Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Chapter 41

“A blood beast?” Richard asked.

Cara moved close to his side. “What’s a blood beast?”

Shota took a breath before explaining. “It is no longer simply a beast linked to the underworld, as it was when it was created. It was inadvertently given a taste of your blood, Richard. What’s worse, it was given that taste through Subtractive Magic—magic also linked to the underworld. That event changed it into a blood beast.”

“So—what does that mean?” Cara asked.

Shota leaned closer, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. “That means that it is now oh so much more dangerous.” She straightened after she was sure she had made the intended impression. “I’m not an expert on ancient weapons created in the great war, but I believe that once such a beast as this one has tasted the blood of its mark in such a way, there is no turning it back, ever.”

“All right, so it won’t give up.” Richard rested his palm on the hilt of his sword. “What can you tell me to help me kill it, then? Or at least stop it, or send it back to the underworld. What does it do, precisely, how does it know that . . .”

“No, no.” Shota waved a dismissive hand. “You are trying to think of this in terms of some ordinary threat hunting you. You’re trying to put a nature to it, trying to give it a defining behavior. It has none. That is the peculiarity of this thing—the absence of a defining description, of a makeup. At least one that is of any use, since its nature is precisely that it has none. Because of that it therefore cannot be predicted.”

“That makes no sense.” Richard folded his arms, wondering if Shota really knew as much about this beast as she said she did. “It has to function by some fundamental nature. It has to behave in certain ways that we can at least come to understand and therefore begin to anticipate. We just need to figure it out. It can’t possibly have no nature.”

“Don’t you see, Richard? Right from the beginning, here you are trying to figure it out. Don’t you suppose that Jagang would know that you will try to figure it out so that you can defeat it? Haven’t you done that sort of thing with him in the past? He has figured out your nature, and to counter you he has created a weapon that, for that very reason, has no nature.

“You are the Seeker. You seek answers to the nature of people, or things, or situations. To a greater or lesser extent, all people do. Had the blood beast a specific nature, its actions could then be learned and understood. If something can be understood enough to predict its behavior, then precautions can be taken, a plan to counter it can be made. Decoding its nature is essential to effective action being taken. That’s why this thing has no nature—so that you can’t do those things to stop it.”

Richard ran his fingers back though his hair. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s not supposed to. That, too, is part of its trait—to have no trait. To make no sense in order to foil you.”

“I agree with Lord Rahl,” Cara said. “It still has to have some kind of makeup, some way of acting and reacting. Even people who think they are being clever by trying to be unpredictable still fall into patterns even though they may not realize it. This beast can’t just run around hither and thither hoping to come across Lord Rahl napping.”

“In order to prevent it from being understood and stopped, this beast was intentionally created as a creature of chaos. It was conjured to attack and kill you, but beyond that mission, it functions toward that end through disordered means.” Shota gathered up another floating point of her dress as she spoke. “Today it attacks with claws. Tomorrow it spits poison. The next day it burns with fire, or crushes with a blow, or sinks fangs into you. It attacks by random action. It does not choose a course of action based on analysis, previous experience, or even the situation at hand.”

Richard pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought about her explanation. So far, it seemed like Shota was right in that there had been no pattern to the attacks. They had come in completely different ways—so different, in fact, that they had questioned whether or not it was really the same beast Nicci had warned was after him.

“But Lord Rahl has evaded this beast several times now. He has proven that it can be bested.”

Shota smiled at the very idea, as if a child had come up with the assertion. She strolled off a ways and then returned as she considered the problem. The twitch of her brow told Richard that she had come up with a better way to explain it.

“Think of the blood beast as if it were rain,” she said. “Imagine that you want to stay out of the rain, like you would want to avoid being caught by the beast. Imagine that your goal is to stay dry. Today you may be inside when the rain comes, so you remain dry. Another day the rain may come on the other side of the valley and you again stay dry. Another day you leave an area just before the rain begins. Another day, you may decide not to travel, and there the rain visits. Maybe on another day as you walk down a road the rain moves in and falls in the field to your right, but on the road and to your left it remains dry. Each time the random rain event missed you, and you stayed dry—sometimes because you took preventative measures, such as staying inside, and sometimes by sheer chance.

