Temple of the Winds

"You are about to find out why I wear blood red leather." Unleashing a mighty swing, launched with an angry cry, Cara clouted his face with her armored fist. As he went down, blood sprayed across the bookcase. As soon as he hit the floor, she straddled him, a boot to each side of his hips.

"I can see what you're envisioning," Cara told him. "I saw the vision of what you want to do to me. Naughty boy." She stomped a boot down on his sternum. "That was the least of what you will suffer for that thought. You had better learn real fast to keep ideas of resistance out of your mind. Got it?

She bent and drove her Agiel into his gut. "Got it?"

His scream sent a shiver up Kahlan's spine. She was sickened by what she was watching, having once felt the profoundly painful touch of an Agiel, but worse, knowing that this was what had been done to Richard, and yet she didn't make a move to stop it.

She had offered this man mercy. If he had had his way, he would have killed Richard. He had promised to kill her, too, but it was that threat against Richard that kept her silent, and prevented her from stopping Cara.

"Now." Cara said with a sneer. She jabbed her Agiel against his cracked rib. "What is your name?"

"Marlin Pickard!" He tried to blink away the tears. A sheen of sweat covered his face. Blood frothed at his mouth as he panted.

She pressed her Agiel against his groin. Marlin's feet kicked out helplessly as he wailed.

"The next time I ask a question, don't make me wait for an answer. And you will address me as Mistress Cara."

"Cara," Kahlan said in a quiet tone, still seeing the vision of Richard in place of the man, "there is no need to…"

Cara looked over her shoulder, glaring with cold blue eyes. Kahlan turned away and with trembling fingers wiped a tear as it rolled down her cheek. She lifted the glass chimney of the lamp on the wall and used the one she held to light it. When the wick took to flame, she set her lamp down on a side table and replaced its chimney. It was frightening to see the cold look in those Mord-Sith eyes. Her heart pounded at the thought of how many weeks Richard had seen only cold eyes like that looking back as he begged for mercy.

Kahlan turned back to the pair. "We need answers, nothing more."

"I'm getting answers."

Kahlan nodded. "I understand, but we don't need the screams along with them. We don't torture people."

"Torture? I have not yet even begun to torture him." Cara straightened, casting a glance to the shivering man at her feet. "And if he had managed to kill Lord Rahl first? Would you wish me to leave him be, then?"

"Yes." Kahlan met the woman's eyes. "And then I would have done worse to him myself. Worse than you could even conceive of. But he didn't hurt Richard."

A cunning smile curled the comers of Cara's mouth. "He intended it. The canon of the spirits says that intent is guilt. Failure to successfully carry out the intent. does not absolve the guilt."

"The spirits also mark a distinction between intent and deed. It was my intent to take care of him, in my way. Was it your intent to disobey my direct order?

Cara flicked her blond braid back over her shoulder. "It was my intent to protect you and Lord Rahl. I have succeeded."

"I told you to let me handle it."

"Hesitation can be the end of you… or those you care about." A haunted look passed across Cara's face. Iron quickly repossessed her countenance. "I have learned never to hesitate."

"Is that why you were provoking him? To get him to attack you with his magic?"

With the heel of her hand, Cara wiped the blood from a deep cut on her cheek- a cut Marlin had given her when he had struck her and slammed her into the bookcase. She stepped closer. "Yes." She took a long lick of the blood from her hand while watching Kahlan's eyes. "A Mord-Sith can't take a person's magic unless they attack us with it."

"I thought you feared magic."

Cara tugged the sleeve of her leather, straightening it down her arm. "We do, unless it is specifically used by the one who commands it to attack us. Then it's ours."

"You always claim not to know anything about magic, and yet now you command his? You can use his magic?"

Cara glanced down at the man groaning on the floor. "No. I can't use it, like he uses it, but I can turn it against him-hurt him with his own magic." Her brow twitched. "Sometimes, we feel a bit of it, but we don't understand it the way Lord Rahl understands it, and so we can't use it. Except to give them pain."

Kahlan couldn't reconcile such contradictions. "How?"

She was struck by how much Cara's emotionless expression was like a Confessor's face, the face Kahlan's mother had taught her, showing nothing of the inner feelings about what had to be done.