She could still feel Nicci's vital magic sizzling through her, as if her soul itself had been scorched in the heat of the ordeal. Her insides roiled as waves of the onslaught had yet to settle down. The cold air rushing across the meadow, bending the brown grass, swept up to chill her burning face. The wind carried an unfamiliar scent into the valley, something that her jumbled senses perceived as vaguely portentous. The big pines behind the house bowed and twisted but stood tall as the wind broke against them with a sound not unlike waves rushing against stone cliffs.

Whatever sort of magic had been unleashed in her, Kahlan was convinced Nicci had told the truth about its consequence. Despite how much she hated the woman, because of the maternity spell Kahlan felt a connection to her, a connection that she could only interpret as. . affection. It was a bewildering sensation. While positively disturbing, it was also, in a way, a comforting connection to the woman beyond her vile magic and twisted purpose. There seemed to be something deep within Nicci worth loving.

Regardless of Kahlan's far-fetched feelings, her perception and reasoning told her the truth of the matter: such impressions were illusion. If she got the opportunity, she would not again hesitate for an instant to kill Nicci.

"Cara," Richard said, glaring at Nicci's back as she walked her horse across the meadow, "I don't want you even thinking about trying to stop her."

"I'm not going to allow-"

"I mean it. I mean it more than any order I've ever given you. If you ever brought Kahlan to harm in such a way. . well, 1 trust you'd never do such an evil thing to me. Why don't you go get dressed."

Cara growled a curse under her breath. Richard turned to Kahlan as the Mord Sith marched off into the house. Kahlan only then really noticed that Cara was naked. She must have been interrupted in her bath. The magic Nicci used had fogged Kahlan's mind, blurring her memory of recent events.

Kahlan did recall quite clearly, though, the feel of the Agiel. The shattering torture of the MordSith's weapon had spiked through Nicci's magic like a lance through straw. Even though Cara had used her Agiel on Nicci, Kahlan felt it as if it had been used directly against the side of her own neck.

Kahlan gently touched Richard's jaw in sympathy, then took hold of his upper arms instead when he gave her a look that suggested no need for sympathy. His big hands closed on her waist. She stepped into his embrace and rested her forehead against his cheek.

"This can't be," she whispered. "It just can't."

"But it is."

"I'm so sorry."

"Sorry?"

"That I let her take me by surprise." Kahlan trembled with anger at herself. "I should have been alert. If I'd done as I should have, and killed her first, it would never have come to this."

Richard ran a hand gently down the back of her head, holding her to his shoulder.

"Remember how you killed me in a sword fight the other day?" She nodded against him. "We all make mistakes, get caught off guard. Don't blame yourself. No one is perfect. It could even be that she cast a web of magic to dull your awareness so she could slip up to you like. . like some silent unseen mosquito."

Kahlan had never considered that. Caught off guard or not, though, it made her furious with herself. If only she had not been paying attention to the stupid chipmunk. If only she had looked up sooner. If only she had acted without waiting a split second to analyze the true nature of the threat to decide if it warranted the unleashing of her devastating magic.

Almost from birth, Kahlan had been instructed in the use of her power, with the mandate of unleashing it only upon being certain of the need. Much like killing, a Confessor's power was the destruction of who a person was.

Afterward, the person acted exclusively on behalf of the Confessor, and at the direction of the Confessor. It was as final as death.

Kahlan looked up into Richard's gray eyes. They looked all the more gray with the gray sky behind him.

"My life is a precious and sacred thing to me," she said. "Yours is no less to you. Don't throw yours away to be a slave to mine. I couldn't stand it."

"It's not come to that yet. I'll figure something out. But for now, I have to go with her."

"We'll follow, but stay well back." He was already shaking his head.

"But, she won't even be aware-"

"No. For all we know, she could have others with her. They could be waiting to catch you if you follow. I couldn't bear the thought of knowing that at any moment she could use magic or somehow find out you were following. If that happened, you would die for nothing."

"You mean you think she could. . hurt you to make you tell her I planned to follow."

"Let's not let our imaginations get the better of us."

"But I should be close, for when you make a move-for when you figure a way to stop her."

Richard cupped her face tenderly in his hands. He had a strange look in his eyes, a look she didn't like.

"Listen to me. I don't know what's going on, but you mustn't die just to free me."

Tears of desperation stung her eyes. She blinked them away. She fought to keep her voice from becoming a wail.

"Don't go, Richard. I don't care what it means for me, as long as you can be free. I would die happy if doing so would keep you from the enemy's cruel hands. I can't allow the Order to have you. I can't allow you to endure the slow grinding death of a slave in exchange for my life. I can't allow them to-"

She bit off the words of what she feared most; she couldn't bear the thought of him being tortured. It made her even more dizzy and sick to think of him being maimed and mutilated, of him suffering all alone and forgotten in some distant stinking dungeon with no hope of help.

But Nicci said they wouldn't. Kahlan told herself that, for her own sanity, she had to believe Nicci's word.

Kahlan realized Richard was smiling to himself, as if trying to commit to memory every detail of her face while at the same time running a thousand other things through his thoughts.

"There's no choice," he whispered. "I must do this."

She clutched his shirt in her fist. "You're doing just as Nicci wants-she knows you'll want to save me. I can't allow you to make that sacrifice!"

Richard looked up briefly, gazing out at the trees and mountains behind their house, taking it all in, like a condemned man savoring his last meal.

His gaze, more earnest, settled once more on hers.

"Don't you see? I am making no sacrifice. I am making a fair trade. The reality that you exist is my basis for joy and happiness.

"I make no sacrifice," he repeated, stressing each word. "To be a slave, even if that is what happens to me, and yet know you're alive, is my choice over being free in a world in which you don't exist. I can live with the first. I can't, with the second. The first is painful, the second unbearable."

Kahlan beat a fist against his chest. "But you will be a slave or worse and I can't bear that!"

"Kahlan, listen to me. I will always have freedom in my heart because I understand what it is. Because I do, I can work toward it. I will find a way to be free.

"I cannot find a way to bring you back to life.

"The spirits know that in the past I've been willing to forfeit my life for a just cause and if my life would truly make a difference. In the past, I have knowingly imperiled both our lives, been willing to sacrifice both our lives-but not in return for nothing. Don't you see? This would be a fool's bargain. I'll not do it."

Kahlan pulled her breaths in small gasps, trying to told back the tears as well as her rising sense of panic. "You're the Seeker. You must find a way to freedom. Of course you will. You will, 1 know." She forced a swallow past the constriction in her throat as she tried to reassure Richard, or perhaps herself. "You'll find a way. I know you will. You'll find a way and you'll come back. You did before. You will this time."