"She had dinner with him, in a great hall, and ate rare and exotic foods,he had never tasted before. Just the two of them at a long dining table with people serving her for the first time in her life.

"He was charming. He complemented her on her beauty, her grace. He poured wine for her-the Lord Rahl himself.

— When she was at last alone with him, she was confronted with the reality of why she was there. She was too frightened to resist. Of course, had she not meekly submitted, he would have done what he wished anyway. Darken Rahl was a powerful wizard. He was easily as cruel as he was charming. He could have handled any woman without the slightest difficulty. He had but to command it, and those who resisted his will were tortured to death.

"But she never gave any thought to resisting. For a brief time, despite her apprehension, that world, at the center of such splendor, such power, had probably seemed exciting. When it turned to terror for her, she bore it silently.

"It wasn't rape in the meaning of being taken against her will, with a knife held to her throat, but it was a crime nonetheless. A savage crime."

Jennsen looked away from Sebastian's blue eyes. "He took my mother to his bed for a period of time before he tired of her and moved on to other women. There were as many women as he could want. Even at that age, my mother didn't hold any foolish illusion that she meant something to him. She knew he was simply taking what he wanted, for as long as he wanted, and that when he was finished with her she would soon be forgotten. She was doing as a servant did. A flattered servant, perhaps, but still a frightened, innocent young servant who knew better than to resist a man above any law but his own."

She couldn't bear to look at Sebastian. In a small voice, she added the last bit to the tale.

"I was the result of that brief ordeal in her life, and the beginning of a far greater one."

Jennsen had never before told anyone the awful story, the terrible truth. She felt cold and dirty. She felt sick. Most of all, she felt deep anguish for what her mother must have gone through, for her young life spoiled.

Her mother never told the story all out as Jennsen had just done. Jennsen had pieced snippets and snatches of it together over her whole life, until it was finally a whole picture in her mind. She wasn't telling Sebastian all the snippets, either-the true extent of the horror of the way her mother had been treated by Darken Rahl. Jennsen felt burning shame that she had to be born to remind her mother every day of that terrible memory she could never tell in whole.

When Jennsen looked up through tears, Sebastian was standing close before her. His fingertips gently touched the side of her face. It was as tender a thing as she had ever felt.

Jennsen wiped the tears from under her eyes. "The women and their children mean nothing to him. The Lord Rahl eliminates all those offspring who are not gifted. Since he takes many women, children of these couplings are not uncommon. He covets only one, his heir, the single child born of his seed who carries the gift."

"Richard Rahl," Sebastian said.

"Richard Rahl," she confirmed. "My half brother."

Richard Rahl, her half brother, who hunted her as his father before him had hunted her. Richard Rahl, her half brother, who sent the quads to kill her. Richard Rahl, her half brother, who had sent the quads that had murdered her mother.

But why? She could have been no threat to Darken Rahl, and even less of a threat to the new Lord Rahl. He was a powerful wizard who commanded armies, legions of the gifted, and countless other loyal supporters. And she? She was nothing but one lone woman who knew few people and wanted only to live her own simple life in peace. She was hardly a threat to his rule.

Even the truth of her story would not so much as raise an eyebrow. Everyone knew that any Lord Rahl lived by his own laws. No one was even remotely likely to disbelieve her story, but no one would really care, either. At most, they might wink or give one another a knowing elbow at the lives of powerful men, and Darken Rahl had been the most powerful man alive.

Jennsen's whole life seemed suddenly to come down to that central question: Why would her father, a man she never knew, have wanted so desperately to kill her? And why would his son, Richard Rahl, her own half brother and now the Lord Rahl, also be so intent on killing her? It made no sense.

What could she possibly do that could harm either of them? What threat could she possibly constitute to such power?

Jermsen checked that the knife at her belt-her knife displaying the emblem of the House of Rahl-was secure. She lifted the blade to be sure it was free in its scabbard. The steel made a pleasing metallic click as she pushed it home. She scooped her cloak off the bed and threw it around her shoulders.

Sebastian swiped a hand back across his white spikes of hair as he watched her quickly tie the cloak shut. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'll be back in a while. I'm going out."

He reached for his weapons and cloak. "All right, I'll-"

"No. Leave me to it, Sebastian. You've put yourself at risk enough on my behalf. I wish to go alone. I'll be back when I've finished."

"Finished what?"

