Wasteland

1

“You have to get to the Keep,” Kahlan told Richard, fighting to get the words out past the lump in her throat. “Hurry. I’ll be all right. Take the sliph and go.”

Richard hadn’t said a word. He seemed frozen in place, standing there on the top of the stone wall around the sliph.

“I’m sorry you can’t travel in me, too, Mother Confessor,” the sliph said in her silken voice while showing a smooth, silvery smile, “but you and your babies would die in me.”

Kahlan thought the sliph sounded a bit too satisfied that Kahlan couldn’t travel with Richard.

The Golden Goddess wanted to end Richard and Kahlan’s line of magic. She would do anything to kill them both, but she would be especially ferocious about killing their children should they have any. Those children were more than Kahlan’s longtime wish; they were a promise of a future with magic to protect their world.

Kahlan struggled to hold back tears of crushing disappointment that she couldn’t travel in the sliph and get to the Wizard’s Keep. The Keep was a place of safety. Besides the Sisters of the Light and other gifted people there, the Keep itself had powerful shields. The massive Wizard’s Keep was designed to protect the First Wizard, and by extension his loved ones and children. They felt sure they would be safe there from the Golden Goddess and the Glee. Richard and Kahlan’s children would be safe there to live and grow, to run through the halls, laughing, as Kahlan had done as a little girl, while Richard found a way to put an end to the threat from the goddess and her kind.

But because she was pregnant, Kahlan couldn’t travel in the sliph. The Keep suddenly seemed very, very far away.

“I will take Lord Rahl,” the sliph cooed. She circled a quicksilver arm around Richard’s waist as he stood as if paralyzed on the stone wall of her well, staring down at Kahlan. “As you say, Mother Confessor, you can remain behind while I take him to the Keep.”

Unable to stand the tension under Richard’s penetrating gaze, Kahlan yelled, “Go!”

Despite her best efforts, tears were beginning to well up in her eyes. She knew she wouldn’t be able to hold them back for much longer. She wanted him to leave before she lost control of her emotions.

Shale looked from Kahlan back to Richard. “I will protect her, Lord Rahl, while you go get help.”

“We will protect her too,” Cassia said as she nodded her agreement with Shale. She stepped closer to Kahlan. “With our lives.”

Vika, standing on the wall next to Richard, said, “I will go with Lord Rahl and protect him.”

Vika looked over at him, uncertain if she should jump into the roiling silver waters of the sliph ahead of him, or wait.

Kahlan’s lower lip began to quiver. “Go and get help, Richard, would you, please? I’ll have your sword. I know how to use it and it has served me well in your absence in the past. I’ll have plenty of protection. I’ll be fine until you can get back to me.”

Richard finally pulled away from the silver arm the sliph had around him. When he did, it shrank back, seeming to melt down into the pool and become part of what looked like nothing so much as liquid silver sloshing in the well. The glossy silver face, which reflected the room around it, showed no emotion.

Free of the sliph’s arm, Richard hopped down off the short stone wall and walked across the room, his raptor gaze seeing no one but her. Kahlan couldn’t stop trembling. Dreading what he might say, she involuntarily backed away a step.

When Richard reached her, he softly enclosed her in his strong arms and then pulled her tight to him. She could no longer hold back the tears as she buried her face against him.

“I’m sorry, Richard,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I couldn’t, not in the middle of—”

Richard pressed her head to his shoulder. “Hush now. No need to cry about something so wonderful.”

“But—”

“I’m not leaving you for anything.”

“But you must get to the Keep.”

“We’ll figure something out. I’m not leaving you, not at a time like this.”

“I didn’t want to tell you. You need to be able to protect us. I didn’t want to burden you with this on top of everything else. I didn’t want it to be a distraction.”

Richard let out a soft laugh as he briefly hugged her tighter. “It’s not a distraction, Kahlan. It’s motivation.” He pulled back, holding her by her arms as he looked in her eyes. “The sliph said babies. Not baby. Babies.”

Kahlan nodded. “I’m pregnant with twins.”

Richard’s eyebrows lifted a little in surprise. His smile warmed her heart and, in that instant, dispelled all her terror and fear. She suddenly felt the full joy of it again.

“A boy and a girl,” Shale said.

He turned a serious frown on her. “You knew?”

Kahlan put a finger against his jaw and turned his face back to her. “I made her swear that she wouldn’t tell you. I guess I made the same mistake the goddess made up in the library.”

His smile returned as he gazed into her eyes again. “What mistake is that?”

“I underestimated you.”

His smile widened at that.

Kahlan grew sober. “But Richard, you still need to get to the Keep. You can’t stay here if you hope to stop the goddess. That’s what matters. There are gifted there who may be able to help. The Sisters of the Light are there. Maybe you could make a quick trip there in the sliph and bring back some of the Sisters.”

“You are what matters,” he said softly as he gently pulled Kahlan back into his arms.

She buried her face against him, now with tears of relief and joy.

“This is what we have been fighting for since we first met in the Hartland woods,” he told her. “For life, for the right of life to continue. And then for our right to continue, for our own happiness.”

Holding on tightly to him, Kahlan had never loved him more.

She should have known.