She broke off a piece and tasted it, then moaned with delight at how good it tasted.
Then she put the rest of the little trout on a moose maple leaf and offered it to Rachel. Rachel sat staring at the hand. She had said that she didn’t want any of the woman’s fish.
“Thank you, but I have my own things to eat. You should have your fish.”
“Nonsense, there’s more than enough. Please, won’t you eat some with me? Just a little? After all, I used the fire you worked to build, so it’s the least I can do.”
Rachel stared at the delicious-looking fish on the leaf in the palm of the woman’s hand.
“Well, if you don’t mind, then, I’ll have one.”
The woman smiled and the world suddenly seemed a better place. Rachel thought that it must be a smile like a mother would have—filled with simple delight at the wonder of life.
She tried not to devour the fish. That it was steaming hot helped to slow her down. That, and the sharp little bones. It felt so good to eat hot food that she almost cried with joy. When she finished the fish, the woman handed her another. Rachel took it without hesitation. She so needed to eat. She told herself that she needed to be strong so that she could hurry. The tender fish warmed the pang of hunger lodged deep in the pit of her stomach, making the ache melt away. Rachel ate four more before she was full.
“Don’t push your horse so hard tomorrow,” the woman said. “If you do, it will die.”
Rachel blinked. “How do you know that?”
“I introduced myself to your animal when I came across your camp. Your horse is in sorry shape.”
Rachel felt bad for the horse, but she had to hurry. She couldn’t slow for anything. She had to hurry.
“If I go any slower, they’ll get me.”
The woman cocked her head. “Who will get you?”
“The ghostie gobblies.”
“Ah, I see.”
“The ghostie gobblies are after me. Whenever I slow they start to get closer.” Tears stung Rachel’s eyes. “I don’t want the ghostie gobblies to get me.”
The woman was there, then, right next to her, circling an arm around her, sheltering her. It felt so good that Rachel started to cry in the comfort of that protection. She had to hurry. She was so afraid.
“If you kill the horse,” the woman said in a soft, gentle voice, “then the ghostie gobblies will get you, now, won’t they? Take it just a little slower. You have time.”
Rachel snuggled in the nook of the woman’s arm. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. You need to let the horse get its strength back. It won’t do you any good to kill the animal. Trust me, you don’t want to be out in the deserted countryside without a horse.”
“Because then the ghostie gobblies will get me?”
The woman nodded. “Because then the ghostie gobblies will get you.”
When a shiver ran up Rachel’s back, the woman squeezed her tight until it went away. Rachel realized that she had the hem of her dress in her mouth, just like she used to do when she was little.
“Hold out your hand,” the woman said in that soothing voice she had. “I have something for you.”
“What is it?”
“Hold out your hand.”
When Rachel held out her hand the woman laid something small in it. Rachel held it up closer, trying to see it better. It was short, and straight.
“Put it in your pocket.”
Rachel looked up at the gentle face watching her. “Why?”
“For when you need it.”
“Need it? What will I need it for?”
“You will know when the time comes. You will know when you need it. When you do, remember that it’s there, in your pocket.”
“But what is it?”
The woman smiled that wonderful smile. “It’s what you need, Rachel.”
As baffled as she was, Rachel couldn’t think of how to solve the riddle. She slipped the small thing into her pocket.
“Is it magic?” Rachel asked.
“No,” the woman said. “It’s not magic. But it’s what you will need.”
“Will it save me?”
“I have to go now,” the woman said.
Rachel felt a lump rising in her throat. “Couldn’t you sit by the fire a little while?”
The woman gazed at her with knowing, gentle eyes. “I suppose I could.”
Rachel felt goose bumps tingling up her arms again.
She knew who the woman was.
“You’re my mother, aren’t you?”
The woman smoothed a hand down Rachel’s hair. She had a sad smile. A tear rolled down her cheek.
Rachel knew that her mother was dead, or, at least she had been told that she was.
