Warheart

CHAPTER 27

As she came down the hall, walking through patches of early-morning light coming in the windows, Kahlan could see Vale and Laurin, both wearing their red leather, standing at their posts before the door to Hannis Arc’s recording room. They would have been there the whole night, making sure that no one could disturb Richard.

Men of the First File stood guard everywhere in the halls of the citadel, always at the ready for any trouble that might arise. On her way back from the kitchen, Commander Fister had asked Kahlan to come get him if she needed anything. She had assured him she would.

Vale reached out as she stepped away from the door, offering to take the tray.

“No, it’s all right,” Kahlan said. “I have it.”

Vale moved back out of the way to let Kahlan through. “Did you get any sleep, Mother Confessor?”

Kahlan nodded. “Yes, thankfully.” It had not been enough, but it had been better than nothing. “How about you two?”

Vale gestured to Laurin. “We took turns resting a little now and then.”

Kahlan didn’t believe that for a moment. The Mord-Sith would not have left their posts guarding Richard for anything, especially now that there seemed to be a heightened sense of urgency to what he was doing in the recording room. Mord-Sith didn’t know much about magic, or about ancient scrolls for that matter, but it was not at all difficult to tell that Richard was stirred up over the discovery.

Kahlan had been up for ages, it seemed. The anguish of returning to the world of life only to learn that Richard had given his life to send her back had been beyond endurance. The realization that Richard was dead had denied her the ability to sleep, except fitfully. After that, the effort of helping Nicci when she went to the underworld to bring him back had been strenuous, on top of having so little sleep.

And then, the euphoria of having Richard return from that dark realm had been muted by Cara giving her life to make it possible.

The wild swing of emotions had been draining. The relief of at last having Richard back was tempered by the fact that the poison of death still infected him, to say nothing of the ordeal of standing all day beside Cara’s funeral pyre. Kahlan had been near to dropping from exhaustion. Her lack of sleep had begun to make it nearly impossible for her to think clearly any longer.

When Richard told her to go get some rest, she hadn’t had the energy to argue. She wanted him to come with her and get a few hours’ sleep, but he said that he had to stay and work on trying to understand what was in the scrolls and what they might have to do with everything that was happening. She’d reminded him that he needed sleep in order to think clearly. Richard had told her that he’d gotten a good long rest while he had been dead. That made her smile.

With Nicci and the three Mord-Sith saying that they would stay and watch over him, Kahlan had given in and made her way back to the bedroom to get some sleep. She’d fallen asleep almost as soon as she hit the bed. It hadn’t been as restful as she had expected or hoped, probably because she missed having Richard there beside her. Even as short as it had been, it had at least done her some good.

“It smells delicious,” Laurin said of the eggs and bacon Kahlan had on the tray. “Make sure Lord Rahl eats it all. He needs his strength if he is to be the magic against magic.”

Kahlan smiled as she nodded. “I asked some of the workers down in the kitchen to bring you up some as well. They should be along shortly. I want you to eat, too. You three need your strength to be able to protect him.”

As she opened the door, Laurin promised that they would be sure to eat. Inside the quiet, windowless room, Cassia looked over from her post beside the door. Kahlan saw Nicci curled up in one of the overstuffed chairs, sound asleep, with one arm draped over the side. The scribe, Mohler, had gone off to bed just before Kahlan, and had not yet returned.

“How is everything?” Kahlan asked in a whisper so as not to wake Nicci.

Cassia glanced at Richard briefly before answering. “I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think things are going well.”

Concern tightened Kahlan’s brow. “What do you mean?”

Cassia pressed her lips tight as she considered how to explain it. “I don’t know. It seems like he is in a really bad mood.”

“A bad mood? Why, what happened?”

“Nothing, really. I can’t exactly put my finger on anything specific,” Cassia said. “I don’t know him well enough to know what he is like most of the time, but just from as long as I’ve been with him, I don’t think he is usually this upset. From what I am able to gather, I think he’s angry about something he is reading.”

“Did he say something?” Kahlan asked the Mord-Sith.

