“Come, lie close and I will tell you a story. We will keep each other warm. All right?”

Rachel lay on her side, her back against Kahlan, who curled all around her and put her arm over her. It felt nice, but she knew it was a trick. Kahlan’s face was close to her ear, and as she lay there, Kahlan told her a story about a fisherman who turned into a fish. The words made pictures in her head, and for a while she forgot about her troubles. Once, she and Kahlan even laughed together. When she was finished with the story, Kahlan kissed the top of her head and then stroked the side of her forehead.

She pretended Kahlan wasn’t really mean. It couldn’t hurt to pretend. Nothing had ever felt as good as those fingers on her, and the little song Kahlan sang in her ear. Rachel thought this must be what it felt like to have a mother.

Against her will, she fell asleep, and had wonderful dreams.

She came awake in the middle of the night when Richard woke Kahlan, but she pretended she was still asleep.

“You want to keep sleeping with her?” he whispered real soft.

Rachel held her breath.

“No,” Kahlan whispered back, “I’ll take my watch.”

Rachel could hear her putting on her cloak and going outside. She listened to which way Kahlan’s feet went. After he put some more wood in the fire, Richard lay down, close. She could see the inside of the wayward pine brighten. She knew Richard was watching her—she could feel his eyes on her back. She wanted so much to tell him how mean Kahlan really was, and ask him to run away with her. He was such a nice man, and his hugs were the bestest things in the whole world. He reached over and pulled the blanket up around her tighter, tucking it under her chin. Tears ran down her cheeks.

She could hear him lie on his back and pull his blanket up. Rachel waited until she heard his even breathing and she knew he was asleep before she slipped out from under the blanket.

Chapter 36

Kahlan turned expectantly when he batted a limb out of the way as he pushed into the wayward pine and flopped down in front of the fire. He pulled his pack across the ground and started jamming things in it.

“Well?”

Richard shot her an angry glare. “I found her tracks, going west, back the way we came. They join the trail a few hundred yards out. They’re hours old.” He pointed to the ground at the back of the wayward pine. “That’s where she went out. She circled around you through the woods, well clear of us. I’ve tracked men who didn’t want to be found, and their trails were easier to follow. She walks on top of things, roots, rocks, and she’s too little to make a print where another would. Did you see her arms?”

“I saw long bruises. They are from a switch.”

“No, I mean scratches.”

“I saw no scratches.”

“Exactly. Her dress had burrs on it—she’s been through the bramble, yet she had no scratches on her arms. She’s tender, so she avoids brushing up against anything. An adult would just push past, leave a trail of disturbed or broken branches. She almost never touches anything. You should see the trail I left, going through the bushes trying to track her—a blind man could follow it. She moves through the underbrush like air. Even when she was back on the trail, I couldn’t tell for a while. Her feet are bare—she doesn’t like stepping in water or mud—it makes her feet colder—so she steps where it’s dry, where you can’t see her passing.”

“I should have seen her leaving.”

He realized Kahlan thought he was blaming her. He let out an exasperated breath. “It’s not your fault, Kahlan. If I had been standing watch, I wouldn’t have seen her go either. She didn’t want to be seen. She’s one smart little girl.”

It didn’t seem to make her feel any better. “But you can track her, right?”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “I can.” He reached to his breast. “I found this in my shirt pocket.” He lifted an eyebrow. “By my heart.” He pulled out the lock of Rachel’s hair, tied with the vine. He twisted it in his fingers. “To remember her by.”

Kahlan’s face was ashen as she rose. “This is my fault.” She pushed out of the wayward pine. He tried to grab her arm, but she tore away from him.

Richard set his pack aside and followed. Kahlan stood off a ways, her arms folded below her breasts, her back to him. She stared off into the woods.

“Kahlan, it isn’t your fault.”

She nodded. “It was my hair. Didn’t you see the fear in her eyes when she looked at my hair? I have seen that look a thousand times. Do you have any idea what it’s like to frighten people, even children, all the time?” He didn’t answer. “Richard? Cut my hair for me?”

“What?”

She turned to him, pleading in her eyes. “Cut it off for me?”

He watched the hurt in her eyes. “Why haven’t you just cut it yourself?”

She turned away. “I cannot. The magic will not allow a Confessor to cut her own hair. If we try, it brings pain so great, it prevents us from doing so.”

“How could that be?”

“Remember the pain you suffered, from the magic of the sword, when you killed a man the first time? It is the same pain. It will render a Confessor unconscious before the task can be accomplished. I tried only once. Every Confessor tries once. But only once. Our hair must be cut by another when it needs trimming. But none would dare to cut it all of.” She turned to him once more. “Will you do it for me? Will you cut my hair?”

He looked away from her eyes, to the brightening slate blue sky, trying to understand what it was he was feeling, what it was she must be feeling. There was so much he didn’t know about her, still. Her life, her world, was a mystery to him. There had been a time when he wanted to know it all. Now he knew he never could—the gulf between them was filled with magic. Magic, designed, it seemed, explicitly to keep them apart.

His eyes returned to her. “No.”

“May I know why?”

“Because I respect you for who you are. The Kahlan I know wouldn’t want to fool people by trying to make them think she is less than she is. Even if you did fool some, it would change nothing. You are who you are: the Mother Confessor. We all can be no more, or less, than who we are.” He smiled. “A wise woman, a friend of mine, told me that once.”

“Any man would leap for the chance to cut a Confessor’s hair.”

“Not this one. This one is your friend.”

She gave a nod, her arms still folded against her stomach. “She must be cold. She didn’t even take a blanket.”

“She didn’t take any food either, other than that loaf of bread she’s saving for some reason, and she was starving.”

Kahlan smiled at last. “She ate more than you and me together. At least her belly is full. Richard, when she gets to Homers Mill…”

“She isn’t going to Homers Mill.”

Kahlan came closer. “But that’s where her grandmother is.”

Richard shook his head. “She doesn’t have a grandmother. When she said her grandmother was in Homers Mill, and I told her she couldn’t go there, she didn’t even falter. She simply said she would go somewhere else. She never gave it a thought, never asked about her grandmother, or even raised an objection. She’s running from something.”

“Running? Maybe from whoever put those bruises on her arms.”

“And on her back. Whenever my hand touched one, she flinched, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to be hugged that badly.” Kahlan’s brow wrinkled with sorrow. “I’d say she was running from whoever cut her hair like that.”

“Her hair?”

He nodded again. “It was meant to mark her, maybe as property. No one would cut someone’s hair like that, except to give a message. Especially in the Midlands, where everyone pays so much attention to hair. It was deliberate, a message of power over her. That’s why I cut it for her, to remove the mark.”