“But, as often as it rains, you realize that it will sooner or later get you wet.

“So, you may decide that the best approach in the long run is to gain an understanding of exactly what you are up against. Therefore, in an effort to understand your adversary, you watch the sky and try to learn to predict the rain. Some patterns begin to reveal themselves as relatively reliable, so you use them as a means of prediction and as a result there will be times when you are correct and accurately anticipate the approaching rain. By this means you are able to stay inside when the rain comes and thus you stay dry. You have succeeded, it would seem, by applying what you’ve learned about how to anticipate and predict the rain.”

Shota’s intent, ageless eyes took in Cara and then fixed on Richard with such power that it almost halted his breathing. “But sooner or later,” she said in a voice than ran a shiver up his spine, “the rain will catch you. You may be taken by complete surprise. Or, you may have forecast that it was coming, but believed that you would have time to be able to take to shelter first, and then it suddenly sweeps in faster than you ever thought possible. Or, on a day when you are far from shelter because you thought that on that day there was no chance of rain at all and so you ventured far from your shelter, it unexpectedly catches you. The result of all these different events is the same. If it is the beast, rather than the rain, you are not wet, you are dead.

“Confidence in your ability to predict the rain will eventually be your downfall because while you may be able to accurately predict it on a number of occasions, it is not in reality reliably predictable based on the amount of knowledge actually available to you or possibly your ability to understand all the information you do have. The more times you escape, though, the stronger your false sense of confidence will become, making you all that much more vulnerable to a surprise event. Your best efforts to know the nature of rain will eventually fail you because even if you are right with a number of your forecasts, the things that brought about successful predictions are not always relevant, yet you have no way of knowing that. As a result, the rain will sneak up and envelope you when you are not expecting it.”

Richard glanced at the worried look on Cara’s face, but didn’t say anything.

“The blood beast is like that,” Shota said with finality. “It has no nature precisely so that you cannot predict its behavior by any patterns to its conduct.”

Richard took a patient breath. He couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “But all things that exist have to have a nature to them, laws of their existence, even if we don’t understand them—otherwise what you are proposing is that they could contradict themselves and they can’t.

“Lack of understanding on your part does not mean that you can pick an explanation of your choice. You can’t say that since you don’t know the nature of it, it therefore has none. You can say only that you don’t yet know the nature of this thing, that you haven’t yet been able to understand it.”

With a slight smile, Shota gestured toward the sky. “Like the rain? You may be theoretically correct, Richard, but some things, for all practical purposes, are so far beyond our understanding that they appear to be driven by happenstance—like the rain. For all I know, weather may very well have laws that drive it, but they are so complex and so far-reaching that we cannot realistically hope to comprehend or know them. The rain may not truly, in the end, be an event caused by chance, but it is still outside our ability to predict so to us the result is the same as if it were entirely random and without order or nature.

“A blood beast is like this. If there are in fact laws to its nature, as you believe, it would make no difference to you. All I can tell you is that from what I know, it’s a beast created specifically to act without order and the creation of it was successful to the degree that it functions consistently with having no discernible nature—at least none that is of any use in understanding or stopping it.

“I grant the possibility that you may be right. I suppose it’s possible that there is some complex nature behind the beast’s seeming disorder, but if that is the case, I can tell you that it is so far beyond our ability to understand that for our purposes it functions by chaos.”

“I’m not sure I understand you,” Richard said. “Give me an example.”

“For instance, the beast will not learn from what it does. It may try the same failed tactic three times in a row, or it may try something even weaker the next time that obviously has no chance of success. What it does appears random. But if it is driven by some grand, complex equation, it is not revealed through its actions; we see only chaotic results.

