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Richard reached around her and held her trembling shoulders.
He felt her muscles slowly relax. Her breathing finally slowed as she slipped into sleep.
If he was to find Kahlan, Richard had to get the rest he needed. He closed his eyes as another tear leaked out. He missed her so much.
His thoughts lingered on that first day he saw Kahlan in the white, satiny smooth dress that he only much later found out distinguished her as the Mother Confessor. He remembered the way it hugged her shape, the way it made her look so noble. He remembered the way her long hair cascaded down around her shoulders, framing her in the dappled forest light. He remembered looking into her beautiful green eyes and seeing the gleam of intelligence looking back at him. He remembered feeling, from that first instant, from that first shared gaze, as if he had always known her.
He told her that there were four men following her. She asked, "Do you choose to help me?"
Before his mind could form a thought, he heard himself say, "Yes."
He had never for an instant been sorry that he said yes.
She needed help now.
His last thoughts as he drifted into tormented sleep were of Kahlan.
CHAPTER 9
A
It had been quite a while since she had a received a message in her journey book. She was impatient to get to it.
The room was sparse. The plain plastered walls had no windows. A small table and a straight-backed, wooden chair that she had asked to have' brought in almost filled the space not used by the bed. Besides its use as a bedroom, the room also made a suitable sanctuary, a place where A
A small plate of cheese and sliced fruit sat waiting for her on the table. Je
No matter how old A
At times, A
A
Maybe all along it had been the Creator's plan for her to be the Prelate and He had given her the appropriate disposition for the job. How she sometimes missed it.
More than that, though, she had never allowed herself to consciously consider her feelings for Nathan. He was a prophet. When she was Prelate of the Sisters of the Light and sovereign authority at the Palace of the Prophets, he had been her prisoner-although they dressed it up in less harsh terms, trying to put a more humane face on it, but it had been no more complicated than that. It had always been believed that prophets were too dangerous to be allowed to run free in the world, among normal people.
In confining him from a young age they had denied the existence of free will, preordaining that he would cause harm even though he would never been given the chance to make a conscious choice in his own actions. They had pronounced him guilty without benefit of a crime. It had been an archaic and irrational belief that A
Now that she and Nathan were both old and found themselves together —however improbable that might have seemed at one time-their relationship could not be described as extravagant attraction. Indeed, she had spent the vast majority of her life enduring her displeasure with the man's antics and seeing to it that he never escaped either his collar or his confinement in the palace, thereby insuring his intractable behavior, thereby incurring the ire of the Sisters, which made him more unruly yet, round and round in a circle.
No matter the uproar he had been able to ignite, seemingly at will, there had always been something about the man that made A
Although she was hungry, A
A
My dearest A
A
A
We have been kept quite busy warding off Jagang's siege of the passes into D'Hara, Verna wrote, but at least we have been successful. Perhaps too successful. If you are there, Prelate, please answer.
A
The dream walker was a patient foe. His men were from far to the south, in the Old World, and weren't used to the winters up north in the New World. While many had fallen victim to the harsh conditions, vast numbers died of the diseases that swept through his winter encampment. Despite losing men in battles, to sickness, and by a variety of other causes, more of the invaders poured north all the time so that, despite everything, Jagang's army inexorably continued to grow. Even so, the man did not waste any of his vast numbers in pointless and futile winter campaigns. He didn't care about the lives of his soldiers, but he did care about conquering the New World, so he only moved when the weather was not a factor. Jagang did not take risks he didn't need to. He simply steadily, resolutely ground his enemies to dust. Bringing the world to heel was all that mattered to him, not how long it took. He viewed the world of life through the prism of the beliefs of the Fellowship of Order. Individual life, including his, was of no importance; only the contribution that a person's life could make to the Order was meaningful.