Hateful Things

2

“Mother Confessor, don’t you say ‘Rise, my child’ to any who fall to the ground at your feet?”

Kahlan stared out at the sheets of rain gently billowing in the breeze. “I do.”

“So, all people are in a way the children of the Mother Confessor, are they not?”

Kahlan absently nodded in answer.

“Your instinct, as the Mother Confessor, is to protect your people—your children, is it not? Isn’t that in a way the whole point of that singular title?”

“It is,” Kahlan said.

“And you just fought a long and terrible war to protect them all, did you not?”

Kahlan nodded again, not knowing what the sorceress was getting at. “It was a terrible war. A long and terrible war. But for life to prevail, I had no choice but to fight. My whole life I have been in one endless fight to protect people from evil.”

“And now you must continue to fight to protect all your children, especially the ones growing in you, even though they are yet unborn.”

Kahlan took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she turned back to face the sorceress.

“This is different. These children would never have a chance at life. They will be killed for who and what they are. The Golden Goddess has everything on her side. She will not give up. She has vowed that magic will end in this world, one way or another, and when it does, her hordes will hunt us to extinction.”

Kahlan couldn’t stand the thought of bringing these two new lives into the world only to subject them to the terror of being slaughtered by such relentless evil. She ached with fear and dread for them.

“They hardly have everything on their side,” Shale scoffed.

Kahlan frowned. “What are you talking about? You heard what Nolo said.”

“Richard is a war wizard. He will fight to stop the Golden Goddess and her race of predators. War wizards are born with that power, that gift, expressly to face threats, both those known and those unknown. His children carry that gift. The world needs them.”

Kahlan slowly shook her head. “You don’t understand. There is more to it. The Golden Goddess is not the only threat. There is another that in some ways is just as formidable.”

Shale leaned in to rest her fingers on the baluster while searching Kahlan’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Kahlan drew a hand back across her face, wiping away the tears. “I’m talking about Shota.”

“Shota?” Shale’s nose wrinkled. “Who is Shota?”

Kahlan pressed her lips tight for a moment before answering.

“Shota is a witch woman.”

One of Shale’s eyebrows lifted. “A witch woman?”

Kahlan nodded. “When Richard and I first met her, she put snakes all over me.”

Shale looked puzzled. “Snakes? Why?”

“To keep me from moving and getting close enough to use my power on her. Back then I needed to physically touch a person to take them with my power. I no longer have to be close. My power can now span such a distance, but back then it couldn’t, so Shota wanted to keep me at a safe distance from her, and she knew how afraid I am of snakes. She said that if I moved, those vipers would bite me. She intended in the end for those venomous snakes to kill me.”

“Had you threatened her?”

“No.”

Shale looked even more perplexed. “Then why in the world would a witch woman want to kill you?”

Kahlan gestured, as if weakly trying to banish the awful memory.

“She said that if she were to let me live and Richard and I ever had a child, it would be a monster.”

Shale looked even more puzzled. “What would give her that idea?”

Kahlan let out a deep sigh. “In the distant past there were dark times caused by male Confessors. The gift passed on from a Confessor mother would give these male Confessors extraordinary abilities and power. That Confessor power alone corrupted them, and they used it to gain power. They were brutes who cast the world into tyranny and terror.

“Because of that history, at birth any male born to a Confessor is killed. That awful duty fell to the father. It had always been that a Confessor took her mate with her power so that he would not hesitate to carry out those instructions. Fortunately, males born to Confessors became rarer over time, so such infanticide became rare. Richard is the first one to love a Confessor and not be taken by her power.

“Because he is not bonded to me in that way, but by love, Shota knew that Richard would never kill any child of mine. He admitted to her that he could never do such a thing.”

“Does the power of a Confessor pass on to all female children?”

“Yes. Every daughter born of a Confessor is herself a Confessor. It’s the way the power was infused into us when originally created by a wizard named Merritt. The first Confessor, the one he created, was Magda Searus.”

“Are the male children also always born with the Confessor power?”

Kahlan bit her lower lip as she squinted into her memory. “I guess I can’t say for sure. It was a long time ago. It could be that only some were born with the Confessor ability, but the ones who had it certainly caused enough suffering, so the male children of Confessors are never allowed to live.”

“Then Shota’s worry may be for nothing. Your son may not have that ability. He may have only Richard’s gift. Since Confessors rarely have male children, it is likely the girl has your power, and the boy Richard’s. Besides, even if he has that ability, you both would teach him to be a good person.”

“Well, male Confessor or not, Shota said that if Richard and I have a child, it will have both my power and his, and as a result it would be a monster.”

“So, she was going to use snakes to kill you? Seems like a lot of effort.”

“She did it because snakes terrify me. She couldn’t be reasoned with. She is convinced that everyone in the world will be terrorized by any child of ours. She wanted me to feel that kind of terror before I died.

“Richard made her stop. I hate snakes, but I can’t say that I think much of witch women, either, although I have known other witch women who have helped me. One in particular, Red, helped save Richard, but I think that was largely out of concern for her own hide. Witch women are dangerous and nearly impossible to reason with.”

Shale grinned as if at a joke only she knew.

“What?” Kahlan asked. “Something funny about that?”

“In a way,” she said, cryptically. “Go on.”

“Well, anyway, Shota vowed to kill any child of ours. She said the mixing of gifts would create a monster. You have just told me that my twins are gifted—with Richard’s gift and with mine. Shota is right about that much of it.”

“Witches aren’t always right in quite the way you expect.”

“Believe me, I know that well enough, but Shota has vowed to kill any children we have. Given the dark history, I guess I can’t say that her fears of a male Confessor are unfounded. When I first realized that I was pregnant, there were nights I lay awake, haunted by the fear Shota’s words had planted in my mind, that our child would be a monster.”

Shale shrugged. “Look at it this way: since you are having twins, a boy and a girl, the boy will likely have Richard’s gift, and the girl will be a Confessor. No mixing of gifts. No monster. See? Of all the things you have to fear, that shouldn’t be one of them.”

“Can you say for sure that the boy won’t have both powers? Can you say that the girl won’t? Can you promise me that?”

Shale hesitated. “I admit that I am not able to tell that much. I only know that they are both gifted.”

“Well,” Kahlan said, leaning close, “Shota will not wait to find out. She will simply come to see them dead. She only agreed to Richard’s demand that she let me live on the condition that we don’t have children. Richard never agreed to her demand.

“Because he never agreed to her demand, she warned him that she would kill me and the child if I ever became pregnant. Even if I do live long enough to give birth to them, she will come after these children and kill them both. She will be relentless.

“Shota is a witch woman. She knows things. She finds out things. I don’t know how, but she does. For all I know, maybe she reads things in the stars.”

“The stars are now in a different place in the sky,” Shale reminded her.

“Yes, well, if I know Shota, she will somehow come to know that I’m pregnant with Richard’s children. Shota made it abundantly clear that she believes mixing different gifts creates monsters.” Kahlan leaned toward the sorceress to make her point. “You don’t know what witch women are like.”

Shale cocked her head as she narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, for one thing, they are profoundly dangerous.”

Shale’s face didn’t reveal what she might be thinking. “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Kahlan felt something brushing against her ankle. She looked down and froze.

There was a large white snake hissing, red tongue flicking the air, curling its fat body around her ankles, locking them together as it flexed and contracted.

Kahlan’s gaze shot up to Shale. “You’re a witch woman?”

Shale smiled in a way that Kahlan didn’t like.

Now she understood that mysterious shadow of something behind the beauty.