“What’s more, it has no consciousness, as we would think of it, anyway. It has no soul. While it has a goal, it doesn’t care if it succeeds. It doesn’t get angry if it fails. It’s devoid of mercy, empathy, curiosity, enthusiasm, or worry. It was given a mission—kill Richard Rahl—and it randomly uses its myriad abilities to achieve that goal, but it has no emotional or intellectual interest in seeing its purpose accomplished.

“Living things have self-interest in seeing themselves succeed at their goals, whether it’s a bird flying to a berry bush, or a snake following a mouse down a hole. They act to further their life. The blood beast does not.

“It’s just a mindless thing advancing toward the completion of its built-in conjured objective. You might say it’s like the rain, given the mission of ‘get Richard wet.’ The rain tries and tries, a downpour, a drizzle, a quick shower, and all fail. The rain doesn’t care that it failed to get you wet. It may idle itself with a drought. It doesn’t get eager or angry. It doesn’t redouble its efforts. It will just go on raining in different ways until eventually it drenches you. When it does, it will feel no joy.

“The beast is irrational in that sense—but make no mistake, it is vicious, fierce, and mindlessly cruel in its actions.”

Richard wearily wiped a hand across his face. “Shota, that still makes no sense to me. How could it be like that? If it’s a beast, it has to be driven by purpose of some sort. Something has to drive it.”

“Oh, it is driven by something: the need to kill you. It was created to be a creature that acts with pure disorder so that you may not counter it. In a way, you have proven yourself to be an opponent so difficult to defeat that Jagang had to come up with something that would work by avoiding your—striking abilities, rather than overpowering them.”

“But if it was created to kill me, then it has purpose.”

Shota shrugged. “True enough, but that one bit of information is of no use to you in predicting how, when, or where it will try to kill you. As you should know by now, its actions toward that goal are random. You should clearly see the profound danger in that tactic. If you know the enemy will attack with spears, you can carry a shield. If you know that one assassin with a bow is hunting you, you can have an army search for a man with a bow. If you know a wolf is hunting you, you can set a trap, or stay indoors.

“The blood beast has no preferred method of killing or hunting, so from the standpoint of defending yourself from it, it’s profoundly difficult to protect against. One day it may attack and easily kill a thousand soldiers who are protecting you. The next time it may timidly withdraw after mauling a single child who toddles in front of you. What it does one time can tell you nothing about what it will do the next time. That, too, is part of the terror engendered by such a beast—the terror of not knowing how the attack will come.

“Its strength, its lethality, is that it isn’t anything in particular. It isn’t strong, or weak, or fast, or slow. It’s constantly changing yet it sometimes stays the same or reverts to a previous state, even an unsuccessful one.

“The only thing that mattered after it was created was the first time you used your gift. That’s when it locked on to you. After that, you can never know what it will do next or when it will do it. You know only that it’s coming for you and no matter how many times you escape its clutches, it will continue to come—maybe several times in the same day, maybe not again for a month, or a year, but you can be sure it will eventually come after you again. It will never quit.”

Richard wondered how much of what Shota was telling him she knew to be fact and how much she was filling in with what she thought, or maybe even imagined.

“But you’re a witch woman,” Cara said. “Surely, you can tell him something that will help counter it.”

“Part of my ability is the capacity to see how events flow in the river of time, to see where they’re going, you might say. Since the blood beast cannot be predicted, it, by that practical definition of its character, exists outside my ability to predict. My ability is linked in a way to prophecy. Richard is a man who in a way also exists outside prophecy, a man others often find frustratingly unpredictable—as the Mord-Sith have no doubt discovered. With this beast I can offer him no advice about what might happen or what he must avoid.”

“So then, books of prophecy would be of no use?” Richard asked.

“Just as I am blind to it, so is all prophecy. Prophecy cannot see a blood beast any more than it can see any chaotic, chance event. Prophecy may be able to say that a person will be shot with an arrow in the morning of a day that it will rain, but prophecy cannot name every day it will rain, or which of those days that it does rain the arrow will precede it. You might say that the most prophecy can predict is that sooner or later it will rain and you will get wet.”

