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“Mistress De
“Why?”
“Please?”
“Go ahead.”
Richard took the entire pile of neatly stacked, dried aum leaves and put them in the tin bowl, then selected a few other herbs he remembered by smell, but not by name, and dumped them in with the aum leaves. With the knife handle, he ground it all into a powder. Picking up the jar of cream, he scooped it all out and plopped it into the bowl, mixing it with two fingers. He took the bowl and sat on the bed next to her.
“Just lie still,” he told her.
“The appellation, Richard, the appellation. Will you never learn?”
“Sorry, Mistress De
He spread the paste gently on the welts, smoothing it out as he went. De
“How does that feel, Mistress De
She rolled onto her side, her eyes opening wide. “The pain is gone! How did you do that? How did you make the pain leave?”
Richard smiled in satisfaction. “I learned it from an old friend named…” He frowned. “I can’t remember his name. But he’s an old friend, and he taught me. I’m so relieved, Mistress De
She gently touched her fingers to the side of his face. “You are a very rare person, Richard Cypher. I have never had a mate like you before. The spirits take me, I have never even seen a person like you before. I killed the one who did the things to me that I have done to you, and you instead help me.”
“We all can be only who we are, no more, and no less, Mistress De
“You don’t understand about the Mord-Sith, my love. We are carefully selected, as young girls. Those chosen to be Mord-Sith are the most gentle, the most kindhearted, that can be found. It is said that the deepest cruelty comes from the deepest caring. All of D’Hara is searched, and each year only about a half dozen are chosen. A Mord-Sith is broken three times.”
His eyes were wide. “Three times?” he whispered.
De
Tears trickled down Richard’s cheeks. “They did all this to you?”
“What I did to you, to break you, is nothing compared to what must be done to us to break us the second and third time. The more kindhearted a girl is, the better Sikh she makes, but it makes it harder to break her the second and third time. Master Rahl thinks me special because they had a very difficult time with the second breaking of me. My mother lived a long time, to try to keep me from giving up hope, but that only made it harder. On both of us. They failed at the third breaking, had given up, and were going to kill me, but Master Rahl said that if I could be broken, I would be someone special, and so took over my training himself. He is the one who broke me the third time. On the day I killed my father, he took me to his bed, as a reward. His reward left me barren.”
Richard could hardly speak past the lump in his throat. With shaking fingers, he brushed some of her hair back off her face. “I don’t want anyone hurting you. Not ever again, Mistress De
“It is an honor,” De
Richard sat numb. “I hope he kills me tomorrow, so I don’t have to learn anything else that gives me this much pain, Mistress De
Her wet eyes shone in the lamplight. “I have done things to hurt you that I have done to no other, yet you are the first person since I was chosen who has done anything to stop my pain.” She sat up and picked up the tin bowl. “There is some left. Let me put it on you where Constance did what I told her not to.”
De
She lay back on the bed, holding his hand against her belly with both of hers. “Come to me, my love. I want you very badly right now.”
He nodded and started to reach for the Agiel on the side table. De
“Tonight, I want you without the Agiel. Please? Teach me what it’s like without the pain?”
She put a hand behind his neck and gently pulled him on top of her.
Chapter 43
De
“You look surprisingly well today, Sister De
De
Constance turned to Richard. “Well, I hear you are to be granted an audience with Master Rahl today. If you are still alive afterward, you will be seeing more of me. Alone. I want a piece of you, as it were, when he’s finished with you.”
He spoke before he thought. “The year they chose you, Mistress Constance, must have been a year of desperate need—otherwise, one of such limited intelligence would never have been selected to be Mord-Sith. Only the most ignorant would put their own petty ambitions above the value of a friend. Especially a friend who has sacrificed much for you. You are not worthy to kiss Mistress De
Constance stared in shock, then suddenly drove her Agiel toward him. De
De
De
Richard smiled. “Mistress De
“And if Master Rahl doesn’t kill you, how many hours?”
“Mistress De
She smiled a little, but didn’t look over. “I’m glad, then, that it was worth it for you.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “I still don’t understand you. As you said, we can be no more, no less, than who we are. I regret I can be no more than I am, and I fear you can be no less. Were we not warriors fighting on opposite sides in this war, I would keep you as a mate for life, and work to see you die of old age.”
Richard was warmed by her gentle tone. “I would try my best to live a long life for you, Mistress De
They walked on through the halls, past the devotion squares, past the statues, past the people. She took him upstairs, through vast rooms of exquisite decorations. She stopped in front of a pair of doors covered in carvings of rolling hills and forests, all sheathed in gold.