Naked Empire

Chapter 5

As tired as she was, it was a marvelous sensation being beside Richard and letting herself go, letting her concerns and worries go for the time being, and so effortlessly sinking into sleep.

But the sleep seemed only just started when she woke to find Cara gently shaking her shoulder.

Kahlan blinked up at the familiar silhouette standing over her. She ached to go back to sleep, to be left alone to be so wonderfully asleep again.

“My watch?” Kahlan asked.

Cara nodded. “I’ll stand it if you’d like.”

Kahlan glanced over her shoulder as she sat up, seeing that Richard was still fast asleep. “No,” she whispered. “You get some sleep. You need rest, too.”

Kahlan yawned and stretched her back. She took Cara’s elbow and pulled her a short distance away, out of earshot, and leaned close. “I think you’re right. There’s more than enough of us to stand watch and all still get enough rest. Let’s let Richard sleep till morning.”

Cara smiled her agreement before heading for her bedroll. Conspiracy designed to protect Richard suited the Mord-Sith.

Kahlan yawned and stretched again, at the same time forcing herself to shake the lingering haze of sleep from her mind, to be alert. Pulling her hair back from her face and flipping it over her shoulder, she scanned the wasteland all around, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Everything beyond their camp was as still as death. Mountains blacked out the glittering sweep of stars in a jagged line all the way around the horizon.

Kahlan took careful assessment of everyone, making sure they were all accounted for. Cara already looked comfortable. Tom slept not far from the horses. Friedrich was asleep on the other side of the horses. Jennsen was curled up beside Betty, but by her movements, the way she turned from her side to her back, didn’t look asleep. The babies had moved and now lay sprawled with their heads butted up tight against their mother.

Kahlan was always especially vigilant right at change of watch. Change of watch was a prime time for attack; she knew, for she had often initiated raids around change of watch. Those just going off watch were often tired and already thinking of other things, considering watch the duty of the next guard. Those just coming on watch were often not mentally prepared for a sudden attack. People tended to think that the enemy would not come until they were properly settled in and on the lookout. Victory favored those who were ready. Defeat stalked those who were unwary.

Kahlan made her way to a formation of rock not far from Richard. She scooted back, sitting atop a high spot in order to get a better view of the lifeless surroundings. Even in the middle of the night, the rough rock still radiated the fierce heat of the previous day.

Kahlan pulled a skein of damp hair away from her neck, wishing there were a breeze. There had been times, in winter, when she had nearly frozen to death. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to recall what it felt like to be truly cold.

It wasn’t long after Kahlan had gotten herself situated before she saw Jennsen get up and step quietly through their camp, trying not to wake the others.

“All right if I sit with you?” she asked when she finally reached Kahlan.

“Of course.”

Jennsen pushed her bottom back up onto the rock beside Kahlan, pulled her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them, hugging them close to her body. For a time she just gazed out at the night.

“Kahlan, I’m sorry—about before.” Despite the dark, Kahlan thought she could see that the young woman looked miserable. “I didn’t mean to sound like a fool who would do something without thinking. I’d never do anything to hurt any of you.”

“I know you wouldn’t deliberately do any such thing. It’s the things you might do unwittingly that concern me.”

Jennsen nodded. “I think I understand a little better, now, about how complicated everything is and how much I really don’t know. I’ll not do anything unless you or Richard tells me to, I promise.”

Kahlan smiled and ran a hand down the back of Jennsen’s head, letting it come to rest on her shoulder. “I only told you those things because I care about you, Jennsen.” She gave the shoulder a compassionate squeeze. “I guess I’m worried for you the same way Betty worries for her innocent twins, knowing the dangers all around when they rarely do.

“You need to understand that if you go out on thin ice, it doesn’t matter if the lake was frozen over by a cold spell, or a magic spell. If you don’t know where you’re stepping, so to speak, you could fall into the cold dark arms of death. It matters not what made the ice—dead is dead. My point is that you don’t go out on that thin ice unless you have a very powerful need, because it very well could cost you your life.”

“But I’m not touched by magic. Like Richard said, I’m like someone born without eyes who can’t see color. I’m a broken link in the chain of magic. Wouldn’t that mean that I can’t accidentally get into trouble with it?”

“And if someone pushes a boulder off a cliff and it crushes you, does it matter if that boulder was sent crashing over the edge by a man with a lever, or by a sorceress wielding the gift?”

Jennsen’s voice took on a troubled tone. “I see what you mean. I guess that I never looked at it that way.”

“I’m only trying to help you because I know how easy it is to make a mistake.”

She watched Kahlan in the dark for a moment. “You know about magic. What kind of mistake could you make?”

“All kinds.”

“Like what?”

Kahlan stared off into the memories. “I once delayed for half a second in killing someone.”

“But I thought you said that it was wrong to be too rash.”

“Sometimes the most foolhardy thing you can do is to delay. She was a sorceress. By the time I acted it was already too late. Because of my mistake she captured Richard and took him away. For a year, I didn’t know what had happened to him. I thought I would never see him again, that I would die of heartache.”

Jennsen stared in astonishment. “When did you find him again?”

“Not long ago. That’s why we’re down here in the Old World—she brought him here. At least I found him. I’ve made other mistakes, and they, too, have resulted in no end of trouble. So has Richard. Like he said, we all make mistakes. If I can, I want to spare you from making a needless mistake, at least.”

Jennsen looked away. “Like believing in that man I was with yesterday—Sebastian. Because of him, my mother was murdered and I almost got you killed. I feel like such a fool.”

“You didn’t make that mistake out of carelessness, Jennsen. They deceived you, used you. More importantly, in the end you used your head and were willing to face the truth.”

Jennsen nodded.

“What should we name the twins?” she finally asked.

Kahlan didn’t think that naming the twins was a good idea, not yet anyway, but she was reluctant to say it.

“I don’t know. What names were you thinking?”

Jennsen let out a heavy breath. “It was a shock to suddenly have Betty back with me, and even more of a surprise to see that she had babies of her own. I never considered that before. I haven’t even had time to think about names.”

“You will.”

Jennsen smiled at the thought. Her smile grew, as if at the thought of something more.

“You know,” she said, “I think I understand what Richard meant about thinking of his grandfather as wizardly, even though he never saw him do magic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t see magic, so to speak, and Richard didn’t do any tonight—at least none I know of.” She laughed softly, as pleasing a laugh as Kahlan had ever heard, full of life and joy. It had a quality to it much like Richard’s, the feminine balance to Richard’s masculine laugh, two facets of the same delight.

“And yet,” Jennsen went on, “the things he said made me think of him in that way—wizardly—like he said about Zedd. When he was saying that, I knew just what he meant, just how he’d felt, because Richard has opened up the world for me, but the gift wasn’t the magic he showed me. It was him showing me life, that my life is mine, and worth living.”

Kahlan smiled to herself, at how very much that described her own feeling of what Richard had done for her, how he had brought her to cherish life and believe in it not just for others, but, most importantly, for herself.

For a time they sat together, silently watching the empty wasteland.

Kahlan kept an eye on Richard as he tossed in his sleep.

With growing concern, Jennsen, too, watched Richard. “It looks like there’s something wrong with him,” she whispered as she leaned close.

“He’s having a nightmare.”

Kahlan watched, as she had so many times before, as Richard made fists in his sleep, as he struggled silently against some private terror.

“It’s scary to see him like that,” Jennsen said. “He seems so different. When he’s awake he always seems so . . . reasoned.”

“You can’t reason with a nightmare,” Kahlan said in quiet sorrow.