Temple of the Winds

"Well, please see to it that Lady Nadine is taken to a private waiting room where she will be comfortable. Tell her that I will come speak with her and see if I can help. Have dinner brought to her, along with anything else she might require. Give her my apology and tell her that I have something of vital importance that I must attend to first, but I will come see her as soon as I am able, and that I wish to do what I can to help her."

Kahlan could understand the woman's distress if she really was separated from her love and was searching for him. Kahlan had been in that situation herself and knew well the anguish.

"I'll see to it at once, Mother Confessor."

"One other thing, captain." Kahlan watched the woman twisting her kerchief. "Tell Lady Nadine that there is trouble about, what with the war with the Old World, and that for her own safety we must insist that she remain in the room until I can come to speak with her. Post a heavy guard outside the room. Place archers at a safe distance down the hall to either side of the door.

"If she comes out, insist that she must return to the room at once and wait. If you must, tell her that it is by my command. If she still tries to leave"-Kahlan looked into the captain's waiting blue eyes-"kill her."

The captain bowed as Kahlan swept on through the passageway, Cara right at her heels.

"Well, well," Cara said, once outside Petitioners' Hall, "at last the Mother Confessor comes to her senses. I knew I had a good reason for allowing Lord Rahl to keep you. You will make him a worthy wife."

Kahlan turned down the corridor toward the room where guards held the man. "I haven't changed my mind about anything, Cara. Considering our strange visitor, I'm giving Lady Nadine every chance to live, every chance I can afford to give, but you're mistaken if you think I'll balk at doing whatever it takes to protect Richard. Besides being the man I love more than life itself, Richard is a man of vital importance to the freedom of the people of both D'Hara and the Midlands. There's no telling what the Imperial Order would try in order to get to him."

Cara smiled, sincerely, this time. "I know he loves you the same. That's why I don't like you going to see this man; Lord Rahl may separate me from my hide if he thinks I allowed you near danger."

"Richard is one born with the gift; I, too, have been born with magic. Darken Rahl sent quads to kill the Confessors because there is little danger to a Confessor from one man."

Kahlan felt the familiar, yet distant anguish of their deaths. Distant, because it seemed so long ago, though it had been hardly a year. For months, in the beginning, she had felt as if she should be dead along with her sister Confessors, and that she had somehow betrayed them by escaping all the traps laid for her. Now, she was the last.

With a flick of her wrist, Cara snapped her Agiel into her fist. "Even a man, like Lord Rahl, born with the gift? Even a wizard?"

"Even a wizard, and even if, unlike Richard, he knows how to use his power. I not only know how to use mine, I am very experienced at it. I long ago lost count of the number…"

As Kahlan's words trailed off, Cara considered her Agiel, rolling it in her fingers. "I guess there is even less than 'little' danger-with me there."

When they reached the richly carpeted and paneled corridor they were seeking, it was thick with soldiers and bristling with steel from swords, axes, and pikes. The man was being held in a small, elegant reading room close to the rather simple one Richard liked to use for meeting with officers and for studying the journal he had found in the Wizard's Keep. The soldiers hadn't wanted to risk an escape attempt and had simply stuffed the man in the room nearest to the spot they found him, pinning him down until it could be decided what was to be done.

Kahlan gently took the elbow of a soldier to urge him back out of the way. The muscles of his bare arm felt as hard as iron. His pike, pointed toward the closed door, could hardly have been more steady had it been embedded in granite. There had to be fifty pikes likewise aimed at the silent door. More men, gripping swords or axes, hunkered beneath the pike points.

The guard turned as Kahlan tugged on his arm. "Let me through, soldier."

The man gave way. Others glanced back and began moving aside. Cara shouldered her way ahead of Kahlan, pushing men out of the way. They did so reluctantly, not out of disrespect, but out of concern for the danger that waited beyond the door. Even as they moved aside, they kept their weapons pointed toward the thick oak door.