. “That was the strangest of all. I don’t know how to explain it. Somehow, I made the air thicker.”

She leaned closer, studying his face. “Made the air thicker?”

He nodded again. “I knew I had to slow the arrow down, and the only thing I could think of was that if the air was thick, like it was those times with the sword, when the air got thick and stopped the sword, then maybe I had a chance. Otherwise, I was going to die. It just all came into my head at once, the idea, and the doing. Instantly.

“I have no clue as to what I did. I just had the thought and I saw my hand snatch the arrow out of the air.”

He fell silent. Kahlan rubbed her thumb on the side of her boot heel. She didn’t know what to say. Fear was nibbling at the fringes of her mind. She flicked her eyes up for a glance at him. He was staring off into space.

“Richard,” she whispered, “I love you.”

His answer was a long moment in coming. “I love you too.” He turned to her. “Kahlan, I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Something is going on. A screeling shows up, I have these headaches, you call down lightning, I do what I did today. The only thing I can think to do is to go to Aydindril and find Zedd. All these things have something to do with magic.”

She didn’t think he was necessarily wrong, but put some other answers to them anyway. “Me calling down the lightning has to do with my magic. Not you. Though I don’t know how I did it, I did it to protect you. The screeling, I think, is from the underworld. That has nothing to do with us. It is just something evil. The magic with you today… well, that could have something to do with the magic from the sword. I just don’t know.”

And the headaches?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted at last.

“Kahlan, the headaches might kill me. I don’t know how I know that, but I know it’s true. It’s not just a simple headache. It’s something else. I don’t know what.”

“Richard, please don’t say that. You’re scaring me.”

“Scares me, too. One reason I was angry at Chandalen was because I fear he may be right about me. About me bringing trouble.”

“Maybe we should start thinking about getting out of here. Getting to Zedd.”

And what about the headaches? Much of the time, I can’t even stand. I can’t stop every ten paces to shoot an arrow.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Maybe Nissel can find an answer.”

He shook his head. “she can help only a little, and only for a time. Soon, I don’t think she is going to be able to do anything. I’m afraid I might die.”

Kahlan started crying. Richard leaned back against the wall, put his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her against him. He started to say something else, but she put her fingers over his lips. She pressed her face against him as she cried, clutching at his shirt. It seemed as if everything was slowly starting to unravel. He held her and let her cry.

Kahlan began to realize she was being selfish. It was him these things were happening to. He was the one in pain, in danger. She should be comforting him, not the other way around.

“Richard Cypher, if you think this is going to get you out of marrying me, you had better think again.”

“Kahlan, I’m not… I swear…”

She smiled and gently touched his cheek as she kissed him. “I know. Richard, we’ve solved problems a lot bigger than this one. We will figure it out. I promise. We have to; Weselan has already started my dress.”

Richard put some of Nissel’s leaves in his mouth. “really? I bet you are going to look beautiful in it.”

“Well, if you want to find out, you are just going to have to marry me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Savidlin, Weselan, and Siddin returned a short time later. Richard had closed his eyes and rested as he chewed the leaves, and he said his head felt a little better. Siddin was excited. He was a local celebrity, having ridden on a dragon. He had spent the better part of the day telling other children what it had been like. Now he wanted to sit in Kahlan’s lap and tell her about how he had been the center of attention.

She listened with a smile while they all ate stew and tava bread. Like her, Richard didn’t want any cheese. Savidlin offered him a piece of smoked meat. Richard politely declined.

As they were finishing their meal, a grim-faced Bird Man, ringed by men with spears, showed up at the door. Everyone set their bowls down and stood. Kahlan didn’t like the look on his face.

Richard stepped forward. “What is it? What’s happened?”

The Bird Man took in everyone with a sweep of his eyes. “Three women, strangers, have come on horses.”

Kahlan wondered why three women would bring men with spears around the Bird Man. “What do they want?”

“They are difficult to understand. They speak only a little of our language. I believe they want Richard. They seemed to say they want Richard and they want to see his parents.”

“My parents! Are you sure?”

“I think that is what they were trying to say. They said for you not to try to run any more. That they have come for you, and you must not run. They told me I must not interfere.”

Richard unconsciously loosened his sword in its scabbard, his brow taking on a hawklike set. “Where are they?”

“I had them wait in the spirit house.”

Kahlan hooked some hair behind her ear. “did they say who they are?”

The Bird Man’s long silver hair gleamed in the light of the setting sun coming from behind him. “They called themselves the Sisters of the Light.”

Kahlan’s breath caught in her throat; goose bumps rippled up her arms. Her insides felt as if they had been twisted into an icy knot.

She couldn’t make her eyes blink.