With his left hand resting on his sword, Richard nodded reluctantly. “I have to admit, that’s close to my own views on prophecy—that it might be able to tell you that the sun will rise tomorrow but not what you will choose to do with your day.”

He frowned at her. “So, you can tell me nothing about what this blood beast will do, because your ability is with the flow of time.” When she nodded, he asked, “So then how do you seem to know so much about it?”

“The flow of events through the river of time is not my only ability,” she said, rather cryptically.

Richard sighed, not wanting to argue with her. “So that’s all you can tell me, then.”

Shota nodded. “That’s all I am able to tell you about the blood beast and what such a thing holds for you. If it continues to exist, sooner or later it will likely get you. But, because it’s not predictable, even that outcome is not able to be predicted. When, where, or how soon it will get you is impossible to know. It may be today, or, for all I know, it may be that before it is able to find you and kill you, you will first die of old age.”

“Well, there is that possibility, then,” Richard muttered.

“Not much to lay your hopes on,” she said in a sympathetic tone. “As long as you live, Richard, as long as blood pumps in your veins, the blood beast will hunt you.”

“Are you suggesting that it finds me by my blood? The way a heart hound is said to be able to find a person by the sound of their beating heart?”

Shota lifted a hand as if to forestall the notion. “Only in a manner of speaking. It has tasted your blood, in a sense. But your blood, as you are thinking of it, is not what it is meaningful to this beast. What is material is what it sensed from that taste: your ancestry.

“It already knew that you live. It was already hunting you. Your use of your gift the first time was enough to bind it to you for all eternity. It is the gift carried in your blood that it sensed and that caused it to change.”

Richard had so many questions he didn’t know what to ask first. He started with what he thought might be the easiest to understand. “Why is it linked to the underworld? Is there a purpose for that?”

“A couple that I’m aware of. The underworld is eternal. Time has no meaning in eternity. Therefore, time means nothing to the beast. It will feel no urgency to kill you. Urgency would make it act with a kind of conscious intent that would give it a nature. It feels no pressure with every setting sun to finish the job. One day is the same as the next. The days are never-ending.

“Because it has no sense of time, it needs no nature. Time helps give dimension to every living thing. It allows you to put off chores that you know can be done later. It makes you rush to set up camp before it gets dark. It makes a general act to get his defenses in place before the enemy arrives. It makes a woman want to have children while she still has time. Time is one element that helps shape the nature of everything. Even a moth that emerges from its cocoon to live a life with wings for only a single day must mate in that day and lay eggs or there will be no more of its kind.

“The beast is untouched by time. A constituent element of its makeup is the eternity of the underworld, which is antithetical to the very notion of Creation, since the underworld is the undoing of Creation. That mix, that internal conflict, is part of the driving mechanism which churns its actions and makes it chaotic. When Nicci used Subtractive Magic to eliminate your spent blood, the beast, from its roots in the underworld, got its taste of you, or, more accurately, a measure of your magic.

“Your blood carries both Additive and Subtractive Magic. The beast was created to be able to know you by your essence, magic, thereby allowing it to transcend typical worldly limits. The beast needed you to use magic the first time so that it could link to you. Through that link, it could hunt you. But when it received that taste of your blood, it became able to know you in a whole different way.

“The unique element of magic carried in your blood, inherited from Zedd’s side and from Darken Rahl’s side, is what the beast tasted. That taste is what mutated it from the beast that Jagang’s minions created.

“It’s not your blood itself that it senses, but rather it detects those elements of magic inherent in it. That’s why any use of magic will draw the beast—that’s how it became more dangerous. It now recognizes any use of your magic anywhere in the world. Each person’s magic is unique. The beast now knows yours. That’s why you must not use your gift.

“For this very reason, the Sisters who brought the beast into existence for Jagang would have loved to have been able to use your blood in the beginning, but they had no way of getting any. They could link the beast to your gift, but without your blood, it was a weak link that didn’t really know the full measure of your magic.

