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Richard laid a hand on Je
"I know that you will remember me, Je
Richard turned to Tom, the big, blond-headed D'Haran. "You are not pristinely ungifted."
Tom nodded. "I know, but I love Je
"I ask, Lord Rahl, that you release me from service to you so that I may devote my life to loving and protecting your sister, as well as our people there in our new world."
Richard smiled as he clasped hands with the man. "There is no need for me to release you, Tom. You have always served me by your own grace. I will be eternally thankful that you have made Je
Tom saluted with a fist to his heart, then, gri
"I love you," Je
As she stepped away, she and the others began to slip away into the white void of the gateway.
All alone in the white void, Richard gripped the Sword of Truth to withdraw it from the box of Orden, to pull the key from the gateway. He could only think that even if everything had worked as he had pla
The sterile field he had needed to allow the power of Orden to succeed had been tainted. Kahlan had known that he loved her.
"You are a rare person, Richard Rahl," came the most beautiful voice in the world.
Richard turned to see her standing there before him. Her green eyes sparkled. She wore her special smile that she wore for no other.
Richard stood frozen, one hand still gripping the sword so hard that he could feel the word truth pressing into his hand.
Kahlan stepped close, slipping an arm around his neck. "Richard, I love you."
Richard circled an arm around her waist, his feelings overwhelming him.
"I don't understand. It wouldn't work if the sterile field was breached with foreknowledge."
"I was protected," she said with a crooked smile.
Richard frowned. "Protected? How?"
"I had already fallen in love with you all over again. I didn't need a sterile field. I think that from the first moment I saw you in that cage as it rolled into the Order's camp I started falling in love with you. In everything you did, you revealed just what kind of man you are-the man I fell in love with so long ago, the man I married in the Mud People's village.
"When you gave me that carving of Spirit, it confirmed everything I had come to know all over again.
"Art reveals the artist's i
Richard smiled as he felt a tear roll down his cheek. "I went to the underworld to get the memories taken by the Subtractive Magic of Chainfire. There, I learned that the core of those memories could only be restored if you accepted them of your own free will. I put them into that carving.
"When you accepted it, you accepted everyone's memories. You broke the Chainfire spell that had taken so much from so many. By being so willing to embrace all that is good, to value the beauty of life and hold it to your heart, you gave everyone back their memories."
She gazed into his eyes for the longest moment.
And then he kissed his wife, the woman he loved, the woman who meant everything to him. The woman who loved him.
The woman he had gone to the underworld and back for.
As he lost himself in that kiss, as her arms tightened around him, he pulled the Sword of Truth from the box of Orden, closing the gateway for all time.
When Richard finally opened his eyes, the world had returned. Zedd was standing nearby, watching them, gri
"Zedd," Richard said, blinking at all the others also there.
"No need to apologize, my boy."
"I wasn't apologizing."
Zedd gestured for them to continue. "Well, you have a right to kiss your wife after all this time. I always knew that you two belonged together for all time.
"I just wish it hadn't taken you so long to figure all this out."
Richard scowled at his grandfather. "Sorry to have inconvenienced you. Maybe you should have taught me a little better in the begi
Zedd shrugged. "I must have been a good teacher-you got it all right."
"Richard," Nathan said as he stepped forward. "Do you realize what you have just done?"
Richard glanced around. "Well, I believe so."
"You just fulfilled prophecy!"
Richard skeptically cocked his head at the prophet. "What prophecy?"
"The prophecy about the great void!"
Richard made a face. "But I just saved us from the great void you warned us was the threat in prophecy."
Nathan threw his arms up in excitement. "No, no, don't you see? You just created a world where magic doesn't exist. That's why prophecy sees that other world as a void-because prophecy can't see into a world without magic! Prophecy was actually predicting what you would do. When you split the worlds, that was the fork in prophecy. The great void is prophecy's prediction of that other world."
Richard sighed. "If you say so, Nathan."
"I don't understand something," Zedd said. "How did you know that the Sword of Truth was the key to opening the boxes of Orden? I mean, you knew that The Book of Counted Shadows couldn't be the real key because Orden predated the existence of the Confessors. But Orden also predated the Sword of Truth. How could it be the key?"
"The sword protected my mind from the Chainfire spell because the boxes of Orden are the counter to the Chainfire spell, and the Sword of Truth-or, more correctly, the magic invested in it-is the key to the boxes, so it's part of Orden. That was the spark of insight that made me realize that the sword is the key-because I was holding it when the Sisters ignited the spell, it protected my memories of Kahlan, and the sword interrupted the ongoing effects of the spell for those who touched it."
Zedd planted his hands on his hips. "But the sword was created after Orden."
"That was a trick."
"A trick!"
"What better way to protect something of such profound power than with a trick, rather than a complex, extravagant construction of magic, like everyone thought of The Book of Counted Shadows.
"After all, a trick, if properly done, is magic." Richard smiled. "You taught me that, remember? That's what the wizards back then did. The whole thing with The Book of Counted Shadows was a trick to disguise the real key: the Sword of Truth. The sword was invested with the magic to unlock Orden; the book was a ruse, a trick, to send everyone off track.