Warheart

CHAPTER 1

Feeling hot and light-headed, Kahlan stiffened her back as she stood at the head of the funeral pyre, staring down at Richard’s body laid out before her. The light mist and fitful drizzle felt cold on her face, like ice against the grief burning inside her. Wet cobblestones glistened in the late-day light. Irregular pools of standing water reflected parts of the citadel rising up beyond and the stone guard tower nearby, with the occasional tears of rain distorting those reflections.

Although the mist and bouts of rain had soaked the neatly stacked wood of the pyre, she knew that it would burn. Thick layers of pitch had been slathered over the lower planks so that once the torches were tossed in, the entire stack would ignite and burn hot, even in the drizzle, and Richard’s worldly remains would be consumed in the flames.

Kahlan’s hopes and dreams would be consumed in them as well.

Everyone’s hopes and dreams would be turned to ashes.

The dozen men ringing the funeral pyre had but to toss their torches into the wood and it would be over.

Everything would be over–for her, and for everyone.

The dozen grim soldiers gripping the torches all stood at attention, but their gazes were on her. None of these men of the First File, the Lord Rahl’s personal guard, would be the one to decide to toss his torch and ignite the funeral pyre. It was up to her alone, the Mother Confessor–Richard’s wife–to give the order.

The morning was dead silent but for the low hiss of those torches. Their flames spit and popped as they wavered gently in the damp breath of a breeze, as if waiting impatiently for her to give the word so they could be freed to get on with their grisly work.

Beyond the soldiers holding the torches, no one in the gathered crowd made a sound. Most shed tears silently.

Kahlan, standing at Richard’s head, stared down at the handsome face of the man she loved. She hated seeing him still in death. She had feared for his life any number of times, but she had never once imagined one day standing over him laid out on a funeral pyre.

They had dressed him in a black shirt and over that a black, open-sided tunic bordered with a gold band decorated with symbols. The wide, multilayered leather belt that cinched the magnificent tunic at his waist bore the same sort of symbols, many in what she now knew to be the language of Creation. At each wrist crossed over his stilled heart he wore wide, leather-padded silver bands engraved with yet more of the ancient symbols. A cape hooked to his broad shoulders, appearing to be nothing so much as spun gold, lay spread under him so that it looked as if he were an offering being presented to the good spirits.

Where had those good spirits been when she needed them most?

Even as she asked the question, though, she knew that the concerns of the world of life were not the concerns of the spirits. The concerns of the living were those of the living alone.

A glimmer of light reflected off the bloodred stone in the center of the ancient amulet Richard wore on a chain around his neck. Intricate lines of silver surrounding the stone represented the dance with death. The amulet had been made by Baraccus, the war wizard at the time Emperor Sulachan had started the great war. The amulet, like the dance with death itself, had meaning to a war wizard. Richard, likely fated to be the last war wizard, was now laid out in the same, traditional outfit of that calling.

The only thing missing was the tooled-leather baldric with the magnificent gold-and-silver-wrought scabbard that held the Sword of Truth. But that weapon was not really a traditional part of a war wizard’s outfit. That ancient weapon had now fallen to Kahlan’s care.

She remembered the day Zedd had given Richard the sword and named him the Seeker of Truth. She remembered Zedd pledging his life in defense of the Seeker. It was an oath he had kept.

Kahlan remembered falling to her knees in front of Richard that day as well, head bowed, hands held behind her back as she, too, had pledged her life in defense of the Seeker.

A brief smile ghosted across her face when she remembered Richard’s astonished expression as he had asked Zedd what a Seeker was.

That was so long ago, and Richard had come to learn and discover so much. He was the first since the ancient weapon’s creation to fully comprehend what a Seeker was and the true meaning of the weapon entrusted to him. He was, in fact, the Seeker in every way.

There could never be another.

Kahlan had wielded the weapon in anger enough times to have an understanding of its power, but she was not its master. Richard was the sword’s master. He was bonded to the blade.

Nicci, the sorceress who had stopped Richard’s heart to end his life so he could go beyond the veil of life and bring Kahlan back from death itself, stood behind her to her left, the cowl of her cloak pulled up over her head to protect her from the drizzle. Even so, droplets of water formed at the sodden tips of her long blond hair. Tears dripped from her jaw. The woman bore the agony of knowing that Richard, a man she loved but could never have, had died by her hand, even if it was by his command.

Three Mord-Sith–Cassia, Laurin, and Vale–stood behind Kahlan to her right. Richard had only just freed them from bondage. Once free, they had chosen to serve and protect him. It had been the first choice they had made of their own free will since they had been girls. They had made the choice out of love and respect for a man they had only just come to know, and who was now gone.

None of the people gathered in the square spoke as they waited for the imminent conflagration that would consume Richard’s worldly form. This was the Lord Rahl, the Seeker, and Kahlan’s husband. This was her order to give and none wanted to rush that order.

Everyone seemed to be holding their breath in disbelief at the finality of their beloved leader’s death.

Because his body had been preserved with occult magic, Richard looked as if he was merely asleep and might at any moment wake and sit up. But even though his body had been preserved as it had been in life, the life was gone from him. This was an empty shell. His spirit was now beyond the veil in the underworld, being dragged down into eternal night by the demons of the dark.

Kahlan allowed herself to fantasize for just a moment that it wasn’t so, that he would wake, smile, and say her name.

But it was a fleeting, empty wish that only made her misery all the more cutting.

As she stood, trembling slightly, she watched the mist on Richard’s face gather into droplets that from time to time ran across his brow or down his cheek. It almost looked like he, too, was shedding a tear.

Kahlan reached out and ran her fingers lovingly through his wet hair.

How could she say good-bye to him?

How could she give the order to ignite the pyre?

Everyone was waiting.

She knew that dark, worldly forces would be coming to try to steal his body. Sulachan would want it for his own unholy use.

How could she not release the man she loved more than life itself into the flames that would protect him?