“Nicci gave the beast what it really needed, right after it had been awakened by your first use of the gift. She may have done it to save your life, and she may have had no choice, but she did it. Now, any use of magic can much more easily bring the blood beast to you. It would seem that Nicci has, in a way, fulfilled her oath as a Sister of the Dark.”

The hair at the back of Richard’s neck had lifted. He wanted to think of a way to prove Shota wrong, to find a chink in the armor of the monster she had given shape to in his mind.

“But the beast has attacked when I wasn’t using magic. Just this morning it attacked at our camp. I wasn’t using magic.”

Shota gave him one of those looks that had the power to make him feel hopelessly ignorant. “You were using magic this morning.”

“I wasn’t,” he insisted. “I was asleep at the time. How could I be using . . .”

Richard’s words trailed off. His gaze wandered to the distant hills of the valley and the mountains beyond. He remembered waking up and having that terrible memory of the morning Kahlan had disappeared and then realizing that he was holding the hilt of his sword, its blade drawn halfway from its scabbard. He remembered feeling the sword’s stealthy magic coursing through him.

“But that was the sword’s magic,” he said. “I was holding the sword. It wasn’t my magic.”

“It was your magic,” Shota insisted. “Using the Sword of Truth calls its power, which joins with your gift—your magic—which is recognized by the blood beast. The sword’s magic is part of you, now. Using it will chance calling the beast.”

Richard felt like everything was pressing in on him, closing off every option, shutting off his ability to do anything to stop what was coming for him. He felt the way he had earlier, when he woke up to find himself in a ever-tightening trap.

“But the sword will help me fight it. I don’t know how to use my gift. The sword is the one thing I can count on.”

“It’s possible that in some instances it may save you. But because the blood beast has no nature, and because it is now a part of the underworld, there will be times when you think your sword will protect you and it will not. Thinking you can predict the ability of your sword to work against the beast will beguile you into having false confidence. As I told you, the beast can’t be predicted, so there will be times when your sword can’t protect you. You must guard not only against false reliance on your sword, but on it unwittingly calling the beast.

“It’s always hunting you, and could attack at any time, but when you use your gift it vastly increases the ability, and therefore the likelihood, of the beast initiating an attack. Magic baits it.”

Richard realized that he was gripping the hilt of the sword so hard in his fist that he could feel the raised letters of the word TRUTH pressing into his palm. He could also feel the sword’s anger urgently trying to steal into him to protect him against the threat. He took his hand off the hilt as if it were burning him. He wondered if that magic had ignited his own, if he had just called the blood beast without even realizing what he was doing.

Shota clasped her hands. “There is something else.”

Richard’s attention returned to the witch woman. “Great, what next?”

“Richard, I’m not the one who created this beast. I’m not responsible for its danger to you.” She looked away. “If you wish to hate me for telling you the truth, and want me to stop, then say so and I will stop.”

Richard waved an apology. “No, I’m sorry. I know it’s not your fault. I guess I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed. Go on. What were you going to say?”

“If you use magic—any magic—the blood beast will know it. Because it acts in a random manner, it very well may not use that magic link to come after you right then. It may inexplicably not respond. But the next time, it may pounce. So you dare not gain confidence in that manner.”

“You already told me that.”

“Yes, but as of yet you have not realized the full implications of what I’m telling you. You must understand that any use of magic will give the beast the scent of your blood, so to speak.”

“Like I said, you told me that.”

“That means any use of your gift.” When he stared at her with a blank look, she impatiently tapped a finger to his forehead. “Think.”

When he still didn’t understand, she said, “That includes prophecy.”

“Prophecy? What do you mean?”

“Prophecy is given by wizards who have the gift for prophecy. An ordinary person who reads prophecy will see only words. Even the Sisters of the Light, guardians of prophecy though they thought they were, do not see prophecy in its true state. You are a war wizard. Being a war wizard merely means that your gift carries a variety of latent abilities. Part of that is that you are able to use prophecy—to understand it as it was intended.

