The woman held out the knife, peering at what was on the handle. Her brow drew down as she grasped the significance of the ornate letter "R." the symbol standing for the House of Rahl, engraved on the silver handle.

Her eyes turned up to Jennsen, this time filled with a kind of grim recognition. Unexpectedly, she dropped the knife. It stuck in the ground at her feet as she put the fingers of one hand to her forehead, wincing as if in pain. The silent soldiers shared troubled looks.

When she looked up again, the woman's face had gone blank. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Jennsen Rahl." Her voice sounded different. It was deeper, and carried a threatening, masculine tone.

It was Jennsen's turn to frown. "You know me?"

"Oh yes, darlin, I know you," the woman said in a voice that had turned deep and husky. "Seems I recall you swearing to me that you would kill Richard Rahl."

Jennsen understood, then. It was Emperor Jagang, seeing her through the eyes of this woman. Jagang was a dream walker. He could do such seemingly impossible things.

"And what of your promise?" the woman asked in a voice that wasn't entirely her own. Her movements were puppetlike and appeared to be painful.

Jennsen didn't know if she was talking to the woman or to Jagang. "I failed."

The woman's lip curled derisively. "You failed."

"That's right. I failed."

"And what of Sebastian?"

Jennsen swallowed. "He died."

"He died," she said in a mocking tone. She took a step closer and cocked her head, peering with one angry eye. "And how did he die, darlin?"

"By his own hand."

"And why would a man like Sebastian take his own life?"

Jennsen would have taken a step back had she not already been pressed up against the chest of the hulking soldier. "I guess it was his way of saying that he no longer wanted to be a strategist to the emperor of the Imperial Order. Maybe he realized that his life had been wasted, that it had been for nothing."

The woman glared but said nothing.

Jennsen saw then a soft gold glint off the book the woman was holding in the same hand as the lantern. Jennsen could just make out the title in faded, worn gold lettering.

It said The Book of Counted Shadows.

Everyone turned at the sound of a commotion. Yet more men were dragging other captives closer. When they reached the light Jennsen's heart sank. The big soldiers had Anson, Owen, and Owen's wife, Marilee. All three were disheveled and bloody.

The woman bent and retrieved Jennsen's knife at her feet.

"His Excellency has decided that he may have a use for these people," the woman said as she straightened. She gestured with Jennsen's knife. "Bring them along."

Nicci paused and turned at the sound of her name called out from behind. It was Nathan. Ann followed close on his heels. For every one of Nathan's long strides Ann had to take three just to keep up.

Their footsteps echoed off the golden-yellow and brown marble floor of the empty hallway. The rather simple hall was part of the private complex within the palace, used by the Lord Rahl, staff and officials, and, of course, Mord-Sith. It was a passageway of unadorned utility, making no pretense of grandeur.

In her modest gray dress buttoned to her throat, Ann looked about the same to Nicci as she had when Nicci had been a child. Short and compact, like a dense thundercloud scudding across the landscape, she always seemed about to throw off lightning. The woman had loomed as an imposing figure in Nicci's mind from the time she'd first been sent to the Palace of the Prophets to become a young novice.

Annalina Aldurren had always been the kind of woman who could elicit a babbling confession with nothing more than a stony stare. She struck terror into novices, fear into young wizards, and trepidation into most of the Sisters. As a novice, Nicci had suspected that the Creator Himself would walk on eggshells in the presence of the forbidding prelate, and mind his manners as well.

"We got the message that you've just arrived from the Keep," the tall prophet said in a deep, powerful voice as he and Ann caught up with Nicci and Cara.

Considering that he was nearly a thousand years old, Nathan was still ruggedly handsome. He had Rahl features in common with Richard, including a hawklike brow. His eyes, though, were a beautiful azure color, while Richard's were gray. Despite his age, the prophet had a vigorous, purposeful stride.

His age, like Nicci's, was relevant only to those who at the time had lived outside the spell of the Palace of the Prophets. Those in the palace aged just like anyone else, but at a slower rate only when compared to those who lived outside the spell. Time had moved differently within the palace. Now that the palace, the home of the Sisters of the Light for thousands of years, had been destroyed, Nathan, Ann, Nicci, and all the others who had once called the place home would age at the same rate as everyone else.

Nicci remembered the prophet as always wearing robes when he'd lived as a captive in his apartments at the Palace of the Prophets. As a Sister of the Light, it had sometimes been required that she visit him in those apartments to write down anything he claimed to be prophecy. Nicci never really thought one way or the other about the task; it was just one of many required of her. There were Sisters, though, who would not go down into Nathan's apartments alone.

Now he was in brown trousers and a ruffled white shirt under a dark green vest. The hem of his maroon cape hovered just above the floor, swirling around his black boots after he came to a halt. Dressed as he now was, he cut an imposing figure.

Nicci couldn't imagine why, but at his hip he wore a sword sheathed in an elegant scabbard. Wizards hardly needed swords. Being the only prophet those at the palace had known of in recent centuries, he had always been an unfathomable character.

Many of the Sisters at the palace used to believe that Nathan was crazy. Many feared him. It wasn't so much that Nathan gave them cause for their fear as it was that their imagination provided colorful terrors that the mere sight of him somehow seemed to confirm. Nicci didn't know if very many of the Sisters now thought any differently, but she did know that a number of them were greatly worried because he was no longer locked up behind powerful shields. While a few thought he was rather harmless, if a little odd, most of the Sisters considered him to be the most dangerous man alive. Nicci had come to see him differently.

Moreover, he was now the Lord Rahl, standing in for Richard.

"Where is Verna?" Nicci asked. "I need to talk with her as well."

Coming to a halt beside Nathan, Ann tipped her head back toward the empty hallway. "She and Adie are off meeting with General Trimack about security issues. Since it's getting late I told Berdine to let them both know that you and Cara just arrived from the Keep and that we will all shortly meet them in the private dining room."

Nicci nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."

"In the meantime," Nathan pressed, "what news is there?"

Nicci was still disoriented from traveling in the sliph. It was a distracting experience in which time seemed to lose all meaning. On top of that, being in the People's Palace only added to her discomfort. The entire palace existed within a spell that amplified the power of the Lord Rahl. At the same time, the spell diminished the power of every other gifted person. Nicci wasn't used to the feeling. It made her restless and uneasy.

Being in the sliph also reminded her of Richard. She supposed that everything made her think of Richard. It seemed that her nerves were always on edge with worry for him.

It took a moment for Nicci to focus her mind on the question as she struggled to put thoughts of Richard aside. As improbable as it seemed, this man, not Richard, was now the Lord Rahl. Ann, the former prelate, his former jailer, stood beside him waiting to hear the answer to his question.