She was startled to see her words stagger him. It took a moment before his eyes turned up to look into hers. What she saw there nearly stopped her heart.

"Kahlan. . you remember, don't you?"

"Remember?"

His eyes glistened. "That you lost the baby. When you were attacked."

The memory slammed into her like a fist, nearly taking her breath.

"…Oh…

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. I forgot for a moment. I just wasn't thinking. I remember, now. I remember you told me about it."

And she did. Their child, their child that had only begun to grow in her, was long since dead and gone. Those beasts who had attacked her had taken that from her, too.

The world seemed to turn gray and lifeless.

"I'm so sorry, Kahlan," he whispered.

She caressed his hair. "No, Richard. I should have remembered. I'm sorry I forgot. I didn't mean to. ."

He nodded.

She felt a warm tear drop onto the hollow of her throat, close to her necklace. The necklace, with its small dark stone, had been a wedding gift from Shota, the witch woman. The gift was a proposal of truce. Shota said it would allow them to be together and share their love, as they had always wanted, without Kahlan getting pregnant. Richard and Kahlan had decided that, for the time being, they would reluctantly accept Shota's gift, her truce. They already had worries enough on their hands.

But for a time, when the chimes had been loose in the world, the magic of the necklace, unbeknownst to Richard and Kahlan, had failed. One small but miraculous balance to the horrors the chimes had brought had been that it had given their love the opportunity to bring a child to life.

Now that life was gone.

"Please, Richard, let's go."

He nodded again.

"Dear spirits," he whispered to himself so softly she could hardly hear him, "forgive me for what I am about to do."

She clutched his neck. She now longed for what was coming-she wanted to forget.

He lifted her as gently as he could. It felt like wild stallions tied to each limb all leaped into a gallop at the same instant. Pain ripped up from the core of her, the shock of it making her eyes go wide as she sucked in a breath. And then she screamed.

The blackness hit her like a dungeon door slamming shut.

A sound woke her as suddenly as a slap. Kahlan lay on her back, still as death, her eyes wide, listening. It wasn't so much that the sound had been loud, but that it had been something disturbingly familiar. Something dangerous.

Her whole body throbbed with pain, but she was more awake than she had been in what seemed like weeks. She didn't know how long she had been asleep, or perhaps unconscious. She was awake enough to remember that it would be a grave mistake to try to sit up, because just about the only part of her not injured was her right arm. One of the big chestnut geldings snorted nervously and stamped a hoof, jostling the carnage enough to remind Kahlan of her broken ribs.

The sticky air smelled of approaching rain, though fits of wind still bore dust to her nostrils. Dark masses of leaves overhead swung fretfully to and fro, their creaking branches giving voice to their torment. Deep purple and violet clouds scudded past in silence. Beyond the trees and clouds, the field of blue-black sky held a lone star, high over her forehead. She wasn't sure if it was dawn or dusk, but it felt like the death of day.

As the gusts beat strands of her filthy hair across her face, Kahlan listened as hard as she could for the sound that didn't belong, still hoping to fit it into a picture of something innocent. Since she'd heard it only from the deepness of sleep, its conscious identity remained frustratingly out of her reach.

She listened, too, for sounds of Richard and Cara, but heard nothing.

Surely, they would be close. They would not leave her alone-not for any reason this side of death. She recoiled from the image. She ached to call out for Richard and prove the uninvited thought a foolish fear, but instinct screamed at her to stay silent. She needed no reminder not to move.

A metallic clang came from the distance, then a cry. Maybe it was an animal, she told herself. Ravens sometimes let out the most awful cries.

Their shrill wails could sound so human it was eerie. But as far as she knew, ravens didn't make metallic sounds.

The carriage suddenly lurched to the right. Her breath caught as the unanticipated movement caused a stitch of pain in the back of her ribs.

Someone had put weight on the step. By the careless disregard for the carriage's injured passenger, she knew it wasn't Richard or Cara. But if it wasn't Richard, then who? Gooseflesh tickled the nape of her neck. If it wasn't Richard, where was he?

Stubby fingers grasped the top of the corded chafing strip on the carriage's side rail. The blunt fingertips were rounded back over grubby, gnawed-down little halfbutton fingernails. Kahlan held her breath, hoping he didn't realize she was in the carriage.

A face popped up. Cunning dark eyes squinted at her. The man's four middle upper teeth were missing, leaving his eyeteeth looking like fangs when he grinned.

"Well, well. If it ain't the wife of the late Richard Cypher."

Kahlan lay frozen. This was just like her dreams. For an instant, she couldn't decide if it was only that, just a dream, or real.

His shirt bore a dark patina of dirt, as if it was never removed for anything. Sparse, wiry hairs on his fleshy cheeks and chin were like early weeds in the plowed field of his pockmarked face. His upper lip was wet from his runny nose. He had no lower teeth in front. The tip of his tongue rested partway out between the yawning gap of his smirk.

He brought up a knife for her to see. He turned it this way and that, almost as if he were showing off a prized possession to a shy girl he was courting. His eyes kept flicking back and forth between the knife and Kahlan. The slipshod job of sharpening appeared to have been done on rough granite, rather than on a proper whetstone. Dark blotches and rust stained the poorly kept cheap steel. But the scratched and chipped edge was no less deadly for any of it. His wicked, toothless grin widened with pleasure as her gaze followed the blade, watching it carve careful slices of the air between them.

She made herself look into his dark, sunken eyes, which peered out from puffy slits. "Where's Richard?" she demanded in a level voice.

"Dancing with the spirits in the underworld." He cocked his head to one side. "Where's the blond bitch? The one my friends said they saw before. The one with the smart mouth. The one what needs to have her tongue shortened before I gut her."

Kahlan glared at him so he would know she had no intention of answering. As the crude knife advanced toward her, his stench hit her.

"You would have to be Tommy Lancaster."

The knife paused. "How'd you know that?"

Anger welled up from deep inside her. "Richard told me about you."

The eyes glittered with menace. His grin widened. "Yeah? What did he tell you?"

"That you were an ugly toothless pig who wets his pants whenever he grins. Smells like he was right."

The smirking grin turned to a scowl. He raised up on the step and leaned in with the knife. That was what Kahlan wanted him to do-to get close enough so she could touch him.

With the discipline borne of a lifetime of experience, she mentally shed her anger and donned the calm of a Confessor committed to a course of action. Once a Confessor was resolved to releasing her power, the nature of time itself seemed to change.

She had but to touch him.

A Confessor's power was partly dependent on her strength. In her injured condition, she didn't know if she would be able to call forth the required force, and if she could, whether she would survive the unleashing of it, but she knew she had no choice. One of them was about to die. Maybe both.