“I can’t do this anymore,” he whispered, looking down at her wrists in the light of the small fire. “Kahlan, you may be the one who wishes to die, but it is me you are killing.”

Her green eyes came up to his—the firelight flickered in them. “Then let me go, Richard. Please, if you care at all for me, then show it. Let me go.”

He lowered the rope and let it drop. With trembling hands, he slowly pulled her knife from his belt, and looked at it for a minute in the palm of his hand. The glint of the blade was blurred in his vision. He clenched the handle tightly in his fist and jammed the knife in the sheath at her belt.

“You win. Get out of here. Get out of my sight.”

“Richard…”

“I said get out of here!” He pointed back the way they had come. “Go back and let the gars do the job. You may botch it with that knife! I’d hate to think you slipped and didn’t finish it properly. I’d hate to think that after all this, you might not be dead.”

He turned his back to her and sat on a windfall spruce that lay in front of the fire. She stood watching him in silence, then moved off a few paces.

“Richard… after all we have been through together, I don’t want it to be finished like this.”

“I don’t care what you want. You have forfeited that right.” He struggled to make the words come out. “Get out of my sight.”

Kahlan nodded, and looked down at the ground. Richard leaned over, elbows on his knees, his face in his shaking hands. He thought he might throw up.

“Richard,” she said in a soft voice, “when this is all ended, I hope you can think well of me, remember me more fondly than you do right now.” That was it. He came over the log with a boost of one boot on top. In a blink he had her shirt in his fists.

“I will only remember you for what you are! A traitor! A traitor to all those who have died, all those who will die!” Her eyes were wide as she tried to back away from him, but he held her with a vengeance. “A traitor to all the wizards who have given their lives, to Shar, to Siddin and all the Mud People who were killed! A traitor to your sister!”

“That’s not true…”

“A traitor to all those and more! If I fail and Rahl wins, we will all have you to thank, and so will Darken Rahl. It is you who aids him!”

“I do this to help you! You heard what Shota said!” She was getting angry now, too.

“That won’t work. Not for me. Yes, I heard what Shota said. She said that both Zedd and you would turn against me somehow. She did not say you both would be wrong!”

“What do you mean…”

“This is not a quest for me! It’s to stop Rahl! How do you know that once we have the box it might not be me who would deliver it to him? What if it’s me who would betray us, and the only chance to keep the box from Rahl is for you and Zedd to stop me?”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Does it make any more sense that both you and Zedd would try to kill me? That would require two to be wrong, this would require only one. It’s just the stupid riddle of a witch woman! You’re letting yourself die for a stupid riddle! We can’t know how the future will come about. We can’t know the meaning of what she said, how it will be true! Or if. Not until it happens! Only then can we know what it means, and deal with it.”

“I only know I cannot allow myself to live to carry out the prophecy. You are the thread that weaves this struggle together.”

“And thread can’t get there without the needle! You’re my needle. Without you I wouldn’t have gotten this far. At every turn, I needed you. Today, at the inverted fork, I would have chosen wrong without you. You know the Queen, I don’t. Even if I manage to get the box without you, what then? Where will I go? I don’t know the Midlands. Where will I go, Kahlan, tell me? How will I know where it’s safe? I could walk right into Rahl’s hands, carry the box right to him.”

“Shota said you are the only one with a chance. Without you all is lost. Not me. You. She said that if I live… Richard, I can’t allow that. I won’t.”

“You are a traitor to us,” he whispered viciously.

She shook her head slowly. “Despite what you think, Richard, I do this for you.”

Richard screamed and threw her backward as hard as he could. She fell to the ground on her back. He came and stood above her, glaring down, dust rising around his boots.

“Don’t you dare say that!” he yelled, both hands in fists. “You do this for yourself, because you haven’t got the stomach for what victory entails! Don’t you dare to say you do this for me!”

She came to her feet, keeping her eyes on him. “I would give almost anything, Richard, for you not to remember me in this way. But what I do, I do because I must. For you. For you to have a chance. I have sworn to protect the Seeker with my life. The payment has come due.” Tears ran down her face, through the dust on her cheeks.

As he watched her turn and vanish into the darkness, Richard felt as if a plug inside him had been pulled and his whole self was draining away.

He went to the fire, slid his back down the log until he sat on the ground. He pulled his knees up with his arms around them, put his face against them, and cried as he had never cried.

Chapter 33

Rachel sat on her little chair behind the Princess, knocking her knees together, thinking about how she would get the Princess to put her out so she could take the box away with her and never come back. She kept thinking about the loaf of bread with the box in it, waiting for her in the garden. She was afraid, but excited, too. Excited that she was going to be helping all those people so they wouldn’t get their heads chopped off. It was the first time she had ever felt like an important person. She twisted the hem of her dress. She could hardly wait to get away.

All the lords and ladies were drinking their special drink. They all seemed happy to be doing it. Giller was standing behind the Queen with her other advisors. He was talking quietly to the court artist. She didn’t like the artist, he scared her, he always smiled funny at her. And he only had one hand. She had heard the servants talking before, that they were afraid the artist would draw a picture of them.

The people started getting scared looks on their faces. They were looking at the Queen. They started to stand up. Rachel looked over at the Queen and saw that the people weren’t looking at her, they were looking at something else, behind her. Her eyes got wide when she saw the two big men.

They were the biggest men she had ever seen. Their shirts didn’t have sleeves but their arms had metal bands on them, with sharp things sticking out. The men had big muscles all over, and yellow hair. They looked like the meanest men she had ever seen, meaner even than any of the dungeon guards. The men looked around the room at the people, then went and stood on each side of the big archway behind the Queen and folded their arms. The Queen huffed and turned around in her chair to see what was happening.

A man with blue eyes, and long yellow hair and white robes, and a gold-handled knife at his belt, came through the archway. He was the handsomest-looking man she had ever seen. He smiled at the Queen. She jumped to her feet.

“What an unexpected surprise!” she said in her nicest dog voice. “We are honored. But we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

The man again smiled a pretty smile at her. “I couldn’t wait to get here, to see your lovely face again. Forgive me for being early, Your Majesty.”

The Queen giggled as she held her hand out for him to kiss. She was always having people kiss her hand. Rachel was surprised at what the nice-looking man had said. She never knew anyone who thought the Queen was lovely. The Queen took his hand in hers and brought him forward.

“Lords and ladies, may I introduce Father Rahl.”