“Do you see? Do you see how easy it is to inadvertently use your gift?

“It doesn’t matter how you use your gift—if you use your sword, or heal with your gift, or call down lightning—it doesn’t matter; it will call the beast. To the blood beast, any use of your gift is the same—a means of recognition. It will not distinguish between a small use, or a spectacular use. To the beast, the gift is the gift.”

Richard was incredulous. “Do you mean to say that if I simply heal someone, or draw my sword, it will alert the beast to me?”

“Yes. And likely in short order while it knows precisely where you are. Being that it’s elementally Subtractive, it exists only partially in this world, so, while the beast is not hampered by things such as distance or obstacles, it also doesn’t function in this world with ease. It can’t fully conceive of the laws of this world, such as time. Still, it doesn’t get tired, it doesn’t get lazy, or angry, or eager.

“By all this I do not mean to suggest that because you use your gift the beast will therefore act. As I’ve said, its actions can’t be predicted, so, like everything else, the use of magic cannot be used as a predictive factor. It only means that it increases its ease in being able to find you. Whether or not it will do so is not knowable.”

“Great,” Richard muttered as he went back to pacing.

“How can he kill it?” Cara asked.

“It isn’t alive,” Shota said. “You can no more kill the blood beast than you can kill a boulder that is about to fall on you, or kill the rain before it has a chance to get you wet.”

Cara looked as frustrated as Richard felt. “Well, there has to be something that it’s afraid of.”

“Fear is a function of living things.”

“Maybe, then, something it doesn’t like.”

Shota frowned. “Doesn’t like?”

“You know, fire, or water, or light. Something it doesn’t like and so avoids.”

“Today it might choose to avoid water. Tomorrow it might slither up from a bog, snatch his leg, and drag him under the water to drown him. It moves through this world as it would through an alien landscape that has little effect on it.”

“Where in the world could someone learn how to create such a beast?” Richard asked.

“I believe that the core of the knowledge was discovered by Jagang in ancient books on weapons that originated during the great war. He is a student of ancient subjects having to do with warfare; he collects such knowledge from all over. I have a suspicion, though, that he took what he found and added specifications he wanted in order to defeat you. We do know that he then used the gifted Sisters to spawn the beast.

“Since they used Subtractive Magic along with their stolen wizardry, they were able to make use of other gifted people as constituent parts of the beast, ripping their souls from them, ripping away all but what was needed in order to conjure, combine and create the beast. It is a weapon beyond anything we have ever encountered before. Jagang is the one who caused the beast to be created. He has to be stopped before he creates anything else.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Richard muttered.

“You can’t stop him if you are off chasing phantoms,” Shota said.

Richard halted his pacing and stared at her. “Shota, you can’t just tell me all this without at least telling me something that will help.”

“You are the one who came to me asking questions. I did not go looking for you. Besides, I have helped you. I told you what I know. Maybe by using the information you now have, you can live another day.”

Richard had heard enough. The blood beast had no nature, but not to have a nature, in a way, was its nature, so it had one as far as he was concerned. It may be true, as Shota had said, that there was no accurate way to predict what it would do next, but lack of understanding or knowledge did not constitute a lack of a nature. It was, however, a point that was not worth arguing. He thought that it might be an important distinction sooner or later, but right then it didn’t matter much. Everything Shota had said largely confirmed what Nicci had already reported. While she had added facets and details that Nicci hadn’t known about, Shota hadn’t provided any solutions.

In fact, it seemed to him that she had gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure she had painted a hopeless picture.

Richard almost rested his hand on his sword. He stopped and ran his fingers through his hair, instead. He was at his wits’ end. He turned and stared off at the trees spread across the valley, their leaves shimmering in the late-day sun.

“So, there is nothing I can do to protect myself from the blood beast.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Richard spun back around. “What? You mean there is a way?”