She hurried to the door. "What I have to do."

He stood in the center of the room, fists at his sides, apparently hesitant to go against her explicit wishes. Jennsen quickly pulled the door shut tight behind herself, closing off her view of him. She took the steps two at a time, intent on being quickly out of the inn and gone before he changed his mind and followed.

The crowd downstairs was as rowdy as they had been before. She ignored the men, their gambling, their dancing, their laughter, and headed for the door. Before she made it, though, a bearded man hooked his arm around her middle and jerked her back into the press of people. She let out a small cry that was lost in the gale of revelry. Her left arm was pinned against her waist. He swung her around, catching her right hand, dancing her across the floor.

Jennsen tried to reach up to pull back her hood, to free her red hair in order to give him a scare, but she couldn't liberate her arm. He held her other hand in an iron grip. Not only could she not free her hair, she couldn't reach her knife to defend herself. Her breath came in a frightened pant.

The man laughed with his fellows, and swirled her to the music, holding her tight lest he lose his dance with her. His eyes shown with merriment, not menace, but she knew that was only because she had not yet forcefully resisted. She knew that when he discovered that she was unwilling, his pleasant demeanor was sure to change.

He released her waist and spun her around. With only one hand still entrapped in his callused fingers, she hoped yet to break the hold. With her left hand, she fumbled for her knife, but it was under her cloak, and not handy to her off hand. The crowd clapped in time with the tune of the pipes and drums. As she turned and stepped away, another man caught her up around the waist, bumping against her hard enough to knock the wind from her in a grunt. He captured her hand away from the first fellow. She had wasted her chance to pull back her hood by trying for her knife instead.

She found herself adrift in a sea of men. The few other women, serving girls mostly, were either willing or laughed and were able to alight briefly, and then move away, like bugs that were able to walk on water. Jennsen didn't know how they performed the trick; she was in danger of drowning among waves of men who passed her along from one to another.

When she caught sight of the door, she yanked away suddenly, breaking the hold of the latest man to have her in his grip. He hadn't been expecting her to suddenly break free. The men all laughed at the fellow who had lost hold of her. His merriment, as she had expected, died. The rest of the men were more good-natured about it than she had expected, and sent up a cheer for her escape.

Instead of showing anger, the man from whom she had escaped bowed. "Thank you, my beautiful lass, for the gracious dance. It was a kindness to a lumbering old soul such as me."

His grin returned and he winked at her before turning back to clap along with his fellows in time to the music.

Jennsen stood stunned, realizing that it had not been the danger she had expected. The men were having a good time, and not really intent on harm. None had touched her in an unseemly manner, or even spoken any crude words to her. They had only smiled, laughed, and danced with her. Still, Jennsen made a quick line for the door.

Before she went out, another arm caught her around the waist. Jennsen started to fight and pull away.

"I didn't know you liked to dance."

It was Sebastian. She relaxed, and let him usher her out of the inn.

Out in the dark night, the cold air was a relief. She pulled a long breath, happy to be away from the unfamiliar smell of ale, pipe smoke, and sweaty men, happy to be away from the noise of so many people.

"I told you to leave me to it," she said.

"Leave you to what?"

"I'm going to Lathea's place. Stay here, Sebastian. Please?"

"If you tell me why you don't want me to go."

She lifted a hand but let it flop back to her side. "Sebastian, you're an important man. I feel terrible about the danger you've already been in all because of me. This is my problem, not yours. My life is. . I don't know. I don't have a life. You do. I don't want to get you all tangled up in my mess."

She started out across the crusty snow. "Just wait here."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he strode along beside her. -Jennsen, I'm a grown man. Don't decide for me what I should be doing, all right?"

She didn't answer as she turned the comer down a deserted street.

"Tell me why you want to go see Lathea, will you?"

She stopped then at the side of the road, close to an uninhabited building not far from the comer of the road that turned down to Lathea's place.

"Sebastian, my whole life I've been running. My mother spent the better part of her life running from Darken Rahl, hiding me. She died running from his son, Richard Rahl. It was me Darken Rahl was after, me Darken Rahl wanted to kill, and now it's Richard Rahl who is after me, who wants to kill me, and I don't know why.

"I'm sick of it. My life is nothing but running, hiding, and being afraid. It's all I do. All I think about. That's all my life is-running from a man trying to kill me. Trying to stay a step ahead of him and stay alive."