“Move!” Richard yelled as he pushed hesitant men toward the door. Men everywhere were snatching anything they saw lying about, no matter whose it was. It was real.Īt first made confused and indecisive by Richard’s sudden commands, when the men saw him urgently picking up his gear, everyone scooped up their things and scrambled to their feet.
He wondered if the feeling might be some lingering dread from a dream. He wondered if he might still be dreaming. He didn’t see Kahlan, but saw her pack and grabbed it as well. Startled faces all around stared up at him. “Lord Rahl, what’s the matter? Are you all right?” Looking as if she feared he might fall, she frowned in concern. Cara, right beside him, caught his arm, surprised to see him suddenly stand up. It felt as if all his hair wanted to stand on end. He felt suddenly, completely, horrifyingly wide awake. Kahlan heard laughter echoing through her soul. It felt as if her insides were being ripped apart. Hot agony lanced through her consciousness all the way into her very soul. Where there should have been the fierce twisting of her power through this man’s mind, there was…nothing.Īs she felt the thrust of something foreign and terrible beyond anything she could have imagined. Where she should have felt the exquisite release of merciless force, she felt instead a terrifying emptiness. In an infinitesimal spark of time as she watched the beady eyes staring at her, her power became all.Īs she had done countless times before, Kahlan released her restraint on it, and released herself into the flux of violence focused to a singular purpose. Her power had become an instrument of pure reason. In the all-consuming race of time suspended before the violent rush of her power, she felt only a resolute determination. The emotions behind her reasons were now gone. She no longer felt fear, hate, anger, horror. This was the man who held Richard’s life in the balance.Īll her emotions evaporated before the heat of that power. This man was a tool of conquest, a being of evil. This was a man who had been mutated by magic into a monster designed to destroy them. This was the man who had invaded a land to torture, rape, and murder innocent people in the name of the Imperial Order. Right then, nothing but her ability to do what needed doing mattered.
She gave no thought to what those men would do to her. Not even the man who had brought her from the bridge, who now stood not more than a few paces away, was close enough to matter. They could never reach her in time to save Nicholas. The men all around, who had begun rushing in, were far too distant to matter. Beneath her grip of him, Kahlan could feel Nicholas tense, as if to draw back his arm. The night, sprinkled with a vault of stars, seemed cold and distant. He appeared no more than a statue before her. She snatched his outstretched wrist capped with his fist.
This was the man who would kill her and Richard, if given the chance. This was the man who brought suffering and death in his shadow. This was the man who held the lives of innocent people hostage. She was already lost to the commitment of wielding her power. But looking at Nicholas, Kahlan saw such utter corruption that it tainted everything about the man, right down to the indecent squint of his eyes. To look at them behind their bench where they made shoes, or behind a counter where they sold bread, or in a field tending their animals it would be difficult to believe them capable of their vile crimes. She had taken confessions from men who appeared to be no more than polite young men, working fathers, or kindly grandfathers but in truth were men who had carried out acts of ruthless cruelty. Kahlan needed no introduction to know that this was Nicholas the Slide.
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