"The spirits also mark a distinction between intent and deed. It was my intent to take care of him, in my way. Was it your intent to disobey my direct order?

Cara flicked her blond braid back over her shoulder. "It was my intent to protect you and Lord Rahl. I have succeeded."

"I told you to let me handle it."

"Hesitation can be the end of you… or those you care about." A haunted look passed across Cara's face. Iron quickly repossessed her countenance. "I have learned never to hesitate."

"Is that why you were provoking him? To get him to attack you with his magic?"

With the heel of her hand, Cara wiped the blood from a deep cut on her cheek- a cut Marlin had given her when he had struck her and slammed her into the bookcase. She stepped closer. "Yes." She took a long lick of the blood from her hand while watching Kahlan's eyes. "A Mord-Sith can't take a person's magic unless they attack us with it."

"I thought you feared magic."

Cara tugged the sleeve of her leather, straightening it down her arm. "We do, unless it is specifically used by the one who commands it to attack us. Then it's ours."

"You always claim not to know anything about magic, and yet now you command his? You can use his magic?"

Cara glanced down at the man groaning on the floor. "No. I can't use it, like he uses it, but I can turn it against him-hurt him with his own magic." Her brow twitched. "Sometimes, we feel a bit of it, but we don't understand it the way Lord Rahl understands it, and so we can't use it. Except to give them pain."

Kahlan couldn't reconcile such contradictions. "How?"

She was struck by how much Cara's emotionless expression was like a Confessor's face, the face Kahlan's mother had taught her, showing nothing of the inner feelings about what had to be done.

"Our minds are linked," Cara explained, "through the magic, so I can see what he's thinking when he is thinking of hurting me. or fighting back, or disobeying my orders, because it contradicts my wishes. Since we are linked to their minds through their magic, our will to hurt them makes it happen." She looked down at Marlin. He suddenly cried out anew in agony. "See?"

"I see. Now stop it. If he refuses to give us answers, then you can… do what it takes, but I won't sanction doing anything that isn't required to protect Richard."

Kahlan looked up from Marlin's torment to Cara's cold blue eyes. She spoke before she thought. "Did you know Denna?"

"Everyone knew Denna."

"And was she as good at… at torturing people as you?"

"Me?" Cara said with a laugh. "No one was as good at it as Denna. That's why she was Darken Rahl's favorite. I could hardly believe the things she could do to a man. Why, she could…"

With a glance at the Agiel hanging at Kahlan's neck-Denna's Agiel-Cara suddenly caught the meaning behind Kahlan's questions.

"That was in the past. We were bonded to Darken Rahl. We did as we were commanded. We are bonded to Richard, now. We would never hurt him. We would die to keep anyone from hurting Lord Rahl." Her tone lowered to a whisper. "Lord Rahl not only killed Denna, but he also forgave her for what she did to him."

Kahlan nodded. "So he did. But I have not. Though I understand how she did as she was trained and commanded, and her spirit has been a comfort and an aid to both of us, and I appreciate the sacrifices she has since made on our behalf, in my heart I can't forgive her for the horrifying things she did to the man I love."

Cara studied Kahlan's eyes a long moment. "I understand. If you ever hurt Lord Rahl, I would never forgive you, either. Nor would I ever grant you mercy."

Kahlan held the woman's gaze. "Likewise. It is said that, for a Mord-Sith, there is no worse death to be had than by the touch of a Confessor."

A slow smile came to Cara's lips. "So I have been told."

"It's fortunate we're on the same side. As I've said, there are things I won't, I can't, forgive. I love Richard more than life itself."

"Every Mord-Sith knows that the worst pain comes from one you love."

"Richard need never fear that pain."

Cara seemed to consider her words carefully. "Darken Rahl never had to fear that kind of pain; he never loved a woman. Lord Rahl does. I have noticed that where love is concerned, things sometimes have a way of changing."

So that was the heart of the matter.

"Cara, I could no more hurt Richard than could you. I would lay down my life first. I love him."

"As do I," Cara said, "if in a different way, but with no less ferocity. Lord Rahl freed us. In his place, anyone else would have had every Mord-Sith put to death. He instead has given us a chance to live up to his expectations."

Cara shifted her weight to her other foot as her eyes withdrew their cold assessment. "Perhaps Richard is the only one of us to understand the good spirits' principles-that we can't truly love until we forgive another their worst crimes against us."

Kahlan felt her face flush at Cara's words. She never thought of a Mord-Sith as having such depth of understanding in matters of compassion. "Was Denna a friend?" Cara nodded. "And has your heart forgiven Richard for killing her?"

"Yes, but that's different," Cara admitted. "I understand the way you feel about Denna. I don't blame you. In your place, I would feel the same."

Kahlan stared off. "When I told Denna-her spirit-that I couldn't forgive her, she said that she understood, and that the only forgiveness she needed had already been granted. She told me that she loved Richard-that even in death she loved him." Just as Richard had seen in Kahlan the woman behind the magic, he had seen in Denna the person behind the fearsome persona of a Mord-Sith. Kahlan could understand Denna's feelings at having someone finally see her for herself. "Perhaps the forgiveness of one you love is the only thing in life that really matters-the only thing that can truly heal your heart, heal your soul."

Kahlan watched her finger as she traced the scoop of a curled leaf carved in the banding of the tabletop. "But I could never forgive anyone who hurt him."

"And have you forgiven me?"

Kahlan looked up. "For what?"

Cara's fist tightened on her Agiel. Kahlan knew that it hurt a Mord-Sith to hold her Agiel in her hand-part of the paradox of being a giver of pain. "For being Mord-Sith."

"Why should I have to forgive you that?"

Cara looked away. "Because if Darken Rahl had commanded me instead of Denna to take Richard, I would have been as merciless as she. As would Berdine, or Raina, or any of the rest."

"I told you, the spirits mark a distinction between the might have been and the deed. So do I. You cannot be held responsible for what others have done to you, any more than I can be held answerable because I was born a Confessor, and no more than Richard can be held guilty because that murderous Darken Rahl fathered him."

Still Cara didn't look up. "But will you ever truly trust us?"

"You have already proven yourselves, in Richard's eyes, and in mine. You are not Denna, nor responsible for her choices." With a thumb, Kahlan wiped oozing blood from Cara's cheek. "Cara, if I didn't trust you, all of you, would I allow Berdine and Raina, two of you, to be alone with Richard right now?"

Cara glanced again to Denna's Agiel. "In the battle with the Blood of the Fold, I saw the way you fought to protect Lord Rahl, as well as the people of the city. To be Mord-Sith is to understand that you must sometimes be merciless. Though you are not Mord-Sith, I have seen that you understand this. You are a worthy guardian to Lord Rahl. You are the only woman I know worthy of wearing an Agiel.

"Though to you that may sound reprehensible, in my eyes, it is an honor that you wear an Agiel. Its ultimate purpose is to protect our master."

Kahlan offered a sincere smile, understanding Cara just a little bit better than she had before. She wondered what the woman behind the appellation had been like before she was captured and trained to become a Mord-Sith. Richard had told her that it was a horror far beyond anything that had been done to him.