Kahlan had justification: Shota was harming Richard. The Con Dar would work against her.

Kahlan paused, sitting back on her heels, and prayed to the good spirits that they would guide her. She wouldn't want to think she was doing this for vengeance, or that she was setting out to murder someone. She didn't want to think that she intended to kill Shota. She wondered if she was trying to put justification to something that couldn't be justified.

No. she wasn't going with the intention of killing Shota. She was just going to get to the bottom of this business with Nadine, and to find out what Shota knew about the Temple of the Winds.

But if she had to, Kahlan intended to defend herself. Moreover, she intended to defend Richard against Shota-against her plans to ruin his future. Kahlan had had enough of being at the unfavorable end of Shota's capricious ire. If Shota tried to kill her, or tried to force this suffering on Richard, then Kahlan would end the threat.

Kahlan already missed Richard. For so long they had struggled to be together, and here she was leaving him. If the situation were reversed, would she be as understanding as she was expecting him to be?

At the thought of Richard, she slowly pulled open the top drawer to her most prized of possessions. Reverently, she lifted her blue wedding dress from its place as the only item in the drawer. Her thumbs stroked the fine fabric. Kahlan clutched the dress to her breast as tears took her.

She carefully set the dress back in its place in the drawer before she got tears on it. For a long moment, she stood there with one hand on the dress.

She pushed the drawer closed. She had a job to do. She was the Mother Confessor, whether she liked it or not; Shota lived in the Midlands, and was therefore one of her subjects.

Kahlan didn't want to die and never see Richard again, but she could no longer tolerate Shota's meddling in their lives-her tampering with their future. Shota had sent another woman to marry Richard. Kahlan wouldn't allow that kind of interference to go unchecked.

Her resolve hardened. She reached into the back of a wardrobe and pulled a knotted rope from a peg. It was there in case of fire, so that the Mother Confessor could escape from the balcony.

Opening the glass doors gave her a shock of snarling wind and snow. Kahlan squinted against the storm and pulled the doors shut behind her. She drew up the hood and stuffed her hair inside it. It would do no good to have people recognizing the Mother Confessor-if anyone was even out on a night like this. But she knew that the guards up at the Wizards' Keep would be.

She quickly secured the rope around one of the vase-shaped stone balusters and tossed the rest of the heavy coil out over the railing. In the darkness, she couldn't see if it reached to the ground. She would have to trust that whoever had put the rope in the wardrobe had checked to make sure that it was long enough.

Kahlan swung a leg over the stone railing, gripped the rope in both hands, and started down.

Kahlan had decided to walk. It wasn't that far, and besides, if she took a horse, she would have to leave it at the Keep and it might be found, giving her away, or else she'd have to turn it loose before she got there, only raising fears as to what had happened to her. A horse would also make it more difficult to get past the guards up at the Keep. The good spirits had provided her with a spring snowstorm; the least she could do was take advantage of it.

Tramping through the heavy, wet snow, she was beginning to wonder if going on foot was the wise thing to do. She stiffened her resolve. If she was already beginning to second-guess her decisions, she had no business going through with the rest of it.

Most of the buildings were shuttered. The few people she encountered were too worried about making their own way to be concerned with a huddled figure struggling into the wind. In the darkness, no one would even be able to tell if she was a man or a woman. Before long, she was out of the city and on the deserted road up to the Keep.

All the way up the road, she pondered the best way past the guards. These were D'Haran soldiers. It was always a mistake to underestimate D'Haran soldiers. It wouldn't do to have them recognize her. They would report it.

Killing sentries was the easiest way to get past them, but she couldn't do that; they were her men, now, fighting for their cause against the Imperial Order. Killing them was out of the question.

Whacking them across the skull to knock them unconscious was no good, either. That was never a dependable way to silence someone. In her experience, hitting a man across the head rarely had the desired result. Sometimes they would not be knocked unconscious and would scream at the top of their lungs before anything else could be done, raising an alarm and bringing other guards ready to kill the intruder.

Besides, she had seen men suffer and die from a blow on the head. She didn't want that. You only hit someone on the head if you intended to kill them, because you most likely would.

The Sister and Marlin had probably used magic to get by the guards unseen. She didn't have any magic that could do that. Her magic would destroy their minds.

That left either a trick, or stealth. D'Haran sentries were trained in every kind of trick, and probably knew more of them than she could even imagine. She was down to stealth.

She wasn't sure exactly where she was, but she knew she was getting close. The wind was coming from the left, so she stayed to the right of the road, downwind of them, crouching lower us she went on. When she got close enough, she would have to crawl.

If she laid down on the snow. spread her cloak out over her, and waited for a short time. the snow would cover her back and hide her. Then she would have to proceed slowly, and if she saw a soldier, simply lie still until he passed. She wished she had remembered to bring gloves.

Deciding that she was as close as she dared get. she moved off the right side of the road. She knew that the bridge would be the hardest part: it would funnel her into a relatively narrow space, with no option of moving away from the soldiers. But the soldiers feared the magic of the Keep. and would probably not be close to the bridge. They had been twenty or thirty feet from it when she had seen them before, and in the darkness and snow. visibility wasn't great.

She was beginning to feel better about her chances of getting by unseen. The snow would provide enough cover.

Kahlan froze in her tracks as a sword blade appeared in front of her face. A darting glance revealed a sword to each side. Another man rested a lance on her back, at the base of her neck. So much for stealth.

"Who goes there?" came a gruff voice from the man in front of her. Kahlan had to think of a new plan, and fast. She quickly settled on a bit of truth, mixed in with their fear of magic.

"Captain, you nearly scared me to death. It's me. the Mother Confessor." "Show yourself."

Kahlan pushed back her hood. "I thought I'd be able to get past you unnoticed. I guess D'Haran sentries are even better than I thought."

The men lowered their weapons. Kahlan was the most relieved to feel the lance lift from the back of her neck. That was the killing weapon in a challenge.

"Mother Confessor! You gave us a fright, you did. What are you doing up here again tonight? And on foot, no less?"

Kahlan sighed in resignation. "Get all your men together and I'll explain." The captain tilted his head. "Over here. We have a shelter to get you out of the wind."

Kahlan let them lead her to the other side of the road. where stood a simple three-sided structure meant to give some relief from wind and wet weather. It wasn't big enough for her and all six men. They insisted she take the driest spot. farthest inside.