"These healers provided her with poison?" Richard asked incredulously. Drefan's raptor gaze, shadowed with admonition, returned to Richard. "The calling of a healer is to provide the remedy that is warranted. Sometimes, the remedy is death."

"That doesn't fit my definition of healer," Richard said. returning the raptor gaze in kind.

"A person who is dying, with no hope of recovery, and in great suffering, can be no better served than by the benevolent act of assisting them in ending their suffering."

"Your mother wasn't dying with no hope of recovery."

"Had Darken Rahl found her, her suffering would have been profound, to say the least. I don't know how much you knew about our father, but he was known for his inventiveness at giving pain, and making it last. She lived in shuddering fear of that fate. She was driven nearly insane with dread. She fell to tears at every shadow. The healers could do nothing to prevent that fate, to protect her from Darken Rahl. Had Darken Rahl wanted to find her, he would have. Had she remained with the healers, and been found, he would have slaughtered them all for hiding her. She gave up her life to give me the chance at one." Kahlan started when a log in the fire popped. Drefan didn't start, nor did Richard. "I'm sorry," Richard whispered. "My grandfather took his daughter, my mother, to Westland to hide her from Darken Rahl. I guess that he, too, understood the danger she was in. The danger I was in."

Drefan shrugged. "Then we are much the same, you and I: exiles from our father. You, however, would not have been killed." Richard nodded to himself. "He tried to kill me."

Drefan's brow twitched with curiosity. "Really? He wanted a gifted heir, and then he tried to kill him?"

"He didn't know, as I didn't, that it was he who fathered me." Richard turned the subject back to the matter at hand. "So, what's this about you making peace with the good spirits in case you are to join them today?"

"The healers who raised me never kept from me the knowledge of who I was. I have known since I can remember that I was the bastard son of our master, of Father Rahl. I always knew that he could come at any moment and kill me. I prayed each night, thanking the good spirits for another day of life free from my father and what he would do to me."

"Weren't the healers afraid that he would come and kill them, too, for hiding you?

"Perhaps. They always discounted it. They said that they were not in fear for themselves, that they could always say I was a babe abandoned to them and they didn't know my paternity." "Must have been a hard life."

Drefan turned his back on them and seemed to stare into the candles for a time before he went on.

"It was life. The only life I knew. But I do know that I was woefully tired of living each day in fear that he might come." "He's dead," Richard said. "You no longer have to fear him." "That is why I'm here. When I felt the bond break, and it was later confirmed that he was dead, I decided that I would end my private terror. I've been guarded since the moment I arrived. I knew I wasn't free to leave this room. I know the reputation of the guards you surround yourself with. That was all part of the chance I took to come here.

"I didn't know if the new Lord Rahl would want me eliminated, too, but I decided to end the constant death sentence hanging over my head. I've come to offer my services to the Master of D'Hara if he will have me; or, if it is his will, that my life be forfeit for my crime of birth. "Either way, it will be over. I want it over." Drefan, his eyes watering, turned to face Richard.

"There you have it. Lord Rahl. Either forgive me, or kill me. I don't know that I much care which anymore, but I beg you to end it-one way or the other." His chest rose and fell with labored breaths.

Richard appraised his half brother in the dragging silence. Kahlan could only imagine what Richard must be thinking, at the emotions of those deliberations, at the painful shadows of the past, and the light of hope for what might be. At last, he held his hand out.

"I'm Richard, Drefan. Welcome to the new D'Hara, a D'Hara that fights for freedom from terror. We fight that none have to live in fear, as you have done." The two men clasped wrists. Their big, powerful hands were the same size. "Thank you," Drefan whispered. "Richard."

I heard that you saved Cara's life," Richard said. "I want to thank you. It must have been hard, knowing that she was one of my guards who might end up harming you. . if things didn't go right for you.

"I'm a healer. It's what I do-Richard. I'm afraid I may have trouble calling you anything but Lord Rahl-for a time, anyway. I feel the bond to you, to you as the Lord Rahl."

Richard shrugged self-consciously. "I'm still having trouble getting used to people calling me Lord Rahl." He stroked a finger along his lower lip. "Do we. . do you know if we. . have any other half brothers, or sisters?"

"I'm sure we must. Some must have survived. I've heard a rumor that we have a younger sister, at least."

"Sister?" Richard grinned. "Really? A sister? Where do you think she is? Do you know her name?"

"I'm sorry, Lord. — Richard, but all I know is the name: Lindie. The words passed on to me said that if she is still alive, she would be perhaps as much as fourteen years. The person who told me her name said that all he knew was her first name, Lindie, and that she was born in D'Hara, to the southwest of the People's Palace." "Anything else?"

"I'm afraid not. You have now heard everything I know." Drefan turned to Kahlan. "How are you feeling? Did the herb woman, what was her name, stitch you up properly?"

"Yes," Kahlan said, "Nadine did fine. It hurts some, and I have a headache, I guess from everything that's happened. I didn't sleep well last night with the ache of my shoulder, but that's to be expected. I'm fine."

He moved toward her, and before she knew it, he had her arm in his hand. He lifted it, twisted it, and pulled it, asking each time where it hurt. When he had satisfied himself, he moved around behind her and gripped her collarbone with his fingers while pressing his thumbs to the base of her neck. Pain shot up her spine. The room swam.

He pressed under her arm, and at the back of her shoulder. "There. How's that?" Kahlan rotated her arm, finding the pair greatly diminished. "Much better. Thank you."

"Just be careful with it; I've numbed some of the pain, but it still must heal before you put it to heavy use. Do you still have the headache?" Kahlan nodded. "Let me see what I can do for that."

He pulled her by the hand back toward the table and sat her in a chair. He lowered over her, blocking her view of Richard. Drefan pulled her arms out toward himself, squeezing and manipulating the webs between her first fingers and thumbs. His hands made hers seem so small. He had hands like Richard: big, and powerful though less callused. He was hurting her, he was pressing so hard, but she didn't voice a complaint, thinking he must know what he was doing.

With him standing right in front of her, she had to turn her eyes up lest she be forced to stare at his tight trousers. Kahlan watched his hands kneading hers-his fingers working over her flesh. She remembered his hand on Cara. She vividly recalled those strong fingers working their way down under Cara's red leather and between her legs. Working into her. Kahlan abruptly jerked her hands away. "Thank you, that's much better," she lied.

He smiled down at her with a penetrating, hawklike, blue-eyed, Rahl gaze. "I've never healed a headache so quickly. Are you sure it's better?" "Yes. It was just a little headache. It's gone now. Thank you." "Glad to help," he said. He watched her for a long moment, the little smile still on his lips. Finally, he turned to Richard.