Richard looked away from Zedd’s eyes to her pale face. After a moment she held out her hand, and looked up at him with sad, green eyes, beckoning him to come to her. He stood a moment, wary, then came and took her hand. She pulled him down toward her. He sat, straddling the bench, facing her, waiting for what it was she was bidden to say, fearing it.

Kahlan shifted toward him, hooking some hair behind an ear, and looked down at his right hand as she held it in both of hers, stroking the back of it with her thumbs. Her fingers were gentle, soft, and warm against his palm. The size of her hands made his seem awkwardly large. She spoke quietly and didn’t look up.

“Darken Rahl is a practitioner of an ancient form of magic called anthropomancy. He divines the answers to questions by the inspection of living human entrails.”

Richard felt his anger ignite.

“It’s of limited use—he can at most get a yes or no to a single question, and sometimes, a name. Nonetheless, he continues to favor its use. I’m sorry, Richard. Please forgive me for telling you this.”

Memories of his father’s kindness, his laughter, his love, his friendship, their time together with the secret book, and a thousand other brief glimpses tore through him in a flood of anguish. The scenes and sounds converged into dim shadows and hollow echoes in Richard’s mind and melted away. In its pace, memories of the bloodstains on the floor, the white faces of the people there, images of his father’s pain and terror, and the things Chase had told him flashed vividly in snatches through his mind. He didn’t try to stop them, but instead pulled them onward, hungering for them. He washed himself in the detail of it all, felt the twisting torment. Pain flared up from a pit deep inside him. Invoked heedlessly, it came screaming forth. In his mind he added the shadowed figure of Darken Rahl, hands dripping crimson blood, standing over his father’s body, holding the red, glinting blade. He held the vision before him, twisting it, inspecting it, drinking it into his soul. The picture was complete now. He had his answers. He knew how it had been. How his father had died. Until now that was all he had ever sought—answers. In his whole life, he had never gone beyond that simple quest.

In one white-hot instant that changed.

The door that held back his anger, and the wall of reason containing his temper, burned away in a flash of hot desire. A lifetime of rational thinking evaporated before his searing fury. Lucidity became dross in a cauldron of molten need.

Richard reached out to the Sword of Truth, curled his fingers around the scabbard, gripping it tighter and tighter until his knuckles were white. The muscles in his jaw flexed. His breathing came fast and sharp. He saw nothing else of what was around him. The heat of anger surged forth from the sword, not of its own volition, but summoned by the Seeker.

Richard’s chest heaved with the burning hurt of his grief at knowing now what had happened to his father, and with that knowledge there was closure, too. Thoughts he had never permitted himself to have became his only desire. Caution and consequence vanished before a flood of lust for vengeance.

In that instant, his only want, his only desire, his only need, was to kill Darken Rahl. Nothing else had any significance.

With his other hand he reached out and seized the hilt of his sword to pull it free. Zedd’s hand clamped down over his. The Seeker’s eyes snapped up, livid at the interference.

“Richard.” Zedd’s voice was gentle. “Calm down.”

The Seeker, his muscles flexing powerfully, glowered into the other’s tranquil eyes. Some part of him, deep in the back of his mind, kept warning him, trying to regain control. He ignored the warming. He bent over the table to the wizard, his teeth gritted.

“I accept the position of Seeker.”

“Richard,” Zedd repeated calmly, “it’s all right. Relax. Sit down.”

The world came rushing back into his mind. He pulled his readiness to kill back a notch, but not his rage. Not only the door, but also the wall that had contained his anger, was gone. Even though the world about him had returned, it was a world seen through different eyes—eyes he had always had, but had been afraid to use: the eyes of a Seeker.

Richard realized that he was standing. He didn’t remember getting up. He sat again next to Kahlan, removing his hands from the sword. Something inside him regained control of his anger. It wasn’t the same as before, though. It didn’t shut it away, didn’t lock it behind a door, but pulled it back, unafraid, to make it ready when needed again.

Some of his old self seeped back into his mind, calming him, slowing his breathing, reasoning within him. He felt liberated, unafraid, unashamed of his temper for the first time. He allowed himself to sit there while he uncoiled, feeling his muscles relax.

He looked up into Zedd’s calm, undisturbed face. The old man, his thatch of white hair framing an angular face set in a perceptive cast, studied him, assessed him with the slightest hint of a smile fixed at the corners of his thin mouth.

“Congratulations,” the wizard said. “You have passed my final test to become Seeker.”

Richard pulled back in confusion. “What do you mean? You already appointed me Seeker.”

Zedd shook his head slowly. “I told you before. Weren’t you listening? A Seeker appoints himself. Before you could become Seeker you had to pass one determinative test. You had to show me you could use all your mind. For many years, Richard, you have kept part of it locked away. Your anger. I had to know you could release it, call upon it. I’ve seen you angry, but you were unable to admit your anger to yourself. A Seeker who couldn’t allow himself to use his anger would be hopelessly weak. It is the strength of rage that gives the heedless drive to prevail. Without the anger, you would have turned down the sword, and I would have let you, because you wouldn’t have had what was required. But that is irrelevant now. You have proven you are no longer a prisoner to your fears. Be cautioned, though. As important as it is to be able to use your rage, it is equally important to be able to restrain it. You have always had that ability. Don’t let yourself lose it now. You must be wise enough to know which path to choose. Sometimes letting out the anger is an even more grievous mistake than holding it in.”

Richard nodded solemnly. He thought about the way it felt to hold the sword when he was in the rage, the way he felt its power, the liberating sensation of giving himself over to the primal urge, from within himself, and from the sword.

“The sword had magic,” he said guardedly. “I felt it.”

“It does. But Richard, magic is only a tool, like any other. When you use a whetstone to sharpen a knife, you are simply making the knife work better for its intended purpose. Same way with the magic. It’s just a honing of the intent.” Zedd’s eyes were clear and sharp. “Some people are more terrified to die by magic, than, say, by a blade, as if somehow one is less dead if killed by a blow or cut than if killed by the unseen. But listen well. Dead is dead. The feat of the magic, though, can be a powerful weapon. Keep that in mind.”

Richard nodded. The late-afternoon sun warmed his face and out of the corner of his eye he could see the cloud: Rahl would be watching it, too. Richard remembered the man from the quad, on Blunt Cliff, how he had pulled his sword across his arm, drawing blood before he attacked. He remembered the look in the man’s eyes. He hadn’t understood it at the time—he understood it now. Richard hungered for the fight.

The leaves of the nearby trees , fluttered in the light autumn wind, glimmering with their first touches of gold and red. Winter was coming—the first day of winter would soon be here. He thought about how he would get them across the boundary. They had to get one of the boxes of Orden, and when they found it, they would find Rahl.