Maybe this was her mother’s good spirit.
Rachel opened her mouth to speak again, but her mother gently shushed her, then tipped Rachel’s head against her. “You need rest. I’ll watch over you. Sleep. You’re safe with me.”
Rachel was so tired. She listened to the wonderful sound of her mother’s heart beating. She stretched her arms around her mother’s ribs, and nuzzled against her.
Rachel had a thousand questions, but she didn’t think that she would be able to get a single word past the lump in her throat. Besides, she didn’t really want to talk. She just wanted to be held in the shelter of her mother’s arms.
As much as she loved Chase, this was something that felt so special that she knew it was unfair to compare it to anything else. She loved Chase fiercely. This was wonderful in its own way. It was like two halves that made a whole.
Rachel only realized that she’d been asleep because when she opened her eyes it was just first light. Dark purple clouds looked as if they were trying to hide the approaching light in the eastern sky.
She sat up abruptly.
All that was left of the fire was cold ashes.
She was alone.
Before she could think of anything else, before she had time to be sad, she knew that she had to hurry.
With frantic effort she quickly gathered up her few things—the blanket, the flint and steel, the waterskin—stuffing them into the saddlebags. She saw the horse not far away, watching her.
She had to make sure not to run the horse too hard. If she ran the horse and it died, then Rachel would be on foot.
And then the ghostie gobblies would get her.
CHAPTER 25
Kahlan tenderly closed both of her hands around Nicci’s trembling, loose fist. She hoped that through that connection, that simple act, the woman covered in blood, lying in Jagang’s bed, could at least take a small measure of solace. As much as Kahlan ached with empathy, she could offer little help.
It had been a frightening, dreadful night. Jagang often brought women captives to his bed. He frequently hurt them, either simply by not taking into account his own strength, or because he intended them harm when they failed to cooperate.
This was different. With Nicci, he was venting hot jealousy.
He had never hurt any of those other women the way he hurt Nicci. In his own mind, Kahlan knew, he was getting even, settling a score, making Nicci pay the price of being unfaithful to him.
But, in some ways, Jagang was also showing Kahlan what kind of treatment she could look forward to once her memory was finally restored. Kahlan tried to shut the things she’d seen and heard from her mind lest she be sick. She focused instead on the present, and the future.
She let go with one hand and turned to retrieve a waterskin lying on the floor nearby. Nicci lightly caught the remaining hand, apparently fearful of losing the human compassion in that connection.
“Here,” Kahlan said in little more than a whisper as she lifted the waterskin to Nicci’s lips. Splatters of dried blood masked her face and hair.
Other than loosely holding on to Kahlan’s hand, Nicci didn’t respond.
“Drink,” Kahlan urged. “It’s water.”
Nicci didn’t make any effort to drink, so Kahlan
let a little of the water trickle across the woman’s cracked lips and into her mouth. She swallowed, then turned her head away from the waterskin with a cry of pain.
“Shh,” Kahlan urged. “I know it hurts, but try to stay quiet. You need to try to take a drink. You need water. When you’re hurt your body needs water so you can get better.”
As much as he had choked her while he railed in fury, it was a miracle that Jagang hadn’t crushed Nicci’s windpipe. His powerful hands had left behind lurid bruises, though, and not just on her neck.
Nicci’s blue eyes slowly opened, focusing on Kahlan’s face. Kahlan was down low, sitting on the floor beside the bed. She was leaning in close to Nicci, trying to keep her voice low so that it wouldn’t carry to those outside the bedchamber. She didn’t want anyone to hear her talking to Nicci. Nicci hadn’t wanted Jagang to know that she could see Kahlan. Kahlan thought it wise to never let an enemy know anything more than was absolutely necessary. Apparently, Nicci thought much the same thing.
As awkward as it was leaning over the edge of the bed, Kahlan didn’t dare get up off the carpet. She knew the consequences of getting up when Jagang had told her to stay on the floor.