“No, nothing.” Cassia drew her hand down the long, single blond braid she had pulled over the front of her shoulder. “But I can see the muscles in his jaw flex from time to time as he grits his teeth. Once I saw his knuckles turn white because he was gripping the hilt of his sword so tightly.”

Kahlan didn’t at all like the sound of that. “Well, maybe having something to eat will make him feel better.”

Cassia nodded. “I hope so. He needs his strength. I can hardly believe that we have him back. I want him to get over his sickness and be well. I want him to be with us forever.”

From knowing Cara so well, Kahlan understood what it meant to the Mord-Sith to have a Lord Rahl like Richard come into their lives. Kahlan lifted Cara’s Agiel hanging on the chain around Cassia’s neck.

“I understand. I am a sister of the Agiel.”

Cassia, her eyes widening, tilted her head forward. “You are? Really?”

Kahlan smiled as she nodded. “Sisters of the Agiel know what is best for him. We all have to stick together in order to take care of him.”

Cassia flashed a conspiratorial smile. “You have that right.”

At the desk, Kahlan set the tray down to the side, out of Richard’s way. “The sun is up,” she said. “Well, it’s actually too cloudy to see it, but it’s light out, anyway. I brought you breakfast.”

Richard glanced up briefly to give her a perfunctory smile.

“Have some food, Richard. You need to eat.”

Without argument he briefly glanced over at the tray and retrieved a piece of bacon. He munched on it as he continued to study the scroll laid out on the desk before him. A candle in a heavy silver base held down one corner, a lantern the other. More scrolls lay in disorderly stacks all over the desk. Beyond the desk, the stuffed bear stood on its hind legs, towering over them, claws raised as it glared in a frozen, menacing roar.

Once he finished the bacon, Richard kept reading. Kahlan handed him another piece. He took it, offering a grunt of thanks, and kept studying the scroll without looking over.

Kahlan leaned a hip against the desk and folded her arms. “So, have you learned anything?”

“Too much,” he muttered.

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” he said without looking up at her, “that I’m beginning to wish I wouldn’t have come back from the world of the dead.”

Kahlan took hold of the wooden armrest and pulled his chair around so that he was facing her. She was not going to be ignored. When he started to protest she put a forkful of scrambled eggs in his mouth.

“You need to eat to keep up your strength,” she told him. “Fighting off that poison inside you is a constant effort. You need to eat.”

He chewed as he watched her eyes. She knew he couldn’t argue the point. Without pause, she scooped up more eggs and fed them to him each time he swallowed.

When he had finished eating most of the eggs, she handed him the cup of tea and smiled. “Good?”

He took a swallow, his gray, raptor gaze staying on her the whole time. “Yes, thanks. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” He gestured vaguely to the disorderly stack of scrolls. “I’ve been absorbed in all these.”

Now that he had stopped and eaten something, she expected he would be more forthcoming. “So, do you want to tell me about it?”

He finally let out a deep sigh. “I don’t know. I guess I feel like the whole world has been turned upside down. It turns out that the things I’ve learned in recent years and I thought I knew hardly even scratched the surface. They were true, but only in a way, and only as far as they went. It turns out that nothing is like what I thought. I had no idea of what was actually going on beneath the surface–or even how much there was beneath the surface. I feel like I’ve been kept in the dark.”

“Really? Kept in the dark for how long?”

“Remember the day I first met you in the Hartland woods, and I told you that some men were following you?”

“Of course.”

“Since then.”

Kahlan gave him a smiling admonishment. “Richard, it can’t be that bad. Look at all we’ve overcome already. Besides, just because you’re reading something in these scrolls, that doesn’t mean it’s true. How many times have we thought we understood something because of what we read, only to find out later that it wasn’t true?”

“Unfortunately, this has proven to be true.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Emperor Sulachan would not be back in the world of the living right now if it weren’t true. You wouldn’t be alive if this were not true. I wouldn’t be alive. I had no idea of how much more there is to what is going on than I thought.”

“What’s not like you thought?”

“Everything.”