"If you truly love Richard, then you should try to find comfort in the fact that he will have Nadine, a woman he knows and for whom he at least has some feeling, however small. Perhaps, with a woman such as this, he will someday find happiness and come to love her."

Kahlan put her trembling hands in her lap. She felt sick to her stomach. It would do no good to argue with Shota. This wasn't her doing. The spirits were involved.

"To what purpose? What good will it do for him to marry Nadine? For me to be mated to one I don't love?"

Shota's voice came soft and compassionate. "I don't know, child. Just as some parents, for a variety of reasons, choose their children's spouses, so have the spirits chosen for you and Richard."

"If the spirits were involved, why would they desire our misery? They took us to that place so we could be together." Kahlan struggled against the weight of the floodwaters. "Why would they want to do this to us?"

"Perhaps," Shota whispered as she watched Kahlan, "it is because you will betray him."

Kahlan's throat clenched shut, locking her breath in her lungs. The prophecy screamed through her head.

. . for the one in white, his true beloved, will betray him in her blood. Kahlan shot to her feet. "No!" Her hands balled into fists. "I would never hurt him! I would never betray him!" Shota calmly sipped her tea.

"Sit down. Mother Confessor."

Kahlan fought to keep the tears back as she sank into her chair. "I don't control the future memories any more than I control the past. I told you, you must have the courage to hear the answers." She tapped a finger to her temple. "Not only here"-she tapped the finger over her heart-"but here. too."

Kahlan made herself take a deep breath. "Forgive me. It's not your fault. I know that."

Shota lifted an eyebrow. "Very good. Mother Confessor. Learning to accept the truth is the first step to gaining control of your destiny."

"Shota, I don't mean this to sound disrespectful, but seeing the future does not provide all the answers. Before, you told me that I would touch Richard with my power. I thought that would destroy him. I tried to kill myself to prevent your words from coming to pass, to prevent myself from hurting him.

"Richard wouldn't allow me the chance at suicide. As it turned out, your seeing of the future was true, but there was more to it, and it turned out differently than we thought.

"I touched Richard, but his magic protected him, and my touch didn't harm him."

"I didn't see the result of the touch. Only that you would touch him. This is different. I see you both being wedded." Kahlan felt numb. "Who is it to be that I will marry?" "I see only a misty form. I cannot see the person. I do not know his identity." "Shota, I was told that a witch woman's seeing of future events is a form of prophecy." "Who told you this?" "A wizard. Zedd."

"Wizards," Shota muttered. "They don't know what is in a witch woman's mind. They think they know everything."

Kahlan pushed her long hair back over her shoulder. "Shota, we were going to be honest with each other, remember?"

Shota let out a dainty grumble. "Well, I guess that in this case, they may be mostly right."

"Prophecy does not always turn out how it seems. The dire dangers can be avoided, or changed. Do you think there is any way I can change the prophecy?" Shota frowned. "The prophecy?" "The one you mentioned. Betraying Richard."

Shota's frowned deepened into suspicion. "Are you saying that this was also foretold in a prophecy?"

Kahlan's eyes turned away from the witch woman's intense gaze. "When the wizard came, with Jagang possessing his mind, Jagang said that he had invoked a prophecy to trap Richard. It, too, says I will betray him." "Do you remember this prophecy?"

Kahlan rubbed her finger around the rim of her teacup. "It's one of those memories that we spoke of, the memories we wish we could forget, but we can't.

" 'On the red moon will come the firestorm. The one bonded to the blade will watch as his people die. If he does nothing, then he, and all those he loves, will die in its heat, for no blade, forged of steel or conjured of sorcery, can touch this foe. " To quench the inferno, he must seek the remedy in the wind. Lightning will find him on that path, for the one in white, his true beloved, will betray him in her blood. »

Shota leaned back, taking her teacup with her. "It is true, as you say, that the events in prophecy can be altered, or avoided, but not in a double bind prophecy. This one is such a prophecy, a trap that ensnares its victim. The red moon proves that the trap has sprung."

"But there must be a way-" Kahlan pushed her hands back into her hair. "Shota, what am I to do?"

"You are to be wedded to another," she whispered, "as is Richard. What is beyond, I don't see, but this much of it is the future."

"Shota, I know you're speaking the truth, but how can it be that I would betray Richard? I'm telling you the truth; I would die before I would betray him. My heart won't allow me to betray him. I couldn't."

Shota smoothed a loose wisp of her dress. "Think. Mother Confessor, and you will see that you are wrong, just as I showed you that you were wrong that I could no longer harm you."

"How? How could I do such a thing, when I know it isn't in me-for any reason-to betray him?"

Shota took a patient breath. "It is not nearly so difficult as you wish to think. What if you knew, for example, that you had only one way to save his life, and that way was to betray him, but in so doing, you would lose his love? Would you make the sacrifice of his love to preserve his life? The truth, now."

Kahlan swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Yes. I would betray him if it was to save his life."

"So, you see, it is not as impossible an event as you imagined." "I guess not," Kahlan said in a small voice. She pushed at a few crumbs on the table. "Shota, what is the purpose of all this? Why would the future hold that Richard will marry Nadine, and that I will marry another man? There must be a reason. It goes against everything we both want, so there must be some force pushing events down that path."

Shota said after a moment's deliberation, "The Temple of the Winds hunts Richard. The spirits have a hand in this." Kahlan's face sank wearily into her hands.

"You said to Nadine, 'May the spirits have mercy on him. What did you mean by that?"

"The underworld contains more than just the good spirits. The spirits-good, and the evil-are all involved in this."

Kahlan didn't want to talk anymore. It was too painful, talking about the ruination of her dreams and hopes as if they were pieces on a game board. "To what purpose?" she mumbled. "The plague." Kahlan looked up. "What?"

"It has something to do with the plague, and the thing of magic the dream walker stole from the Temple of the Winds."

"You mean that it could be that this could somehow be part of our attempt to find the magic to stop the plague?"

"I believe it is so," the witch woman said at last. "You and Richard are desperately seeking a way to stop the plague and save the lives of countless people. I see in the future that you each wed other people.

"For what other reason would both of you make such a sacrifice?" "But why would it be necessary-"

"You seek something I cannot answer. I cannot alter what will be, nor do I know the reason for it. We are forced to consider the possibilities. Think.

"If the only way to save all those people from dying in a firestorm of plague were for Richard and you to sacrifice your life together, perhaps, say, to prove your true devotion to protecting innocent lives, would you both do such a thing?"

Kahlan put her trembling hands in her lap, under the table. She had seen the pain in Richard's eyes when he had watched that boy die. She knew her own pain. They had both seen innocent, sick children, who were going to die. How many more would die?