Stone of Tears

“She grew into a woman at the end of this Agiel, surrounded only by people who wanted her to hurt. There was no one to give her even a single word of hope, of comfort, of love.

“Can you imagine her terror? They gave her a life of endless pain. They raped her body and her spirit. They broke her. They made her one of them. Darken Rahl, personally, made her one of them.

The whole time she used this Agiel on me, it hurt her. The same as it hurts me to hold it now. There’s some magic for you.

“One day, Darken Rahl beat her, for hours, because he thought she wasn’t hurting me enough. He flailed the skin right off her back.”

Richard’s head hung as he cried. And then at the end of all that, at the end of a life of pain and madness, I come along, turn the Sword of Truth white, and run it through her. The only thing she asked before I killed her was for me to wear her Agiel and remember her. I was the only one who understood her pain. It was the only thing she wanted: for someone who understood to remember her.

“I promised, and she hung it around my neck. And then she just sat there as I pushed my sword through her heart. She had been hoping I would be the one with the power to kill her.

“That is how someone can be that evil. If I had the power, I would bring Darken Rahl back to life so I could kill him again.”

Kahlan sat stunned, motionless, caught in a vortex of conflicting emotions. She hated this Denna for hurting Richard, she was unaccountably jealous of her, and at the same time, she felt unexpected, wrenching sorrow for her. Finally, she turned away and wiped the tears from her face.

“Richard, why didn’t they win? Why wasn’t Denna able to break you? How did you keep your sanity?”

“Because, as the Sisters said, I partitioned my mind. I don’t know how to explain it. I didn’t even know exactly what it was I was doing, but that’s how I saved myself. I put the core of myself away and sacrificed the rest. I let her do what she would. Darken Rahl said that I have the gift because I did that. That was when I first heard the word—partitioned.”

Richard lay back, resting his arm over his eyes. Kahlan pulled out a blanket and bunched it under his head. “I’m so sorry, Richard,” she whispered.

“It’s over. That is what matters.” He took his arm from his eyes and at last smiled up at her. “It’s over and we are together. In some ways, it was good. If she hadn’t taught me, I wouldn’t be able to deal with this headache. Maybe Denna has helped me. Maybe I can use what I know to get out of this.”

She winced in sympathy. “Is it really bad right now?”

He nodded a little. “But I’ll die before I ever put a collar around my neck again.”

She understood now, though she wished she didn’t. She lay down snug against him. The fire was a watery blur.

Chapter 11

The next day the sky was a cold gray and the wind icy as the two of them went out alone on the plain. Richard wanted to be away from people, away from buildings. He wanted to see the sky and the earth, he said. The brown grass bowed in the stiff gusts that flapped and tugged their cloaks as they walked along in silence. Richard wanted to shoot his bow to make the headache go away for a while. Kahlan just wanted to be with him.

It seemed that the eternity, which a few days ago she had felt belonged to them, was slipping through her fingers. She wanted to fight back, but didn’t know how. Everything that was so right was suddenly going wrong.

She didn’t think that Richard would put on the Rada’Han, the collar, no matter what the Sisters said. He might accept learning to use the gift, but she didn’t think he would wear a collar. And if he didn’t, he would die. After what he had told her—and worse, the things she knew he hadn’t—how could she expect him to wear it? Or ask him to?

It did feel good, though, to be away from the village, away from people and away from Chandalen’s eyes following them everywhere. How could she blame him? It did seem as if the two of them kept bringing trouble, but it irritated her that he acted as if they did it on purpose. She was tired of trouble. It seemed as if it would never end. Well, she decided, for today, at least, they would be away from trouble, and just enjoy being together.

Kahlan had told him she used to shoot a bow. She couldn’t draw his because it was too heavy, so Richard encouraged her to borrow one and bring it along so he could teach her how to shoot better. They found the bundled grass targets the men had set up before, standing head high like a group of scarecrows on guard over the vast, flat grassland. A few even had balled grass for heads. Each had an X made of grass for a target. The targets with heads had an X there as well. Richard thought the Xs were too fat, so he took them off and made ones of single grass stalks.