A jagged gash at Nicci’s scalp line on the right side of her forehead was still bleeding. A glancing blow from Jagang’s ringed fist had ripped up a flap of scalp. Kahlan snatched up a small cloth, folded it, and gently pressed it against the wound on Nicci’s forehead, fitting the loose chunk of flesh in place as she applied pressure to stop the bleeding. In mere moments the cloth soaked through with blood. As much as she ached to help, there was little more she could think to do other than try to stop some of the bleeding and offer a drink of water.
The wound from the gold ring pierced through Nicci’s lower lip still oozed, leaving a trail of blood down her jaw and the side of her neck, but it wasn’t serious, like the wound on her forehead, so Kahlan didn’t try to do anything for it.
She carefully pulled a lock of blond hair back off Nicci’s face. “I’m so sorry for what he did to you.”
Nicci nodded slightly, her jaw trembling slightly as she held back tears.
“I wanted so much to stop him,” Kahlan said.
With the back of a finger Nicci caught the tear running down Kahlan’s cheek.
“There was nothing you could do,” the woman managed. “Nothing.”
Her voice was weak but, despite that, it still carried the same silken grace as before. It was a voice that matched the rest of her perfectly. Kahlan would never have guessed that such a lovely voice could also carry such righteous contempt as she’d shown Jagang.
“Nothing any of us can do,” Nicci whispered as her eyelids slid closed. “Except maybe Richard.”
Kahlan studied the woman’s blue eyes a moment. “You really think that Richard Rahl can do something?”
Nicci smiled to herself. “Sorry. I didn’t realize that I’d said the last part aloud. Where’s Jagang?”
Kahlan checked and saw that the wound under the cloth she had pressed to Nicci’s head had at last stopped bleeding.
“You didn’t hear him when he left?” she asked as she set the blood-soaked cloth aside.
Nicci rocked her head side to side to say that she hadn’t. Kahlan lifted the waterskin in question. Nicci nodded. She winced as she swallowed, but she drank.
“Well,” Kahlan said when Nicci finished drinking, “someone called out for him. He went to the doorway and a man spoke to him in a low voice. I couldn’t hear all of it, but it sounded like he said that they’d found something. Jagang came back and put on his clothes. As fast as he got dressed, he was obviously in a hurry to have a look at the discovery. He told me to stay where I was.
“Then he put one knee on the bed, leaned over you, and whispered to you that he was sorry.”
Nicci huffed a laugh, but it was cut short when she winced in pain. “He isn’t capable of feeling sorry for anyone but himself.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Kahlan said. “Anyway, he promised to bring back a Sister to heal you. He ran a hand down your face and again said that he was sorry. Then he paused, looking down at you with a worried look. He leaned a little closer to you and said, ‘Please don’t die, Nicci.’ After that he rushed away, telling me again to stay on the floor.
“I don’t know how long he will be gone, but I suspect that a Sister, at least, will be in at any moment.”
Nicci nodded, not seeming to really care if she was healed or not. Kahlan could understand, in a way, how Nicci would rather slip into the dark forever of death than face what would be her life from now on.
“I’m terribly sorry that you’ve been caught up by him, but you don’t know how good it is to have another person be able to see me—someone who isn’t with them.”
“I can only imagine,” Nicci said.
“Jillian said that she’s seen you before. With Richard Rahl. She told me a little about you. You’re as beautiful as she said you were.”
“My mother used to tell me that being beautiful was only useful to whores. Perhaps she was right.”
“Perhaps she was jealous of you. Or just a fool.”
Nicci smiled so broadly that it looked like she might laugh. “It was the latter. She hated life.”
Kahlan’s gaze drifted away from Nicci as she picked at a loose thread on the bedcover.
“So you know Richard Rahl pretty well, then?”
“Pretty well,” Nicci said.
“Are you in love with him?”
Nicci looked over, gazing into Kahlan’s eyes for a long moment. “It’s more complicated than that. I have responsibilities.”
