Wizard's First Rule

Adie placed it over her head while Kahlan lifted clear her mass of dark hair. Kahlan looked down at the necklace, touching it between her finger and thumb, smiling.

"For now it will hide you from the beasts in the pass, and someday, when you carry a child of your own, it will protect her, and help her to grow strong like you."

Kahlan put her arms around the old woman, hugging her tight for a long time. When they separated, Kahlan's face bore a distressed expression, and she spoke in the language Richard didn't understand. Adie simply smiled and patted her shoulder sympathetically.

"You two should sleep now."

"What about me? Shouldn't I have a bone to hide me from the beasts?"

Adie studied his face, then looked down at his chest. Slowly, she reached out. Her fingers uncurled and touched his shirt tentatively, touched the tooth underneath. She pulled her hand back and looked back up into his eyes. Somehow she knew about the tooth being there. Richard held his breath.

"You need no bone, Hartlander. The beasts cannot see you."

His father had told him the thing guarding the book had been an evil beast. He realized the tooth was the reason the things from the boundary hadn't been able to find him, as they had the others. If it hadn't been for the tooth, he would have been struck down as Zedd and Chase were, and Kahlan would be in the underworld now. Richard tried to keep his face from betraying any emotion. Adie seemed to get the hint and remained silent. Kahlan seemed confused but didn't ask.

"Sleep now," Adie said.

Kahlan refused Adie's offer of her bed. She and Richard laid their bedrolls near the fire, and Adie retired to her room. Richard put a few more logs in the fire, remembering how Kahlan liked to be by a fire. He sat by Zedd and Chase for a few minutes, smoothing the old man's white hair, listening to his even breathing. He hated to leave his friends behind. He was afraid of what was ahead. He wondered if Zedd had an idea of where to look for one of the boxes. Richard wished he knew what Zedd's plan was. Maybe it was some sort of wizard's trick to try on Darken Rahl

Kahlan sat on the floor by the fire with her legs crossed, watching him. When he came back to his blanket, she lay down on her back, pulling the blanket up to her waist. The house was quiet — and felt safe. Rain continued to fall outside. It felt good being by the fire. He was tired. Richard turned toward Kahlan, his elbow on the floor and his head propped in his hand. She stared up at the ceiling, turning the bone on the necklace between her finger and thumb. He watched her breast rise and fall with her breathing.

"Richard," she whispered while continuing to stare at the ceiling, "I'm sorry we have to leave them behind."

"I know," he whispered back. "Me too."

"I hope you do not feel I forced you to do it, because of what I said when we were in the swamp."

"No. It was the right decision. Every day brings winter closer. It will do us no good to wait with them, while Rahl gets the boxes. Then we will all be dead. The truth is the truth. I can't be angry at you for saying it."

He listened to the fire snap and hiss as he watched her face, the way her hair lay across the floor. He could see a vein in her neck pulsing with her heartbeat. He thought that she had the most delicious-looking neck he had ever seen. Sometimes she looked so beautiful, he could hardly stand to look at her, and at the same time, could not look away. She still held the necklace in her fingers.

"Kahlan?" She turned to his eyes. "When Adie told you the necklace would protect you and someday your child, what did you say to her?"

She gazed at him a long moment. "I thanked her, but I told her I did not think I would live long enough to have a child."

Richard felt bumps rise on the skin of his arms. "Why would you say that?"

Her eyes moved in little flicks as she studied different places on his face. "Richard," she said quietly, "madness is loose in my homeland, madness you cannot imagine. I am but one. They are many. I have seen people better than me go against it and be slaughtered. I. am not saying I think we will fail, but I do not think I will live to know."

Even if she wasn't saying it, Richard knew she didn't think he would live either. She was trying not to frighten him, but she thought he would die in the effort, too. That was why she hadn't wanted Zedd to give him the Sword of Truth, to make him Seeker. He felt as if his heart were coming up into his throat. She believed she was leading them to their death.

Maybe she was right, he mused. After all, she knew more about what they were up against than he did. She must be terrified to go back to the Midlands. But then, there was no place to hide. The night wisp had said that to run was a sure death.

Richard kissed the. end of his finger and then touched it against the bone on the necklace. He looked back up into her soft eyes.