The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 13

Kahlan sat up with a start.

Somewhere in the dead-still room someone was watching her.

She had been lying down with her eyes closed, but she had only been resting. She hadn’t been asleep. At least, she was pretty sure she hadn’t been asleep.

She had been trying to put everything from her mind. She hadn’t wanted to think about the woman who had killed her children. She hadn’t wanted to think about the children and how they had died. All for fear of a prophecy.

She didn’t want to think about the woman’s deluded visions.

She had tried very hard to put it all from her mind.

The heavy drapes were drawn. There was only one lamp lit in the room and it was turned down low. Sitting on the table before the mirror on the dressing table, the lamp was too weak to chase the darkness from the farthest reaches of the room. Darkness occluded those far corners where the faint shadowy shapes of hulking wardrobes lurked.

It couldn’t be Richard she sensed. He would have let her know it was him when she sat up. Cara would have as well. Whoever she sensed in the room wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t moving.

But she felt them watching her.

At least she thought she did. She knew how easy it was for anyone’s imagination, even hers, to get out of hand. Trying to be honest and coldly logical, she couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t her imagination, especially after Cara had planted the notion in her mind earlier in the day.

But her heart raced as she stared into the dark recesses of the room, watching for any movement.

She realized that her fist had tightened around her knife.

She pulled the bed throw off and pushed it aside. She was lying on top of the bedspread. Her bare thighs prickled at the touch of chilly air.

Carefully, quietly, she slipped her legs over the side of the bed. Without making a sound she stood. She waited, listening, her whole body tense and ready.

Kahlan stared so hard into the dark corner at the far end of the room that it made her eyes hurt.

It felt like someone was staring back.

She tried to tell where it felt like they could be hiding, but she couldn’t come up with a direction. If she could sense someone watching, but wasn’t able to sense where they were, then it had to be her imagination.

“Enough of this,” she said under her breath.

With deliberate strides she walked to the dressing table. The heel-strikes of the laced boots she hadn’t felt like taking off echoed softly back from the dark end of the room.

Standing at the dressing table, watching, she turned up the wick on the lamp. It threw mellow light into the darkness. There was no one there. In the mirror she saw only herself standing half naked with a knife gripped in her fist.

Just to be sure, she walked resolutely to the end of the room. She found no one there. She looked to the far side of the drapes and glanced behind the big pieces of furniture. There was no one there, either. How could there be? Richard had checked the room before he had taken her in. She had watched as he had looked everywhere while trying not to look like he was looking. Cara and soldiers stood guard as Kahlan had rested. No one could have entered.

She turned to the tall, elaborately carved wardrobe and pulled open the heavy doors. Without hesitation she lifted out a clean dress and pulled it on.

She didn’t know if the other one, the one she had taken off, would ever be clean again. It was hard to get the blood of children off a white dress. At the Confessors’ Palace, back in Aydindril, there were people on the staff who knew how to care for the white dresses of the Mother Confessor. She supposed that there would be people at the ancestral home of the Lord Rahl who knew all about cleaning up blood.

The thought of where that blood had come from made her angry, made her glad the woman was dead.

Kahlan paused to consider again why the woman would have died so abruptly. Kahlan hadn’t commanded it. She had intended to have the woman locked up. There were a lot more questions Kahlan had wanted to ask, but not in public. If there was one thing Kahlan was good at, it was questioning those she had touched with her power.

The thought occurred to her that it was awfully convenient that the woman confessed what she had done, revealed what her prophecy said would happen to Kahlan, and then managed to die before she could be questioned.

When all else was said and done, that was the single thing that convinced Kahlan that Richard was right, that there was something more going on. And if he was right, then the woman had likely only been a puppet being moved by a hidden hand.

At the thought of Richard, she smiled. Thinking of him always lifted her heart.

When she pulled open the bedroom door, Cara, with her arms folded, was leaning back against the doorframe. Nyda, one of the other Mord-Sith, was with her. Cara looked back over her shoulder at Kahlan.

“How do you feel?”

Kahlan forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

Cara’s arms came unfolded as she turned. “Lord Rahl wanted me to bring you to him after you were rested. He’s going to see that abbot.”

Kahlan let out a weary breath. She didn’t feel like seeing people, but she wanted to be with Richard and she, too, wanted to hear what the man might know.

Cara’s eyes narrowed. “Why is your face so pale?”

“Just still a bit tired, I guess.” Kahlan studied Cara’s blue eyes for a moment. “Would you do something for me, please, Cara?”

Cara leaned in and gently took hold of Kahlan’s arm. “Of course, Mother Confessor. What is it?”

“Would you please see to having our things moved?”

Cara’s squint was back. “Moved?”

Kahlan nodded. “To another room. I don’t want to sleep here tonight.”

Cara studied her face for a moment. “Why?”

“Because you planted strange thoughts in my head.”

“You mean you think someone was watching you in there?”

“I don’t know. I was tired and probably imagined it.”

Cara marched past Kahlan and went into the room, Agiel in hand. Nyda, a statuesque blonde with the same single braid as all the Mord-Sith, was right on her heels. Cara pulled the drapes aside and looked behind furniture while Nyda looked in the wardrobes and under the bed. Neither of them found anything. Kahlan had known they wouldn’t, but she also knew that it was a waste of effort trying to convince a Mord-Sith that she didn’t need to be suspicious.

“Did you find anyone in your room?” Kahlan asked when Cara planted her fists on her hips and glared around at the room.

“I guess not,” Cara admitted.

“I’ll see to moving your things, Mother Confessor,” Nyda said. “Cara can go with you.”

“All right.”

“Any particular bedchamber you prefer?” Nyda asked.

“No. Just don’t tell me which one it is until you take us there tonight.”

“So someone was watching you,” Cara said.

Kahlan took Cara’s elbow and turned her toward the door. “Let’s go see Richard.”