Kahlan smiled a little. “I see.” She was glad that Nicci hadn’t tried to lie by denying it.
“You have a beautiful voice, Kahlan Amnell,” Nicci whispered as she stared at Kahlan. “You really do.”
“Thank you, but it doesn’t seem beautiful to me. Sometimes I think I sound like a frog.”
Nicci smiled. “Hardly.”
Kahlan frowned. “You know me, then?”
“Not really.”
“But you know my name. Do you know anything about me? About my past? Who I really am?”
Nicci’s blue eyes watched her in a most curious fashion. “Just what I’ve heard.”
“And what have you heard?”
“That you are the Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan hooked some hair behind her ear. “I heard that myself.”
She checked the doorway again and, seeing the hanging still in place and hearing no voices close, turned back to Nicci. “I’m afraid that I don’t know what it means. I don’t know very much at all about myself. As I’m sure you can probably imagine, it’s pretty frustrating. Sometimes, I get so dispirited by not being able to remember anything…”
Kahlan’s voice trailed off as Nicci’s eyes closed against a pang of agony. She was having trouble breathing.
Kahlan laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Hold on, Nicci. Please hold on. A Sister will be in to heal you any moment. I’ve been hurt by them before—hurt terribly—and they healed me, so I know they can do it. You’ll be all right after they get in here.”
Nicci nodded slightly, but she didn’t open her eyes. Kahlan wished that one of the Sisters would hurry. In the absence of anything she could do, Kahlan gave Nicci another drink, then wet the piece of cloth again and gently mopped her brow.
Kahlan was torn between staying where she’d been told to stay and rushing to the opening out of the bedchamber to demand that someone go get a Sister. She knew, though, that the collar she wore around her neck would drop her before she would be able to take two steps. It was somewhat surprising that there wasn’t a Sister already outside. There was usually at least one of them at hand.
“I’ve never seen anyone stand up to Jagang the way you did,” Kahlan said.
“It wouldn’t really have mattered if I did or not.” Nicci paused to get her breath. “He was going to do what he wanted to do. But I wasn’t about
to agree to it.”
Kahlan smiled at Nicci’s spirit of defiance.
“Jagang was already angry at you long before you arrived. Sister Ulicia told him how you’re in love with Richard. She was going on and on about it.”
Nicci’s eyes were open, but she said nothing as she stared up at the ceiling.
“That’s why Jagang was questioning you—because of what Sister Ulicia told him. He was jealous.”
“He has no reason to be jealous. He should be more concerned that someday I’m going to kill him.”
Kahlan smiled at that. Then, she wondered if Nicci meant that Jagang had no reason to be jealous because there was nothing between her and Richard, or because there was but the emperor had no right to have a claim on her heart.
“Do you think you will ever get a chance to kill him?”
In frustration, Nicci lifted a hand just a little bit, then let it drop back down to her side. “Probably not. I think I’m the one who is going to be killed.”
“Maybe we can think of something before that happens,” Kahlan said. “How did he manage to capture you, anyway?”
“I was in the palace.”
“They found a way in?”
“Yes. Through forgotten catacombs that run underneath the Azrith Plain and under the plateau. The underground chambers and tunnels appear to have been abandoned millennia ago.
“I think it was a reconnaissance expedition that caught me. They haven’t begun to invade the palace, yet, but as soon as they have what they need in place I’m sure they will.”
Kahlan realized that that was what had been discovered buried in the pit. With a way in, it was only a matter of time until they stormed the palace and slaughtered everyone up there. She knew that when that happened all hope would be lost. Jagang would have defeated the last holdout against the Imperial Order. He would rule the world.
At least, he would if he could get his hands on the third box of Orden. Kahlan didn’t doubt his word, though, that he would soon accomplish that as well. It seemed that time was not just running out for Richard Rahl, but for any hope of freedom surviving.
Nicci, her chin trembling, looked over at Kahlan. “Please, cover me?”
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