“I won’t wear a collar again.”

Kahlan’s gaze went to the Agiel. The red leather rod hung from a fine gold chain at his neck, swinging slightly with his breathing. She knew the Agiel was used to torture people, but she didn’t know how. She only knew she didn’t like him wearing it.

Kahlan swallowed. “did the Mord-Sith make you wear a collar?”

He stared unblinking at the fire. “Her name was Denna.”

She turned to him, but he didn’t respond. “did she… Did Denna make you wear a collar?”

“Yes.” A tear ran down his cheek. “she used it to hurt me. It had a chain on it. She hooked the chain to her belt and led me around by that collar like an animal. When she would attach the chain to some resting place, I couldn’t move it. She controlled the magic that gives me pain when I use the sword to kill. She could amplify the magic, the pain. It prevented me from so much as putting tension on the chain. I tried. I tried hard. You can’t imagine how much it hurt. Denna made me put the collar around my own neck. She made me do a lot of things.”

“But the headaches will kill you. The Sisters said the collar will stop the headaches and help you learn to control the gift.”

“They said that was one of the reasons. They also said there are two more reasons for the collar. I don’t know what those other two reasons are. Kahlan, I know you think I’m being foolish. I think I’m being foolish, too. My head tells me the same things you are saying. But my insides tell me something altogether different.”

Kahlan reached out and took the Agiel in her fingers, rolling it back and forth. “Because of this? Because of what Denna did?” He nodded, still staring at the fire.

“Richard, what does this do?”

Richard looked to her at last. He gripped the Agiel in his fist. “Touch my hand. Don’t touch the Agiel, just my hand.”

Kahlan reached out and put her fingers against his fist.

She jerked back with a yelp of pain. She shook her wrist, trying to ease the sting. “Why didn’t it hurt before when I touched it?”

“Because it was never used to train you.”

“Then why isn’t it hurting you to hold it?”

Richard still had his fist around the middle of the red leather rod. “It is. It hurts whenever I hold it.”

Kahlan’s eyes widened. “You mean it’s hurting you right now, like when I touched your hand?”

The pain of the headache was in his eyes. “No. My hand was shielding you from what it really feels like.”

She reached out again. “I want to know.”

He dropped the Agiel. “No. I don’t want it to hurt you like that. I don’t want anything to ever hurt you like that.”

“Richard, please? I want to know. I want to understand.”

Richard stared into her eyes, and then let out a breath. “Is there anything you ask I wouldn’t do?” He took the Agiel in his fist again. “don’t grip it; you may not be able to let go quick enough. Just touch it. Hold your breath and keep your teeth together so you don’t bite your tongue. Tense your stomach muscles.”

Kahlan’s heart pounded as her hand went toward the Agiel. She didn’t want to feel the pain; it had hurt enough just to touch his hand, but she wanted to know because it was part of who he was now. She wanted to know everything about him. Even the things that hurt.

It felt like touching a bolt of lightning.

The pain shot up her arm, exploding in her shoulder. She screamed as the shock threw her on her back. She rolled over on her face, gripping her shoulder with her other hand. She couldn’t move her arm. Her hand tingled and shook. She was shocked and frightened by the sheer power of the pain. She cried into the dirt as Richard’s hand touched her back in sympathy. She cried, too, because now she understood, just a little, what had been done to him.

When at last she was able to sit up, he was still watching her, still holding the Agiel in his fist. “It hurts like that for you to hold it?”

“Yes.”

She hit him on the shoulder with her fist. “Let go of it!” she cried. “stop it!”

He released the Agiel, letting it hang again. “It helps distract me from the headaches, sometimes, to touch it. Believe it or not, it helps.”

“You mean the headache hurts more than that?”

He nodded. “If it wasn’t for what Denna taught me about pain, I would be unconscious right now. Denna taught me how to control pain, how to tolerate it, so she could give me more.”

She tried to hold back the tears. “Richard, I…”

“What you felt was the least of what the Agiel can do.” He picked it up again and touched the tip to the inside of his other forearm. Blood gushed from under the Agiel. He took it away. “It can strip the flesh right off you. It can break your bones. Denna liked to use it to crack my ribs. She would press it against me and I could hear the bone crack. They still aren’t healed; it still hurts to lie down, or when you hug me tight enough. It can do a lot of other things too. It can even kill with a touch.”

He stared at the fire. “denna shackled my wrists, and later locked my arms behind me, and held me up with a rope from the ceiling. She used the Agiel on me for hours at a time. I would beg until I was hoarse, for her to stop. She never did. Not once.

There was no way for me to fight back, nothing I could do to stop her. She trained me, she taught me, until I sometimes thought I had no blood or breath left. I begged her to kill me, to end the pain. I would have done it myself, but she used magic to prevent it. She had me kneel in front of her and beg her to use the Agiel. I would have done anything she said. She had a friend who came along sometimes, so they could share the… fun.”

Kahlan sat frozen, hardly able to breathe. “Richard, I…”

“Every day, she led me by the collar to a place where she could hang me up by a rope, a room where she could use the Agiel on me without distraction, where it didn’t matter so much if my blood got everywhere. Sometimes she did it from the first thing in the morning until night. And then at night…

That is what wearing a collar means to me. You can tell me about how much sense it makes, about how it will help me, and about how I have no choice, but that is what wearing a collar means to me.

“I know exactly what your shoulder feels like right now. It feels like the skin has been burned, and the muscle has been torn, and bone is splintered. That is what it feels like to wear a Mord-Sith’s collar. Only everywhere on your body all at once, and all day long. Add to that the thought that you are helpless to stop it, that you can never escape, that you’ll never again see the only person you will ever love.

“I would rather die than put a collar around my neck again.”

Kahlan rubbed her shoulder. It felt just as he had described it. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She hurt too much, inside, to say anything. So she sat and watched him look at the fire as tears ran down her face. She ached for him.

And then she heard herself ask something she had promised herself she wasn’t ever going to ask. “denna took you for her mate, didn’t she.” She wished she could call the words back, and at the same time, she didn’t.

Richard didn’t flinch. “Yes,” he whispered as he stared at the fire. Another tear ran down his cheek. “How did you know?”

“Demmin Nass brought two quads to take me. He had a spell-web from Darken Rahl to protect him from Zedd’s magic. From mine too. Zedd couldn’t do anything; he was frozen by a web. Demmin Nass told me what had happened to you. He said you were dead. That was when I called forth the Con Dar and killed him.”

Richard’s eyes closed as another tear ran down. There was no way for me to stop her. I swear, Kahlan… I tried. You can’t imagine what Denna did to me for trying to stop her. There was no way for me to fight back. She could do anything she wanted. It wasn’t enough for her to hurt me just in the day. She wanted to hurt me at night, too.”