Stone of Tears

But then Denna told her. Told her what a Mord-Sith did to her mate, why their mates didn’t live long. Every intimate detail. And what she had done to Richard that she had done to no other mate.

With a wail, Kahlan turned away, crawled a short distance, and started throwing up. With one hand holding herself up, and the other across her abdomen, she cried and heaved and gagged. Denna’s hands were there, holding her hair back as Kahlan emptied the contents of her stomach onto the dirt. She vomited until her insides were heaved dry.

She felt Denna’s warm tingling touch on her back. She wanted to call forth the lightning, but was too sick to find the power. She was torn between wanting to throw herself on Richard and comfort him, and ripping this woman apart with the magic of the Con Dar, the Blood Rage.

Between gagging, and panting, and crying, Kahlan managed to get the words out. “Take… your hands… off me.” The hand holding her hair slipped away. The one on her back lifted. Her stomach heaved again in a dry convulsion. “How many times did you do that to him?”

“Enough. It does not matter.”

Kahlan turned in a rage, clenching her fists as she screamed. “How many times!”

Denna’s voice was soft and calm. “I’m sorry, Kahlan, I don’t know. I didn’t keep a tally. But he was with me a long time. Longer than any other mate. I did it almost every night. The things I did, I did to no other, because none had the strength Richard did, the strength of his love for you. The others would have died the first time. He fought me, for a long time. I did it enough, that’s all. Enough.”

“Enough! Enough for what!”

“Enough to drive a part of him mad.”

“He’s not mad! He’s not! He’s not!”

Denna watched as Kahlan shook with pain and rage. “Kahlan, listen to me. Anyone else would have been broken by what I did. Richard saved himself by partitioning his mind. He locked the core of himself away where I couldn’t get to it, where the magic couldn’t get to it. He used the gift to do that. It saved the core of himself from the insanity. But in the darkest corners of his mind lurks madness. I used his magic against him, to drive him insane. He couldn’t protect all of himself from the things I did.

“I told you what I did so you could see the truth of his madness. He had to sacrifice that part to save the rest. To save the rest for you. I wish I could have done the same when it was done to me.”

Kahlan lifted Richard’s hand in hers, holding the back of it to her heart. “How could you do those things?” she cried. “Oh, my poor Richard. How could you? How could you do that to anyone?”

“We all have our own little bits of insanity. Some more than others. My life was a darkness of it.”

“Then how could you! How could you, knowing what it was like!”

Denna watched her from under her eyebrows. “You have done terrible things too. You have used your power to hurt people.”

“But they were people guilty of horrible crimes!”

“All of them?” she asked quietly. “Every one?”

Kahlan’s breath caught with the memory of using her power against Brophy.

“No,” she whispered. “But I didn’t do it because I wanted to. I had to. It is my job. Who I am. What I am.”

“But you did it. And what of Demmin Nass?”

The words cut through her. Her mind flooded with the memory, the sweet memory, of castrating that beast of a man. She sank forward with a wail. “Oh, dear spirits, am I no better than you?”

“We all do what we must, whatever the reasons.” Her glowing, diaphanous fingers lifted Kahlan’s chin. “I do not tell you these things to hurt you, Kahlan. The telling of them wounds me more than you can know. I tell you because I want to save Richard, so that he doesn’t die before his rightful time, and so that the Keeper does not escape.”

Kahlan clutched Richard’s hand tighter to her breast as she wept. “I’m sorry, Denna… but I don’t have it in me to forgive you. I know Richard does… but I do not. I hate you.”

“I would not expect you to forgive me. I only wish you to understand the truth of what I am telling you, the truth of Richard’s madness.”

“Why! To what purpose!”

“So that you will understand what you must do. Wearing a collar is the core of that insanity. It symbolizes everything I did to him. In his mind, magic is madness, torture. A collar is madness, torture. Insanity.

The thought of having a collar around his neck brings that madness out of the darkest corners of his being, brings out his deepest fears. He is not exaggerating when he says he would rather die than put a collar around his neck. He will not do it to save himself. If he doesn’t, he will die. There is only one thing in the world that will make him put on the collar.”

Kahlan’s head snapped up. Her eyes were wide. “You want me to ask him to put a collar around his neck.” She went weak with dread. “You would have me do that to him? After what you have told me?”

Denna nodded. “He will do it if you tell him to. He will not do it for any other reason. None.”