At Prince Harold's instructions, Captain Ryan and his two men went to see to their troops and horses while the rest of them crowded into the small trapper's lodge. Zedd and Warren sat on a bench made of a board laid atop two log rounds. Verna and Adie sat against the opposite wall on another bench. Cara gazed out the small window. Standing near Cara, General Meiffert watched as the prince ran a finger back and forth along the front edge of the table. Kahlan folded her hands on the table before her.

"So," she began, fearing the worst, "how is Cyrilla?"

Harold smoothed the front of his coat. "The queen has. . recovered."

"Queen. .?" Kahlan rose out of her chair. "Cyrilla has recovered?

Harold, that's wonderful news. And she has at last taken her crown back?

Even better!"

Kahlan was delighted to be relieved of the role of queen to Galea. As Mother Confessor, it was an awkward duty better served by Cyrilla. More than that, though, she was relieved to learn that her half sister had finally recovered. While the two of them were never close, they shared a mutual respect.

More than her cheer at Cyrilla's recovery, though, Kahlan felt a sense of deliverance that Harold had at last brought his troops down to join with them. She hoped he had been able to raise the hundred thousand they had previously discussed; it would be a good beginning for the army Kahlan needed to raise.

Harold licked his weather-cracked lips. By the slump in his shoulders, she was sure that the task of collecting his army had been trying, and the journey arduous. She had never seen his face looking so worn. He had a vague, empty look that reminded her of her father.

Kahlan smiled exuberantly, determined to show her appreciation. "How many troops did you bring? We could certainly use the whole hundred thousand. That would just about double what we have down here so far. The spirits know we need them."

No one was saying anything. As she looked from one person to the next, no one would meet her gaze.

Kahlan's sense of relief was sloughing away.

"Harold, how many troops did you bring?"

He ran his meaty fingers back through his long, thick, dark hair.

"About a thousand."

She stared dumbly, sinking back into her chair. "A thousand?"

He nodded, still not meeting her eyes. "Captain Bradley and his men.

The ones you led and fought beside, before."

Kahlan could feel her face heating. "We need all your troops. Harold, what's going on?"

He at last met her gaze.

"Queen Cyrilla refused my plan to take our troops south. Shortly after you were there and visited her, she came out of her illness. She was herself again-full of ambition and fire. You know what she was like. She was always tireless in her advocacy for Galea." His fingers idly tapped the table. "But I'm afraid she has been changed by her infirmity. She fears the Imperial Order."

"So do I," Kahlan said with quiet bottled rage. She could feel Richard's sword pressed against the back of her shoulder. She saw Harold's eyes take it in. "Everyone in the Midlands fears the Order. That is why we need those troops."

He was nodding as she spoke. "I told her all that. I did. She said that she is Queen of Galea, and as such, she must put our land first."

"Galea has joined the D'Haran Empire!"

He opened his hands in a helpless gesture. "When she was ill, she was.

. unaware of that event taking place. She said she only gave you the crown for the safekeeping of her people, not to surrender their sovereignty." His hands dropped to his sides. "She claims you never had any such authority and refuses to abide by the agreement."

Kahlan glanced at the others in the room, sitting mute, like a panel of grim judges.

"Harold, you and I have discussed all this in the past. The Midlands is under threat." She swept her arm out. "The entire New World is threatened!

We must turn back that threat, not take to defending one land at a time-or have each land try to fend for itself. If we do that, we will all fall, one at a time. We must stand together."

"I agree with you, in principle, Mother Confessor. Queen Cyrilla does not."

"Then Cyrilla is not recovered, Harold. She is still sick."

"That may be, but it is not for me to say."

Elbow on the table, Kahlan rested her forehead against her fingertips.

Thoughts were screaming around inside her head, demanding that this not be happening.

"What about Jebra?" Zedd asked from the side of the room. Kahlan was relieved to hear his voice, as if reason were returning to the lunacy of what she was hearing, as if the weight of another voice would set things straight. "We left the seer there to help care for Cyrilla and to advise you. Surely, Jebra must have advised Cyrilla against such actions."

Harold hung his head again. "I'm afraid that Queen Cyrilla ordered Jebra thrown into a dungeon. Moreover, the queen gave orders that if Jebra speaks one word of her blasphemy-as Queen Cyrilla calls it-she is to have her tongue cut out."

Kahlan had to tell herself to blink. It was no longer Cyrilla's behavior that so stunned her. Her words came sparse and brittle, the naked bones of dead respect.

"Harold, why would you follow the orders of a madwoman?"

His jaw took a set, as if injured by her tone. "Mother Confessor, she is not only my sister, but my queen. I am sworn to obey my queen in order to protect the Galean people. All those men of ours out there who have been fighting with your army are also sworn to protect the people of Galea above all else. I've already given them our queen's orders. We must all return to Galea at once. I'm sorry, but that is the way it must be."

Kahlan pounded her fist on the table and shot to her feet.

"Galea stands at the head of the Callisidrin Valley! It's a gateway right up the center of the Midlands! Don't you see what a tempting route it might be for the Imperial Order? Don't you see how they might want to split the Midlands?"

"Of course I do, Mother Confessor."

She aimed a stiff arm, pointing at the camp beyond the lodge.

"So you just expect all those men out there to put their lives between you and the Order? You and Queen Cyrilla callously expect all those men out there to die protecting you? — while you sit back in Galea? — hoping they prevent the Order from ever reaching you?"

"Of course not, Mother Confessor."

"What's the matter with you! Don't you see that if you fight with us to halt the Order, you are protecting the people of your homeland?"

Harold licked his lip. "Mother Confessor, all you say is probably true.

It is also irrelevant. I am commander of the Galean army. My entire life has been devoted to serving the people of Galea and my sovereign-first my mother and father, and then my sister. From the time I was a boy at my father's knee, I was taught to protect Galea above all else."

Kahlan did her best to control her voice. "Harold, Cyrilla is obviously still sick. If you are honestly interested in protecting your people, you must see that what you're doing is not the way to accomplish it."

"Mother Confessor, I have been charged by my queen with protecting the people of Galea. I know my duty."

"Duty?" Kahlan wiped a hand across her face. "Harold, you can't blindly follow that woman's whim. The route to life and liberty exists only through reason. She may be queen, but reason can be your only true sovereign. To fail to use reason in this, to fail to think, is intellectual anarchy."

He looked at her as if she were some poor child who didn't understand the world of adult responsibility.

"She is my queen. The queen is devoted to the people."

Kahlan drummed her fingers on the table. "What Cyrilla is, is deluded by ghosts that still haunt her. She is going to bring harm to your people.