Without emotion, Shota studied his eyes. “I believe that there is one way to keep you alive.”

“What way?”

She clasped her hands, twining her fingers together. She looked down at the ground a moment, as if considering, and then met his gaze with steady resolution.

“You could stay here.”

He saw Samuel come to his feet. Richard returned his attention to Shota’s waiting gaze. “What do you mean, I could stay here?”

She shrugged, as if it were a trivial offer. “Stay here and I will protect you.”

Cara straightened, her arms coming unfolded. “You can do that?”

“I believe I can.”

“Then come with us,” Cara suggested. “That would solve the problem.”

Richard already didn’t like Cara’s idea.

“I can’t,” Shota said. “I can only protect him if he stays here, in this valley, in my home.”

“I can’t stay,” Richard said, trying to make it sound casual.

Shota reached out and gently grasped his arm, not allowing him to so easily dismiss the issue. “You can, Richard. Would it be so bad, staying with me?”

“I didn’t mean it that way . . .”

“Then stay here with me.”

“For how long?”

Her fingers tightened ever so slightly, as if she feared to say it, feared his reaction, but at the same time was steadfast in her course.

“Forever.”

Richard swallowed. He felt like he’d walked out onto thin ice without realizing it, and now he found that it was a long, long way back to safety. He knew that if he said the wrong thing he would be in over his head. His flesh tingled as he realized how dangerous the late day air had suddenly become.

At that moment, he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t rather face the beast than Shota’s scrutiny.

Richard spread his arms, as if to ask her understanding. “Shota, how can I stay here? You know that there are people counting on me—people who need me. You said so yourself.”

“You are not the slave to others, chained to them by their need. It’s your life, Richard. Stay, and have a life.”

Cara, looking more than suspicious, tapped a thumb to her own chest “And what about me?”

Without looking over at Cara, without taking her gaze from Richard’s, Shota said, “One woman in this place is enough.”

Cara glanced between Richard and Shota as they stared into each other’s eyes, but she then did what Richard had earlier advised: she turned cautious and said nothing.

“Stay,” Shota whispered intimately.

Richard could see a terrible kind of vulnerability laid bare in Shota’s eyes, in her hungering expression—an open look he had never seen on her before. From the corner of his eye, he could also see Samuel glaring at him.

Richard tipped his head, indicating her companion. “And what about him?”

She did not shy from the question—in fact she seemed to have expected it.

“One Seeker in this place is enough.”

“Shota . . .”

“Stay, Richard?” she pressed, cutting him off before he could turn her down, before he crossed a line he hadn’t known was there until right then.

It was both an offer and an ultimatum.

“But what about the blood beast? You said yourself that you can’t know its nature. How can you know that we would be safe here if I stayed? A lot of men near me were killed when the beast attacked the first time.”

Shota lifted her chin. “I know myself, know my abilities, my limits. I believe that I can keep you safe, here, in this valley. I can’t be completely certain, but I sincerely believe it to be true. I do know that if you leave here you will have no protection. This is your only chance.”

He knew that the last part had more than one meaning.

“Stay, Richard—Please? Stay here with me?”

“Forever.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Yes, forever. Please? Stay? I will take care of you, forever. I will make sure you never regret it, or ever miss the rest of the world. Please?”

This was not Shota, the witch woman. This was simply the woman, Shota, desperately laying herself open to him in a way she never had, offering her unprotected heart, taking a chance. The naked loneliness he saw there was terrifying. He knew, because he felt the same anguish of being so alone that it hurt.

Richard swallowed and took the step out onto the ice.

“Shota, that’s probably the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me. To know that you respect me enough to ask such a thing means more to me than you will ever understand. I have more respect for you than you know—that’s why when I needed answers I thought of no one but you.

“I sincerely appreciate all you are offering—but I’m afraid I can’t accept. I have to go.”

The look that came to her face made Richard go as cold as if he’d been plunged into icy water.

Without another word, Shota turned and started away.