She wiped the tears from her cheeks with trembling fingers. Her green eyes let slip more.

"Richard." She swallowed and gasped a breath. "Richard, I didn't know. There was Marlin, and the Sister of the Dark. . I never knew that Yonick's brother was so sick, or I would never-"

Richard held up a finger to silence her. He realized, though, by the dread in her eyes, that his scowl was what had silenced her.

"Don't you dare dignify Nadine's cruel lies with an explanation. Don't you dare. I know you, and would never believe such things about you. Never."

She closed her eyes with relief and fell against his chest. "That poor child," she wept.

He stroked a hand down her long, thick hair. "I know." "Richard, we both heard what that boy said after he died." "Another warning that the Temple of the Winds has been violated." She pushed herself back. Her green eyes searched his.

"Richard, we have to reconsider everything now. What you were telling me about the Temple of the Winds was only one source and not an official one at that. It was just a journal kept by one man to keep himself occupied while he guarded the sliph. Besides that, you've only read parts of it, and it's in High D'Haran, which is difficult to translate accurately. You may have been getting the wrong idea about the Temple of the Winds from the journal." "Well, I don't know that I would agree-"

"You're dead tired. You're not thinking. We now know the truth. The Temple of the Winds isn't trying to send a warning-it's trying to kill you."

Richard took pause at the concern on her face. Besides the grief he saw in her eyes, he saw disquiet. Disquiet for him.

"Kolo didn't make it sound like that was what was happening. From what I've read, I think the red moon is a warning that the Temple of the Winds has been violated. When the red moon came before-"

"Kolo said everyone was in an uproar. He didn't explain the uproar, did he? Maybe it was because the temple was trying to kill them. Kolo said that the team who had sent the Temple of the Winds away had betrayed them.

"Richard, face the facts. That dead boy just delivered a threat from the Temple of the Winds: 'The winds hunt you. You hunt something when you want to kill it. The Temple of the Winds is hunting you-trying to kill you." "Then why didn't it kill me, instead of the boy?" She didn't have an answer.

Out in the alley, Drefan's blue. Darken Rahl eyes watched Richard and Kahlan returning over the boards in the mud. It seemed as if the process of deep reflection could be glimpsed through those eyes. Richard guessed that healers had to be keen observers of people, but those eyes made him feel somehow naked. At least he saw no magic in them.

Nadine and Yonick waited in mute anxiety. Richard whispered to Kahlan to wait with Drefan and Yonick. He took Nadine's arm. "Nadine, would you come with me a moment, please?" She beamed up at him. "Sure, Richard."

He helped her step up into the stairwell. As Richard closed the door. she fussed with her hair.

When the door was shut, he turned to the smiling Nadine and slammed her back against the wall so hard it drove the wind from her lungs. She pushed off the wall. "Richard-"

He seized her by the throat and smacked her against the wall again, holding her there.

"You and I were never going to be married." The sword's magic, its fury, was bleeding into his voice. It was coursing through his veins. "We never are going to be married. I love Kahlan. I am going to marry Kahlan. The only reason you are still here is because you are somehow tangled in this. You are going to remain here, for now, until we can figure it out.

"I can, and I have, forgiven you for what you did to me. but if you ever again say or do anything so cruel and deliberately hurtful to Kahlan, you will spend the rest of your time in Aydindril down in the pit. Do you understand me!"

Nadine put her fingers tenderly to his forearm. She smiled patiently, as if she thought he didn't fully grasp the situation, and she would make him see her reasoned side of it.

"Richard, I know you're upset right now, everyone is, but I was only trying to warn you. I didn't want you to be unaware of what had happened. I only wanted you to know the truth about what she had-" He slammed her against the wall again. "Do you understand me!" She watched his eyes a moment. "Yes," she said, as if believing that there was no use in trying to reason with him until he cooled off.

It only made Richard more angry. He struggled to rein it in so that he could get across to her that this was more than anger and that he meant what he was saying.

"I know you have good in you, Nadine. I know that you care about people. We were friends back in Hartland, so I'm going to let this go with a warning. You had better mind my words. There is trouble about. A lot of people are going to need help. You always wanted to help people. I'm giving you your chance to do that. I can use your help.

"But Kahlan is the woman I love and the woman I'm going to marry. I won't have you trying to change that, or trying to hurt her. Don't you so much as think to test this again, or I will find another herb woman to help. Are you clear on that?"

"Yes, Richard. Whatever you say. I promise. If she's what you really want, then I'll not interfere, no matter how wrong-"

He held up a finger. "Your toe is on the line, Nadine. If you step over it, I swear there will be no coming back."

"Yes, Richard." She smiled in an understanding, patient, long-suffering way. "Whatever you say."

She seemed to be satisfied that he had paid attention to her. It reminded him of a child who misbehaved so that a beloved parent would notice her. He glared at her until he was sure she would not say another word. and only then did he open the door.

Drefan was squatted down, whispering words of comfort to Yonick while he rested a hand on the boy's shoulder. Kahlan's green eyes watched as Nadine reached back for Richard's hand to help her balance as she stepped onto the narrow board in the mud.

"Drefan," Richard said when he had joined them, "I need to talk to you about some of the things you said in there."

Drefan rubbed Yonick's back and then stood. "What things?" "About how you wanted Cara and Raina to get me out of there, for one thing. I want to know why."

Drefan considered Richard a moment, and then Yonick. He drew open his cloak, hooking it behind one of the leather pouches on his belt. He opened the pouch at the front of his belt and poured some dried powder from a leather purse onto a piece of paper. He twisted the paper closed and handed it to the boy.

"Yonick, before we go to see the other boys, would you please take this up to your mother and tell her to steep it in hot water for a couple of hours to make a tea, and then strain it and see that everyone in your family drinks it tonight? It will help build up your family's strength to keep them well."

Yonick looked at the paper in his hand. "Sure. I'll be back as soon as I tell my mother."

"No rush," Drefan said. "We'll be waiting when you're through." Richard watched Yonick close the door. "All right, I know you wanted me out of there because of the danger of catching the plague from the sick boy. But we're all in danger, aren't we?"

"Yes, but I don't know how much. You are the Lord Rahl. I wanted you as far away as possible." "How do you catch the plague?"

Drefan glanced to Kahlan and Nadine, and then to Ulic and Egan back with the soldiers guarding either end of the alley. He took a deep breath.

"No one knows how the plague is passed from one person to the next, or even if that is the way it spreads. There are some who believe that it's the wrath of the spirits brought down on us, and the spirits decide who they will smite. There are others who argue that the effluvia infest the very air of a place, of a city, endangering everyone. Others insist that it can only be caught by inhaling the infectious steams of the body of a sick person.