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CHAPTER 28
As soon as she saw Kahlan and Cara vanish like vengeful spirits into the whiteness, A
"Prelate!" Alessandra cried. "You'll burn yourself!"
Flinching back from the ferocity of the pain, A
The entire rescue of the burning book took only a second, but, through the prism of pain, it seemed an eternity.
Biting down on her lower lip against the suffering, A
She let out a low wail of agony when the wet snow contacted the burns.
Alessandra fell to A
"Prelate! Oh, Prelate, you shouldn't have!"
A
"Oh, A
A
"Hold still," Alessandra admonished through her own tears. "Hold still and let me see what I can do about healing you. It will be all right. Just hold still."
A
The Sister could not heal her heart.
"She was wrong," Alessandra said, as if reading A
"Was she?" A
"Yes. She doesn't know so much as she thinks. She's a child-she couldn't be a paltry three decades yet. People can't learn to wipe their own noses in that much time." Alessandra was prattling, A
A
Endless rows of corpses lay before her in the trial going on in her mind. What was there to say in her defense? She had a thousand answers for the Mother Confessor's charges, but at that moment, they all seemed empty.
How could A
"You're the Prelate of the Sisters of the Light," Alessandra rambled on during a pause in her work. "She should have been more considerate of who she was talking to. More respectful. She doesn't know everything involved.
There's a great deal more to it. A great deal. After all, the Sisters of the Light don't casually choose their Prelate."
Nor did Confessors casually choose their Mother Confessor.
An hour passed, and then another, before Alessandra finally finished the difficult and tedious work of healing A
A
When the matter was weighed, though, she feared she had lost a great deal more of herself than she had recovered.
Exhausted and cold, A
She missed Nathan terribly right then. The prophet doubtless would have had something wise, or foolish, to say. Either would have comforted her.
Nathan always had something to say. She missed his boastful voice, his kind, childlike, knowing eyes. She missed the touch of his hand.
Weeping silently, A
"Are you feeling better, Prelate?"
A
"Prelate, I'm so worried for you."
With a sour wave of her hand, A
"While you slept, I've looked at the book."
A
Alessandra nodded. "That's what I thought. I don't think it can be salvaged."
A
"It has endured three thousand years. Were it ordinary paper, it would be beyond help-ended-but this is a thing of magic, Alessandra, forged in the fires of magic, by wizards of power not seen in all those three thousand years. . until Richard."
"What can we do? Do you know a way to restore it?"
A
"I don't know if it can be restored. I'm just saying that it's a thing of magic. Where there is magic, there is hope."
A
"I will have to try to find a way to restore it-if I can. If it can even be restored."
Alessandra dry-washed her hands. "Until then, our eyes with the army are lost."
A
"Prelate, what do you think will happen if the Order finally decides to attackand Richard isn't there with them? What will they do? Without the Lord Rahl to lead them. ."
A
"Verna is the Prelate now-at least as far as the Sisters with the army are concerned. She will guide them wisely. And Zedd is with them, helping the Sisters prepare for battle, should it come. They could have no better counsel than to have a wizard of Zedd's experience with them. As First Wizard, he has been through great wars before.
"We will have to place our faith in the Creator that He will watch over them. I can't advise them unless I can restore the journey book. Unless I can do that, I won't even know their situation."
"You could go there, Prelate."
A