Stone of Tears

The others waited in the outer room, recovering their wind, while she rushed into her bedroom. She froze when she saw her blue wedding dress. She swept it up and held it to her breast. That was what she had come for. She didn’t want to leave it; she was never returning to this place. Kahlan shed a tear on the dress, rolled it into a tight bundle, and stuffed it in her pack.

All the other clothes from her pack were cleaned, too, and laid out for her. She stuffed them in the pack after strapping the bone knife around her left arm. She threw the mantle around her shoulders. Hurriedly, she strung the bow.

She swept through the outer room, her pack and quiver on her back, and her bow on her shoulder. She had everything she wanted. Everything that meant anything to her. She paused a moment, looking at her room for the last time as she idly turned the round bone on her necklace, and then led the others out and down a back way, headed for an outside door.

She lost count of how many men Chandalen took out with his troga or knife. When a big guard charged out of a side hall and tried to roll them down, Kahlan ran him through with the sword. The four of them were grim death moving through the palace. The alarm bells rang frantically in the tower.

On the landing leading to the great staircase, Orsk lopped off a guard’s head. The body rolled down the stairs, spilling a trail of blood, as if unrolling a red carpet for them. The headless man flopped to a stop against the statue of Magda Searus, the first Mother Confessor.

They ran down the stone steps, the sound echoing in the vast chamber. Near the bottom, a sudden stab of pain took Kahlan’s feet out from under her. She tumbled down the last few steps. The others shouted and rushed to her, wanting to know how she was hurt. She told them that she had just stumbled.

She hadn’t stumbled.

Kahlan pulled her bow off her shoulder and pointed with it. “down that hall. All of you, head down that hall. Turn right at the end. I’ll catch up with you. Go.”

“We’re not leaving you!” Chandalen insisted.

“I said go!” Kahlan stood against the blistering pain in her legs. “Orsk, get them moving, now. I’ll catch up. I will be displeased with you if you fail to get them out of here.”

Orsk raised his axe and growled. The other two backed toward the hall as they pleaded with her. They protested that they had risked their lives to rescue her, and they would not leave her, now.

“Orsk! Get them out of here!”

“Why!” Chandalen and Jebra yelled together.

Kahlan pointed with her bow. Across the great chamber, up in one of the distant arcades, stood a shadowed figure. “Because otherwise he’ll kill you.”

“We must escape! He will kill you, too!”

“If he lives, he will hunt us down, with magic, and kill us all.”

A bolt of yellow lightning arced across the broad room. Stone crashed down, nearly covering the opening where the others stood.

Kahlan drew one of Chandalen’s flat-bladed, man-killer arrows from her quiver.

“Mother Confessor!” Chandalen screamed. “You cannot make that shot! I could not make that shot! You must run!”

She didn’t tell them that the wizard was sending slashing shards of pain through her, and she couldn’t run. It was all she could do just to stand. “Orsk! Get them out! Now! I’ll catch up!”

Another bolt of lightning sent stone flying everywhere and the three of them running down the hall, Orsk pushing them along.

Kahlan put a knee to the floor to steady herself as she nocked the arrow. She drew the string to her cheek. The blade of the arrow was horizontal in her line of sight. She could hardly see Ranson, he was so far away, and the pain was blurring her vision.

But she could hear him laugh as he sent violent splinters of magic ripping through her. It sounded like Darken Rahl’s laugh. She bit the inside of her cheek against the pain, against the scream trying to fight its way out. She couldn’t hold back the clipped whimpers.

“An archer, Mother Confessor?” he called from the distance. His laughter echoed off the stone around her. “Your freedom was brief, Mother Confessor. I hope it was worth it to you. You will spend a good long time in the pit, thinking about it.”

He was too far away. She had never made a shot from this far. Richard had. She had seen him do it. Please, Richard, help me. Show me how, like you did that day. Help me.

Stone vines tore from the panel next to her and whipped around her middle, squeezing. The shearing pain made her shriek.

She brought up the bow again. With her last breath, if need be, she told herself. Her arms shook. She could hardly see the wizard. He was too far away. The vines held her tight. She couldn’t run, even if she wanted to.

Help me, Richard.

Another brutal wave of pain seared up her legs and through her insides. Burning tears ran down her cheeks as she shuddered and gasped. She couldn’t hold the bow up.

Lightning arced around the great staircase. The sound was deafening. Stone chips whistled past. Clouds of dust rose as a column collapsed with a crash.